Tuesday, August 30, 2011

How to Benefit From the Etsy Finds Even When You are Not in It

The Etsy Finds refers to a number of opt-in email lists you can subscribe to on Etsy. As a seller, it is a good idea for you to subscribe to all of them. I will show you here, by using today's email, how to use them to help with your Etsy marketing.
First, subscribe to the Etsy Finds. I subscribe to all of those under shopping and all of the newsletters.
When you get the shopping emails, they look like this:
All of the words in blue take you somewhere. Spend a little time to see where they go, and take note as they apply to your shop. I will walk you through how I see this email.
The first linking words, August's Hot Topics, goes to treasury lists that are tagged with August Trends. If you are going to make a treasury anyway today, include something turquoise and items from your friends and teammates that could have made this email but didn't, then tag it August Trends. Your treasury will get extra activity over the next couple of days as people open and explore this Etsy Finds email. Your friends will love you for it. You can't really do anything for yourself directly with the treasury links. Indirect benefits of making treasuries include: you may find more people adding you to their circle if they like your picks. There may also be sellers who appreciate the feature and give you a feature in return.
The second link, turquoise, goes to turquoise items. If you have relevant items, you can renew them since there is still a row of recently listed items at the top of the page . From the looks of my screen shot here, renewing affects your relevancy too. I see 2 of the recently listed items showing up as most relevant as well. Do make sure you have relevant titles and tags and descriptions before you renew.
Competition
Turquoise links to a huge number of items on Etsy, so if you are already in the top ten pages on that link, you are doing great with your titles and tags. I have a turquoise pillow cover, but I don't think that turquoise is the most important thing about it, so I am not going to try to get in on the action here. I will leave this link for you jewelry sellers to battle it out. You will be able to see that relevancy has nothing to do with the quality of photos, so that is where your items can stand out. Take a look at the titles and tags that the most relevant items (those start at the second row.)  Check them against yours to see how you can improve your ranking. The items with the best photos probably get the most clicks. As a buyer, I am willing to flip through a number of pages to find something that catches my eye.
Here is a good way to figure out which item to work on from your own shop - Click on the link in the finds where you know you have something. There are several in today's finds that apply to me (personalized, men, dresses, and Christmas.) Let's look at dresses. I click on the link and then go to the local results to see my most relevant items.
Apply the info
Oops, my mens dress shirt shows up in dresses. I don't like that. I will check my shop stats to see if anyone is finding me by searching mens dress shirt. I will also go to google and check to see if anyone searches mens dress shirt. If it is a popular search, I will leave it. If not, I will take dress shirt out of my tags so I am not showing up in the dresses. I am pretty sure I do not have dress as a stand alone tag on that item, but I better make sure. My most relevant item looks to be my girls dress pattern, so I will renew that today and probably sell it and relist a few times. Also, when I click on men in the finds, that same shirt is my most relevant item, so I will be looking at it and renewing it - sorry in advance, if it keeps showing up under dresses.
Do I spend time everyday doing this? No. If I had a marketing person - this would be one of their daily jobs. I think having 4 potential hits in this one email, and a treasury I was going to make anyway sitting in my Brandybuck favorites folder, makes today my day to jump on it this week.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Thank you for the treasury love

I am sewing slip covers this week and next, but I wanted to pop in here and thank all of the lovely people who have helped me in the last week by promoting BrandybuckClothiers in their treasuries. I appreciate you!

This one by CreativityisMessy won the treasury challenge.

Isn't that full of manly goodness?

I have to say the above treasury was a close second for the challenge. I love so many things in it.

ZiBagz is one of my favorite curators to follow, I love that she included so many teammates in this one.

This treasury I found intriguing but ultimately disturbing. Fur hat = good - black eye = bad, really bad, infact, regretsy bad.

Another great guys collection with a lot of teammates used here. Great job!

White hot - love that idea!

Thank you Maggie, I think the linen theme is brilliant!

I think Lori and I must have similar taste in men. I love this collection. I guess that makes sense. She's got her Scottsman and I have my Irishman.

That one is from the nonteam and I love it!
Thank you everyone for helping get my new shop off the ground.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Jackets are my favorite part of Fall

I do love Summer and wearing skirts all of the time, or my cotton voile lounge pants (sometimes in public.) But I think you will see that I have a special place in my heart for Fall. Look at all of these jackets! I still get those back-to-school butterflies in my stomach when I think about the season change. My jacket collection rivals my bag collection. Speaking of bags, as soon as I get some of this furniture out of the way, I will be back with some bag patterns - promise. But I have learned not to say when because I know my habit of interrupting myself and I am okay with that.

Lots of ways to go with my jacket design. Looking forward to seeing how this takes off and what people will request. I do love having the flexibility to make special fabric choices available.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Thank you to PamelasJewelry for the Front Page


There is Brandon on the brick wall wearing one of my linen shirts. Looking good. I have been ignoring the blog, obviously. Not because I don't have anything to say. I simply have too much to do. I have been pattern making like crazy and sewing. I still have a back log of furniture to cover - and I am getting to it now.