60 Places to Promote Your Handmade Business
If you want to spend more time promoting your crafty business with ease, look no further than our handly list of top quality places to concentrate your efforts in order to take your business from MEH to WOW in no time. Remember, the biggest thing you can do to build your business is TAKE ACTION so use our post to go get started right now!
Sell More Stuff
Etsy: Well, duh! Outright loves Etsy and as the official bookkeeping partner, I would be crazy not to include the BIGGEST site for selling handmade goods on the planet.
Meylah: What’s amazing about Meylah’s up & coming marketplace is they allow you to upload and sell digital goods instantly and are super duper search engine optimized meaning your product listings end up on the front page of Google much easier than with any other online marketplace.
Their basic membership is 100% free and as a special bonus for my readers, extended to you lovely Outright readers as well!, is your chance to get a FREE 4 week eCourse & personal coach when you sign up to sell on their site. Just be sure to enter the word HYPE in the referral box as you sign up to ensure you receive your special goodies!
Ruby Lane: If you have higher end handmade products for sale, you should definitely consider selling with Ruby Lane. As the upscale handmade market for mainly jewelry and other high-end goods, you’ll get customers looking for products who won’t want to barter with you or be taken aback by your higher, and much deserved, pricing.
Artfire: Since Artfire is still growing, you can enjoy the ability to have your company stand out for buyers since you’re not going to be as drowned out by the competition. You can get started with their free 30 day trial and see how it goes for you.
Zibbet: Zibbet is smaller marketplace than most but still something to think about should you want to be able to sell without worrying about competition in every corner of the site.
Folksy: The U.K. based handmade marketplace is perfect for international sellers who want to get their products seen by more people close to home.
Shopify: Over 15,000 stores use Shopify’s diverse platform to sell their stuff online, including photographers, physical product sellers and much more. You can get a 30 day free trial to get started with the feature rich site and create a cooler, more original online marketplace for your handmade goods.
Big Cartel: If you’re looking for a great shopping cart perfect for artists and freelancers, consider working with Big Cartel to make it happen. You can host it right on your site, it’s really easy to use and completely customizable to your brand look.
Crafted Elegance: Creator Dianalynn Varin reached out to me and I couldn’t help but be inspired by what she has created over at Crafted Elegance. If you’re a seller with a disability and want to join a community of crafters connecting together and selling their goods to the world, consider Crafted Elegance for your handmade goods. If you’re a handmade lover, go over and support disabled artisans by purchasing something from their great selection of goods.
Submit Your Products
Be sure to read the submission guidelines, which are all different depemding on the site, for each of the listed blogs and websites below before you send your company details over to ensure you have the right products for the site’s readers. If you do, get started by submitting your work for the chance to be featured on their amazingly high traffic and reader loyal sites.
Design & Fashion
Frolic Blog: A great blog showcasing floral & prop stylist Chelsea Fuss and her unique inspirational finds.
Comfort Creatures: Created by EZ, this site celebrates the simple things that inspire and make life sweet.
Scoutie Girl: Editor-in-chief Tara Gentile has taken this basic shopping blog to a whole new level in the past year and it’s now an incredible place for passionate creatives to connect, converse and commune.
Indie Fixx: Creator Jen Wallace has been wowing with her indie finds for years and her style is only getting better and better.
Lonny NY: The first online design magazine of it’s kind, Lonny features handmade and Etsy finds regularly, especially near the holidays.
Design Sponge: The biggest design blog around, Grace Bonney and her team of exceptional writers showcase the best of DIY, design & entertaining multiple times a day.
Daily Candy: The daily finds email that’s been around for years, getting featured here might mean the holy grail of press for your budding company.
Oh Joy: Founded by graphic designer, blogger and food enthusiast Joy Cho in 2005, the Oh Joy blog will perk you up with it’s wonderful content and inspirational delights.
Apartment Therapy: Their mission is to help people make their homes more beautiful, organized and healthy by connecting them to a wealth of resources, ideas and community online.
Decor8: Founder Holly Becker is an American author, freelance journalist and interior design consultant with a keen eye for decorating & indie finds.
Inhabitat: is the place for green design. If you’ve got eco-friendly products or a green story to share, they’re the place to hit up with your ideas.
Swiss Miss: The creator of this design blog, Tina Roth, has a very interesting eye for design that’s more outside the box than you’d think. She also gets huge points for her hand in creating one of my favorite web tools, Teux Deux!
Desire 2 Inspire: Created by two design junkies, Jo and Kim, living in different parts of the world, this blog shares great design and home finds.
Oh Happy Day: Incredibly crafty party planner and letterpress printer Jordan Ferney makes everything so sparkly with her blog Oh Happy Day, which recently got a new home and fabulous makeover. Enjoy her adventures in Paris with her family and get in touch with her to create a spectacularly crafty feature or advertising campaign.
Crafty:
Try Handmade: The ultimate shopping blog for those who want to buy products made by real people, not factories.
