Indie CEO

Be Real!

2011-12-31T11:17:00.000-05:00

It is the new year and the traditional time to review the past business year so we can look forward to a successful new year for our handmade and artisan businesses.

This is not going to be a post about making strategic plans, updating your business plan, or other brain-twisting exercises to implement.

It is a post about reality.

I am, by day, a strategic marketing communications professional, who works with small businesses to help them push forward with their branding and market recognition. The core component to my consultation is.....reality.

Be real with your expectations of your business and the expectations of your customers. From there, all else falls into place.

I could stop there and leave you with that wise message, but I will explain a bit to grab this concept.

Be Real with YOUR Expectations of Your Business
Take an audit of what you do within your business framework. For example:

How much time did you give to your business last year:
How much time do you have to give to your business in reality?
How much money did you put back into your business last year?
How much money do you really have to put into your business?

If these are out-of-balance, you should readjust your thinking and expectations.

Time and money may make a business.

But, it is HOW you spend your time and money that makes success!

Be Real About the Expectations of Your Customers
You should know your customers well enough by now to know what they expect from you. If you have sold one, two, or 202 items, you can see a trend.

Much of what customers expect from you is driven by you!
Now is the time to figure out if your customer interaction and service process is working best for both of you.
If not, change it so it works best for the customer AND for you.

The expectations of your customers are set by your communication messages and your actions. What do you tell them? (policies, shop announcements, advertising, blogs, etc...) And, what do you actually do? (shipping times, quality of goods, exchanges, packaging, etc...)

Once you align your expectations for yourself based upon realty with the expectations of your customers through communications, there will be much smoother sailing in 2012.

Seek out small business owners who exhibit this balance. Network with them and let them share with you how they do it!

Let's make 2012 the year of balance and being real. Best to you all for 2012!

Do I Really Need Social Networking for My Artisan or Handmade Online Shop?

2011-07-24T12:11:00.004-04:00

As a follow-up to an IndieCEO post on social networking, "Social Networking: Time Waster or Business Builder...," I received a couple of excellent questions from Infused Moments. Be sure to check out her very cute shop!

In my original post referenced above, I talked about networking sites like ning, IndiePublic, and other handmade and artist communities outside of Facebook and Twitter. Infused Moments asks:

What about social networking sites like Twitter? Would that be a good one to have and maintain?

What if you have an account on one of these social networking sites, could you just use that one or should you create a whole new one that is all about your online store?

What kinds of edits should you make everyday on your networking sites? Like about sales, new products, etc..??

This may be a long blog article but it is important information to consider, especially if you are new to online selling and social networking.

Overview

As an overview, I present these marketing subjects from a strategic level, since that is my profession. However, there are many articles on the web that discuss the tactical efforts for social networking and specifically for Twitter and Facebook for handmade. Search and you will find some great and useful information. A good start is to search on handmadeology.com.

It is important to look at your business from a strategic, big-picture viewpoint. It is the difference between being in the clouds or being in the weeds.

If we step back and look at the big picture of what we are doing with social networking, how much time it takes away from creating, and how it might affect our overall sales in the future (clouds), we can decide what to do on a daily basis to get each individual sale (weeds).

Social networking accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn have come to be expected for a business presence, both in the handmade community and in the corporate community. When our market niche expects something, we need to be there no matter the level of activity. I would suggest that a handmade shop needs to be branded on these sites with at least account profiles for business pages, even if consistent participation is not possible.

Business or Personal?

What if you have an account (personal) on one of these social networking sites, could you just use that one or should you create a whole new one that is all about your online store?

Because the strategic objective is to brand your business shop and bring in “likes” and followers within your targeted customer base, your “business” activities need to be in your “business” name.

There is nothing wrong with inviting your personal friends to like and follow your business pages/networks and there is nothing wrong with deploying business information through your personal channels to a small degree. However, keeping your business just that…..business, is the professional way to manage your shop’s branding. It also allows you to actually target your niche customer demographics.

In other words, if you make cute widgettes for young women in the 19 to 26 age range, then those are the people you need to find online and bring them into your networks. If you make children’s items, find the decision makers - moms - and participate in “mommy” networks.

Another example is that of my GalleriaLinda brand handmade jewelry, I know that my buyers tend to be in the 30 to 60 age range and are usually career women or highly active in local communities. I have joined several online networks for local businesses and career women because that is where I will find this demographic.

Which Network is Best to Start?

What about social networking sites like Twitter? Would that be a good one to have and maintain?

It is my opinion that Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are the first and best strategic networking sites to have a profile account because these accounts are expected by consumers when they discover your business. They want to go somewhere online to find out the whole story. If you have a branded website like my GalleriaLinda Jewelry website, they will look for that first. If not, then they will go to these others.

Consider your profile on these accounts as a mini-business card that, depending upon the site, can expand into your mini-brochure. This will provide branding SEO and can bring in friends and followers from your niche community of sellers and buyers.

If you had to only choose one, my opinion is to have a business page on Facebook. Facebook provides a platform for you to have a mini-network all your own.Many selling venues have Facebook page code so you can even sell from your Facebook account. You can interact with people, invite them to like, and generally be the friendly chatty shopkeeper, while branding your business and nurturing potential customer relationships.

Twitter is a good way to get your links in front of a lot of people quickly, especially if you use hashtags. If you send out a tweet about a new listing with a link, just put #handmade or #yoursellingvenue to push your link out to hundreds of others over and above your own numbers of followers. Just be mindful of the 140 character limit. Twitter is social so be sure to "talk" to others to nurture relationships, comment on their links and retweet information.

With shop RSS feeds, you can set up feeds to Facebook and Twitter so every time you list one or two items, it feeds automatically to both with links to your item. Pretty nifty! I use http://www.twitterfeed.com that can feed to a variety of networks. There are others as well.

Why Update Profiles?

What kinds of edits should you make every day on your networking sites? Like about sales, new products, etc..??

When I talk about updating your profiles frequently, this is to make sure that your profiles and branding are more SEO friendly to come up in searches. Google loves new content and ranks it higher than stale content with no activity or change. Any minor change you make to the content or by switching out photos refreshes it and deploys it out into Internet land one more time.

If you are active on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you will not need to update your profile itself if you are tweeting and posting, which is your updated content. If you are inactive, then it is a good idea to tend to your profile once a week.

It is an SEO strategy to be found more readily online and in searches. These updates can be minor tweaks, a series of planned tag lines you switch out, an introduction to a new type product, or just a mention of what you are working on and when customers can expect to see them in your shop. It does not need to be extensive – replacing a sentence or an avatar or photo is fine. Consistency is the key.

Conclusion!

Now for the big question that we all want to know!

Will these social networking sites bring in sales?

The quick nutshell answer is….yes and no. It depends!

It depends on so many variables, such as your product, your followers’ demographics, and your consistent network activity. Many sellers say they do get sales through Twitter and Facebook and they work them hard. The key is having people follow you who are interested enough in your product to buy in the first place (your niche customer demographic). And THAT is the puzzle.

Thank you Infused Moments for the great questions that can help all of us!

Pricing Your Handmade Products Can Be Challenging

2011-03-16T13:12:00.000-04:00

Pricing my Gallerialinda handmade beaded jewelry is often challenging. There are many thing to consider, such as hard costs of materials, time, markup for retail, and a phantom price that the market will bear. So, your costs + time + markup may not equal price that sells the item.

Usually, after figuring out my whole cost formula, I will then search the Internet for similar items using similar materials to see what is listed and if I can, research what has been sold (although some venues will not show the sold price). From there I will throw a dart at the board and come up with a price that I think is market-friendly.

Here is a great video from Dr. David Weiman on pricing your jewelry. It will translate to any handmade item you create and is worth viewing. He makes a case that artisan, handcrafted jewelry makers should charge more for their jewelry, because the right buyers will pay more for it.

It is all about marketing to your specific buyer that loves artisan products. That is the key!

Strategic Trends for Online Selling and Handmade Communities for 2011

2011-01-01T10:46:00.001-05:00

Everyone is talking "trends" these days. The new year always brings about predictions and opinions on what our world will look like and how our business will fare in the coming year.

Here are some specific strategic trends that relate to online sellers and the handmade community as "solopreneurs." You can read the enhanced article with details on FoxBusiness.com .

Wishing you a profitable 2011!

Organic, green initiatives and renewable energy will continue to be among the hottest investments and trends.
Financing will continue to be difficult into 2011; most small business will turn to non-bank asset-based lending and pay more on the amount borrowed. Lenders will screen out businesses that don't have a solid business model.
Unemployment will continue to rise. Small businesses will continue to lead innovation in the marketplace.
More Fortune 500 companies will market to women specifically.
The distinctions between online and offline will become irrelevant.
Brands will have to play well with others, as companies have less and less control over how, when, where and with what other products their brands are experienced.
We will need to move from thinking about individual products to thinking about cohesive experiences and must continue the evolution of integrating online and offline brand experiences.
We have to get into the mind of our customers so that we are delivering brand experiences where, when and how they want them.
Increase in apps usage as more and consumers use smartphones in their business as well as their personal life.
Cloud computing can be a phenomenal innovation for working collaborations to enable solopreneurs and small firms to work in real time to leverage resources with great efficiency.
People will talk less and text and e-mail more.
Solopreneurs who took jobs to survive in 2008 and 2009 will relaunch their practices or other new entrepreneurial endeavors.
The number of networking groups you can join will continue to increase, forcing those groups to be more strategic about their message and the value they provide.
Allowing information seekers to replay webinars and live events at their convenience will continue.
More peer-to-peer business planning. Because of the need for prompt business idea validation and feedback, startups may emerge as key components of business planning for next-generation entrepreneurs.
Business plans will start to appear in a more compact and digital form., making them more accessible to potential funders, mentors and potential customers.

New Look - Revamping for 2011 - And New Graphic Resources for You

2010-11-28T14:47:00.000-05:00

I have been in an updating mode - a rework of "the plan" for 2011 for all things online: shops, blogs, profiles, etc... Here is IndieCEO's new banner look! I am rethinking shop banners and avatars too. It will take some organization to get all of them changed on all the networking profiles.

Large corporations will update their logos and look every 5-10 years. Even if they keep the same images, they will freshen them up a bit for a current look.

With the IndieCEO banner, I wanted to achieve an artistic look, but a current look and a bit edgy. The image of the hands reminds me of potter's hands. The grunge text adds to the edge and the great mix of deep colors contrasting with selected lighting adds drama.

Here are some free graphic resources I use for all my work and hope you will find some uses for these too!

There are many free fonts to be had online but I seem to keep going back to fontsquirrel.com as they always have what I need - quick and easy.

For free textured backgrounds - especially the grunge backgrounds, I just love LostAndTaken.com and use them frequently.

For your holiday shopping pleasure, there are new, awesome, "off-the-wall" earring designs in GalleriaLinda's loft shop on Zibbet. And, a 10% off - free US shipping promo too! These are great inexpensive "Secret Santa" gifts gatherings at work, clubs, groups, or church!

Wishing you a great holiday selling season!

'Tis the Season to Know Your Customer

2010-11-13T10:12:00.000-05:00

We are into the heart of the holiday selling season! Although I am prepared as I can be for my tiny business, it always sneaks up on me. Preparations in July for year-end holidays just seem unnatural, but necessary!

The concept of "knowing your customer" has been introduced many times in this blog, as this is the heart of your business.

To make more sales, you must bring your product to your target customer - to where they work, play, and live. Through advertising and exposure direct to those who are interested, you eliminate the waste of effort and money.

IndieCEO recently wrote a guest post for the Zibbet blog about this very thing. Read more to find out methods you can use to figure out the customer profile for your product.

Fun Software Training Even I can Afford

2010-11-11T14:24:00.000-05:00

Oh my. Does software training sound dry and boring to you? Expensive even? Homework-esque? Drudgery?

Well, I have a resource for you that I have used since the late 90s and just love it. www.Lynda.com has been offering online video training for a long time and is well established. I have watched them grow over the years and am amazed at their current 910 courses.

Starting out with the basic business and graphic software, they now have a tremendous line-up of expanded titles that touch Selling on eBay, Making Money with Podcasts, and OpenSource.org. There is a treasure-trove of good, fun, video training to be had at Lynda's!

There are several payment plans but when I get a hankerin' for software training (and...I do), I will pay the $25 monthly fee (no contract) and have fun for a month then stop the subscription. Then, maybe I will pick it up for a month the next year. For that one fee, all 910 training titles are available to YOU!

If you do it this way, to get the most benefit, you will need to be organized for that one month. I actually schedule "appointments" on my calendar to carve out time to do this. Each course has a course outline that you can view along with free video peeks into certain chapters.

As small businesses, micro-business, and especially us "kitchen-table businesses," it gives us an economical way to keep up-to-date with software and skills that will help us manage our own businesses. It will also make us more marketable in the workplace.

At Lynda's you can:
– Stay current and keep skills sharp
– Learn innovative and productive techniques
– Access over 910 online courses, 24/7
– Learn from experienced instructors
– Gain confidence and marketability
– Learn at your own pace: Stop, rewind, replay

Have fun!

Art Photography and Editorial Photography

2010-11-06T10:23:00.000-04:00

(All photos in this blog post are ©2010 Copyright John Evans, All Rights Reserved)

There are many uses for interesting photos and just as many perspectives on how photography should be presented.

