Newsletter Committee:
Brandy of WylesStyle
Kimberly of cinnamonspice
Sarah of Scrapadot
Tamara of tpdesign
---Interested in joining the newsletter team? We have several openings right now, and we’re always open to new ideas! For more information, click here or email Brandy at wylesstyle@yahoo.com with EtsyMom Newsletter in the subject line.
EtsyMoms Involved in Art Show
Members of the EtsyMom and NC Triangle Street Teams pulled together to make the art show/silent auction a resounding success at the school of Cinnamon's (of CinnamonSpice) daughter on Wednesday, April 30th. The donations of these fabulous teams were auctioned off as part of a charity event to raise funds for the parent's council, which has used its resources to purchase items such as this outdoor group art easel, to enrich the children's educational experience.
The night began with a spaghetti dinner and slide show of the children in action throughout the school year. After dinner, guests were free to browse and bid on the silent auction donations as well as "ooo" and "ahhhh" over their children's art displayed throughout the school.Thank you to the Etsians for contributing merchandise worth over $140.00 in retail value to thi
s worthy cause. The beautiful "Bucket of Spring" bag was contributed by ReVamped Creations. Hair Bow Diva donated two gift certificates for an adorable customized magazine cover. Cinnamon & Spice Crafts provided two mini "Pillow Kids" and the "Sweet Baby Girl" frame.Orange Cat Art provided the scenic notecards featuring wonderful images of North Carolina's Outer Banks coastline and lighthouses. Again, kudos to these Etsians for their appreciation of the importance of early childhood education!
Spotlight
Rosie’s Cozies was featured on Made To Match Universe. madetomatchuniverse.blogspot.com
Craftabulous was featured on the blog Mama’s Magic. mamasmagic.blogspot.com
Daisy Designs Cloth Doll Diapers were featured on a zrecs blog. zrecs.blogspot.com
s worthy cause. The beautiful "Bucket of Spring" bag was contributed by ReVamped Creations. Hair Bow Diva donated two gift certificates for an adorable customized magazine cover. Cinnamon & Spice Crafts provided two mini "Pillow Kids" and the "Sweet Baby Girl" frame.Orange Cat Art provided the scenic notecards featuring wonderful images of North Carolina's Outer Banks coastline and lighthouses. Again, kudos to these Etsians for their appreciation of the importance of early childhood education!Spotlight
Rosie’s Cozies was featured on Made To Match Universe. madetomatchuniverse.blogspot.com
Craftabulous was featured on the blog Mama’s Magic. mamasmagic.blogspot.com
Daisy Designs Cloth Doll Diapers were featured on a zrecs blog. zrecs.blogspot.com
Birthdays
Happy Birthday Moms!
3rd: GemmaBeads
5th: Babytogodesigns
6th: lyoungstudio
14th: Aebaby
16th: SCRAPcast
20th: prettybowtique
3rd: GemmaBeads
5th: Babytogodesigns
6th: lyoungstudio
14th: Aebaby
16th: SCRAPcast
20th: prettybowtique
23rd: Mayauhome
Business Tips and Tricks
So you have zero start up capitol, but still want to advertise and get your name out there. Here are 3 ideas for you to start with.
First and foremost, make business cards! This is a priority, not a suggestion. There are so many things that you can do with them. You can get some designed for you if you have a little extra money or get them at vistaprint.com for free, these won't be well designed but they will do for now. (**Now on a side note, I do design business cards for fellow Etsy sellers at a huge discount compared to my usual price for design, for the reason of I know what it's like to try starting up a company on a dream and a prayer. )
There are a few places that you can use them at; first restaurants: leave them with your tip or drop them in the "win a free lunch bowl". Believe it or not the people cleaning out that bowl every week take the time to look at who's in there, especially if you get cards that stand out. I made my cards 2" x 2", they are not the normal size of business cards (2 x 3.5), which brings up a good point, they don't have to be the usual size. Things to remember are: you want them to fit in people's pocket/wallet without being a problem.
The second thing you can do with business cards is leave them on tables at Starbucks, or bulletin boards, Barnes and Nobles, leave them on a bench in the mall - you can leave them just about anywhere for people to find them. Liana, at BusyMomCreations, suggested leaving them in your back windshield wiper for people to take. This works especially well if you have a Car Decal. Which by the way she sells at a fantastic price!
Lastly about the business cards, they are great for handing out face to face, or giving to other shops for their promo bags. Etsy has several groups that get together and "trade" business cards for the purpose of helping each other promote, check out the forums for how to get involved. BTW - you don't have to always be the one handing out the business cards. Give some to your family, friends, co-workers anyone you believes in your store and can talk you up! Or place a couple extra business cards in with your orders, if your buyers really like what they get they are going to talk about your shop with others and if they have extra cards they can give them those.
Some other out of the box ideas are, moving billboards, not actual billboards. Your car. You drive all over the place, place an ad on it. Great exposure there. If you use the link from above to check out BusyMomCreations, you can get your name and URL made into a vinyl sticker that you place on your car. How cool is that. Pair that with some business cards and you got a good thing.
Think about your packaging too! How is your stuff packaged? Do you just throw things into a box and ship it off or do you take the extra step to package things nicely before sending it off. One shop I know of makes their own bubble mailers to ship their products in. They were nice of enough to share how to do this here http://thisis.notarobot.net. Now you don't have to go this far, but think on what your customers sees when they receive your package. Go beyond their expectations and they will return. Why do you think Disney is so popular? They didn't become the #1 vacation destination by meeting every ones expectations, but by blowing them out of the water! Think Disney when you are branding, marketing and advertising yourself and you will have more customers than you know what to do with.
New Members
Welcome to all 96 New EtsyMoms members who joined in April!