I received an email yesterday that I just love…and I love it because Kellene is speaking my language!

I CONSTANTLY see the advice that if you want more sales in your Etsy shop, you should re-list your stuff as often as possible. And that advice drives me nuts.

Re-listing is NOT a marketing strategy. Re-listing over and over is not only “chase marketing“…. and it’s not only serving to grow Etsy’s bank account instead of yours…and it not only perpetuates the whole “dependent on Etsy” thing… BUT…is it even helping you reach your target market? The people who will actually want to buy what you’re selling?

Here’s Kellene’s question, and my answer:

I’ve been wanting to start a blog for a couple years now.  The process of getting a blog up and running seems daunting to me especially since I am not exactly a whiz on the computer.  And then…of course…coming up with content!!!!  To tell you the truth, I’m actually proud of myself for figuring out how to get my stuff listed on my etsy site.  But now that I have that figured out its time to get some business…and relisting and renewing just does not seem like the answer to me…. Any thoughts or comments you have would be very much appreciated.

Thanks, Kellene

https://www.etsy.com/shop/twocutedollclothes

Hi Kellene…

I ABSOLUTELY agree with you that the whole re-listing and renewing thing on Etsy doesn’t work. There’s too many sellers there for that to work anymore…even though I’m still hearing that advice given an awful lot.

Unfortunately, listing and re-listing items is not a way to truly market. The main problem with doing that is that it overlooks a major goal in effective online marketing… the goal to attract the RIGHT people to you, rather than chase down every pair of eyeballs possible.

Here’s the thing: someone could get on the front page of Etsy and in front of a million people, but if none of those million people are interested in that particular item, it’s not going to help at all.

Sure, there might be a few people who see it and love it, and that’s great, but it’s kind of…no, it IS… a perfect example of the old adage “throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.”

(I don’t know about you all, but trying to keep one slimy noodle from slithering down my wall isn’t exactly what I’d call an effective marketing strategy.)

You need to get in front of the people who will actually WANT what you sell.

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So, to Kellene….

I took a really quick peek at your shop, and I think blogging could be a GREAT thing for you,  since you have such a specific target audience. Since you’re selling handmade doll clothes, your target market is moms (and probably grandmoms) of small kids… so if you had a blog, you could write about things geared specifically for them.

You would want to write about topics you think they would actually be searching for.

That would take a little time and research for you (really getting to know your target customer, and their wants and needs), but I just know it would be very worth your while. Then, with a little time, you’d start showing up in search engines for those topics you wrote about, and your target audience would start to find you.

The awesome thing about blogging is that you don’t have to do any renewing or republishing, ever.

A blog post will live forever out there, and once you build it up,  it just continually brings you traffic (traffic who will actually be interested in what you’ve got).

I totally understand about the ‘blogging seeming daunting’ part… I felt the same exact way. I started out on eBay way back when, and I could barely figure out how to upload a photo! It’s one of those things that you can learn little by little as you go, and it really does get easier.