I wanted to share some great photos from a friend of mine, John Evans, who is a real estate agent, specializing in Florida land.

John amazes me with his "eye" for photography that allows him to capture the the real feel and flavor of the land he is presenting. You can read more about John's photography on the GalleriaLindaShowcase blog and view additional photos of John Evans' in this post.

Purists in the art photography community will say that these photos (or any photo) should be able to stand alone on their own with little or no Photoshop editing. I agree that is absolutely the goal for art photography. Art photography presents that highly creative and technically skilled photographer, who has the critcal creative eye for composition and knows how to capture rich colors, lighting, and focus of the subject. Art photography sometimes makes my jaw drop with appreciation of those skills.

Photos that come across my desk are used in my designs for glossy magazine property brochures, such as the one for John's Lake Disston, Florida parcel of over 3,600 acres. They are editorial in content and use. Some photos I receive from the agents are even "artistic" in the layman's definition, but require editing for print purposes. Many are questionable for use at all!

The photos you see here are indeed heavily edited in Photoshop for output on a variety of commercial printing equipment. The original photos would have had much less impact without the editing.

The photos we use have to look good to a layman's eye; satisfy the client, the agent, the marketing team, and the broker. The photos in these brochures are the conduit that sparks the reader to want to see more.

I work with dozens of land real estate agents who take their own photos of property listings. Most photos are "ok" but must have Photoshop editing in order to be used at all.

John is one in a million when it comes to property photos. He is not a professional photographer, but is an emerging amateur photographer who can take his photography to the next level!

Run Your Business with Open Source: Illustration Software

2010-08-31T10:30:00.000-04:00

If you are an illustrator with no funds for Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator to further your passion for drawing, here is a GREAT open source vector drawing program.

There are so many free sources online at this time that one could literally run a graphics business on freeware and open source software for business apps and graphics apps.

Scalable vector graphics are those that you can draw in a software program that can be resized without losing quality. Professional illustrators will use the likes of Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator to draw their images, then save as .jpg (or other) to be used online or in print media. However, the native file in the software retains the ability to resize up or down to create sharp, quality graphics.

I have not used inkscape because I have the other two, however, reviews say that it truly rivals the Corel and Adobe Illustrator programs.

Give it a try and have fun! http://www.inkscape.org/

TWITTER: Know Your Social Media Limitations

2010-08-30T09:30:00.001-04:00

I had an interesting question sent to me on Twitter recently. This person could no longer follow anyone and thought Twitter was having issues!

For those of you new to Twitter, there are "following" limits. Did you know that? Not many people new to Twitter do and it would help if they did.

Twitter Help offers this:

"If you've reached a follow limit, you can help yourself by reducing your following number until it resembles your followers number. Since the follow limit is based on followers/following ratio rather than time, you'll have to un-follow people before you're able to follow again."

Reducing your following numbers is easy with third party utilities - there are dozens. I like to use Dossy's Twitter Karma as I find it easier than the others. You can find more by searching on Google "Twitter Unfollow Tool."

You can follow IndieCEO/GalleriaLinda here and I would love to have you as a twitter and Facebook buddy!

IndieCEO Blog - http://www.twitter.com/IndieCEO
GalleriaLinda Handcrafted Jewelry & Beads - http://www.twitter.com/Gallerialinda
GalleriaLindaLoft Vintage Jewelry - http://www.twitter.com/GalleriaLoft

GalleriaLinda's Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/gallerialinda

Edit, Edit, Edit....Make it Work!

2010-08-28T08:56:00.001-04:00

If you watch Project Runway on TV, you will know these words well!

Project Runway is a show of fashion designer contestants that participate in design challenges in hopes of becoming the big winner. Tim Gunn, the designer-contestant-overseer, reviews all work in progress and frequently says "Edit, edit, edit...." and always ends with "Make it work!"

And so it is that this is good advice for everything we do. As online sellers especially, we need to "Edit, Edit, Edit....Make it Work!" in all areas of our business.

I took this thought to heart the other day and made a plan to edit my shops and inventory. It is time! On iCraft.ca/GalleriaLinda where I sell my handcrafted contemporary beaded jewelry, I have some jewelry designs that have not sold and are a year old or more that really do not represent my evolving design point-of-view (another Project Runway buzz word).

Pictured above is my evolving design perspective today and in the days to come, I will be selecting older items to either deconstruct and reuse materials, donate, giveaway, or place on another venue as clearance.

We must keep our shops fresh and current to where we are today and this is a journey, not a destination. I see that every six months an inventory audit is needed and GalleriaLinda's handcrafted jewelry, vintage jewelry, and bead shops will be doing that!

Announcing CentralFloridaOnline Where IndieCEO Contributes Articles

2010-07-26T20:29:00.001-04:00

You can find IndieCEO and GalleriaLinda now on CentralFloridaOnline as an author!

Authoring articles about you, your businesses' services, or products is a great way to become known. Articles that will offer up informative topics that can be used by others is a goodwill gesture that will not be forgotten. Share your knowledge and people will appreciate you. And, every time you are posted online is an SEO target for people to find you!

I write for several blogs, as well as my own and have recently written blog posts for placement on CentralFloridaOnline. If you are from Florida, this is a great website to get Florida news, human interest stories, and happenings in Central Florida!

Charity Giving for Business

2010-07-25T16:26:00.000-04:00

One of the things I love about online networking is meeting others who are street-smart marketers. One such friend is FairyCardmaker on iCraft.ca. I discovered a great two-part blog series that she wrote on charity giving for business. It is right on point.

Charity giving can be planned strategically as a part of your business plan. When working it into your objectives for the business year, you will not only be in control of how much inventory and investment you hand out, but also will have the ability to select charities that may benefit to your business.

As FairyCardmaker shows us, we can be specific in our planning for charity giving that may give us the opportunity for exposure to our products, advertising to a target group, or even develop other opportunities for our products. Charity giving is easy, welcomed, and helpful. It also can give your business a boost! I recommend this reading.

From the FairyCardmaker Blog: Business or Pleasure?
Why not BOTH? Just because you are running a business to earn a living doesn't mean that giving to charity has to be a one-way trip out of your pocket. There are many ways that you can work charitable donations or time in to your business model. It's a win-win scenario!

The key to selecting a charity to support is knowing your target market. You can create a symbiotic relationship with a charity where the host is a shared target market. This topic will be covered in two parts:

Online Sellers: How Important Is It To You?

2010-07-17T14:15:00.002-04:00

...to have one page that you promote that will show all your shops, social media connections, and other widgets? It is pretty important to me. As online sellers, we can get pretty scattered across the Internet with multiple social media networks and multiple shops.

Zibbet has made this possible. It astounds me (in a good way!) that the Zibbet philosophy is to give artists, crafters, artisans, vintage sellers, and craft supply sellers a place to gather all of their Internet presence and paste it onto one page to promote. They encourage that!

No more worrying about how/if you can link to your web site that sells the same items. No more worrying about promoting your bead shop from your jewelry shop. There is nothing to hide here. And, I love the openness and helpfulness of Zibbet admin when it comes to online selling and it is a welcomed breath of fresh air.

I have had GalleriaLindaLoft's Vintage Jewelry shop on Zibbet for a little over three months now and have opened another GalleriaLinda Bead Shop on Zibbet that will soon go "premium." The "Loft" shop is a premium shop and I am delighted in what I can do to help promote my tiny business.

I cannot fully express how much I love the look - very white, very clean, and very uncluttered, as an artisan community should be. And I can manage how large my product photos are, and the color of the Zibbet logo, and categories, and, and, and..... There are just too many features to describe right now and new features come on board weekly. Oh, and I just used the sale/discount/free shipping feature. Oh my goodness...no more editing EACH listing. One click and I am done!! There is a gift certificate feature too. Well, go check it out or I will talk your ear off. Zibbet is fairly new on the scene and traffic is building quickly and there is a certain excitement within the community.

You can check out my post on the GalleriaLindaShowcase handmade jewelry blog here. It has screen shots to give you a taste of how you can promote your other shops (with photo widgets), your Facebook, your Twitter accounts, and anything else with widgets!

Right now, until July 20 - you can get a FREE month when you become a premium member! After that you pay only $9 a month until the 119 (at this writing) shops are gone (then the price goes up). Click here to get started on Zibbet. Hope to see you there!

A Bead Giveaway Like No Other - 7-1/2 lbs of BEADS!

2010-06-30T10:06:00.000-04:00

In my blog surfing, I found a great blog by Denise Yezbak Moore (http://deniseyezbakmoore.blogspot.com) and she is doing a HUGE giveaway of BEADS, beads, beads! Unbelievable styles and colors are in this giveaway.

How can you not enter for this? So, stop what you are doing and get over to her blog - run like the wind to enter!

DEADLINE is this FRIDAY JULY 2 to enter! Good Luck!

Diary Project 2011 - Fabulous Free Advertising for Artists

2010-05-29T18:48:00.004-04:00

There are opportunities for FREE advertising and promotion all around us. Just keep up with a few artists' forums and you will always see calls for product and seller features. Keep your eyes open!

One such project that GalleriaLinda has participated in for three years is the Diary Project, organized and implemented by Fantazya, a long-time Etsy seller of handmade. The Diary 2011 Project is starting and dates are being offered now.

The diary is a calendar book, spiral bound, that has all dated pages created and designed by artists! The artists work their shop information into the designs and get year-round exposure for FREE. What a great concept this is!

And, it has been successful for years. Once all of the artwork is sent in, Fantazya coordinates the printing and cover options. These make GREAT gifts too.

When you participate, you are NOT obligated to purchase the Diary, but you are simply a featured artist. Each page is a window of original art for each day of the year. See the Diary 2010 Project Flickr postings.

I highly recommend this, so go lock in a date today and you will receive an email with all the information and due dates. You will have year-round exposure of your web site or shop URL to people all over the world.

This year, the layout will be a little different.

Read all about the Diary Project 2011 HERE!

Local Artisan Market is Today! A Great Networking Opportunity

2010-02-13T10:45:00.000-05:00

Supporting your own local artisan community through your blogs, forums, and your attendance to fairs and markets gives you a great networking opportunity! You can meet like-minded people, either online or in person, and form friendships that will last a lifetime, as well as support for your art or craft.

Here in Lakeland, FL, we have an artisan market for local artisans that is held by Yia Yia's Bead Shop. The quality of artisans is great and the variety of handmade items is fabulous. These one-day markets are perfect for communities and artisans alike. This artisan market is held quarterly.

And, today is the day that the Artisan Market is open! The Florida weather is fabulous - cool, sunny, slight breeze, and no humidity - a perfect day to go. Local artists are displaying original art, pottery, paintings, jewelry, glass art, and more. If you go, meet Yia Yia's new neighbor, Red Door Wine Market and enjoy a glass of wine, beer or coffee! Photos are representative of work you will find there.

It is refreshing to see such creativity all in one place. I guarantee that you will find something you love. Owning something handmade is special because it is meaningful. Each piece is made with great care and an abundance of artisan creativity.

All of you can support Yia Yia's efforts in supporting our local artisan community too by becoming a Facebook fan and following on Twitter!

Yia Yia's Facebook - become a fan! Follow Yia Yia's on Twitter too.

Animated Ads For Etsy Sellers

2010-02-09T16:34:00.002-05:00

This is an awesome utility for Etsy Sellers. You can create ads from your Etsy shops that can be shared, embedded, or posted. You have a choice of several different sizes, so get your ads created and post them all over the Internet! See GalleriaLindaLoft's Vintage Shop ad above.

Find out all about esellerads on the Etsy Storque Blog. Very classy!

http://esellerads.com/

HandmadeNews.org Feature on IndieCEO

2009-11-28T10:06:00.002-05:00

IndieCEO was featured on HandmadeNews.org! Part 1 has been published and part 2 is to come, so stay tuned! We talked about my GalleriaLinda Contemporary Handmade Beaded and Silver Wire Jewelry online business, the shops I have for GalleriaLindaLoft's vintage, supplies, and other things, as well as my marketing communications background and why I put it all together to start IndieCEO.

Written by Wendy T. Gibson, the Crafty Canadian, who makes crafts, writes about crafts and coordinates crafty events, I was honored to be sought out for this feature. We actually did the interview via Google Chat, which was second best to talking in person. We talked about all kinds of things outside of the feature focus and chatted about crafting, backgrounds, and other things for over an hour.

Wendy is a columnist for HandmadeNews.org and is a former award-winning Event Coordinator for Michaels, the Arts & Crafts store. She has taught beading classes designed and sponsored by BeadStyle Magazine and has managed a bead store, a ceramic studio, a scrapbooking store and a second-hand bookstore. She also started and manages the Peterborough Downtown Craft Market in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, and Wendy sells handmade online too.

Best in Class: Third iCraft's Sellers' Bootcamp Starts November 1

2009-10-27T10:36:00.009-04:00

Just in time for this most important holiday selling season, the third iCraft Sellers' Bootcamp will kick off on November 1, 2009 with a bang! The www.iCraft.ca site is an international selling venue exclusive to handmade items.

Designed this time specifically for the holiday selling season, this FREE online sellers' marketing class goes for 28 days (weekends off) and has daily marketing and advertising assignments (free and low-cost methods) to promote your shop that will take only 30 minutes a day.

What I like about the class is that it makes me accountable to prioritize what will give me the biggest bang for my efforts. This will be the third iCraft Sellers' Bootcamp I have taken and I have to tell you that I come away each time with new strategies. It is well worth my time for a third one!

