Gift Tags from Skelekitty, to YOU (free download!)

Are you still wrapping gifts?  Well, Skelekitty wants to help (so do I)!!  So, for the fourth year in a row, the FREE non-denominational Skelekitty gift tags/stickers (also great for non-holiday gift-giving) are available for download!  You don't even have to buy anything from me.  :)

Just click on the image you would like (yep, you can have both - nobody is keeping track).  Then, from my Flickr page, click "Download original size of this photo" to save the full sheet of tags to your computer.  Print them out, cut them and attach them to gifts (handmade, of course) and watch your friends as they squee with delight!

Positive Mid-Winter Celebratory Greetings and/or Happy 2014 to you all, however you acknowledge these cold and short days indoors.

Love,  Krissi and Skelekitty

Read more ...

FREE Downloadable Skelekitty Gift Tags Are Back!

As you all know, every now and then I like to make special items available for free.  From a marketing standpoint, it's good publicity.  From a human standpoint, it's just good.

So for the third holiday season in a row, I'm bringing back the FREE non-denominational Skelekitty gift tags/stickers (also great for non-holiday gift-giving)!  You don't even have to buy anything from me.  :)

Just click on the image you would like (yep, you can have both - nobody is keeping track).  Then, from my Flickr page, click "Download original size of this photo" to save the full sheet of tags to your computer.  Print them out, cut them and attach them to gifts (handmade, of course)!


Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Blessed Solstice, Happy Festivus, Positive Mid-Winter Celebratory Greetings, Good Luck Getting Through The Zombie Apocalypse and/or Happy 2013 to you all, however you acknowledge these cold and short days indoors.

Love,  Krissi and Skelekitty

Read more ...

Marketing Tidbit: Promoting *YOU* Without Sounding Self-Centered (Be Awesome Part II)

The most popular response I hear when I tell indie business owners that they need to promote themselves is "I don't feel comfortable talking about myself."  This definitely isn't an issue I have, but I have given it a lot of thought and have determined that you actually can promote your business without talking about yourself.  Shut up, yes, you can!

Look, here are a just a few ideas:

• DONATE.  Not only do you get the warm fuzzies, donating really is a great promotional tool.  Be sure to choose wisely and find a balance between the organization's needs and the exposure you'll gain.  Medium-sized organizations appreciate the donations more than the huge ones.  And, of course, make sure that the organization reflects the values of your business.
• Post links to shops/blogs/pages you like.  
• You will build both a following and an ersatz "street team" naturally by supporting other artists/indie business owners - make sure that you let them know that you are supporting their shops, too (but never make this mistake).  
• You can also do reviews of items you use and really love, or show off your "collection" of purchases from other indie shop owners.
• Give stuff away.  WAIT! Don't skip this bullet point yet!  You don't have to spend money.  For example, you can do informational blog posts (like these marketing tidbits) or give away online goodies, neither of which cost you anything except your time.
• Involve your fans.  
• Ask your facebook fans to help you name new products - Brooke Van Gory Designs does and her fans LOVE it!  
• Host a coloring contest on your page or your blog.  It isn't necessary to spend money to run a contest - some people will be happy with bragging rights!   Or ask some of your colleagues if they would like to donate something small from their shop to gain new customers.  
• Lean on your colleagues.  Invite your colleagues to become fans of your Facebook page - in return, be sure to become a fan of theirs.  Most want to support you and if they don't, they'll "unlike" it later so you don't have to feel like you're spamming them from your personal page.

Inviting friends is easy with the Build Audience drop down
(at least it is in June 2012 at the time of this post)

• Link-share!!  This is a good way to find new people.  I will occasionally post on my facebook fan page (or blog) asking people to tag their fan pages and post links to their online shops in the comments.  It works like a charm for me, for the other artisans AND for the fans who find new stuff!

• Promo Swap.  You probably know someone who has the same issues that you do, so why not talk their shop up and they can do the same for you?  I've done this at gallery shows and it's a much more pleasant way to sling art!

And there are tons and tons of other things you can do that will promote your brand and you won't have to say anything about yourself or your stuff at all.  Do you have an idea (see, I'm including you)?  Post a comment here on Blogger!


Read Be Awesome Part I

Want more Marketing Tidbits?

