10 Tips For Holiday Promotions

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day and Christmas is but a month away. These are the biggest shopping days of the year. If you are having a sale you need to get the word out. Today I have come up with a few ideas to help you out this year and to prepare for next year.

1. If you can afford it, send a post card to everyone who bought from you during the year. Wish them a happy holiday and offer them a special deal. Maybe free shipping or 20% off. Mail this out the week of Thanksgiving so it is in their mailbox when they get home.

2. Send a virtual happy holiday card to all your shoppers. Same as above but no postage cost.

3. Tweet a link to your shop/sale 3 or 4 times a day. Make sure the tweet is different each time. Remember not everyone is on Twitter at the same time. Be sure to make some tweets in between so as not to sound too spammy.

4. Look for forums talking about sales and specials and post yours in the appropriate threads. Again try not to be too spammy.

5. Change your email signature to include information about your sale.

6. Put ads in Craigslist. This can really work, especially if you offer custom made items. Just be sure not to post the same ad more than once.

7. Get together with a few of your fellow crafters and put a cooperative ad out there somewhere. Maybe in the local paper or even a national magazine. What seems too expensive for you alone may not seem so bad split 6 ways or more. Co-Op ads are the best way to get exposure for a fraction of the individual.

8. Write a press release and send it out. That's right, a sale is newsworthy. Send it to your favorite bloggers, newspapers, magazines both online and off.

9. Make sure your listings have links to your sections, especially if you have a sale section.

10. Don't put anything on sale that you can't afford to. If your sale price is going to cause you to lose money, exclude the item from the sale and make it very plain. Or raise the price of those items so that if someone does want it, you won't lose money in the sale.

That is it for today. I hope each and every one of you have a happy and safe Holiday weekend. I will be back Monday. In the meantime, leave your comments or send me an email: MarketMyShop@gmail.com

Etsy Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday Sales started as a way for businesses to continue eliminating stock for the year end inventory. It is also a way for those businesses without a brick and mortar to be able to get those extra sales right before Christmas. It is especially good for people who sell on Etsy.

I personally am combining my Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sale with a week long sales event that started yesterday. If you have the ability to add a section to your shop that is probably the easiest way to organize your items. I unfortunately have all 10 of my sections in use.

There is a great alternative to having a shop section just for Black Friday or Cyber Monday. What you do is make sure all of your items are tagged with Black Friday and or Cyber Monday. Go to your shop view and type Black Friday into the "This Shop" Search. This will bring up all of the items in your shop tagged with Black Friday. Then you just copy the long link in the address bar of your web browser and go to a URL shortening service. I like tinyurl.com but there are many to choose from.

After your URL is shortened use it on Twitter, Facebook, your blog, etc. to point people to your sale. This will work with any search term and is a great way to showcase only certain items from your shop. Be sure to keep a copy of the shortened URL handy in case you'd like to share it somewhere else, like say, a newsletter.

I hope this helps. Tomorrow I will be discussing a few more tips to help spread the word about your sales. Then I will be taking Thursday and Friday and spending it with family and friends. Then I will be back on Cyber Monday! Let me know if you have any questions MarkeyMyShop@gmail.com

Etsy Black Friday

Black Friday is thought of as the largest shopping day of the year. Companies like Walmart and Office Depot and Target have made it one of the craziest shopping days you'll ever experience. People have been injured and worse from the crowds that amass to get that extra $25 off a flat screen TV.

One of the great things Black Friday does for these huge super stores is to get rid of older items that they do not plan to carry any longer. This can mean that they get rid of their over stocked slightly older flat screen TVs so that they do not have to pay taxes on the inventory at the end of the year.

For you as an Etsy or ArtFire shop owner it means that you also have an opportunity to sell some of your older items as well. It does not necessarily mean that you have to have a percentage off for your entire shop. I am going to be offering deals on just some of my items, especially the ones that have been in my shop for a long time. 

I plan to go through my shop on Wednesday and during the day on Thursday and get all my descriptions ready. My sale will go from Friday until Monday night so that I catch both Black Friday and Cyber Monday. (I'll talk more about Cyber Monday tomorrow) 

The key is to get the word out about your sale. There will most likely be many people searching for deals on Friday so it is a good idea to have Black Friday in both your Titles and in your tags. Remember to remove them from your titles and tags after the sale is done. It would also be a great idea to have a little blurb in your description as well. Tell everyone what the original price is and how much of a discount they will be getting.

I am finally done with my huge order and back to blogging so stay tuned and tell your friends about the blog. If you have questions or comments leave them here or email me at MarketMyShop@gmail.com

Swamped With Orders

Hi everyone. I have been swamped with orders and just have not had the time to write. I have been working 16 to 18 a day for the last week and just had to step away from the blog for a few days. I will try to resume the blogging later this week with an article on Black Friday Sales.

In the meantime, why don't you email me your Black Friday ideas. If you have a great idea I may feature you on the blog. marketmyshop@gmail.com