The program leader is Christine Skaley (PillowThrowDecor) who comes from a 26-year career in sales, sales training, strategic planning, and instructional teaching. She is a fabulous motivator and leader and will lead us all to organized time management, marketing and advertising best suited for our shops, and other business tactics. (She is a master with fabric and sewing too!)

If you are excited to participate and are not yet an iCraft seller, you can become an iCraft seller now as your main shop or as a second shop in order to particpate. You will need to have at least 5 items listed. That is just as easy as pie!

In fact, if you sign up for an iCraft shop with a seller code (1c28439c38), you will get 6 months free for your shop! ($25 one-time registration fee does apply).

Who knows? You may be one of the iCraft Sellers' Bootcamp participants earning a free shop makeover (banners and avatars), an SEO makeover too! More free things will be offered by sponsors.

IndieCEO will be providing to all bootcampers an ebook on computer maintenance for PCs for small and home businesses - a street-smart must have!

Join us! You will definitely learn some new things and the iCraft Sellers' Bootcamp goal is for all of us to come away with new customers and sales. You will love the atmosphere at iCraft as an all-handmade selling venue. See you in the iCraft forums on Nov. 1!

Speechless Advertising

2009-10-13T13:25:00.016-04:00

We are so bombarded by visual and audio stimulation that it can become overwhelming clutter. Advertisers are quickly invading every nook and cranny of your lives to get their message to you. Sometimes, their tactics are self defeating.

We cannot even watch TV without a bottom scroll, animated images popping up in the corner, and reminder text of shows to come. It is frustrating.

As I thought about this, I was working on a design for new postcards for GalleriaLinda. I tried putting multiple jewelry designs on the card, then thumbnails on one side of a bigger photo, and it all just looked junky. There was no clear message other than “here, see EVERYTHING I have ever created!”

I came up with “speechless advertising.” This is not a new concept, although I put my own name to it. Speechless advertising for my postcard utilized one strong photo and my web address. That is all. The idea is to peak interest and curiosity. If a visual is strong, simple, and uncluttered, curious people will go to the web site.

When I look at these postcards, I breathe a sigh of relief. Relief felt from animation, pop-ups, voices, and all the other things that try to get our attention.

Less is more. Strip your message to its essentials. Try a minimalist approach to your advertising!

It's 10 p.m. - Do You Know Where Your Shipping Package Is?

2009-10-08T17:58:00.006-04:00

As online sellers, we have a love/hate relationship with our shipping process. On the one hand, we want our packages to happily wing their way in ecstasy to our wonderful customers.

On the other hand, we know that our package has to march through a threatening forest of dangers in order to reach the customer.

Due to volume, over-worked employees, and rush, shipping through the US shipping systems during the holiday selling season can be brutal to packages and frustrating to sellers and buyers,

I had an incident with a package that really enlightened me on this whole process. I had purchased some jewelry supplies from a handmade independent seller and never received the package. The two of us brainstormed but it was not insured (I, as the buyer, did not opt for insurance), and it was sent as first class. Therefore, there was no way to track.

The seller graciously sent the items again. I did receive a package this time that was mangled, torn, taped, dirty, and had a very odd item in it - not my supplies! I took the package to the post office and talked to the general manager. We deducted that the package - a bubble wrap envelope - got caught in the sorting machine and ripped open. The next thing he told me astounded me.

Sometimes the sorting machines will easily snag on corners, pieces of tape hanging off, or anything not securely sealed. When this happens, a bunch of envelopes and packages jam the sorting machine and rip and spill all the contents on the floor! It is up to the postal employees to gather up all the contents and ripped envelopes to try to match them up. If there are no clues - they just start piecing together anything.

Obviously, they did not match up my package's contents very well. Someone else received my supplies, while the person waiting for the content of my package would never see it. That is sad but avoidable.

Here are some tips to minimize threats to your shipping packages:

Because of the story above, I now put all my items into one large zip lock baggie before putting into my shipping packaging. That means that my sold items in my shop packaging, business cards, invoice, thank you note - are all in one contained bag. So, if it spills on the post office floor, at least the invoice is there with the ship to address and all the contents should be together. If you sell larger items, you can still figure out how to do this.

It is good policy to have the "ship to" and "ship from" addresses inside the shipping package. I insert an invoice as my shipping document that has both of these. If the shipping label gets ripped off the package or the package is ripped open - this is your second defense in getting it back on track.

Don't use inkjet printers to print out your labels. When they get wet, they run and sometimes can be illegible.

Do waterproof the inside contents, either with secured and taped bubble wrap, baggies, or some sort of plastic. Picture you package waiting in a bin outside for the truck to back up and a downpour starts - and yours is on top!

Tape, tape, tape - even US priority boxes. There are incidences where thieves will extract contents from the corners of even a priority box. They are looking for an easy and quick mark, so don't give them one. Lock down tight your outer package.

I suggest that you make your shipping package generic so not to draw interest to unsavory people who may be tempted to steal. Some sellers pride themselves with branding their outer packages with logos, shop name, and other branding. Even Etsy has a video on their recommendation to personalize your outer wrapping. I strongly disagree with this. The place for personalization is on your product packaging inside your shipping package.

Therefore, I suggest that you don't use your shop name or product identity on the outside of your shipping box. If you notice, big companies are now sending their products in packages that have very generic return addresses and names. It is my recommendation just to use your return address without a name or use your personal name instead of your shop name. And, never use the word "jewelry" anywhere! This just temps those who may step over the line and steal.

Be sure that your shipping package does not rattle. Use bubble wrap or tissue paper and packing papers to keep the contents from rattling. Rattles might invite postal employees to inspect, which is OK but can delay your package and ruin your outer wrapping. If you are shipping something that rattles no matter what you do….like baby rattles….write on the outside "Rattle OK."

Be aware that your package may face extremes of temperatures - sizzling heat sitting in trucks or below freezing temperatures. If you have a sensitive product, such as soap, candles, or cosmetics, research how you might best package your product for shipping. Call shipping vendors for advice.

Is it OK to use recycled packing materials? I think so and I do it. Be sure your outer packaging is clean with untorn edges. Any packing materials, such as bubble wrap, foam, and packing papers should be very clean and only very gently used. This is your choice, however, as some sellers insist on only the best new materials. That is OK too.

No, no, no smoking or tobacco odors hovering around your materials. This type of material will absorb odors! That is a turnoff. And that goes for pet hair too.

Newspaper as packing material is not the best. Inks from newsprint can get on hands that unpack it (yuck!) or on the contents.

No need to frustrate the customer by packing tiny loose items in a lot of fill material where the customer has to pick through packing and then not know if they got it all. This fill gets all over everything too. Paper shreds, peanuts, and other fill material can be used appropriately for larger items or tiny items put into one container inside.

Be sure your outer package fits your inner package. It is weird to receive a huge box with a teeny package inside. It can make a customer think they are paying too much for shipping. Likewise, if your outer package is so snug to your inner package, it may not protect the contents, or worse, may spit open.

Wrap breakable items well. Visualize boxes being dropped, other heavy boxes being thrown upon yours, and (heaven forbid!) your box falling off the truck! It happens. Plan for it.

If you send small items in a business envelope to save on postage - just don't - or be sure it is only paper. Any kind of ridge, lump, bump, or ripple (even a staple) from your item inside can jam that cranky ole sorting machine and you know what that does….you may never see the item again. Don’t send neck chains, flat earrings, or even cord in a business envelope. Package purposefully for the item.

Know the smallest and largest package sizes that your shipping vendor will take. Know requirements, such as addressing (One side? Both sides? Etc..), regulations on using string and taping (you are not to tape over any part of an international label), brown paper wrapping, and everything else.

You are the shipping expert in your customer's eyes!

Add your comments with other shipping tips!

Now skeedaddle over to GalleriaLinda's shops
to see new items for the season!
>wink<

Online Sellers, Start Your Engines: Are You Ready?

2009-09-27T16:49:00.013-04:00

It is hard to believe that October is knocking at our door this week! Although I plan ahead for the holidays, it always creeps up on me! Are you ready? For artists and crafters who are online sellers, it is especially important to be organized.

Many of us work day jobs and work our online business in the extra hours. Others of us have children and families that need our time, over and above our shops. Therefore, we must be organized. Here is a checklist to help you. See if you are ready for the holiday rush!

First, take a deep breath. Think about what you want to accomplish this holiday, both for business and family. Write all of it down on paper. Then, start crossing off some things. Be realistic with your time. The holidays are the busiest for your shop AND for your family. Don't shortchange both by taking on too much! Here is your list for your business!

For a printable copy of IndieCEO's Holiday Checklist for download - click here.

Product

Determine the designs you need to start to create or finish before Oct. 30
Plan to expand your inventory in numbers - 50 to 100 items is a good start, more is better
Add a "stocking stuffer" product line that is lower priced - create many and promote them heavily for increasing visitor traffic to your shop
Order all supplies needed for these designs (mailing times and availability may be limited during the holidays for urgent orders later)
If you exhibit and sell at craft shows this time of year - take that into consideration for product inventory volume for your online shops - don't be caught short with your online inventory
Schedule on your calendar, "appointments" to create and finish your designs, photography, and listing - help family to understand that these are real business appointments - even if it is 1 hour a day

Shipping

Order shipping materials - bubble mailers, boxes
Obtain the Priority shipping boxes from your post office NOW (if you use them) - availability will be limited later
Obtain a stack custom forms from your post office now - may not be available later
Check your label paper or sticky paper stock for printing out PayPal shipping labels
Check your shipping tape stock
Design and order or print/cut the components for your product's finished presentation - jewelry boxes, organza gift bags, earring cards, ribbons, stickers, etc...

Packaging

Will you add a free gift or sample in your orders? If so, plan now to make or buy
Will you be offering holiday wrapping? Figure that process out - pricing, how to list, etc...

Online Shop

If you sell on multiple venues, decide strategically where you will post your product lines - you may want some of each type of product on all venues or you may want to keep the venue shops more specialized - just know what you are doing
Create your shop announcement now while your head is clear and not rushed - keep until you are ready to post
Tweak your shop's policies. Be sure they are clear, especially return/exchange policies
Tweak your shop's "About Me" page - update it for fresh content
Tweak your shipping profiles - at least check them out for accuracy
Determine a "buy by date" for receipt of items by December 22nd or earlier and add to your shop announcement, policy page, and all your listing
Retake photos that are gray-ish or not so good - re-stage older product - it will make them look like new listings

Marketing, Advertising, Promotion

Order business cards, post cards, thank you cards, etc... now (to include in your packages and to hand out)
Design, print, and cut anything you need, such as earring cards, backing for cello bags, etc…
Decide on any sale incentives - sales, discounts, incentives (BOGO, etc...), free shipping
Do you send customers holiday cards? If so, organize now, address envelopes, or if ecards, gather email addresses
Do you send out holiday newsletters? If so, organize now by writing the content, getting the format design completed, and gather email addresses
Write up your holiday sale incentives marketing blurbs and decide where and how you will post or distribute (blogs, Ning, shop announcements, twitter, Facebook, ProjectWonderful, advertising, etc...)
If advertising online, create your graphics especially for the holidays
Prepare fliers or post cards with these incentives - to drop off around town locally
If you are on a venue like Etsy, determine your relist budget for November and December - you may want to bump up the number of times during the holidays
On the venues where you sell - look into in-house holiday promotional opportunities offered - make decisions on budget
Always have business cards with your online URL with you and hand them out freely during the holidays - these could have your incentive on the back if you wish
Give business cards to friends to hand out during the holidays

The Most Important of All!

Put on your Santa hat, grab a cigar, and have a hot toddy and holiday cookies!

Wishing you the very best selling season - ever!

~Linda

Advertising Your Blog with Entrecard - The Experiment

2009-09-17T13:07:00.007-04:00

If you follow this blog, you know that I like to experiment before I have an opinion of a source. You can check out IndieCEO's experiment with ProjectWonderful advertising to see what I mean. I have been eyeing Entrecard and thought I would give it a good try.

Entrecard is touted as "The Ultimate Networking Tool for Bloggers." It is a way to advertise your blog to gain readers and boost traffic by adding an Entrecard box to your own blog. You can see IndieCEO's Entrecard box to the right of this post. That is where people will "drop" their cards or have their requested/approved advertising show.

Entrecard is like its own little country because it has its own economy system! No cash payments are needed.

You simply earn credits by dropping your card on other blogs. By purchasing advertising with those credits, you can select the blogs where you want your ad to show. There are other opportunities to gain credits listed on the site that you might explore. I was able to earn enough credits when I first signed up to actually advertise on others' blogs right then and there.

There is a system to receive advertising on your own blog. You can either approve each one or choose to have an automatic approval. I prefer to approve each one because the content and look of ads on my blogs are very important to my brand.

Here are the Pros and Cons of Entrecard that I have found:

Pro

Free advertising that costs no money - just time and thought.
Fun - there are a variety of categories for artists and crafters to surf through - I have found such interesting blogs
Networking - I have begun to see favorites and tend to comment there and receive comments back
A way to gain readers
A way to boost traffic
A way to gain followers to your blog
A way to have your blog promos seen, like your shop minis, twitter link, those kinds of things

Con

Most traffic is just that - traffic - and not specifically readers
Many will "hit and run" by going to your blog, dropping a card to get credits, and zoom out of the blog
It takes time - whether little or a lot is up to you
You must participate consistently to gain benefit by spending a little time each day to drop your card

Here is my summary of Entrecard:
I do like it, given my expectations. I don't expect tons of readers and commenters. I don't mind the ones who "hit and run" because it boosts traffic numbers. I also have ProjectWonderful ads on my blogs and the increased traffic boosts the bids on the ad boxes.

