This was written for a street team but applies to all businesses:
I have been running a street team on Etsy for the past year, prior to that, I was part of a street team for Love and Rockets. I’ve found that my business background has helped a lot in running a team but there are still some things I’ve learned along the way. Here are some tips for your promotional efforts.
Before You Begin
Logo
Having a logo is also very important in helping people to remember you. We are all very visual and we remember signs, symbols and colors. Even if it’s something as simple as having your business name initials as you logo; that will help people identify you. You’re logo should be printed on everything possible along with your team name and web site address. You want these items visible so the public can easily look you up. Every document that you print should have this information on it: letters, quotes, sales recipes, business cards, postcards/brochures and packaging.
Places to Promote
1. Build a Website – This will help make your team look more like a professional organization and highlight the members. You won’t have to worry about item tags and tag abuse if everyone directs their promotional efforts towards the website instead.
a. Spend a few days researching “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO) to help with search engine rankings. This will include key words and site content.
b. If possible, have members write articles for the website, search engines love text.
c. Find free search engine submission sites or purchase software.
d. Help motivate members by showcasing a featured artist each month and then blog or post about this monthly event.
e. Very important – link exchanges and top-sites. This takes a lot of time but is very helpful – read more about it in SEO articles.
I spent a few days researching SEO and it really paid off. The website for EJA ranks #2 in Google searches for “eclectic jewelry”, so spend the time learning about SEO.
2. Postcards – Have professional postcards made up. I found a great deal for these at http://gotprint.net, 5,000 cards for only $99 plus shipping.
a. Include a postcard in sales packages.
b. Include “free shipping by participating members” on the postcard.
c. Everyone should be keeping a customer mailing list, mail out a card to them.
d. Find billboards around your town to post cards to.
e. Some record stores and café’s allow you to leave stacks of cards (ask first).
f. I don’t recommend printing out your own cards because it is equally expensive when you factor in the cost of good quality cardstock paper and all the ink to print, and they never look as professional as preprinted cards. Members then only have to pay for cost for a stack of cards and shipping.
3. Press Releases – These should be done only after your website is rich with content. Press releases need to be informative and “news worthy”. Remember that journalists are reading these. Look up “Press Release Format” so you know how to write one correctly.
a. Find free press release submission sites.
b. Have members submit press releases to local papers.
c. Include a one page portfolio of members work; a picture can be worth 1,000 words.
d. Compile a list of related blogs, e-mail them your press release and portfolio (remember 300 dpi for print, 72 dpi for internet).
e. Compile a list of on-line and print magazines (ask members to help research these).
f. If using snail mail, decorate the envelope to get noticed – I used glitter glue on mine.
4. Blogs – Each of my teams has several blogs to try to reach as many people as possible. Blogs can be updated quickly once set up.
a. Be sure to include plenty of good key words so people find your blog.
b. Designate a bookmark folder for just blogs so you can access them easily and just copy/paste the same info from one blog to the next. It takes me about 30 minutes to update blogs once someone submits an article to me.
c. Update blogs at least once a month.
d. People ALWAYS ask me “What do I blog about”. This depends on who you are trying to reach. You want to reach buyers, not other sellers so topics can be about almost anything. Using my jewelry team as an example, we write to inform and entertain. Topics have included: care for your jewelry, birthstones, metaphysics, and so on. Other topics we are working on are things like hobbies (gardening, cooking, collecting) because we want to attract a wide audience. Someone looking for gardening articles might find ours and at the same time see the link to the jewelry website as well as the authors store. And having written about gardening, we now come up in the blog search under “gardening”. Get creative and write about things you know about.
5. Social Sites – These are becoming more and more popular. People select items off the internet and recommend them to shoppers. So, what I came up with is having our members recommend each other. These sites will put newly picked items on the front page for all to see, the trick is that they only put up your 1st choice every few hours or so. Each site is a little different so scope it out. One week, so many of my members had done this that it pushed Etsy into the No. 1 slot as favorite website and all the items listed where from my jewelry team.
a. Have every member sign up at various social sites.
b. Stay organized by creating a separate bookmark folder for just social sites.
c. Pick 5 members per week to show case and pick the first item in their shop. Each week pick 5 new members.
