What’s Good? This is your small business bestie Tonya Cross of Strategypreneur; my coaching brand that shows creative women entrepreneurs how to gain online brand visibility and start converting followers into customers. As the accessory designer of my handcrafted women’s fashion accessory brand Accented Glory, over the years I’ve learned marketing strategies that get results! Today I’m here to dispel the myth “if you make it, they will come” and how it stops women owned handmade businesses from reaching their goals of selling handmade products online.
This statement is as mythical as sugar in grits! Don’t fight me. I’m a southern country girl that loves grits with salt of course. Now back to the topic at hand; you can’t just create something beautiful and expect customers to flock to your shop. To make money you have to drive traffic to your online shop, so people know it exists and see what you offer.
That’s why it’s important to create content that resonates with your ideal customers. This content could be anything from blog posts, social media posts, or even videos. All of these things can help increase the visibility of your shop, and help your ideal customers find you. Your content should always highlight one of your business sweet spots. You’reprobably wonderingwhat’s a business sweet spot. It’s those things that make your business unique and stand out from your competition. One of my sweet spots is that all of my headband designs are adjustable. Headaches are the biggest complaint I hear relating to headbands. People complain that many headbands are too tight which causes headaches. I solve this problem for my ideal customer by empowering them to control how tight their headband fits. Click here to get access to my free video tutorial Identifying Your Business Sweet Spot.
But it’s not enough to just post content and hope for the best. You need to optimize the content for SEO (Search Engine Optimization), which means incorporating long tail keywords into your content that are related to your business. These keywords are three-to-five-word phrases that online searchers are likely to use to find your products. If you’re not sure what keywords to use, don’t worry – that’s where I come in. As your small business bestie, I can help you identify the right keywords and make sure your content is optimized for SEO. Click here to schedule a 1-on-1 consult to take a deeper dive with me into keywords.
You also need to think about how to keep customers coming back to your shop. One way to do this is to create an email list of your customers and send out regular newsletters or promotions. This way, you can stay on top of your mind and remind customers to come back and buy from you. I personally use Aweber for Strategypreneur and Mailerlite for Accented Glory to keep in contact with my customers. I chose these two because they’re user friendly and it’s easy to navigate their dashboards. Both email marketing platforms have free options to try out and see if they’re a good fit for you and your business.
Another way to get customers to return is to offer rewards or loyalty programs. Etsy, one of the platforms I sell my designs on, allows you to automate this. You can give a percentage off the next purchase to new customers. This is a great way to show customers that you appreciate them and encourage them to come back.
So, if you want to reach your goal of selling handmade products online, you need to take action and drive traffic to your shop. There’s no such thing as “you make it they will come” when it comes to selling online. But with my help as your small business bestie, I can show you how to create content that resonates with your ideal customers, optimize it for SEO, and get customers to come back time and time again.
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Tonya Cross
Visionary Designer
Get a FREE copy of my “Styling With Hair Accessories Guide” here!
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