Those that linger to read and comment are the jewels of the process. You can gain a great networking group long term if you stick with Entrecard and participate. It may take a while but that is what I am going for while I am building traffic. I have also added to my blog "followers" through this method.

If you want to try it, click here for Entrecard!

Are You Rolling The Dice with Your Advertising?

2009-08-20T17:35:00.007-04:00

No one wants to waste money, the least of which is business money for a very small business owner. Are you rolling the dice with your advertising dollars? Hit or miss? Whether you advertise online, offline, or both, it is important to plan your markets.

To small online sellers, that means we need to know who our customer is and where they can be found. When that is determined, we must go through the exercise of researching advertising opportunities within that demographic.

Artists and crafters especially can be unaware of this important step. I read in forums all the time about sellers sharing their advertising success and missteps, regardless of product, customer demographic, or price category. If you sell little girls' hair bows and have great success with advertising on several blogs, it is likely that my jewelry is not targeted to that audience. Although sellers have a kind heart and want to share what they know, it is important for you to step back and ask "is this where the customers for my products are?"

Basic marketing is truly not rocket science but requires that we think through our decisions. Here are a couple of out-of-the-box conceptual ideas of where to find customers online or offline for a variety of handmade products to jump-start your thinking for your own products:

Handmade hats, crochet, knitted, felted-cold climates, cold weather sports gatherings, colleges/universities,

Little girl hair bows-dance schools, pageants, first communion outfits, children's photographers

Home decor pillows-independent interior designers and decorators, model home stagers, home staging consultants

Photography-tourist shops, independent interior designers, home stagers, model home designers

Journals and Diaries-college students, poetry reading groups, English teachers/assistants

I hope you get the picture. Brainstorm about who would love and use your product. Then, think out-of-the-box about where they are!

Product Videos are Easy for Your Marketing!

2009-08-15T14:29:00.000-04:00

There are all kinds of video sharing and photo slide show utilities online for small businesses to use for their marketing.

One interesting online video utility I recently found is Animoto.

With photos, you can produce a 30-second video for free! When you become proficient at your video productions, you may want to make a full, unlimited video for only $3 each or get an annual pass for $30 per year.

I uploaded basic jewelry product photos just to see what the free plan would do. After doing this test video, I am now ready to figure out how to make it engaging. Some thoughts are to make it a "story," starting maybe with a photo or two of your location and photos of you working on your craft that are intermixed with the product photos. Title pages are good too.

There are easy ways to share your free video with MySpace, Facebook, and twitter, as well as upload to YouTube.

You can check out the GalleriaLinda.com Handcrafted Jewelery 30-second test video here. Remember, it has music that will start up and it is just a quick try. I see good potential and a great start to making this a useful marketing tool! Online video utilities make expanding your marketing toolbox to video easy.

If you have had success with other video production online utilities, please post here to share your experiences!

Why Your Business Needs Social Media

2009-08-11T09:39:00.007-04:00

Why social media for your business? This may have the answer! I came across this slide show with a great message about businesses and social media.

Unfortunately, you will need to step over a few "F" bleeps but you will find inspiring content that I really felt important to share. (This is a good example of how you conduct yourself for business on social media. Be professional at all times. In this case, the message is more important than the "F" bleeps but how much more valuable this piece would be without them).

In the middle of the slide show, there are excellent stats on the major social media sites that will amaze you. It is my opinion that social media is growing into huge monster that is chaos. We as a community are now trying to bring chaos to order through learning how social media can be effective, both for personal and business use.

The business use of social media holds so much potential for YOU.

If you are a business owner that says "Why do I care about what people eat for breakfast?" - you are missing the point by light years that can effect your business plan for years. Social media is no longer for teenagers. It is for businesses, huge and small, to make their mark in the world and connect with customers.

It is a conversation, not an ad. Just remember that!

As one commenter (TechCrafter) below offered - it is especially well-suited for "reputation management." How true. How critical.

A good place to start to see what has been said about you or your business is http://www.socialmention.com.

And, to set up a Google Alert at http://www.google.com/alerts with your business name and key words.

Find IndieCEO and GalleriaLinda on social media:
IndieCEO on Twitter
GalleriaLinda on Twitter
Linda Harrell on Twitter
GalleriaLinda on Facebook
GalleriaLinda on Blogger
Plus many other networking site!

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later

View more documents from Marta Kagan.

Plugging Your Art or Craft into Technology

2009-08-04T10:21:00.004-04:00

As online sellers, by default, we must have basic knowledge about technology. This includes not only how to upload our product photos and create an online listing, but also how to utilize online social media, promotion, and optimizing our online presence for SEO.

I often get emails from readers about a variety of things. This week I received a great email from Bren, who introduced me to a fabulous technology resource blog for artists and crafters.

Take a look at Tech Crafter.

From the author:

"The underlying Tech Crafter theme is to provide knowledge to those who are interested, in a format that is as easily understood as possible. I've been focusing on SEO as it's been a hot issue for many artists, crafters and sellers over the last few months, but that's not the only topic we'll be exploring.Starting next week, I'll begin to expand topics to include articles on the application of technology in arts and crafts. These will include tutorials, reviews and focused articles on creating and developing your own web site.

I am also developing tools to assist sellers, ranging from simple promotion tools to full-blow reputation management systems. As these require a lot of development work and testing before being deployed, they won't be happening as frequently, but when they come, be assured that they will be of the highest quality!"

This is a resource to visit over and over. Be sure to RSS the Tech Crafter feed into your reader for easily-understood direction on the technology issues facing online artist and crafters. You will find it in the IndieCEO resource blogroll.

Silkfair's New Shop Setup - Web Branding Your Online Business!

2009-07-09T20:47:00.000-04:00

Important News for Online Sellers and a special deal for Indie CEO readers!!

SilkFair has a new shop setup that will blow your socks off. Shop costs are important to all of us and as we surf around trying various venues, many of us really want our own web presence and ecommerce setup.

Perk up your ears, because Silkfair has launched Silkfair Custom Shop(TM), a new e-commerce platform that gives online sellers easy set-up, speed, and customization.

You can create your own online branded web presence that is personalized in every aspect.

You can use your own domain name.

And, (get this) you can have built-in interactive marketing tools for blogging, customer forums, product videos, search engine optimization (SEO) and more. This is too awesome. Think of a forum for your customers to get them interacting with you in the design process

The Custom Shop platform is powered by Silkfair technology, allowing online sellers a standalone e-commerce site with all the sophisticated functionality and absolutely NO listing fees. You pay a low monthly fee for this custom shop.

How about two months FREE to try it out!???

I have been given the privilege of offering to my readers a SilkFair two months FREE trial offer.

Details of plan: First 2 months free, thereafter at regular price $24.99 per month. There is a 3% final sale fee on any items sold. You cannot beat that!

Here is the coupon that you'll need when you sign up:

* IndieCEO special silkfair coupon code : launch09pub*
*Expires : on 8/16/2009*

When you sign up for the custom shop, you'll see two plans presented and you will see a coupon code field with a "Show Hot Deals" button.

Key in the coupon code and then click Submit and that will show you the 2 months free plan to be selected. For your convenience, here's a step by step process of opening a store:

1.User selects "Start Up" button from Silkfair homepage Custom Shop banner.
2.Register on Non-non Member if no account yet on Silkfair
3.Click "OK" on the pop-up window notification reminding user to click on email verification in their InBox
4.Click "Yes" to 'Create your shop. Do you have anything to sell?"
5.Enter credit card information on the 'Seller Identification Verification' pop-up window, and save
6.Click "Yes" to 'Do you want Custom Shop?'
7.Select a template
8.Enter a coupon code. Authorization and subscription goes through
9.Congratulations! Your custom shop is now ready

GalleriaLinda is going to open a free trial shop and I will blog about the experience. Let me know your experiences too in the comment section.

Gosh, a blog IN my shop and a FORUM? I have to try this! Free is always a good thing for small businesses!

Online Sellers: Make Your Shop Components Work FOR You!

2009-06-24T20:12:00.007-04:00

What better place to start our marketing thinking than to discuss all the components that create our shop?

Each component uniquely works together to draw a potential customer into your shop. Did you realize that for a lot of potential customers, our shops become our only visible brand, or even more often, our product page becomes our only visible brand and is all the visitor sees?

Someone will click a link directly to a product through a Twitter link, search engine, or forum link and NEVER see your whole shop with your announcement.

The importance of ambiance and “look” of your product and shop page is critical for that first impression. Will it draw them in or drive them away?

Here are some shop components that are important to that first impression. I have comments by each to get you thinking

Shop Name – hopefully your shop name is something easy to remember and easy to spell to make it easy for someone to find you online – someone who didn’t quite remember your shop name!

Avatar and Banner Design – the design of your avatar and banner really sets the theme for your product backdrop. Is it casual, formal, professional, cute, cartoon, or whimsical? Any of those are great and can compliment your product designs.

Profile – filling in you’re your profile to the fullest helps to present you, the artist/crafter, as serious about your business. It is just good business practice. Be sure to keep SEO in mind for each of your specific selling venues.

Shop Announcement – this is a great place for you to shine and to show us your personality. Tell us about your product, your materials, your skills, or your policies. Keep it concise and keep SEO in mind here too for each of your specific selling venues.

Photos – there is always buzz about the ability to take quality photos. This is critical. A good photo will draw someone into your shop that otherwise would not visit. Keep practicing with the camera and photo editing software!

Secondary Photos – please have more than one photo of your items. Even I get frustrated when there is only one! Minimally, you should have a front and back photo. Sexy side angles are always artsy and you can have fun staging your product.

How You Order Your Product Photos in Your Shop – Huh? Is this a component? Yup. Put matching and complimentary colors together as sort of a cross-promoting effort. Put matching designs together. You get the picture!

Product Titles – there is the opportunity for Search Engine Optimization here. Let your titles tell us what the product is. No fancy “Dawn at Midnight” romantic names in the titles. They are useless there.

Product Descriptions – ah…you knew we would get to this. Maybe it is a challenge or maybe you just throw a couple of facts in the description and go with it. This is as much an art as your craft. Entice your customer with your words.

Number of Products in Your Shop – it is true! The more products, the more interest in your shop. More products in the shop make you look busy, professional, and like an artist or crafter who really cares about her/his craft.

Pricing – yep, another component you would not expect. First impressions make eyes go to price. If the overall price impression is not good, people move on.

OK, pick one to ponder until we meet again and tell me others that I may have missed. Watch for more posts on each of these in detail!

Free Advertising for Online Shops that Sell Handmade - Diary 2010 Project

2009-06-23T15:37:00.006-04:00

There are opportunities for FREE advertising and promotion all around us. Just keep up with a few forums and you will always see calls for product and seller features. Keep your eyes open!

One such project that GalleriaLinda has participated in for three years is the Diary Project, organized and implemented by Fantazya, a long-time Etsy seller of handmade. The Diary 2010 Project is gaining steam, as we get to the final deadline for artwork.

The diary is a calendar book, spiral bound, that has all dated pages created and designed by handmade artists! The artists work their shop information into the designs and get year-round exposure for FREE. What a great concept this is!

And, it has been successful for years. Once all of the artwork is sent in, Fantazya coordinates the printing and cover options. Pictured above is my 2009 diary with GalleriaLinda pages. I ordered a plain cover so I could embellish it myself. These make GREAT gifts too.

When you participate, you are NOT obligated to purchase the Diary, but you are simply a featured artist.

Diaries are offered to participants at a discounted rate, should you care to purchase. Each page is a window of original art for each day of the year. See the Diary 2010 Project Flickr group to see what has been created so far.

Back to YOUR opportunity for advertising...go lock in a date today, send in your designed page with your shop information, and you have year-round exposure of your web site or shop URL to people all over the world.

This year, for the first time, the diary will be available in three languages: English, French, and Spanish. How global can you get?

Go right now to get YOUR

Diary 2010 Project date.
Artwork deadline is JULY 15.

Social Networking: Time Waster or Business Builder?

2009-06-22T20:12:00.007-04:00

It all depends! It is my opinion that anywhere you post online is a good thing for your shop and business name for SEO and name recognition. Get out there and be seen and recognized!

However, it is SO easy to twiddle your time away online chatting on various sites, so what is the balance and how do you manage it? I have a couple of thoughts for you to ponder:

1) Anywhere you post online, if used correctly by using links to your shop and your shop name, will add to your SEO factor and make your business easier to be found.

2) There is strength found in networking with people who are your target customer market.

3) Networking can create a great support group for you and your business.

There are a couple of types of networking - social and business. Then, they breakdown into handmade, corporate business, and a zillion other categories.

I suggest that the handmade online sellers participate in both handmade networks AND regular business networks to find potential customers everywhere.

Realize that the handmade networks are made up of a lot of sellers like you. However, sellers of handmade are also buyers of handmade for products other than what they make.

Business networks are made up of businesses of all kinds, big and small, and may need to be educated on why buying handmade creates value. You can be the voice for the handmade community.