Read more ...

Marketing Tidbit: Give Presents Just Because

Every now and then I like to make special items available for free.  From a marketing standpoint, it's good publicity.  From a human standpoint, it's just good.

So for the 2011 holiday season, I'm bringing back the FREE non-denominational Skelekitty gift tags/stickers!

Just click on the image you would like (yep, you can have both - nobody is keeping track).  Then, from my Flickr page, click "Download original size of this photo" to save the full sheet of tags to your computer.  Print them out, cut them and attach them to gifts (handmade, of course)!


Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Blessed Solstice, Happy Festivus and/or Positive Mid-Winter Celebratory Greetings to you all, however you acknowledge these cold and short days indoors.


Love, Krissi and Skelekitty


See all the Marketing Tidbits

Read more ...

Marketing Tidbit: BE THE PARTY, Don't Just Wait For An Invitation

It's pretty well universally understood that sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring isn't going to get you any dates, and that if you want a social life, you need to go make one.  You know, meet people, talk, invite people over, stuff like that.  Likewise, if you don't send out invitations, it's a good bet nobody is going to show up for your parties.

So why, when it comes to business, do people forget everything they know?

Several people have told me over the last few weeks that they "don't get enough sales/walk-ins [in their online shop]" so they don't bother to put any time into it or refer customers there.  Seriously, how can anyone call/show up to your party if they don't have the number or know there's a shindig going down at your crib?

Here's the breakdown of one of these very candid back and forths (I've had about five in the last month, but this one was the easiest to find and copy/paste):

[SCENE: a group discussion about glitchiness of Facebook notifications]

Artist:  Most of the people who buy from me do so through Facebook, and it was getting very frustrating and stressful.

Krissi: Why don't you send them over to ArtFire? [note: ArtFire was suggested in this case since this artist has both ArtFire and Etsy shops and using ArtFire would save on fees.]

Artist: I have a hard time diving in completely on ArtFire because I've never gotten a "walk-in" sale from that site. I can send artists there like crazy to set up shops, but I don't spend a lot of time on the site because even when I post new links to items in that shop, I still don't get sales there.

Krissi:  The more people I send over to purchase through ArtFire, the more drop ins I get. People go there, look through the shop and tell their friends about it. So even if I have a 'sale' on facebook, I set the listing up on ArtFire and have the person purchase through there. Then they know the shop is there and they go back and browse.

Artist: I get walk-ins from time to time on Etsy, most especially because of [a collaboration shop] and [a popular blog]. Because of those two things, most of my fans are just used to Etsy. 

Krissi:  People will shop where your stuff is. There's nothing magic about Etsy - it's just a tarted up online shopping cart with name recognition.  Keep Etsy for the walk-ins, but ask your facebook fans, friends and repeat customers to go through ArtFire to save your fees. You can even increase the prices by $1 or so on Etsy to compensate for their listing fees and people will probably start 'getting used to' ArtFire pretty darned quickly.  If you don't want to increase your prices on Etsy, you can hold "ArtFire only" sales to introduce people to it.

Artist: I have to tell you, though, I don't get the bulk of my sales through my inventory at all. If I relied on either shop to pay my bills, I'd be even worse off than I am now. Most people just contact me on Facebook about custom orders, and I set them up with a Paypal invoice.

Krissi: I don't get very many drop-ins either since most of my customers come from Facebook, but I do have more than I used to AND hear from people who say they've been 'stalking' my shop for months before they actually buy something.  I've learned that most people want the freedom to look around at items with prices and without a sales clerk following them.  If they need to contact someone to ask the price, a good number of them probably won't.  Providing a fully stocked online shop with full descriptions to allow potential customers to browse at their leisure is critical.  It's kinda like me walking past Crate & Barrel every day at lunch and then one day wandering in to buy that vase I've been looking at for a week.

Here's a visual.   Look at the difference by clicking on my Facebook fan page.  Can you immediately tell what I have available for sale, what my prices are and whether I take custom orders?  

Now click on my ArtFire shop.  See a difference?

