In 2020, Etsy generated approximately $10.28 billion in gross sales, a growth of more than 100% from the previous year.
Selling on Etsy can be an excellent way to turn up a sizable profit.
One of the keys to having a profitable business on Etsy is effectively promoting your products and listings. But the question is: how to promote an Etsy shop?
Good news. There are many strategies that you can try.
Whether you’re planning to start a new Etsy business or you want to level up your existing one, you’ve come to the right place. In this guide, I outline different strategies to promote your Etsy shop.
Table of Contents
What Is Etsy and What Makes it a Great Marketplace?
Etsy is an online marketplace that focuses on selling handmade and vintage items.
It’s an excellent place for artists, sculptors, painters, craft designers, fashion designers, handmade jewelry designers, home decor businesses, and many other creative individuals to sell their products. It has various advantages over marketplaces like amazon handmade.
Here are some reasons Etsy is an excellent marketplace for promoting and selling unique products.
Setting Up Is Relatively Easy
If you’ve ever struggled with all the steps involved in setting up an online store, you’ll be happy to know you won’t have that problem with Etsy.
Setting up an Etsy account to start a business is simple and doesn’t take too much time and energy.
Etsy Has an Established Audience
Etsy has a great base of loyal customers who love buying bespoke products.
These people go on Etsy to search primarily for handmade items. So if that’s the niche you want to join, there will definitely be a market for it on Etsy.
Listing on Etsy is Cost Effective
When compared to other online marketplaces, Etsy is relatively cost-effective. You’ll only need to pay $0.20 to list your items. Etsy will also charge you a 6.5% transaction fee upon selling your item.
The maximum cost for listing and selling a product worth around $100 would only be a few dollars. These costs are justifiable when you consider the commercial return.
How To Prepare Before Promoting an Etsy Store
Here’s what you need to prepare before promoting your Etsy business.
Set a Marketing Budget
If you want to become a successful seller, you need to be able to reach your target audience.
But that doesn’t mean you should throw money into every marketing opportunity.
You should set a budget for Etsy advertising and review it regularly.
Create a spreadsheet, use a budget tracking app, or use business expense monitoring software like Xero to evaluate your marketing and advertising costs.
Know Your Target Audience
Philip Kotler once said:
“There is only one winning strategy. It is to carefully define the target market and direct a superior offering to that target market.”
You need to determine your target audience to promote your Etsy store successfully.
This way, you know who you want to reach with your advertising.
Create avatars of your target customers using a buyer persona template.
Check out Make by Persona, Hubspot’s free buyer persona tool. It can help you define your target customer.
Decide Where to Promote Your Etsy Shop
Create a list of places where you want to promote your Etsy shop.
Write your list in a notebook and keep it handy.
You can also track your list with an Evernote page or project management dashboard.
Doing so allows you to track all your activities on those platforms and audit your marketing efforts accordingly.
Later in this article, I will provide you with different options for where to promote your Etsy shop.
Optimize Your Listings
Optimize your store and product listings before promoting your Etsy shop. Here are some tips you can follow.
- Choose a catchy Etsy shop name.
- Make your listing titles short and easy to remember.
- Provide as much information as possible when describing your items. Ensure you provide information on medium, craft supplies, and materials for handmade items.
- Use high-quality photos and provide multiple angles of your items.
- Communicate purchasing terms to customers, including shipping timelines, rates, terms of return, and so on.
- Set a competitive price.
Best Way to Promote Your Etsy Shop
Ready to start reaching potential customers?
Let’s go ahead and market your Etsy products!
Here are nine of the best ways to promote your Etsy shop.
Etsy Ads
The best place to start promoting your shop is on the Etsy platform itself. Run promoted listings on Etsy, so you appear on Etsy search and other areas on the website.
When you run promoted listings through Etsy Ads, Etsy will show your products on:
- Etsy search results
- Earlier search pages
- Category pages
- Market pages
- And other areas of the website and app.
Here’s how to set up and manage your promoted listings.
- Go to Shop Manager (left-hand menu).
- Click on Marketing
- Click on Etsy Ads.
Offsite Ads
Many Etsy stores promote their businesses on other sites.
Consider doing the same.
Aside from in-platform ads, you should also consider promoting your shop via offsite ads.
Here are some great websites to run ads.
- Google Search
- Banner Ads
- YouTube
- TikTok
Millions of people visit these sites daily, so they’re prime locations that can provide promising returns on your ad spend.
Running offsite ads is a great way to reach new customers who may not have tried buying on Etsy yet.
Choose two or three advertising platforms at a time and review the return on your ad spend before deciding whether to continue or stop advertising on a particular platform.
Promote on Your Social Media Accounts
Here are some of the best Social media marketing platforms for promoting your small business on Etsy.
Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. There are now close to 3 billion people on Facebook. Take advantage of traffic on Facebook by creating a Facebook page for your Etsy shop. You can also start a Facebook group and build a community related to your product.