I am a member of about 15-20 social and professional networking sites. It could make my head swim if I fretted about nurturing all of those! Here is a plan:

**Keep your profiles on ALL networking sites up-to-date and visit them frequently. Even a teeny edit will bump your profile up for the search engines to find again. If you don't do this, it will just lay there gasping its last breath.

**Make a list of all of your online networks. Decide which ones you want to participate in. Decide on your weekly time allowance split between all you selected, and stick to it.

**You can visit your profiles and edit one a day if you have a lot of them. That takes 3 minutes each and just keep the rotation going. You can do that to boost your SEO.

**For the networks where you want to be heavily involved, be sure to keep your links and business name before the other participants per the Terms of Use for the sites. Upload photos if allowed and use all tools available to you (photos, blogs, etc...) And above all, be SOCIAL, be friendly, and be yourself!

Here are some networking sites to look into:

HANDMADE Networking Sites
http://www.ning.com/search/networks?q=handmade - LIST of many
http://yourhandmade.ning.com/
http://www.byhand.me/
http://www.starvingjewelryartists.com/
http://www.votehandmade/
http://www.craftjuice/
http://www.indiepublic.com/
http://www.webjam.com/
http://www.plumdrop.com/
http://chainmaillebymboi.com/forum/index.php

BUSINESS Networking Sites:
http://www.linkedin.com/ http://wozone.ning.com/ (Website Owners' Zone)
http://www.ning.com/search/networks?q=women+business - list of sites for business women
http://www.ning.com/search/networks?q=business - list of networking for businesses
http://www.ning.com/search/networks?q=small+business - list of networking for small businesses
http://www.ning.com/search/networks?q=home+business - list of networking for home businesses

And, don't forget your local online business networking sites. I belong to

http://www.wqmagonline.com/ and http://www.local-shops-1.com/LocalShops1/social-network.html that cover Regional Florida and I have made some great contacts!

If you have a great networking source for online sellers, post here and I will add to the list!

Online Sellers Can Have Economical Computer Resources!

2009-06-21T15:13:00.009-04:00

For those of you who may have missed a previous list of good computer utilities and software offered on the Internet for FREE...here is a refined list for you!

These can be useful for any small business, but are especially useful for online sellers who do not have the resources to purchase hundreds of dollars of computer programs in order to manage their listing process.

I have not tried all of them but have been gathering them from recommendations from personal contacts at large corporations, forum users, and technical experts. Some are online, others are downloads.

These are all available for Windows. A very few may be available for MACs. If you have any to add that you know are "clean," post here and I will add them! They are FREE!!

I use a variety of these for my Contemporary Beaded and Silver Wire Jewelry shop - GalleriaLinda, and find them to be excellent choices!

Knowledge, Computer Tips, Q&A - User Friendly

• http://www.komando.com/

Computer & Online Education

• http://www.lynda.com ($25/month, no contract, unlimited access to ALL learning - a GREAT resource - sample training videos here: http://www.lynda.com/home/freeTraining.aspx - highly recommended - I purchase one month about once a year and learn!)

Computer Maintenance and Protection - install and use all (Good, robust, free programs recommended by my computer tech)

• http://www.superantispyware.com/

• http://www.malwarebytes.org/

• http://free.avg.com/ (good, free antivirus - USE IT!)

• http://www.ccleaner.com/ - deletes temp files, frees up space

• http://www.komando.com/downloads/categories.aspx?cat=Security - more excellent choices

Free Email Addresses

• http://gmail.google.com/

Business Suite (word processing, spreadsheet, etc...)

• http://www.openoffice.org/

PDF Generators

• http://www.cutepdf.com/

• http://www.primopdf.com/

Graphics Editors

• http://picasa.google.com/

• http://www.gimp.org/downloads (robust alternative to Photoshop)

• http://www.photoshop.com/express

• http://www.splashup.com/

• http://www.picnik.com/

• http://www.fotoflexer.com/

• http://www.rsizr.com/

• http://webresizer.com/

Animated GIFS (usable for online ads)

• http://www.gifmake.com/

Advanced Graphic Layout

• http://www.inkscape.org/ -save as .eps, not open .eps files. Can edit Illustrator files

Business Charts

• http://ganttproject.biz/ Gantt Charts (timelines)

• http://www.lovelycharts.com/

Convert a PDF to a Word Document

• http://www.somepdf.com/

File Extension Viewer

• http://www.irfanview.com/

Share/Sync Files from Another Computer

• http://www.foldershare.com

Send Large Files via Link

• http://www.dropio.com/

• http://www.yousendit.com/

• http://www.megaupload.com/

Covert File to Another Format

• http://www.zamzar.com/

Make Full Screen Shots of Web Pages

• http://www.thumbalizr.com/

Stock Photos (free or cheap)

• http://www.bluevertigo.com.ar/bluevertigo.htm

• http://www.sxc.hu/

• http://www.istockphoto.com/

• http://www.canstockphoto.com/

• http://www.dreamstime.com/

Free Web Pages

• http://www.webs.com/

• http://www.tripod.lycos.com/

• http://www.wix.com/

Conversions

• http://www.onlineconversion.com/ Convert Anything to Anything Else

• http://www.psinvention.com/zoetic/convert.htm Metric & English Conversions

• http://www.convertworld.com/en/ Convert Anything to Everything

Glue Advice! Glue "This" to "That"

• http://www.thistothat.com/

ZIP Utility (zip up multiple files into one file)

• http://www.tucows.com/preview/194312 (QuickZip)

Find "Spyware-Free" Software and Utilities Here:

• http://download.cnet.com/

• http://www.tucows.com/

• http://www.komando.com/

Weathering the Economic Storm

2009-05-23T20:39:00.000-04:00

We have gotten through the first quarter of 2009 and now, almost the second quarter. How is your shop weathering the economic storm?

Last fall when the economy slowed down, GalleriaLinda made a commitment to expand products to offer more items that were lower price but still high quality. Because I make jewelry, I decided to start a line of interesting earrings using high-quality Czech glass, vintage beads, and sterling wire that were priced $12.99 across the board.

In the last few months, I have connected with several new customers that wanted earrings to brighten their wardrobe!

This strategy was one that you could say met the needs of the economy and was considerate of the customer. A lady can update her wardrobe with $12.99 earrings and not spend a fortune.

I hope that you have weathered the economic storm. I see that the economy is loosening up a bit, as sales seem to be more frequent!

Utilize Help and Information From Your Selling Venues

2009-05-20T16:16:00.002-04:00

One of the ways online sellers can benefit from marketing and selling success strategies is through the selling venues that they use. You can find a lot of selling, promotional, and marketing tips in the venue's documentation that is very valuable!

The forums on each of the venues becomes a treasure trove of shared experiences about everything for selling online. Use it! Even if you just read, you will gain such valuable information that you can use. Read, read, read.

Today, I want to introduce the Sellers' Boot camp going on right now at iCraft.ca!

Sellers' Boot camp is a new admin-supported program started by Christine of PillowThrowDecor for sellers on iCraft.ca! Check out the iCraft.ca forum for lots of details on the Sellers' Boot camp program.

Christine not only produces the most elegant pillows for your home, but she is also a sales expert that creates energy that motivates!

She is the one that started the awesome "Odd Sock" category to move merchandise. Check out PillowThrowDecor's "Odd Sock" deals - unbelievable!

The Sellers' Boot camp program goes for 28 days with assignments for each day that will help you fill your promotional "bag of tricks" by the end of the month. The idea is to get into the habit of spending up to 30-45 minutes a day doing things that will help sales.

Retired from another career, Christine states that a part of her professional background is in sales training. She states, "As independent business people it is all about accountability. I do much better when I know there is a team of people marching along with me every day and are as committed as I am to doing assigned activities!

If you are considering trying iCraft.ca as your handmade selling venue, now is the time! Remember, if you use a referral number when you pay your one-time registration fee, you receive six months of shop fees free for an unlimited number of items! Shop fees are very reasonable. In case you need one, GalleriaLinda's referral number is: 1c28439c38!

Must go...off to boot camp!!

The Project Wonderful Online Advertising Experiment

2009-03-23T09:34:00.002-04:00

The mystery of online advertising...if you love to surf online blogs and web sites of artisans and crafters, or even the online comic crowd, you have the opportunity to see ads that are distributed through Project Wonderful (PW).

PW, as it is abbreviated, is an online ad auction that is so automated that even those who are not online savvy can use it and is a great way to dip your toe into the online advertising waters. Although there are groups of all kinds using PW, the main groups targeted are online artists, handcrafters, designers, gamers and online web comics.

Project Wonderful itself states, “Project Wonderful reinvents online advertising. We've made click fraud impossible. We give advertisers the power to choose what sites their ads appear on - and publishers the freedom to choose what ads show up on their sites..."

In contrast, if you have ever used the Google Ad Sense program, you know that you cannot request your earned money until your account reaches $100. PW allows withdrawal of funds $10 and above. In addition, Google makes the majority of decisions for you as to what shows on your site, whereby PW allows you, the advertiser or publisher, to have complete control on where your ads are placed or which ads you put on your pages.

In these last few months, I experimented with PW as a clueless, new-to-online-advertising newbie for my GalleriaLinda online shop, as well as recently for the Indie CEO blog. Boy, did I learn a lot from the experience.

I started placing ads on my jewelry blog, GalleriaLindaShowcase, starting January 1, 2009. In about 4 weeks, I had $6 in my account. It grew to about $15 by the end of February. Feeling confident, I decided to use the money to pay for GalleriaLinda advertising instead of withdrawing it.

There are several predetermined sizes of graphic ads you can create, the most popular being the 125x125 pixel size ads. I created my very own GalleriaLinda ad, uploaded it, selected blogs to host my ad, and placed bids. If you want a 125x125 pixel animated ad – you can create one at GifMake.

Things I learned as an advertiser:

Pay attention to your ad clicks (there are “performance” reports for you to check).
If you go for the free ads, then it is no worry - may as well keep it there. If you are paying, then you make decisions to keep your ad on a specific site or delete the bid based upon the ratio of unique site traffic vs. the number of clicks you get.
It is easy to find places for your ad that have $0 cost and is a great way to try this without spending money. This means that your ad can be placed for no money but your ad may show only off and on, depending upon the bids for those slots. The ad boxes fluctuate in bid pricing all day long!
FREE ad space is allowed only for a two-day time so you will have to manually renew every two days if you wish. If you bid actual money, you can designate the time from a day to unlimited.
It IS possible to get free ad space on a site with significant traffic, but it will be only for a short while. Most free spots are on sites that have minimal traffic.
If you are picky about where your ad is seen, you have control, although it takes time to do a keywords search and handpick those you want.
If you are not so picky about where your ads are seen, you can do a campaign using search terms, and “let ‘er rip.”

Things I learned as a publisher:

Build it and they do not automatically come! Like anything else online, this takes promotion, traffic numbers, and dedication to make this work well for you.
PW ad campaigns from others will automatically find your ad box if your box description fits the key words and fits the traffic criteria setup by the ad owners.
When setting up your ad box, good key words are critical.
Your web page or blog where your ad box is displayed needs to have traffic in order to attract a flow of ad placements. You must promote your page and update it frequently to bring up those traffic numbers. The more frequent you update, the more traffic you will have that may capture more ad campaigns automatically.
Ways to promote your web pages and blogs can be found in the Indie CEO “Blogging is an Art” series.

To get a good feel for the process, here is a great tutorial on using Project Wonderful posted by TimothyAdamDesigns.

It is FUN to see your very own little ad showing on someone else’s web page!

If you want to learn the process, you can try out PW by placing ads manually by searching for $0 ads and paying attention to traffic counts for learning and understanding. This will help you understand the process. Alternately, you can place an ad box on your site and wait for funds to collect to use for your own ad placement. Or, deposit money right away into a PW account and go for it!

GalleriaLinda's ad boxes where you can place your ads are available at:
GalleriaLindaShowcase blog
IndieCEO blog - see the right side of this article

Product Descriptions: Writing for Different Media

2009-03-21T16:27:00.000-04:00

Even though most of you who are reading this blog are online sellers, you will find these writing tips useful for product descriptions for a variety of media. You never know when an opportunity arises for you to participate in radio or TV spots, or other media. Be prepared!

Below are a few of the differences in writing for specific media that requires you to tweak your product descriptions.

Online Listings

Writing for online use requires that you be nimble and quick, using solid keywords, and brevity.

Online shoppers give you a split second to convince them to click further. This means that your copy should be short, concise, easy to understand, and complete in every way.

Online buyers cannot touch your product, smell it, see it in person, inspect it, or hear it. All that web shoppers have to convince them to buy your product are your words and your photos.

TV Shopping Shows

There was a time when TV shopping was met with significant skepticism. How can anyone buy from a TV picture? We have proven that we, as a people, will buy in any format!

Unlike writing for online listings where brevity is key, your product descriptions for TV presentations will be expanded.

You will think about the on-air time segment of your product and allow for very little dead air space. Provide as many keywords and descriptive phrases as you can to work with in writing for the show so talk can flow.

Print Catalogs

When writing for a print catalog, the key is the structure of the information. The catalog company will likely have a boilerplate template that you will need to fill in, including the description.

Limited character counts will mean you need to be brief while presenting the overview of your product.

Each catalog will have their own style that you will use.