- StyleFeeder.com / StyleHive.com / Wists.com / StumbleUpon.com
6. Special Events – This would include sales events, giveaways, competitions and so on. Be sure to incorporate a mailing list signup for some of these.
a. With a large group, it can be hard to all agree on one sale promo so I always write “See individual stores for sale description”. This makes people go to your website to check out all the artists then they can go to the individual stores they like where that person specifies their sale in the shop announcement.
b. Giveaways – The easiest is “sign up for our news letter for your chance to win free_____”. Then hold a drawing from those that sign up. Even better is to make it fun for people. One idea is a treasure hunt where people have to identify an item or seller on your website. Don’t make it too difficult where people have to go to all the different stores, make them go to your website where they can easily see all the sellers and sample of their items. I made small banners for each member with photos of 3 of their items so people can get a sample of what that person creates. Buyers are more likely to click a banner than just a list of member names. So, for a contest try “Find the seller with a red outline on their banner, then give your answer on the newsletter signup page”. This will force people to your site and through all of the members and that is what you want.
c. Hold a design competition amongst your members and get people to vote by signing up for your newsletter. Again, you can incorporate a gift giveaway as added incentive to sign up and vote. I’ve seen other teams use Flickr as a way to vote but you miss the opportunity to get voter’s e-mail address. Design competitions are a lot of fun, we hold one every quarter and pick a theme for members to create by.
d. Collaborate – This is my favorite idea that I came up with. I paired off members and each pair designed and make a set of jewelry. We then listed all the items in our new TeamEJA shop. Not only was this a fun project but it brought us all closer.
7. News Letter – See item 6 for idea’s to write about but I’d also like to point out that news letters are important and help remind people of your team. Someone might have a birthday or anniversary coming up and remember your team with a monthly/bi-monthly e-mail. Keep your newsletters “news worthy”. How many times have you deleted a newsletter because it just had way too much information on it, was confusing or plain old unorganized. I know I have. The ones I can’t stand are when they just put a link in the e-mail, very unprofessional. Thunderbird makes a great e-mail client where you can design a nice newsletter with columns and add a banner or other pictures. And Thunderbird has an easy to use address book for the e-mails you gather. But keep your newsletter brief and to the point so you don’t loose interest. People are in such a hurry these days so you really have to grab their attention.
8. Promote Outside of Etsy – Yes, the forums can be a good place to promote but let’s face it, the competition is steep and topics get pushed down fast – plus the majority in the forum is other sellers. Here are some places outside Etsy:
a. Other forums such as http://ezboard.com (and don’t just post in crafting forums, pick other topics you like… oh, and be sure not to spam).
b. http://MySpace.com
c. http://Tribe.net
9. Start a Photo Group – I’m not so sure how well these work but some people say they do. The big one is http://flickr.com
10. Slide Show – There’s other types of communities out there; one that I found is like a blogging community only you make slide shows. Slide shows are great fun and you can add them to your website as well as blogs. http://slide.com
11. Other Promotional Items – Again, items that you can give to people with your website address on there will help remind people of your team.
a. Pens or pencils are inexpensive and people will keep them.
b. Small note pads: Using card stock, print out your team’s logo and website address (4 per page, 2 ¾” wide, then cut an fold to make a cover). Then using 4 sheets of plain paper, cut into 2 ¾” stripes, fold and insert into cover, staple at the top.
c. T-Shirts - My team got lucky because I also do silk screening so I made a screen with our website address. If you would like a silk screen made for your team, please contact me.
d. Bumper stickers are another inexpensive way to advertise. I don’t recommend regular stickers for packaging because people just tear open packaging and throw out your stickers, waste of money.
12. Donate to Charity – Not only will you be helping out a charity but this can be something you write about in a press release, blog and include on your website. I ask members of my team to donate items, include their business card and then I include a team post card as well. A lot of charities do silent auctions, ask them to put out a stack of postcards for people to take, they usually have a table set up for this purpose.
One thing that I do not recommend is magazine advertisements. They are very expensive and not very effective, same with banner advertisements. We didn’t see any increase in sales or site activity when we ran these types of ads, even with offering free shipping on the ad. Giveaways and our main website have been the most successful so far.
So there you have it, my secrets from the last year of running a successful promotional campaign. Hope this article helps! I’m happy to answer any questions and hear your ideas as well.
Best of Luck,
Ahna
(C) 2007 - Art Created
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