For both experienced and novice craft
entrepreneurs alike, Etsy is a powerful platform for getting your work into the
hands of engaged consumers. With ready to launch stores, a passionate and
helpful community of sellers, and such wide brand recognition amongst the
buying public, Etsy can turn a once-in-awhile crafter into a household name.
However, as the site has grown, so too has the competition, and often it can be
difficult to stand out. Unless, of course, your work is featured on the front
page, instantly exposing your talents to the sites millions of visitors—no
marketing tricks and traffic directing involved.
But how to get there? It may not be as
unattainable as you think. In fact, you’re already well on your way if you’ve mastered the basics of the
platform. Here, too, are a number of additional steps you can take to get
yourself to front page fame.
1. Find Your Way Into a Treasury
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| Example of a Front Page Etsy Treasury |
Front page features aren’t pulled from thin air. They come from treasuries, i.e. collections of Etsy items curated by fellow sellers. There are treasuries for just about every kind of theme, from the more obvious kind, like “Holiday Gifts” to more subtle themes like “Bright Gifts” and “Let It Snow!” Think of treasuries like giant Pinterest boards with an agenda. Getting your products featured here will not only expose your work to a wider following within the community of people who follow that treasury, it also puts you front and center with Etsy admins.
So the real question is, how do I get
featured in a treasury?
2. Be Findable
When treasury curators are looking for work
that fits their theme, they conduct a search much like a customer would for appropriate
products. That means you should have a set of keywords ready to go that are
relevant to what you’re selling. Use these keywords when describing your
product in your initial listing, incorporating them into tags and titles as
well. You’ll also want to make sure you’re choosing the most relevant category,
and that you account for differences in spelling by alternating between words
like “jewelry” and “jewellery.” The last thing you’d want to happen is to lose
out on publicity due to spelling!
On a similar note, you may want to renew
your listings every so often so you consistently show up at the top of search
results, even when you’re operating in a competitive niche.
Implementing these simple techniques will
at most bring you to the attention of a treasury owner who can get your
featured on the front page, and will at least bring more customers to your
shop.
3. Use Great Photos
Of course, once a treasury curator arrives
at your destination, it’s important that they’re impressed with your work—and that
can only happen if you’ve snapped some great photos. After all, no curator
wants to feature a poorly lit, unprofessional looking product, even if it is
the coolest item in the world. Remember, curators are a form of customer, and
you want to entice them into engaging more deeply with your products.
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| Jessica Sherriff Bangle, image often chosen to feature in Treasuries |
So, what
goes into a great photo? Great lighting, of course. Try to find a sunny
spot so you can take advantage of natural light and avoid overhead shadows,
which can wash out or yellow your product. Go with a very light coloured
background so you don’t distract from the product, and run your shots through a
photo editing program to polish them all up.
And, I’ll just say this once: For the love
of all that is holy, don’t humiliate
your boyfriend. Dude is not a prop!
4. Make or Join Your Own Community
Etsy is all about community. Rarely do you
find a seller who rises to the top—either of the front page or of sales
records—without engaging with fellow sellers.
As you set up your shop, start by posting
lots of questions on forums. As you gain expertise, answer other sellers’
questions and offer support to sellers looking for feedback. The more you
vocalize in this venue, the more other sellers will look at what you’ve got to
sell, the more likely they’ll be to include you in their own marketing efforts.
Which brings us to the second key strategy
for participating in a community: teams.
Etsy teams are essentially like groups on sites like Facebook or LinkedIn where
artists engaged in similar niches can swap ideas and co-market. In fact, some
are created specifically for the latter purpose, hosting meetups and Google
Hangouts to brainstorm marketing strategies and attending seminars and shows
together.
What does this have to do with getting on a
treasury and the front page? At a basic level, any exposure is bound to get you
noticed by somebody. And chances are, someone on your team will
eventually start a treasury (hey, it could be you!), and they’re much
more likely to feature someone whose work they know and love than a complete
stranger. So, community pays!
5. Take Out an Ad
Etsy’s reach expands far beyond the site
itself to countless crafts blogs and websites like Craftcult and Craftopolis. Posting an ad on one of these
sites just might catch the eye of an Etsy admin or a treasury curator, and at
the least will draw more eyes to your store. It’s worth setting a budget and
giving it a try.
6. Understand the Trends
Of course, you’ll always want to maintain
your own unique voice and style; that, after all, is what distinguishes you
from your competitors. But sometimes, matching your work with what’s popular
can present you with a fun creative challenge, and it doesn’t necessarily have
to change that much of you do. If red, for example, is becoming an increasingly
popular colour choice and it doesn’t interfere with your aesthetic, well, why not
produce a piece of red jewelry that a treasury is more likely to feature on its
walls?
The best way to get a grasp of what’s
popular is to take advantage of Etsy Trends and Merchandising Reports, which
detail what’s currently trending as well as what tends to be a bestseller
during different seasons. That’s great to know, as posting a Christmas-themed pendant
may catch the eye of a treasury curator in December, but not so much in May.
(That’s an obvious example, but you get the point).
The Takeaway
Getting featured on the front page of Etsy
is a pretty big deal, one that’s by no means out of your reach. By taking a few
key steps that also happen to be great for customer sales anyway, you
just might be up on that front page before you know it. Good luck!
Beverley is a blogger and freelance writer currently working at an online marketing company in
London. You can find her on twitter here.