Radio Ads or Presentations

Writing for the radio media is a whole different process. You will not have the benefit of an image of your product.

Your potential customer must listen and use their imagination from the words you use and the expressive voice that narrates.

It is important to bring in the feelings and emotions about your product, as well as the basic information. This can be done with a script between two people or a lone narrator.

Do your research and listen to other radio presentations for products similar to yours.

Billboards

Billboards that tout products are the most visual of these media.

More image, less text.

Your text needs to be very targeted, concise, and short.

Billboard advertising often sports short catchy phrases with interesting images that stick with you.

Digital Slide Presentations

A digital slide presentation, produced with software such as PowerPoint, may be in your future as well.

You can make slide presentations suitable for emailing to others. Sometimes, juried art shows will require some sort of overview where this may be appropriate.

Slides are small billboards.

Using images and short text, you can be sure your message is the combination of both.

Do not fill up a slide with text. This is not the purpose of this media.

It is fun to think about how these opportunities might come your way! I hear of many artists and crafters having interviews on local TV or radio. It can happen!

Think about how you might use your imagination to express the qualities of your great product.

Writing a full descriptive product sheet will allow you to pull from that for creating the exact style and content that you need for any of them. Even a list of bullet points made out once you finish your product will be invaluable!

Product Descriptions: Introduction

2009-03-20T15:35:00.000-04:00

As artists, crafters, and designers, many of us can be challenged with the business of business. Oh, if we could only create and not have to tend to those things such as accounting, shipping, taxes, and copywriting!

When selling products online or in the real world, product descriptions become critical to your overall selling strategy. They are the gears that makes the marketing wheels turn.

As a handcrafted jewelry designer with my own GalleriaLinda shop, I have noticed from my searches online that independent designers, crafters, and artists, especially have difficulty in understanding how to describe, title, and promote products through their writing styles and descriptions in their listings.

You know that content is the key to being searched and found online. There is a balance, however, to offering descriptions that will satisfy online searches while giving your buyer the information they need quickly.

I can’t address product descriptions without mentioning the importance of product photos. Product photos work either with your descriptions or against them. More on that subject later.

I found a variety of approaches to writing product descriptions. They seem to fall into five categories:

The technical – no matter the product, all you get is size, materials, color, and use in the description, if even that much
The story teller – will spin a creative and interesting tale that swirls around the product to enchant you but may leave you without real information
The disorganized – throws information darts and misses the board altogether
The creative – describes the product with flourish and marketing spin – much of which may be extraneous
The “got it together” – has description, technical information, and titles working together with appropriate keywords and provides all the information needed for one to decide to buy the product

Which one are you?

If you are serious about improving your product descriptions, the first thing to do is research, read, and ponder. Here are a few tips that will help you research:

Research the top online sellers of similar products to yours and read their descriptions. Be sure to research many selling venues and not just the one that you are using, as they each have a different “flavor.” This will give you a broader view into your product descriptions.
Grab a few printed catalogs that include products like yours and read it from cover to cover. What you gain from print media expands to not only the descriptive elements, but also photography styles and description structure.
Note things that you want to avoid and note those things that you would want to include in your own product descriptions. These could be key words, format, or writing style.

Think about this and check back, as there is more to come in this interesting series!

Know Your Selling Venues: iCraft.ca

2009-03-14T10:17:00.000-04:00

Continuing an ongoing series of "Know Your Venues," I wanted to present the online Canadian handmade selling venue iCraft.ca. Over a year old, iCraft is beginning to make a name for itself in the online handmade community. Still new in "online business" years, it has made great strides to service both sellers and buyers in its short time.

From personal experience, I truly love this site for many reasons, one of which is that iCraft accepts only handmade items direct from the artist. No reseller items, reseller supplies, or vintage...just handmade. If you made it with your own two hands, you can sell it on iCraft. This makes for a very focused ambiance as you enter the site and targets a specific audience.

The front page of iCraft is classy. Recently, the very top banner that highlights handmade items was added and has enhanced the professionalism of the sellers. It is a flash presentation of close-up photos of featured items that changes and is designed into their own iCraft identity look.

Recently-listed items become a part of the "flash" parade in the next section. The items stay on the flash presentation for a couple of days as the flash parade pages march on to include every listed item.

Below the flash parade is another flash presentation of iCraft-selected items to be featured. The flash featured presentation changes every few seconds so a lot of great handmade items are included and they are changed out frequently to include as many sellers as possible.

Some of the features I like as a seller on iCraft include:

One page listing form - this is a great time saver

Select all photos before upload - another time saver

Choice of selling in $USD or $CAD

Clone feature - copy a listing, change a little, and is useful for listing similar items

Each listing's status has a choice of "Live," "Reserve," or "On Hold"

The reserve feature is genius. You can place an item on reserve and send a link to your customer - no one else sees it so there is no stressing about someone else purchasing it

No restrictions on tagging - tag away for those key words that would best suit your item - any number of them

For vacation mode, you just put all items on hold

Ability to bump up your item in the searches by editing the listing - this is free

Ability to "relist" your item so it shows up in the "just listed" flash parade - this is free

No other fees other than your monthly fee - iCraft has several very reasonable price plans available - if you are a US seller, be sure to convert the CAD to USD - right now it is a little less in $USD but the exchange rate does change from day to day

If you are not able to purchase a paid plan, you can have full access to the site, a shop, and are able to have 5 live listings for free - you may set up as many as you want in your back office and rotate a selected group of 5 live listing if you wish

iCraft referral promotion - this is Win/Win for both! Once you pay your registration fee through a referral, YOU receive 6 free months - to benefit, you must use a referral code. GalleriaLinda's referral code is 1c28439c38

Things iCraft is working on that I miss and can't wait to be rolled out include a shop widget and expanded shop stats. Included now are views of shop visits and views of individual item. These features are in the works.

iCraft has impressed me with their methodical planning and roll out. Features rolled out work the first time and this goes a long way with me.

As a marketing professional, I understand that it is easier to get to your target audience if you know who it is and where to find them. To market to only those who love handmade makes marketing much easier! I see ways they promote the site. Using Twitter, each listing is automatically tweeted. How great is that? They are also on IndiePublic, Facebook, Kaboodle, TeamSugar, and Flickr. You can read some of iCraft's featured articles online here.

iCraft is recommended from my positive experience as a seller on the site. It is worth a look if you are interested in a selling venue for handmade.

SEO - Can You Control It? Basic SEO 101

2009-02-26T07:52:00.000-05:00

What IS SEO anyway? Search Engine Optimization is the term used to describe how one optimizes the content placed on the Internet to ensure that the content is found and placed in results.

To some, it is a fancy word that is perceived as a high cost endeavor. I tell you, though, there are things that you can do to boost your presence in searches -- and they do not cost anything but your time and persistence!

Let's start with the strategic concept. When someone types in a search term into a search engine and it relates to the items that you sell online, you want your shop or an article about you to be on the first or second page. This gives you a competitive advantage. While professional SEO is a very complex effort, the basic SEO is not.

The Search spiders and crawlers will read your file names, the content, the domain names, alt tags, H1 and H2 html headers, page titles, and meta content. They like frequent, new, and changed content.

The concept is that you want to pepper your shop name, item category, and key words all over the Internet in the areas listed above. Anymore, having one web page or one shop does little for your SEO.

The work is to be done consistently, frequently, and thoughtfully. Here is a list of tasks for you:

Photos & images: for every image that you upload to the Internet, anywhere, always include key words in your image file names. Example: gallerialinda_jewelry_1001.jpg.

File names: as with your image files, if you upload documents or other files to share, be sure to use the same tactics. If you are creating your own html pages, name the html page with a key word, such as "gallerialinda_about.html."

Text content: anywhere you type in anything about you and your business, be sure to do it thoughtfully and include your key words. The perfect places for this type of control include your shop announcements, profiles on social networks, blog content, your web site content and more!

Domain names: when deciding on domain names, it is always good to use your key words and be targeted. For example: using www.YourName.com is not nearly as useful as using www.YourName'sPaintedGourds.com. Don't be afraid of having several domain names that point to your one web site. www.YourName'sPaintedGlassware.com could also be used and pointed to your site that also sells painted gourds.

Alt tags: these are the bits of information you see when you mouse over an image. If you are creating your own html or using a program like Dreamweaver, you can add these. They become important bits of key words for your SEO.

H1 and H2 headers: if you are creating your own html or using a program like Dreamweaver, you can be sure these have your key words, such as product type, name of shop, etc... If you are using online templates, the larger fonts are likely these tags so be aware of your header content.

Page titles: this is the title that shows at the tippy top of your browser. The page title is created when you create a web page. You may not have control over that when using an online template but some use your headers as the page titles too.

Meta content: meta tags and meta descriptions are placed in the code, so if you do not create your own html, these are not accessible to you. Some argue that meta content is not even relevant anymore, however, they can add to your success in getting your key words out there.

Frequent, new or changed content: this is important -- just as you see your blog views fluctuate when you post and when you do not post, so it is for all of your online content. Update what you have online, whether it is profiles, shop announcements, or bios, and update them on a regular schedule.

Pepper the Internet with YOU: I can't say this enough: if you are serious about SEO, then utilize everywhere you can place content. Other than your shop announcements, profiles, and social networks, you could also add web pages on sites that offer free web pages, as well as write and place articles. I will expand on this topic soon as it is important!

This is not a lot to maintain if you are organized. I suggest that once you do your initial SEO enhancements, make a list of locations of all your online content. Then, you can schedule your updates ongoing. Changes to content do not have to be huge. They just have to be done!

Updates to Topic~

Nicolette Tallmadge had such a great and important comment that I wanted to post it here in the article:

It's also important to remember that optimizing your page titles account for about 90% of your SEO value.

Doing all of the other stuff also helps, but if you had to pick one thing to do, you should definitely optimize all of your page titles. Also, if you're blogging, don't forget to optimize your blog titles and avoid using vague "mystery meat" titles that don't tell search engines (and your readers) what your post is all about.

Finally, you also want to make sure that you're optimizing your site for keywords that people are actually looking for. So do some basic keyword research to see what people are looking for online so you can optimize your blog and website accordingly.

(Thank you for that great advice, Nicolette!)

MatW adds an important issue about multiple domain names:

You mention "Don't be afraid of having several domain names that point to your one web site."Whilst true, these alternate domains must be setup correctly and point to your main site using 301 redirects otherwise you will actally damage your search engine ranking by making it seems as if you have many sites with duplicated content. Also, without 301 redirects, your site's ranking will be diluted between those domains, rather than focused on just one.

(MatW - Thank you for expanding upon this topic with such great wisdom. This is a complex subject that goes deeper and deeper.)

ArtFire Shop & Free Custom Marketing Plan. How Can You Go Wrong?

2009-02-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

Only you and I can create our own futures. Therefore, I am getting serious about selling on Artfire. I want The Artfire Free Ride for Life and you should too!

(I know this is a long post, however, it is an important opportunity that could affect your bottom line).

I seldom post the same content on both blogs, but I wanted you to know my commitment to you, so I am posting this on Indie CEO as well as GalleriaLindaShowcase.

Looking ahead at your business expenses is wise, especially for 2009. This information is worthy of consideration for online sellers who create handmade items or sell vintage items. Only you can create your future! You could have a full verified shop on Artfire, for free, for life.

Artfire is having a promotion that benefits shop owners and now I am offering to help you with your success. Before I get into what I have up my sleeve for you, here are reasons to join Artfire for $7/month:

Growing fast, extremely responsive admin, fast roll outs of new features that work the first time, listens to sellers, so many new features on the list to come
Unlimited number of free listings
Google Analytics statistics to support your marketing efforts
No selling fees, no final sales fees, no listing fees
Ways to be featured, seen
Random searches mean that your items will be seen more frequently without you worrying with it – list and let the search do its thing
For $7 a month, you have invested money equal to 35 listing or relist fees a month on Etsy - one a day plus a fraction. If you are a serial lister or relister on Etsy in hopes for your items to be seen, you will love this value. On Artfire, there are no selling fees when you actually sell those listings!
When the total 5,000 verified accounts are taken, the monthly fee will jump to $20/month. Now, don’t you want to get in before that happens?
Once you sign up for a verified shop, you too can work on your own new shop's Artfire Free Ride for Life. I will help you – keep reading how!

The Artfire Free Ride for Life promotion for the GalleriaLinda shop is when 10 people sign up for a verified $7/month shop and attribute their sign up to GalleriaLinda's Artfire Shop. GalleriaLinda will receive an Artfire Free Ride for Life shop. How great is that?

I want to give you a gift, plus, I am personally committing to help each of the 10 shop owners who sign up referencing GalleriaLinda, achieve this goal for themselves.

Here is how it will work:

The first 10 people who use GALLERIALINDA’S Artfire link and sign up for a verified $7/month Artfire shop, will be placed in a GalleriaLinda drawing, of only the first 10 people total from both blog posts. (you must use my link, not someone else’s…and there are many around and many Project Wonderful ads using ArtFire's logo - don't get confused, ALL the links in this post are GalleriaLinda's links to the Artfire Free Ride).
As each completes their sign up attributed to GalleriaLinda’s reference, they are to come back here to this post to COMMENT that they did sign up by leaving their new Artfire shop name. (Alternatively, you can comment on the GalleriaLindaShowcase post about Artfire). I will check. If you do not comment here, you will not be in the drawing. I don't want that to happen.
Each of the 10 sign ups will be confirmed as verified shops on Artfire by me.
You have a 1 in 10 chance to win consulting time for a custom basic marketing plan for your business – a $50 value. (I am a marketing communications consultant for small businesses by day). This marketing plan will be created from interaction between us by either phone or email and customized to your business time availability and goals.

