Lisa Verdi of MindfulBIZ shows David Arnold how to boost the effectiveness of DACustomFrames.com. Watch this video and get some tips for putting your own business plan into action on your website.

0:55 Does DACustomFrames.com pass the “5 Second Test”?
1:56 Two questions you can expect a potential customer to have.
3:45 The link that David should remove and why.
5:05 Why people may miss seeing the testimonials and what to do about it.
5:56 Critical information that’s missing!
7:55 How to make your call-to-action a focal point.
8:00 How to make your About page more engaging.
9:46 The marketing strategy that David says works best for him.
10:19 How David can encourage more people to sign up for his newsletter.
13:07 Benefits of using an autoresponder mailing list service provider such as Aweber.

Lisa Verdi of MindfulBIZ wants to help you declutter your creative business to make it sustainable and works with you to make your website get results.

Unrealistic Expectations
When we start a business we’re full of enthusiasm and high hopes. We think “I’ll create a website and a Facebook page and, because my products are so amazing, I’ll have thousands of loyal fans in no time!” After a few months pass and you’ve only shipped a dozen or so orders the disappointment and self-doubt sets in. You think to yourself “I’ve been blogging, I’ve been Tweeting, I’ve been advertising, what gives? Maybe it’s just me. I should’ve shipped hundreds of orders by now!”

It’s not just you, this happens to a lot of people. It’s important to start a business with realistic expectations so you’re not disappointed. Marketing takes time to deliver results and some marketing methods are going to be more effective than others. It’s important to do some projections, so you have an idea of what results you can expect from a marketing endeavor. You also need to understand that marketing is a cumulative process, so the little things you accomplish each day become big things down the road.

Ignoring Secondary Conversions
On the subject of marketing’s cumulative effects, it’s important to understand all the results of a marketing campaign. We get so hung up on direct sales that we may ignore very valuable secondary conversions. If a marketing campaign delivers Facebook likes, Twitter followers, newsletter subscribers, RSS followers, etc. those are all valuable conversions, even if they didn’t result in immediate sales. If direct sales is the only metric you pay attention to, you may shut down a marketing channel that was delivering terrific benefits.

When you measure the results of a campaign, it’s a good idea to look at all the different kinds of conversions it was able to deliver. You want to measure direct sales, but you also want to look for other signs of success that can lead to more orders down the road. These results could be a larger social media following, an increase in your mailing list sign ups, or a larger following on your blog.

Picking the Wrong Marketing Venue/Technique
We often pick marketing venues or techniques because “everyone else is doing it.” Everyone’s on Twitter, I should be on Twitter. Everyone’s advertising on HipsterIndieBlog.com, I should advertise on HipsterIndieBlog.com. This mentality will never deliver the results you want because your business is not like everyone else’s business.

You want to choose marketing venues and techniques based on YOUR business. You need to consider your own target demographic, your own goals, your own products and services. Your customers may not be on Twitter. They may not read HipsterIndieBlog.com. Adwords might be the most productive platform for you. Viral videos might be the right path to your success. You can’t make these determinations until you understand your own business. You need to know your target market and how to reach them. You need to spell out your objectives and what marketing tactics will be most effective for achieving them.

Not Understanding Marketing Techniques
Different marketing techniques are designed to deliver different results. If you don’t know what results you’ve optimized for, it can be pretty disappointing when you were looking for result A and only see result B. For example, search engine marketing is geared to direct sales. The idea is you put products or services in front of people when they are searching for them, and that makes them more likely to buy. For a lot of companies this works well.

The downside to this kind of marketing is that it can be a bottomless pit. You can keep paying 20 cents per click and getting a 1% conversion rate, but if you stop paying the sales stop coming. If you invest all your money in search engine marketing but your goal was to grow a brand with a large following and social media buzz you may find you’re making almost no in-roads in that department. Sales might increase as you spend more money, but your brand awareness is still pretty low. It’s not that your brand isn’t lovable, it’s that you’ve optimized for direct sales over brand awareness.

When you design a marketing campaign, it’s important to know from the beginning what you want the results to be. Do you want link building because it is great for your SEO and you’ve seen a high conversion rate on organic search? Do you want social media followers because you’ve seen a high conversion rate from social sites? Knowing the answers to these questions can help you figure out which techniques are going to be most important to you and help you accurately evaluate your results.

