Many designer-makers sell their wares on big marketplaces like Amazon or Etsy, which enables them to become visible to a large audience almost seamlessly. However, these marketplaces can also make it difficult to stand out among the competition. If you are a designer-maker, DIY-er, or any other creative who sells homemade goods, you may have decided that setting up your own e-commerce shop is in your best interests.

Even after launching an e-commerce site, it can be difficult to stand apart from the herd. Thankfully, there are many different ways that you can promote your business and establish your value as an individual seller. With such a competitive market, it can be tempting to cut corners or engage in tactics that are less-than-savory. We’ll look at the top mistakes to avoid when promoting your craft e-commerce site and what you can do instead.

By now, we all know that Instagram is the place to be for creatives. This network provides an amazing opportunity to build authentic relationships that feel intimate and true. Plus, Instagram is all about beautiful, artistic, bold images. But while we pride ourselves on being creative, let’s be honest here: it is hard to post stunning content every single day. At the same time, we stumble upon these gorgeous feeds with hundreds of thousands of followers and we start doubting our abilities. We get impostor syndrome, and think that our Insta feed will never look nearly as cool and polished.

I’ve heard that over 80% of Americans want to write a book, but less than 1% ever do. That’s too bad! I wish I could have a minute to talk with each and every one of them and share my experience. I think some of them would be persuaded to actually put in the effort. Because the truth is, writing and publishing my first book changed my business (and my life) more than any other single action ever has. It was the catalyst that catapulted my success to where it is now.

Becoming an author expanded my audience exponentially, made me a go-to authority in my niche, created an additional stream of passive income, and positively changed my life in so many ways.

When it comes to drafting up your copy for a Facebook ad, you can’t just one-and-done apply the copywriting techniques you’d use for Google ads, or the copywriting techniques you’d use for a sales page.

Facebook ads are a new bear, and here’s why you need to tackle them a little bit differently!

It pains my little copywriter heart a bit, but, unlike a lot of web marketing, your images actually count for more here: upwards of 75% of your ad’s conversion rate is all thanks to your image, show studies from Consumer Acquisition.

Have you ever had an email subscriber hop on your list … just to grab the freebie and peace out once you send a weekly newsletter?  

Yup, it happens to us all. Which stinks, because you’re just burning the midnight oil to build your list for your upcoming pitch or offer, and it just stays static at a plateau.  

What if I told you there was a little hack to getting those folks to stick around AND fall more in love with you and what you have to teach in the process? 

Marketing can do pretty amazing stuff for your business. But the one part of it that's not that cool is customer profiles. And that's especially true if you're starting a brand new blog from scratch.

What's a customer profile anyways?

Customer profiles are semi-fictional representations of the people you want to reach. These profiles, also known as buyer personas, include details such as:

• Who you want to reach
• What they do for a living
• How old they are
• Problems that they face daily that might impact their decision to buy things.

Quizzes are so hot right now. Think of all those quizzes from Buzzfeed that fill your night. Wondering what kind of Starbucks drink you are. Finding out what type of home you should buy based off how you would make a burger. That stuff is deep.

Well, let’s use that quiz fever for good, shall we? Let’s provide value (gasp!) and grow our lists at the same time (double gasp!). Earlier this week we debuted our first quiz, Find Out Your Productivity Spirit Animal. Today, we’re walking you through how to make your very own quiz step-by-step.

YouTube can seem like a pretty scary obstacle to tackle. Not only is it video (eeek, your face is now out there for the world to see!), but how do you create a video strategy that’s manageable for you?! What is a video strategy? What you do know is, if you are going to take on a new platform you want to have a strategic plan and have a measurable ROI from your new endeavor!

I feel ya! I am a mom to 2 little ones under 3 and I’m not going to take on a new platform that will suck up more of my time (I’m looking at you Facebook), let alone a platform where I need to get showered and dolled up every week just to film videos!  

This is exactly why having a plan will not only save you time BUT will allow your videos to convert at a much higher rate. I plan out my videos ahead of time and film as many as possible in one day thanks to my video strategy. This allows me to stay consistent with my video content.

Way back in 2015, we shared our secrets on how we increased our Pin impressions by 53,285.71% in just two weeks! That is bananas. Since we get asked all the time to share our Pinterest strategy, we’d like to walk you through the tactics we used back then to make it all happen.

You might be aware that we now use Tailwind to make this process even easier, but for those of you on a shoestring budget, this can get you big results for f-r-e-e.

Today, we’re covering the secret daily formula that took us from 3% Pinterest Referral Traffic, to 32.39% without decreasing other traffic sources. We’re also giving you a nice peek at Pinterest Analytics so you can begin to see how your own account is shaping up.
 

Back when we were just using the daily Pinterest formula (so no Tailwind yet), our Pinterest profile was being seen on average 7,175 times daily. Pins that linked back directly to our website increased by 100% and we began to see average daily impressions in the tens of thousands. How can you make this happen?