Instagram is a social media channel where visuals matter, making it a great place to promote arts and crafts.
Just like Instagram, Pinterest is a highly visual platform. People visit it all the time to look for art-related ideas and tutorials. When you promote handmade items on Pinterest, there’s a considerable possibility that Pinterest users are looking for a similar item. When these people see your product, they may decide to buy your item instead of making it themselves.
Create a list of social media accounts to promote your products and update your content regularly.
Provide value to your audiences.
Create content to educate and entertain potential customers before upselling and directing them to your store.
Doing so will help you generate more traffic to your Etsy shop.
Discounts and Sales
When advertising on Etsy, never underestimate the power of a good deal.
Customers love discounts and promos, so don’t hesitate to add discounts and coupons to the mix, especially for repeat customers.
You can create a discount code for future purchases.
That discount can be either fixed or a percentage based on the amount of the customer’s next purchase.
These types of promotions can help you generate repeat business.
You can also offer free shipping with a minimum purchase requirement to attract more customers.
Another idea is to give a freebie for every purchase.
Consider your costs when giving discounts and running sales campaigns to ensure you aren’t losing money on those deals.
Collaborate with Other Etsy Sellers
You can view Etsy sellers in two ways— as competition or collaborators.
When you see other shop owners as the latter, you can gain another avenue to reach more customers.
Reach out to other artists or small businesses that sell products that complement yours.
If you’re a jewelry designer, partner with a clothing designer.
If you’re a painter, work with a sculptor.
Run promos together or cross-sell on social media.
Start an Email List
Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing tools today.
One study shows that one dollar spent on email marketing can yield up to $42 in sales.
You’d do well to leverage email marketing strategies to reach more potential customers and get repeat purchases.
You can use email to update existing customers about relevant products, new Etsy offers, or upcoming sales to help drive customer loyalty.
You can also create a lookbook, a free guide, or a resource to get more leads and tell them about your excellent products with an email sequence.
Some great tools you can use to build an email list include:
Organize a Giveaway
From time to time, doing a free giveaway can effectively get new customers to make a purchase. Run a raffle on your social media channels and other places.
Consider giving a giveaway to people who leave a testimonial on your store so you can get more positive reviews and boost your credibility.
Start a Blog
Starting a blog is a fantastic way to leverage organic search.
This strategy makes it easier for search engines like Google to pick up your store and drive organic traffic there.
For example, if people go on Google and type in “watercolor artists in Barcelona” and you have a blog entitled “Top 10 Watercolor Artists in Barcelona” with your store as the number one choice, you could drive traffic to your listings.
Do keyword research to discover search terms with great buying intent and write reviews, articles, and guides that will drive traffic to your store.
Look for keywords that are not too competitive, so you end up more often on the first page of search results.
Reach Out to Micro-Influencers and Brand Ambassadors
Many Etsy shops like to work with influencers and brand ambassadors who can promote their products in exchange for free items or a promotion fee.
Popular influencers can be hard to reach and require an expensive payment to promote your store.
The best alternative is to reach out to micro-influencers who can work for a commission or fee you can afford.
Promoting your store through influencers is a great way to tap into their existing following and build your brand’s image.
It could result in more sales, and it’s a great way to get the word out when you’re still creating awareness.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
I know that even if I’ve discussed the different marketing strategies to promote your Etsy shop, you may still have some questions lingering on your mind.
Let me help you with that.
In this section, I answer the most frequently asked questions about selling and promoting on Etsy.
What Am I Allowed and Not Allowed to Sell on Etsy?
The most common items sellers offer on Etsy are handmade goods, vintage items, and craft supplies. You can sell any of those products.
Meanwhile, products you aren’t allowed to sell include alcohol, tobacco, drugs, weapons, and other products that might promote or encourage danger and hatred. Etsy can close your account if you sell prohibited products.
Who Can Be an Etsy Shop Owner?
Anyone from virtually any country can become an Etsy seller! Furthermore, most businesses and individuals on the marketplace offer international shipping as an option.
How Do I Measure the Return on Investment of My Strategies?
Promoting your shop should make you money, not lose it. So you want to ensure that your marketing strategies are driving more sales. To do that, you should have a way to track the money you spend on your marketing efforts and compare that with the sales that each marketing strategy generates.
If you’re running paid ads, set up conversion trackers to see whether or not your ads are generating purchases.
How Much Does It Cost to Advertise on Etsy?
The cost per click on Etsy ads can go between $0.20 – 0.50, depending on how effective your ads are. Copywriting and the quality of your images play an essential role in this, so make sure those are compelling enough to get people to visit your shop and buy your products.
The Bottom Line
Hopefully, the marketing tips and strategies I outlined in this article have helped you understand how to achieve success on Etsy.
Remember to apply the techniques discussed in this article when promoting your Etsy listings.
Out of the nine strategies I provided, choose two or three you can start implementing today.
Visit our blog for more information on how you can maximize your presence on Etsy.
