Promoting your Work

Promotion is one of the biggest portions of our business that people seem to forget about. If you don't get your products out there, they will never be seen. A lot of people think if they create a stunning product with some keywords stuffed inside the cash will start to flow. 

This is not the case

Promotion is also a full time job on top of your business. To be successful, you need to grow brand awareness and a good reputation. If you fail to do either of those, your business will not be successful. There are a lot of different ways to promote your work and later I will do a deep dive on three major platforms : Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. For now, I will give a high level overview of each and how you can use them to promote your work. 

Facebook

Facebook is one of the largest Social Media Platforms out there. It is constantly growing and evolving and is chock full of customers. One thing to note is that most people go on there to be social, not bombarded with ads, so be careful how much you utilize this and how you are promoting. 

Join Facebook groups associated with your niche. I'm currently working on a list for SVG sellers, Clip Art sellers, Font sellers, and Digital Scrapbook sellers. By joining these groups you are allowed to post links to your work and people can go and buy it at their leisure. 

Coming Soon Facebook Group Lists for Promoting your Work

The only downfall is a lot of these groups are saturated with other people looking to sell and not purchase, so how can you also create new customers while being seen? 

Make sure you create a Facebook Page linked to a Facebook Group. The Facebook Group can organically grow your Facebook Page if they're linked. The Facebook Page provides an avenue to sell physical products (digital is against their TOU) and can also link in your profile to show you are the CEO of the company, growing your brand awareness. 

The group can be used to interact with customers, answer questions, provide giveaways and more. 

You can also join local crafting group pages in your area and promote work there as well if it is allowed in the Rules. I will be dedicating a series of posts specific to Facebook including Pages, Groups, BST groups, Ads, and more, so stay tuned for that. 

Instagram

Instagram is more of a photo browsing platform. People spend a lot of time on IG and post some of their greatest pictures. I personally was using it to showcase personal makes with my digital files. A lot of times someone would see my end product and ask where I got a certain file, and then I could self promote my work by providing them a link to my shop or website. 

If you like to create physical end products, IG is a good choice for promotion. If that's not really your thing, you can still provide mockup photos on IG and get similar results. 

Hashtags are the gold of IG and if you don't have the best hashtags, you won't be found. Use your hashtag limit to your advantage. Post 3 to 4 in your photo description and then comment below the photo with the rest of your tags. They will show up in search the same way. 

Coming Soon - Popular Hashtags for SVGs on Instagram

2020 for me is focused on YouTube and Pinterest, but I'll be sure to show more tips and tricks while I grow my IG following as well. 

Pinterest

Pinterest is like the God of all things DIY. The site is ever growing and the nice thing about Pinterest pins is they never really die. You can grow your Pinterest by regular pinning or utilize a scheduler like Tailwind to increase your following and engagement without seeming too spammy.

Read More: Grow Pinterest with Tailwind

I started getting serious about my Pinterest in August of 2019 and with little effort have grown my engagement from 200 a month to over 450K engagements a month in just 6 months time. I did this by listening to what my audience wanted, pinned rich, valuable content, and peppered in my designs as well. I also do most of my affiliate promoting there and gain a decent amount of affiliate income from Pinterest. 

Get one month of Tailwind FREE

Using the scheduler allows me to sit down for about one hour and post enough content to last 2-3 weeks that includes, my work, other's work, affiliate links and other pinterest related content. This is a great option if you also provide tutorials and other value to your business and can share it with other Pinterest lovers. 

Etsy Ads

Etsy Ads has recently paired up with Google Ads. That means when people are searching on Google and you have something promoted with Etsy Ads, it can show up in an organic google search. Here you can determine what listings are advertised and how much your daily budget is. 

I personally only set a budget of $1.00 unless it is a major holiday, then I will increase it because I know there will be more traffic for handmade makes. For me I make WELL more than $31 a month in sales to account for the ad revenue. I highly recommend this if you have decent SEO and good promo images.

If you need help getting setup or need some advice on your listings and SEO I and more than happy to help. 

Cross Promotion

Cross Promotion is something you can use once you grow a large following, or even if you don't. I usually go through and do some google searches once every few months for people who write similar blogs to mine or create similar YouTube videos to mine and message them for Cross Promotion. 

Sometimes people will provide this service for free while others will charge you for the service. Depending on their reach and following, it may be fruitful for you to lookinto Cross Promotion. 

Also if you do any sort of DIY stuff and are looking to get out there, you can guest post on someone's blog. 

Any type of social media shoutout is a good way to cross promote as well. Look for people who are well known in the community, build a relationship with them, interact with people who post similar content and you can also see your stats grow. 

Mailing Lists

Mailing Lists are one of those things that everyone feels is outdated and people don't use anymore. This is a fallacy. People are still using Mailing Lists to grow their business. For example I have mailing lists for my website, free products, and also this Passive Income Bootcamp! 

A lot of these blog posts get buried in the archives, so I have set up a 5 week bootcamp where people get the 10 lessons automated (that's two lessons a week). That allows me to continue to promote but also provide rich content that will keep people coming back for more within my blog. 

Mailing lists create loyal customers so long as you are providing emails that help or provide something for them. Stay tuned for a list of Mailing List Services that I recommend. 

And that's it.

These are just some of the things I use to promote and as the list grows, I will be sure to update it as well as you along the way! 

The next lesson will cover Search Engine Optimization 101, so stay tuned for that. If you have any questions PLEASE let me know. 

Don't forget to Join my Facebook Group for Tips and Tricks and Subscribe to my YouTube Channel for the most up to date posts and videos.

Cheers
Tanya