Wait! There is more! Keep reading because here is the best part:

Once GalleriaLinda's 10 slots are filled and achieves the Artfire Free Ride for Life for GalleriaLinda, for those first 10 people who signed, I will run a 125x125 pixel ad for each of the 10, one at a time, for one whole week on my 3 web sites that links to your own Artfire Free Ride!!

The ads will run one at a time in the sequence of the sign ups, for example, number 1 signer will be the first week ad to run, then number 2 on the second week, to number 10 the last 10th week ad run. The ads will be placed simultaneously on my three websites (2 blogs and 1 web site) for one whole week along with the Project Wonderful ads located there.

Let’s summarize...a 1 in 10 chance are the best odds you may ever get!

Drawing winner to receive marketing consulting time is awesome in itself.

But, free advertising for your Artfire Free Ride for Life for one whole week on three different web sites is over the top.

I want you to succeed too!

Update:
3 Verified Members in GalleriaLinda's name
2 Free Shops in GalleriaLinda's name (will count if they become verified)

Community Directed Development - Does It Really Work? Would You Participate?

2009-02-12T09:04:00.000-05:00

I had never heard the term "community directed development," but it is what drives ArtFire.com. From a business-branding standpoint, this is critically unique in the industry!

From ArtFire's mission found at "Community Directed Developement Puts Members in Control," I found this description interesting:

"....This type of social media, e-commerce, and community fusion has never been attempted or accomplished until now! CDD’s aggressive real time adaptation and implementation is much like putting a half built boat in to the water and assembling it while at sea; turbulence and challenge is expected and responsiveness is critical to success."

Do you like to be a unique part of the building process for a site that services sellers, as well as customers?

If you like this type of "give and take" selling environment, then ArtFire as a selling venue is worth consideration for your primary or secondary selling venue for handmade and vintage!

If you sign up with ArtFire from links on this blog...and you are verified as signed up with GalleriaLinda as your sponsor, and you post a comment, then GalleriaLinda gives you an opportunity for:

Free advertising for your own "free ride ArtFire shop" on 1 web site and 2 blogs
a drawing from a group of only 10 people to receive a custom marketing plan by Indie CEO for your unique business needs (see criteria here)

Here is an update from Indie CEO's post "ArtFire Shop & Free Custom Marketing Plan. How Can You Go Wrong?:

3 new verified ArtFire shops attributed to GalleriaLinda
2 new unverified ArtFire shops attributed to Gallerialinda (count only if they become verified)

Think about it! And, be sure to check out these Indie CEO resource pages:

General resource links
Open source and freeware software and utilities
List of 47 and counting, selling venues that you can utilize today

How You Distribute Your Marketing Message is Important!

2009-02-10T11:00:00.000-05:00

How do you communicate with your customers? Email? IM? Twitter? Social Networks? Snail mail? Phone? Print, Handwritten, Virtual?

Knowing your target customer's demographic is essential in planning your communications campaigns!

To grab your customer's attention, your messages need to be seen, so ensure that your customers are receiving communications in a way that they embrace. With so many distractions in the media today that competes with your business messages, you may as well purposefully plan to distribute your messages in a way that will be delivered successfully to your customers.

Here are the top three generations and known communication preferences:

The Y Generation (Net Generation Millennials, Echo Boomers, and iGeneration): born 1976-2001

This is the first generation to grow up immersed in a digital and Internet-driven world and all uses of digital technology is the way to reach this group. Cell phone texting, social media, Internet, blogging, and microblogging will win over standard single email campaigns.

Gen X: born between 1961 and 1981

Gen X grew up with computers in classrooms and later on, computers in their homes. As users of early cell phones and the World Wide Web, Gen X continues to embrace technology and gadgets. As adults, they still strive to increase their level of automation in their lives. Email campaigns, as well as Internet-based communications and promotions are received well by Gen X.

Baby Boomers: Born between 1946-1964

This group was introduced to technology in the 90s as they approach their 50s. Technology was not embraced for its value, but seen as a fun gimmick with no real value.

Older boomers may utilize email, but checking email is infrequent and social media is not a desire or skill. Personal communication, such as handwritten letters and notes and even phone calls will win over many boomers before email campaigns or tweets.

Generational demographics are interesting, especially in how you should structure your marketing efforts to reach them. There are many books on the subject. Here is a list of interesting books from Indie CEO on how to market to generational demographics that you might like to peruse!

Be sure to check out GalleriaLinda and IndieCEO's resource page for links to things you can use!

If You Haven't Told Them 57 Times, You Haven't Told Them At All

2009-02-04T13:18:00.000-05:00

There is an old saying among ad agencies, "If you haven't told them 57 times, you haven't told them at all." How well are you communicating your messages to your customers?

I think this is an area of customer communication where we all have challenges - getting the message out so people remember what we said. We should (1) tell them what we are going to tell them, (2) tell them, then (3) tell them what we told them.

For example, let's pretend that you are going to start a new product line called Funky Widgets...your 3-pronged message plan could be:

1. Tell them what you are going to tell them

Coming Soon! Our new product line, Funky Widgets, is launching in March, 2009. Watch for the announcement, as you won't want to miss this! It will be fabulous......etc...

2. Tell them

Announcing the anticipated launch of our new product line, Funky Widgets! They are unique and lovable because.....etc...

3. Tell them what you told them

We hope you have not missed the opportunity to try our new product line, Funky Widgets! They will make your life wonderful! etc...

Each phase of this communication matrix can be deployed to outlets on your standard media list. Your media list is simply a list of places where you will promote your message.

Your media list can include online and offline "outlets" (places), such as specific blogs, your web site, multiple social networking sites, YouTube, photo sharing sites, forums, your shop announcements, advertisements, press releases, grocery store bulletin boards, free shopper classifieds in your town, and any other avenues you have for message distribution. Use your media list for each of the three phases.

With so many distractions in the media today, it is important to keep punching out your message in frequency and in a variety of methods. People absorb information in different ways and not all methods will work well on one person. The repetition of the message in different forms will be more successful than using one form.

Consider your messages in a variety of forms:

Print/Collateral (advertisements, press releases, coupons, postcards, flyers, samples of products, B&M store bulletin boards, etc...)
Online Reads (email newsletters, blogs, web site content, article submissions, shop announcements, social media, forums, etc...)
Online Visual Graphic Placements (Project Wonderful, web site, blogs, social media)
Online Video or Photo Slide Shows (YouTube, Blip.tv, social media, etc...
Online Photos (Flickr and other photo sharing sites, social media, etc...)
Online Audio (podcasts, audio with your short videos, etc...)

The next time you have a great message to deploy, think about your frequency and repetition of message, as well as the method of message distribution. Plan it for the greatest success!

Be sure to check out GalleriaLinda's resource pages for things you can use! And, if you see any Project Wonderful ads that are only $0, feel free to help yourself!

Enjoying the Fruits of Being "Business Frugal" with Open Source and Freeware Software

2009-02-02T20:24:00.000-05:00

The financial atmosphere of our businesses is not the same as it was two years ago, or even one year ago. We are all looking for ways to save, cut back, and do more for less.

The Internet is a treasure chest full of useful, free tools for businesses. You just have to know where to look to find safe tools.

In the next few months, I will be bringing to you great resource links. It appears that I am an information junkie...and that is a good thing for you, because I want to share!

Over the last few years, I have read a lot of blogs, web sites, and forums and have bookmarked and documented oodles of great links for tools, web apps, software, tutorials, social media, advertising sites, and much more. The only thing is, I have to sort through and organize them, but I have started the task and I am so glad I did!

I found a great group of free software that will put any small business in good shape without spending a dime! Plus, you get free upgrades when available.

An office suite of software that rivals Microsoft includes word processing, spreadsheet, slide show, and more, PDF makers, a list of terrific image editors, chart makers, accounting, banner builders, animated GIF makers, and I could go on.

This is the first category to come and you can find them here on GalleriaLinda's resource page. The pages have been reorganized so take a look and then click on the red link for the free software page. This category will fill out too as I discover more in my treasure chest.

Most of these links (virtually all of them) come from recommendations from blog owners, forum posters, users, and technology web sites. I feel they are safe. In fact, many of them I have installed on my computer, but as always, it is your responsibility to be prudent with what you download to your computer. I recommend protection software.

Shiny new Project Wonderful ad boxes are ready for anyone who wants to take advantage of free advertising. Not bad for one evening - free software and free advertising. I believe that you are "Business Frugal!"

Blogging is an Art - Who Will Read My Blog?

2009-01-26T12:00:00.001-05:00

Fourth in the series "Blogging is an Art," we will figure out who will read our blogs and where to find them!

The series includes:

Should I start a blog?
Will a blog help sales?
What should I write about on my blog?
Who will read it and do I need to promote it?
Where do I go to create a blog?

Q. Who will read my blog and where do I find them?

Once you have decided to start a blog and are now getting into the joy of writing, it can be disheartening if you do not have any readers!

How do you know if you have readers? It is easy. There are many free "counters" that you can add to your blogs. I currently use statcounter.com but there are several on bravenet.com, as well as others on the Internet. These counters are installed on your blog in your dashboard layout.

Of course, no blog should be without Google Analytics. Read GalleriaLinda's post on Google Analytics to find out why.

If you are serious about blogging, especially if your blog is related to your business, figure out who your customers and readers are and where they can be found.

For example, this Indie CEO blog is serious to me and to my business, GalleriaLinda. I know that I am specifically targeting small volume online sellers, small indie businesses, and a great deal of the handmade community falls into those categories. The reason for this specific reader demographic is the mission of Indie CEO, which is to support very small businesses with information they may not otherwise have, such as easy-to-understand and easy-to-do marketing, promotion, and business processes. I purposefully go out and find this audience.

You can find a lot of your readers through these methods:

Forums of all kinds, such as industry, business, product specific, interests - post each time you have a new blog post and start a conversation within the forum
Search these forums for specific topics where you can share your blog content as an answer to a question
Join blog rings, researching key words that will fit your content. Check out Xanga and Ringsurf and always be sure your blog settings allow your blog to be in your blog venue's directory

Social networking, such as Facebook, Twitter, Ning groups - you can RSS feed your blog into most, as well as post an announcement of your newest topics

Don't forget the people you meet locally on the street - have a business card prepared for that presents your blog

Customers you sell to can receive your blog business card in their packages

Your email signature is a good way to expose your blog link

Email campaigns - send out newsletters specifically about your blog or include information about your blog in your regular newsletters about your business or products

Join local blog meet-ups - this can be fun - start one if you cannot find one
Read blogs, comment on blogs, always put your URL after your signature (never do this without truly reading and appreciating the blog content - do not, do not spam)

Profiles all over the Internet are opportunities, such as on Flickr, Ning social networks, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, directories, selling venues, and more...anywhere you are allowed a profile is perfect

Local organizations you join are good places to promote your blog

Advertising - look into Entre Card, Project Wonderful, plugboard and other ways to do advertising for your blog (none of these are specifically endorsed by Indie CEO)

I hope this inspires you to embrace your blog and spread your joy to everyone around! I will leave you with my own Indie CEO business card that I hand out along with my GalleriaLinda business card.

Please comment with other ideas on where to find readers!

Pricing Your Products for Online Selling

2009-01-19T09:04:00.000-05:00

Let's face it folks, a lot of you are "in business" because of the love of your craft, art, or design. In order to obtain exposure for your creative pieces, you have decided to sell things online, and boom...you are in business.

Along with the joy of creating are things that you have to do for the business end of the deal. We all struggle with the business aspect of things that must be done if we are to continue to create and sell. Pricing is one of those confusing topics. I see pricing in selling venues for like items that go from the ridiculous to the sublime. It can be confusing to a buyer to see like items with such a wide range of pricing and it shows that someone is not being realistic.

One of the first things I did for my GalleriaLinda Artist-designed Jewelry shops when I started selling online was to research pricing formulas for retail. I came up with several different ones. After studying them all, I decided to use one that best suited my business.

One pricing guide, Pricing Your Handmade Jewelry, impressed me the most with the details of pricing and is a resource guide from The Beading Emporium by Ebay powerseller cloudninecat. The guide uses jewelry as examples but you can easily translate the process to any product you may sell.

From a strategic standpoint, did you know that your pricing becomes a part of your branding? Are you known for inexpensive items, expensive items or moderately priced items? This is a part of "who you are and what you do," and how you position your products, your business, and yourself as an artist.