The Handmade Gift Guide: Lovely handmade finds for all occasions, this is a great place to submit your work for a feature.
CraftGawker: The ultimate eye candy for the crafty lover, getting featured isn’t so tough with great photos and a superb product (which you totally have, right?!).
PoppyTalk: A great (and very popular) design blog from Canada showcasing emerging design talent.
Craftsyble: This site is all about talented crafters and artisans who take the extra step and make handcrafting more than a form of art or a simple hobby! Get featured in a variety of ways including writing about your work on this great new site by Simo Media.
Baby & Kids:
Simple Kids: An offshoot of SimpleMom.net, this great site features loads of wonderful tips & crafts for moms so if you’ve got something crafty to share, submit your ideas here.
A-List Mom: Formerly Mamaista, this daily email sends out great picks to over ten thousand subscribers so if featured, you’ll get a ton of eyeballs on your products fast.
Oh Dee Doh: From the creators of Apartment Therapy, this site caters to home, life & crafty inspiration for kids related content so be sure to stop by and submit if you have something swell to share.
Cool Mom Picks: One of the most popular shopping websites for parents on the web, with the creators even getting the chance to curate on Etsy, you’ll be silly not to submit your stuff here if well-suited to your brand.
Press Release Distribution Sites
Get your press release created (I recommend Cori from Write Syntax or Kristin from Marquet-Communications) and start submitting them to any of the sites below which offer you submissions for FREE. Besides the possibility of press, a bigger plus is the huge backlink boost you’ll get to your website.
Advertising
Craft Cult: One of the first API sites of it’s kind that offers really affordable advertising and has never really raised rates even with massive traffic growth, try Craft Cult to showcase your products or services to fellow crafters. The downside here is it’s mainly used by sellers, not buyers of handmade, so be sure to offer up something that a seller would be interested in to get the most bang for your advertising buck.
Project Wonderful: When I sold on Etsy and even as someone who wants to attract Etsy sellers to my consulting, I’ve used Project Wonderful with much success. Whether you’re placing individual bids or creating multi-site campaigns, you can get tons of views for pennies a day.
StumbleUpon Ads: I personally love StumbleUpon ads as they are great for driving loads of cheap traffic to any shop or site. You pay only 5 cents per view so for $5 you can get 100 people viewing your latest product line or $100 for a whopping 10,000 visitors! The only downside is people stumbling using the special browser bar don’t stick around for long so make sure you really captivate them with your advertised page to convert them to buyers.
HandmadeSpark: For just $6 a month, you’ll get a great little mini site on Handmade Spark which pulls data from your Etsy shop and is a great SEO tool.
Heartsy: Sure, there’s lots of controversy surrounding Heartsy, the site that allows buyers to get handmade products for over 50% off every day. But if you’re a seller just starting out, want new exposure and the chance to make a lot of sales, you should consider submitting a deal because you’ll get loads of traffic, tons of sales and the chance to woo customers back as repeat customers anytime.
Paper N Stitch: The community showcasing the best in art, handmade and vintage is a good opportunity to showcase your products for $55 a month on average.
Most of the blogs mentioned in the submit area above also host ad spaces on their sites and normally offer very affordable options based on the number of visitors they have arriving so be sure to check them out as you visit to submit.
Social Media, Forums & Others
If you have extra time on your hands and want to promote your handmade products, consider any of the following social sites, forums & interesting promotional methods that are completely free and really easy to use:
LinkedIn: Create a business profile, start a group for your peers or search out great freelance jobs your crafty skills would be the perfect fit for.
Twitter: Start microblogging to monitor trends, keep an eye on competitors, tweet to your fans, network with the media and much more.
Facebook: Create a fan page, network in groups or just use your profile to promote your work to family and friends.
Pinterest: Pin items, create catalogs and gain followers interested in your unique style.
Flickr: Post your product photos, start groups, network with other artists and much more using photo sharing site Flick’r.
Deviant Art: A great way to share some freebie downloads, showcase your work and connect with other like minded crafters and artists.
YouTube: Start creating videos to showcase your awesome product and post them to YouTube. You’ll get a whole new audience there interested in what you’re showing off and it’s a great way to improve your SEO as well.
Vimeo: Another great option for those creating and uploading videos longer than 10 minutes. You can also have private videos you share with mailing list subscribers only for a small premium price a year.
Podcasting: Why not start a podcast and start sharing your knowledge of your craft with others? Check out Sister Diane at Crafty Pod who shares her own podcast, has great tips for starting your own and is super duper sweet, too!
We Love Etsy: You can start promoting your work with fellow Etsy lovers using the We Love Etsy forum on Ning, probably the largest forum of it’s kind around.
Etsy Teams: While Etsy has streamlined their forums to disclude promotions, you can now start your own Etsy team and post to forums within it!
Article Directories: By writing articles your target customers want to know about using massive sites like HubPages, Squidoo and EZArticles, you’ll get the chance to reach a larger audience and get on the top of Google a lot faster.
No comments:
Post a Comment