Not Being Ready for Marketing
One of the biggest and most common mistakes I see, is online shops getting into marketing before they’re ready. Marketing will bring customers to your virtual doors, but your website might send them packing. Before you do any marketing you’ve got to make sure your website is up to snuff.

Once you’ve got a website that’s optimized for converting visitors, you’ve got to take the time to actually understand your audience, develop your unique selling proposition and plan out your marketing strategy. This includes evaluating all the marketing techniques you’re considering; coming up with ROI projections and a list of desired results. Once you’ve got your site in order and a solid plan of action, then you’re ready to do some marketing.

Stop Marketing Like a Rookie
If you’re not getting great results from your marketing efforts, it’s time to stop marketing like a rookie. My new ebook, Marketing With a Plan: How to Successfully Implement Effective Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Small Business (Without Using Words Like “Synergy”), is designed to take you from newbie marketer to confident expert, at least when it comes to marketing your own business. I wrote this book based on my own experiences starting my retail shop from scratch and growing it into a profitable business with thousands of customers.

In the book you’ll learn to:

• Research your target market, identify who they are and how to reach them.
• Develop your unique selling proposition.
• Develop marketing ideas and evaluate them with an eye for projected results.
• Project costs and return on investment for every marketing strategy.
• Break big projects down into smaller manageable tasks.
• Stay on track and get things done.
• Set priorities based on what is likely to deliver the best results.
• Evaluate campaign results, understanding what worked and what didn’t, so you can make better decisions.
• Compare your actual campaign results with projections.

Get More Details!

As is always the case whenever Etsy launches major changes to the site, reactions were mixed. Some people couldn’t be more excited, while other were concerned that Etsy was just trying to become the next Facebook, and not in a good way.

My initial response was that this is another situation where Etsy is privileging community over marketplace. Sometimes it feels like Etsy is less concerned with helping people sell than it is with building one great big online social gathering.

But the more I learned and thought about it, the more I realized that this was a pretty smart play for Etsy. You see, Etsy doesn’t view community and marketplace as mutually exclusive.

Etsy is betting on the fact that the more time you spend on the site, the more you’ll actually buy.

And they are just one of many companies (including Facebook) to try to latch onto the trend of social shopping.

Social shopping isn’t actually new. When it comes to the real world, we’ve always been social shoppers. But web developers are realizing the potential this has for growing sales. As we become more wary of advertising and marketing, we’re more interested in using our friends to help us make sense of the sea of products available on the Internet. As we spend more of our time socializing online, it only makes sense that shopping will (once again) become more of a social activity.

But while this could have a big financial impact for Etsy, the question still remains – how does this benefit you as a seller?

Well, it might be a little early to tell. But my best guess is that it will serve to amplify the traffic you’ve already got on Etsy. If you’re someone who already has a lot of traction on the site (lots of sales and favorites) then circles and activity feeds will probably help you grow faster. But if you don’t currently see a lot of traffic, these new features probably won’t make a big difference in your sales.

More than anything, these new features actually benefit the Etsy shopper. Or, more accurately, the Etsy browser. It’s just one more way for you to leisurely wander through Etsy and find more stuff to love.

Only time will really tell how these new features will impact sellers. But I think there’s a bigger lesson to be learned from all of this:

When you build your business through someone else’s platform (whether it’s Etsy, Facebook, or some other social media site), you’ll always be at the mercy of any changes they might make. Some changes you’ll love. Others you’ll hate. But if your business relies solely on that platform, you’re stuck.

Which is why I think it’s so important to carve out your own space for your brand. If the Etsy community features help your business, by all means, sell there too. But just keep in mind that Etsy, like any social media platform, should be a tool in your toolbox, not a means to an end.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. What do you think of Etsy’s new features?

{image via Dr Kennedy Jones on Etsy}

I’m so glad that Diane has finally posted my interview over at CraftyPod, because I’ve had so many post ideas revolving around the idea of the pro-am craft community that I’ve been just bursting to share.

I recently read this post on Button Maker’s Ball where she suggested that the low pricing on Etsy was a result of people getting their 10,000 hours in public.

