I’m really passionate about sharing this message is because I see a lot of makers burn out really quickly, often so because they’ve skipped really foundational, important steps at the beginning when they started their shop. Then they opened their shop and they’re not really getting the momentum, the traffic and the sales they want. And then what happens? They start googling and looking for strategies to help with their marketing.
This is going to look like being on Instagram and being on Pinterest and being on Facebook and all of this stuff. This is NOT the solution if you skipped some important steps when you got started. If you skip steps, like for example:
✖️settle for average product photography,
✖️guesstimate what your prices should be,
✖️don’t do a minimum of market research to make sure people are actually interested in buying what you’re selling,
✖️skip understanding branding and perceived value,
✖️etc.
and instead you just kind of open your shop and then dive into those shiny strategies straight away, they’re not really working because you don’t have the foundation right so you’re trying to do more of them. So you’re on Instagram, you’re on Facebook, you’re on Pinterest, you’re trying to catch up with all the Etsy algorithm changes if you’re on Etsy.
You’re starting to feel very overwhelmed very quickly by all these marketing strategies that you’re trying to make work, but they’re not actually going to work if you skipped those early stages. And I know that’s not what you want to hear because those early stages, they’re not the most fun. Being on Instagram is fun. Understanding what perceived value and your pricing strategy should be isn’t fun, but it really, really is the key. If you skip that to do the shiny strategy, it’s not going to work.
[…] How to grow your handmade or Etsy shop faster by doing less (seriously!) – making REAL progress with your handmade shop will happen when you start DOING LESS, NOT MORE. Yes, seriously. Let’s dive in! […]