[at this point the conversation went off on another tangent about programming shop widgets and tagging, which will be addressed in separate Marketing Tidbits]

Don't be the sad pug.  Make your shop accessible and invite your customers over.  This advice has already started working for one of the Glitter Bitches Handmade Corporate Rejects, AmyLynn of Kittycrossbones Custom Promotionals, who recently reopened her custom promotionals business after a 7 month hiatus.  Not only has she successfully moved her customers from Etsy to ArtFire, but she is quickly regaining her entire customer base at the same time.  Go AmyLynn!

And GO YOU!  I know you can do it!

Read more ...

Marketing Tidbit: Play A Little

Have some fun with your customers - invite them over to play once in a while.  Laugh a little.  There doesn't need to be a payoff, a prize or a giveaway for them every time they come to visit.  Sometimes, it's enough just to hang out with you and goof off for a while.

Halloween-themed free downloadable coloring page from Kittycrossbones over on Facebook for you, your kids, your friends, whatever

Some marketing isn't going to have an immediate and direct effect on your bottom line, but it does build up your likeability, which is a huge part of what handmade is all about.  Besides, even if nothing comes of your evil plan for world domination through free coloring pages, it's worth doing for the smiles.

Read more ...

Marketing Tidbit: Be Awesome (Part I)

I was chatting online yesterday with fellow artist (and one of the newest GB Handmade Corporate Rejects Affiliate Members), Scott Krichau, about a technical problem he'd managed to get customer service help on where I had failed. When I asked him just how he'd accomplished this amazing feat of persuasion, his answer was,

"I made it clear that I was awesome and they needed me, and they bought it."

This got me to thinking about how important it is to project a certain level of self-confidence whenever you are representing your indie business (which, let's face it, is pretty much all the time, but that's a subject for another tip).

Really?  OK.  I'll just go buy stuff
from someone who doesn't suck.
Thanks for the warning, though!

I hear all the time from artists, writers and DIY company owners that they don't like to talk about themselves or that they don't think that they or their art/writing/product is 'good enough.'  Well then, my friends, let me tell you something: you either need to find a way to get over it or admit that you're in the wrong line of work because self-deprecation is NOT charming.  Not even a little bit.

I'm not saying you need to walk around saying how awesome you are.  But posting "here's my shop, like it if you want to, but I'm just starting out and my stuff sucks" isn't going to win you any new fans or customers.  Think about it, why should they want to buy something from you if you are already telling them they shouldn't want it?  I mean, would you buy it?

By publicly undervaluing your own work or even your shop design, photography or description writing skills, you are actually selling your competitors' goods to the people who would otherwise be your potential customers.

Your friends may be willing to overlook your negative self-assessments for a while, but I promise you, it will wear on them sooner or later.  Not only will you lose your initial supporters and potential customers, but you drive away others in the DIY business.

Successful indie shops aren't going to promote a shop owner who can't or won't promote him/herself.  I know because this subject comes up constantly in DIY/indie business owner/artist groups.  For example, I asked for some of the biggest marketing mistakes my colleagues noticed, and one posted "I get sick of seeing ... people do the guilt trip 'Does my stuff really suck so bad none of you want to buy it?" Another mentioned shop owners who asked for advice and then refused to follow any of it because they "'don't get enough customers to bother putting more time in to this.' *face-palm* "  Well, if you'd follow your friends' advice and stop telling everyone how much you suck, you'd probably get more customers.

Of course, there is the Irony Exception to the don't be mean to yourself rule, but if you're going to employ comedic self-deprecation, you'd better do it really REALLY well and be completely thorough about it.  Joint venture The Worst Shop Ever! is one of the few shops that has managed to get it right:

Being featured in the Regretsy book totally ups their "we suck" street cred.

OK, so we have a pretty good understanding that self-deprecation is not the same as modesty (which kinda went out of fashion in the 1920s anyway, Granny).  I'm guessing that the next question is -because it is always the next question- "But Krissi, what should I say? I don't want to sound full of myself!"  Well tune in next time for some tips on how to write positive posts, listings and descriptions (even for items you goofed up) without sounding like you think you're the best thing since sliced bread.  Trust me, it is possible.

Read "Promoting *YOU* Without Sounding Self-Centered"

Read all Marketing Tidbits

Do you have an indie business question or tip?  Drop me an e-mail at art@krissisandvik.com and let me know!

Read more ...