10,000 hours is a reference to an idea in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, that to become great at something requires 10,000 hours.  At around 20 hours a week, this works out to roughly 10 years to reach your 10,000 hours.  (Though it can be accelerated.  Gladwell uses the example of the Beatles, who played in nightclubs for 8 hours a day for four years on the road to becoming the Beatles we all know and love.)

I was really struck by this for a number of reasons, not least of which is that I realized that a decade has passed since I started studying jewelry and metalsmithing.  I am tantalizingly close to my 10,000 hours, and I can attest to the fact that I’ve recently felt like my skills have progressed to a new level.

But more so, I was struck by this theory that prices are low because makers are gaining their 10,000 hours in public.  If you work from the theory that crafters should be paid well for their time and skill, then it would make sense that those who are less skilled (or who have put in less time honing those skills) would be paid less.  (Of course, this doesn’t account for the other I thing I think we should be paid well for, our creative vision.  But that’s an argument for another post.)

Sometimes I forget that my prices started out much lower than they are now.  But I had the luxury of trying to sell my work at a much less public format – student jewelry sales in graduate school.  I was much closer to my 10,000 hours before I started selling my work on Etsy or in more public forums.

But if this argument can serve as a rationalization for much of the low pricing on Etsy, then the question still remains, how does someone who has put in their 10,000 hours or beyond (and is thus pricing accordingly) fit into a marketplace where most of the prices are significantly lower?  And how do you communicate the value of this increased skill to the customer?

Etsy as business incubator

To answer the first question, I want to expand on an idea I brought up in the pro-am podcast.  As your business grows, at some point Etsy may no longer fit your needs.  And if that becomes the case, you are under no contractual obligation to stay on Etsy.  You can always close your Etsy shop and move onto a different e-commerce venue.  (Most likely something tied more directly to your own URL and branded exclusively for your business.)

But I know this idea can seem scary, especially for someone who has had much initial success on Etsy.  Even if you feel no sense of gratitude towards Etsy as a company, you probably feel very indebted to your Etsy fans who have helped make your business a success.  You might also feel a sense of community that you worry will be lost if you make a solo leap into the giant, unprotected world of e-commerce.

But instead of feeling like your Etsy shop is a permanent fixture, what if we started recognizing Etsy for what it does really well.  And what Etsy does well is serve as an incubator for craft businesses.

According to Wikipedia, business incubators are:

“programs designed to accelerate the successful development of entrepreneurial companies through an array of business support resources and services, developed and orchestrated by incubator management and offered both in the incubator and through its network of contacts.”

Sounds a lot like Etsy to me.

Etsy serves as this amazing platform for anyone in the early stages of building a crafts business.  Not only do they provide a low-cost entry point into the marketplace, but they also provide tools to help sellers develop their skills.

But here is where Etsy diverges from the traditional business incubator format.  In an incubator, once a business matures beyond a certain point, they graduate from the incubator.  They move on.

In the podcast, Diane asked me how I thought Etsy could better serve both professionals and amateurs, and at the time we recorded that interview, I said that I didn’t think they could.  I believed there was a certain point where Etsy would no longer meet the needs of a maker’s business.  And at that point the maker should move on.

But perhaps this doesn’t have to be the case.  What if Etsy continued with the incubator idea, but created a kind-of halfway house between Etsy as business incubator and the big, scary e-commerce world?  A new Etsy.  (With a different name, different branding, and a slightly different business model.)

Customers who were looking for the lowest prices could shop the original Etsy for work from early-stage businesses.  But those who were looking for products made with a higher degree of skill, a more mature design sense, or a more developed brand image could shop this new Etsy.

So maybe this is a pipe dream.  (Or maybe I just gave someone a really great idea for a new business. You’re welcome.)  But while we’re waiting for Etsy (or anyone else) to create this new solution for us, we can still shift our own mindset about Etsy.

What if you started viewing Etsy as an incubator for your business?  What if you put a plan in place to graduate beyond Etsy once your business reaches a certain level.  What if those of us running craft businesses stopped viewing Etsy as a long term solution and started viewing it as a launch pad?

