I’ve been writing about things I’ve done recently to improve my Etsy shop. You can read about my updates to Facebook, blogging and Twitter . . . my involvement with handmade artists who promote great causes . . . and coming up with a full-fledged brand and new products for my shop.
Today’s post will focus on some small updates I want to make to my packaging and promotion. I already like my packaging and am not going to change too much about it right now. However, there are some small things I can do that will give a bit more to my customers and be a little more eco-friendly. Many of these changes will also involve ways I can promote my shop.
Currently, my packaging consists of the purchased item, a card with a handwritten note on a cute card, a business card, a flier with information about the organization I donate 10% to, and it’s all tied up with a cute ribbon. Each of these items either has specific information for the customer and/or can be used again for their own purposes. Back when I was planning to open my shop, I wanted to use brown paper bags for both my business cards and for my shipping envelopes. I ended up scrapping both ideas – the biz cards didn’t print up nice enough and the envelopes fell apart too easily. I ended up going with Moo mini cards, which are BEAUTIFUL, but expensive and 6”x9” Tyvek envelopes. So far, I’m very pleased with the Tyvek envelopes – they’re just the right size and no one has complained of an item being damaged through the envelope.
Old pics of a batch of Moo cards from 2 years ago!
I would like to begin including more than one business card in my packages, and handing them out more freely to people in person. So far, I’ve been very stingy with my cards because they’re so expensive. I think that I would rather have a less awesome card that I can get many of. For example, I believe I read one shop owner’s report that she purchased 2,000 cards from one business card company, for the same price that I got 100 Moo cards for!
I would like to start offering both information about the org I’m donating to on a flier and information on my Facebook fan page, blog and Twitter account. I’d like the flier to include a special discount code that returning customers can use. If I can get the printing to work well, I’ll use paper bags for these fliers, as I have access to a lot of them through my employer from the various catered events we host.
There are some promotional events I hope to explore with my blog, Twitter and Facebook fan page. I still need to find a way to promote having people post a photo of their purchased cozy on my Facebook page. My friend Ngan of eNVe Jewelry had the great idea of entering everyone who posts a photo on her page into a contest to win credit in her shop. I think I’m going to steal her idea (pretty sure she won’t mind) and make sure to include that on the flier that goes along with each purchase to a customer. I’m also thinking about doing some shop credit giveaways for participation in polls. I think it would also be fun to do something regularly that isn’t necessarily shop-related, but fun. Maybe I could ask people to tell their favorite joke or tell me who their celebrity crush is . . . something lighthearted, you know?
These are the main things I am hoping to implement in the next few months, especially before my busy holiday shopping season that starts in November.
What are you working on to improve your shop or blog?
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