thats fantastic Margie!  well done

Ok so we got on the topic of Jordan from businessminded.etsy.com her etsy kits are great! She's who I bought my etsy sellers guide, facebook guide, twitter guide and free marketing stuff from. I think one or more of those she included extra with my purchase because if I remember right I only purchased two guides. Never the less they're worth it. Currently she has a freebie listed on her blog as the "30 minute social networking kit" you can download it free here http://www.scribd.com/doc/19832422/30-Minute-Social-Networking-Kit

This is her blog and etsy shop

http://handmadesuccess.blogspot.com/
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6518960


Here are some other cool things I found on my random trippin through the internet

how to do successful blog giveaways
http://www.accountingspotonline.com/2009/08/giveaways-how-to-do-itsuccessfully.html

Best Etsy Blogs, you can use these as advertising
http://bestetsyblogs.blogspot.com/

Purple Lemon Designs has some great tips on marketing
http://purplelemondesigns.com/blog/2009/06/23/terrific-tuesdays-my-etsy-journey-marketing-my-shop-part-2/

The Etsy Fee Calculator. This is great it will help you figure out what to charge in order to make certain profit!
http://www.rolbe.com/etsy.htm

A Forum thread From HautTotes about using twitter as a marketing tool I think these threads are super!
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6276654
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6277569
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6282162

And Find a Feature Blog, where you can participate in giveaways to gain exposure
http://findafeature.blogspot.com/

Dale-Thats my job LOL I'm glad that everyone is getting good tips from my postings I knew that when I set out to do this I needed to post helpful information and that's what i'm doing!

you're welcome

Ok so here's a convo I had with another woman on Etsy, i've been doing this question asking quite a bit lately. I figure it can't hurt to ask someone what they've done that's worked. so check it out



Forgive the delay in answering. SAHM of 2 under 3 keeps me busy! I have had 208 sales since Jan 1, 2008. It's been a blast. I went into this hoping I'd make a lot of money. On average it's been about $25 a month which doesn't pay the bills, but it's good for diapers, clothes for the kids and more supplies. Usually instead of transferring my money from paypal to the bank I keep it there and use it to buy goods and supplies on Etsy and eBay. That's been nice.

I have a blog, but I don't know if it's produced marketable traffic to my etsy page. www.ladybaillio.blogspot.com I also do treasuries as often as I can. Those are superb for self-promotion, even though Etsy will tell you it's not for that purpose. If your treasury is picked my Etsy employees to make it to the front page you just got a ton of traffic to your page! That's my main goal w/ treasuries: to make it to the Etsy FP.

I have, however created a photobucket account. Here's the URL: http://photobucket.com/flowers-by-stella
I believe it's given me a ton more traffic then any other forum I've used. Etsy is still rather unknown, but photobucket is enormous. If you do a search for rockabilly, for example a ton of pictures, graphics and images will come up. If I tag my hair clips w/ 'rockabilly' then my clip will appear and it will produce curiosity since a lot of women want ooak (one of a kind) hair clips. I usually have 3-5 different pictures on photobucket of the same flower. I'll give ea. picture a DIFFERENT title so that they'll be caught in more searches. I put the URL to my clip on etsy in the description of the flower on photobucket.

Also, when I post images to my blog I change the HTML code of the picture so that if anyone clicks on the image on my blog it will automatically send them to my etsy page. I do that for comments on myspace too. If it's a birthday or a holiday I can change the HTML code so that if anyone likes the image (and wants to grap it for their purposes) they'll be sent to my etsy page instead of the direct link to the image.

It's been a novel, but I hope it's helped. I'm also on facebook, www.facebook.com/stellaperal.etsy

If you're on facebook I suggest you join the facebook fans of etsy team: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=113391211629&ref=ts
Being on a TEAM brings strength in numbers. Go to the bottom of your etsy screen and in small print you'll see 'Teams' Click there and find the category of the team you'd like to join. Some are super easy to join. Others are a bit of a hoop jumping system.
If you make a treasury, for example, of everyone in your TEAM then they'll all try to support the treasury w/ comments & clicks and they'll TWITTER about it and blog about it and you'll get the credit.

I hope this helps! Also these articles have helped me keep things in perspective:
1. http://www.piddix.com/etsy.htm
2. http://www.doublex.com/section/work/etsycom-peddles-false-feminist-fantasy

Thanks, I enjoyed this!

Angela
29 September 2009 9:42pm EDT

This link was posted on the Etsy forum---"How to Increase Sales..."
http://www.ehow.com/how_2160502_sales-maximize-profits-etsy-shop.html

Rhythm,

I think your banner is quite nice. My only issue with it is the pixelated type. Can you afford to pay someone to do one? You can request one through Alchemy or just search for people who do them on Etsy. I have no idea what the going rate is, but I'd think it's fairly reasonable. I wish I could help you more, but I can barely get my own stuff done! 

Thanks for the feedback TwoCats...we're trying to minimise costs until we make some sales but I'll keep in mind ordering a custom-made banner, and maybe have another go at tweaking it in the meantime! Your banner is excellent by the way, did you make it?

Hey Rhythm, I used http://www.bannerfans.com to create mine.  I think I had to edit my picture a couple of times to get it to work correctly.  But it is worth a shot.  Its FREE!  Just a suggestion.

Amy

Thanks for the Etsy Giveaway Link.  I am planning a giveaway next week.