Pricing from am to pro

The other important point to take from all of this is that as your skill level increases, so should your prices.  Which brings us back to the question, how do you justify this price increase to your customers?

And I think the answer is that you don’t.

At least not so overtly.

Ideally, as you move towards 10,000 hours of learning your craft, you are also developing two other aspects of your business – your creative voice and your brand.  Unfortunately, most of us live in a society that no longer places a high value on skill.  And while I think it’s important to advocate for this to change, it’s also not a strong foundation for a marketing strategy.

But time and time again, we’ve seen how both a designer’s creative voice and the branding of a company can compel customers to buy.  As you move through your 10,000 hours, you should also be developing your design skills, refining your brand, and ideally developing a posse of loyal customers who will follow you wherever you go.  Rise in skill, design, and brand should all lead to a rise in demand for your products, which will allow you to raise prices accordingly.

But this only further reinforces my point that we should treat Etsy as an incubator to move away from as your business develops.  First, while Etsy does give you options for customization, it doesn’t let you showcase a full-brand strategy.  You are an Etsy shop first, your brand second.

The second reason to move off Etsy as your prices rise is that Etsy will always be filled with a nearly endless supply of cheap, low-skilled products.  Because Etsy functions very well as an incubator.  It’s the place where people set-up when they are at the start of their 10,000 hours.  And because increase in skill is difficult to communicate on a computer screen, and because you can’t build a complete brand identity on Etsy, you are left competing on that other variable – price.  And did you really start your business with the goal of becoming the Wal-Mart of the craft community?

Side note: I was browsing Supermarket the other day and was struck by the sheer absence of prices on category and designer pages.  In fact, it’s not until you get to a product’s main page that you see the price.  Contrast this with Etsy, where prices are featured everywhere you look, practically begging you to comparison shop by price.

Yes, perhaps everyone getting their 10,000 hours in the public marketplace provides challenges for all of us.  (Particularly when it comes to price and public perception.)  But instead of viewing these challenges as stumbling blocks, we should view them as opportunities.  By using Etsy as a launch pad (not a lifelong commitment) and creating a strategy where price rises in conjunction with skill, voice, and branding, you should be able to create a thriving business by the time you’ve reached your 10,000 hours.

If you’re interested in learning more about pricing your products, I’m running an online workshop on Tuesday all about pricing for profit.

I wanted to clarify something that came up in the comments.  I don’t think that Etsy is the cause of the culture of cheap.  The low pricing happening on Etsy is a result of our widespread love affair with cheap, massed produced goods, which has been going on for decades.  What is frustrating is that Etsy has done nothing to position itself, or handmade, as the antithesis to cheap, disposable goods.

That being said, its only fair that I also point out that I have no intention of taking down my Etsy shop anytime soon.  And I would still encourage anyone thinking of setting up an Etsy shop to do so.  Etsy still remains an easy, low cost way for makers to develop an e-commerce website.  (Though there are other e-commerce solutions, but we’ll talk about those another time.)  There are some fantastic shoppers on Etsy who aren’t motivated solely by price. (Hooray for them!)  And while its not a perfect system, as a shopper, I appreciate the ability to favorite a shop or an item.  And as I seller, I appreciate that this helps spread my shop around the site.  Overall, I still think its worthwhile to be on Etsy.

But I also think its important to view Etsy as one tool in the maker/seller’s toolbox, not a solution to solve all our financial woes.

As Charles mentioned in his comment, one of the best ways to drive sales on Etsy is to promote OFF Etsy.  I know if you read a lot of tips on how to boost Etsy sales, they will tell you to relist often and promote your work in the forums, but those things don’t work for me.  Truthfully, the forums make me want to stab a pencil in my eye.  My most successful sales weeks on Etsy have come when I’ve gotten featured on a big name blog.  And I can honestly say I’ve gotten sales by tweeting about an item.  And years when I did a lot of retail craft shows, many of my Etsy holiday sales came from cities I had done shows in.  (Coincidence, I think not.)

I do think buyers come to Etsy looking for handmade goods.  Hopefully, if those of us who make fair priced work continue to list and promote both on and off Etsy, we can help buyers understand that shopping for craft should not be the same as shopping the bargain basement sales.