As you read resources and mull over where you fit, here are a few things to think about relative to your pricing:

Know the actual cost of materials in a piece
Know your annual operational costs (utilities, equipment, rent, etc..., so you can assign a percentage to each item)
Assign a labor cost for your work (some start out at $8-$10/hr and work up as they become more known and proficient)
Select a pricing formula that best suits your business in the moment - your pricing needs may change as time goes on - be flexible and fluid (be conservative if you are new to the craft)
Keep in mind wholesale pricing for inquiries (don't price your goods so low that you cannot give any discount for wholesale. You may not want to wholesale at this time, but you never know if you will want to in the future - now is the time to be proactive and prepare)
Research your product's competitors - it is very important to understand the market in which you are entering and what your competitors are charging for like items
Research what has sold online that are similar items to yours - research frequency of sales and the prices, if available
Understand your selling venue audience - some target those who spend a lower amount, others target a more affluent audience*
Above all, once you work through this entire process and come up with a retail price, be realistic with what the market will bear (you may have to back down your retail pricing on an item if it is "priced out of the market," and this goes back to the importance of buying raw materials at the lowest cost)

*A note about your choice of selling venues: each venue targets a different type of buyer or audience. It is important for you to know what that is in terms of affluence, average price of sales, and the aesthetics appreciated from the buyer. See Indie CEO's post on selecting the right selling venue as a good resource to help you research these things.

ThePrettyPeacock has posted a good pricing article on her blog that is worth reading! Checking the blog roll of resources here on Indie CEO on the left side will unearth several articles on pricing.

Let me know through your comments if you would like to see more links on pricing handmade goods - I will research for you!

Newsletters are Meant to Be Shared

2009-01-15T13:39:00.000-05:00

I found an interesting blog from Pam Hawk, who makes "Pass it on Plates." What a great concept these plates are for sharing goodies. You must visit her Etsy store to find out all about it.

Pam has a blog about street-smart business, promotion, marketing, and a lot of excellent topics! I was so enthralled with the blog's rich content, that I wanted to share it with you.

Her latest post is about using newsletters as marketing strategies. Just like "Pass it on Plates," newsletters are meant to be shared and she shows you how.

Keep Pam in your sights for good, usable strategies for your Indie Arts business!

The Pam Hawk blog will go on the Indie Business Blog Roll on the left. I am building resources for you!
<--------------

Important $6000 Grant for Bridge Jewelry Designer Business

2009-01-14T11:01:00.000-05:00

Have you ever thought about applying for a jewelry business grant? Anything is possible! The more you apply to, the better chance you have. If you qualify for this grant, it is time to get your application submitted.

Applications are due between April 15 and June 17, 2009 and focus on business skills as much as design talent. The jewelry design business they are looking for is one that creates "bridge jewelry."

"Bridge jewelry spans the gap between fine jewelry and costume jewelry. Bridge items are high quality accessories that can be worn every day. Primary materials are silver, copper, gold composite products, crystal and semi-precious stones such as lapis, onyx, turquoise, malachite, quartz, freshwater pearls etc. Bridge work can be strung beadwork or castings."

Halstead Bead Grant Announcement
Call for Entries! Halstead Bead Sponsors $6,000 Jewelry Business Development Grant Prescott, AZ – January, 2009 –

Halstead Bead, Inc. is calling for entries to its fourth annual Business Development Grant competition for new American jewelry designers entering the bridge jewelry trade. The grant will be awarded to a winning candidate in August. The winner of the 2009 Grant will receive $6,000 in cash and merchandise as well as other benefits. All finalists will be eligible for a mentorship program that matches new designers with established and successful jewelry entrepreneurs.

The Halstead Bead Business Development Grant differs from other jewelry industry competitions and awards because of its emphasis on business skills. Entrants must demonstrate not only extraordinary design, but also a strong business strategy. The application experience promotes the business planning required to make a jewelry brand commercially viable at the national level in today’s competitive market.

Designers utilizing a wide variety of fabrication techniques including casting, lampworking, precious metal clay, beading, or metalsmithing are eligible to enter the competition. Candidates must be US citizens who began their businesses after January 1, 2006. Their design companies must focus on “bridge” jewelry which is the segment between costume jewelry and fine jewelry that includes accessories in sterling silver, semi-precious stones, crystal, freshwater pearls and other similar materials.

Complete application details can be found at www.halsteadbead.com/grant.
Candidates must submit a design portfolio, business plan, resume and answers to several questions. Applications must be received between April 15 and June 17, 2009. The grant website also includes several helpful articles on launching a national jewelry brand as well as information on past winners and finalists. Previous grant winners include Bridgland Studios, Belle Brooke Designs, and Ananda Khalsa.

The grant sponsor, Halstead Bead, Inc., is one of North America’s leading jewelry supply importers and distributors. The firm was established in 1973 and now supplies thousands of component resellers and jewelry manufacturers around the globe. Halstead Bead, Inc. is wholesale only and sells findings, chain, wire, sheet & beads for the bridge jewelry segment in sterling silver, gold filled, copper, freshwater pearls, gemstones, glass and Crystallized Swarovski Elements.

~~end of announcement ~~

Handmadeology is Coming to Town! (The Internet "Town," That Is...)

2009-01-13T19:59:00.001-05:00

Handmadeology is yet a mystery but soon to be revealed on January 26, 2009 by TimothyAdamDesigns! Billed as "a teaching the formula that I use to sell handmade goods online," I know we can all learn practical and easy-to-understand processes to gain more traffic to our stores and web sites, online advertising, and other mysteries.

TimothyAdamDesigns is known for cool, contemporary metal jewelry. He has made a reputable name for himself in his knowledge of the online marketing process and how to use online tools to his advantage. Always sharing his knowledge in his blog, we look forward to the Handmadeology class. Sign up for the handmadeology free newsletter today!

I think handmadeology will have highly useful content, based upon the blog content for the last year and will be recommended for all Indie CEOs!

Know What is Working For YOU with Google Analytics

2009-01-13T15:34:00.000-05:00

The indie arts blogosphere is all a-twitter about Google Analytics this last week! Two top selling venues recently added Google Analytics to their features for sellers.

ArtFire.com rolled out Google Analytics for their sellers a few weeks ago. Etsy.com just announced the working feature last week. The bugs are being worked out on the Etsy site so please keep up-to-date on their fixes so you can know when you are getting accurate information.

Google Analytics (GA) is a FREE web utility from Google. To access GA, you will need to create a free GA account. Once the account is set up, you can add any number of web sites or blogs to be tracked.

Why does it matter to you? Because, Google Analytics...

Tracks your "hits" to each page of your web site or to your blog
Tracks where you are getting your hits from in terms of referring web sites, searches, countries, and more
Tracks how long visitors stay on your site (hit and run? Or hit and interested enough to stay?)
Tracks key words that were used in searches that took someone to your web site
Tracks international traffic
Offers even more - a huge amount of information about your online visitors and their habits relative to your online sites

I cannot tell you how critical this information is to your future marketing plans. Someday, you will be glad you did this. If you are still not convinced of the value, go ahead and get set up now, even if you don't address it for a year or two. You will have the traffic history.

For example, my GalleriaLinda web site had not been getting many hits in the last 2 years. I had not "worked it" either, so no wonder. (That is a testimony to why you need to promote)!

Now that I am paying attention to my web site traffic, I can see where visitors come from, how long they stay, and what pages are of interest.

Here is a practical example to illustrate what I mean:

I joined Facebook about 6 months ago and have had one hit on my web site from my Facebook page.
I joined twitter about 3 weeks ago and use it to network and promote. Over half of my hits to my web site and 2 blogs now come from twitter.
So, I guess I want to continue twitter! And….Facebook not so much.

Those are the kinds of decisions that help you to funnel your energy and costs into what works. That is why it is important.

This past week, I have read a variety of blog posts about GA from online sellers since Artfire and Etsy offered the feature. Three posts I found are so excellent that I have listed them here as a resource for you.

TheTinyFig, who makes the cutest illustrations on accessories and stickers, is on Artfire and Etsy.

LivnGoodJewelry, who makes the most beautiful chainmaille jewelry, is found on Etsy and on 1000Markets.com.

Tutorial:
TheTinyFig offers a great tutorial on how to set up Google Analytics in both of your Artfire and Etsy stores.

Tips and Tricks:
LivnGoodJewery expands to offer excellent tips, tricks, and important things to know about Google Analytics.

Inside Look into Google Analytics for your Etsy Shop
TimothyAdamDesigns has consistent and useful online promotion tips and tutorials that are clear and easy to understand. Check out TimothyAdamDesigns new video on "An Inside Look into Google Analytics for your Etsy Shop."

Contemporary metal jewelry is found in the TimothyAdamDesigns' Artfire and Etsy shops.

I have added these blogs to the blog roll on the left because they offer many business subjects that will help you!

Sales, Orders, and Tax Organization for 2009

2009-01-10T18:02:00.001-05:00

It's done. It has been procrastinated since the last week in December, but it is done. I pay my business taxes on a quarterly basis, but some pay annually or biannually and it depends upon how your business is setup.

I have a simple tax certificate that allows me to purchase raw materials without paying taxes on them at that time. This is because I will be collecting taxes from the customer on those raw materials once they are used in finished products and sold to a customer. More about that around April 15.

Today, I finished my quarterly sales taxes on orders I received and sent out in Q4 of 2008. My state has a state tax plus a county usage tax and each county can be a different percent, therefore, I had to do a bit of sorting, calculating, and merging to fill out the form.

I wanted to share with you GalleriaLinda's Sales, Orders, and Tax spreadsheet that I set up. It may help you and it may not. I have found that looking at and trying out a few of these kind of things can help you to identify what your custom needs are regarding your sales information. A call to your local tax office or accountant (even if it is hubby in the next room) will help you to understand what you will need to document.

Now is the time to get your documentation procedures in place so you are not left in a mess at the end of the year!

Disclaimer about the spreadsheet: I am not an expert at Excel. I do not know your state's tax requirements. I am not an accountant. I can barely add 2+2. SO, this is shared as a resource in concept for you to take and make your own.

I have formulated the calculating cells for what I have in this spreadsheet. If you change or tweak this sheet, they may not work for you. I suggest you find a person proficient in Excel to be sure your calculations work well when you finish making it your own.

Blogging is an Art - What Do I Write About in My Blog?

2009-01-09T20:00:00.002-05:00

The series "Blogging is an Art" continues!

Should I start a blog?
Will a blog help sales?
What do I write about in my blog?
Who will read it and do I need to promote it?
Where do I go to create a blog?

Q. I am an Indie CEO. What do I write about in a blog?

This question often freezes up new bloggers. New bloggers know they want to blog, but when the blog is setup, writer's block sets in.

If you are new to writing especially, this is quite normal. Be encouraged, though, that the more you write, the easier it becomes, and the more you will enjoy it.

Keep your audience engaged with your content by keeping your topics focused. This goes back to your decision about your target audience and why you want to blog in the first place. What do you have to say? We discussed this in the first part of this series, "Should I Start a Blog?"

There is nothing wrong with wanting to write about everything! In fact, I encourage you to have several blogs that you can strategically use to cross-promote, thereby sustaining traffic on each (more about promoting in the next part of the series). I have this IndieCEO blog, plus my jewelry blog, GalleriaLindaShowcase.

Often, I think of topics and content at the oddest times, so I keep crazy notes about topics with a few little bullet points. These notes get me started on a short post when I have time to sit down and write. Remember that a post should be short. It is not an article.

Think about writing a shop/product/business blog, a crafty technical blog, and a personal blog and target specific content to each. If you decide upon a business blog, you might be inspired by the topics list below. (This is the abbreviated article and list. Download more ideas in the entire “Blogging is an Art – What Should I Write on My Blog?” article here).

Potential Blog Topics

About you, your background, how you got into your business
Your expertise as an artist, designer, creative
Where you learned your expertise
How you happened to become passionate about your craft
What media or processes you have worked with, antics, experiences - could be fun!
Your works in progress - include background and interesting facts that are not found elsewhere - this could be at least 50% of your posts if it is a promoting blog
Tutorials are very popular for keeping readers and bringing traffic
What you do locally relative to your business, such as shows, exhibits, etc...
Interesting facts, such as a favorite cause you support through your business
Where you are found or featured online

(Eleven more topic suggestions are found in the entire “Blogging is an Art – What Should I Write on My Blog?” article here).

Selling Jewelry

2009-01-06T12:57:00.001-05:00

Handmade jewelry is a saturated market online and is usually one of the largest categories on selling venues.

Therefore, you will be most successful selling your jewelry in person, especially in the business atmosphere of 2009. All it takes sometimes is for a potential customer to hold one of your pieces, admire how the light sparkles through it, and then try it on. Sold!

That is one of the downsides of selling jewelry online - people cannot experience it and right now it is the rich experience of a product that will win the sale.

I have a couple of resources for you that have proven to be informative about jewelry business tactics and selling opportunities. For a quick read and they sometimes inspire a direction for GalleriaLinda's strategies.

I have benefited from the newsletter from Dr. David Weiman - marketingjewelry.com. Although there are resources for sale on his web site, he offers a free newsletter and a free eBook. It is worth a look.

In addition, there are many jewelry selling tips on the blog, Home Jewelry Business Success Tips, by Rena Klingenberg. This is a site that is rich with all kinds of useful information on selling jewelry, displaying jewelry, craft show planning, packaging, and other aspects of a jewelry business.

I will be posting these sites on my blog roll over on the left where I am building a list of resources for you!

Nimble Businesses Will Win in 2009

2009-01-05T19:19:00.000-05:00

It is the first week in January 2009 and already I hear of friends being laid off of their jobs or salaries cut. When times are tough, the tough get going. Are you tough?

You are in control of your own universe. Make choices everyday focusing on those things that you can control and not those things that you cannot control. That makes a lot of sense, especially in these economic times.

As we gently dip our toe in the water of the year 2009, we realize that we are all in this together and are affected by the downturn in the economy. Many of our customers are spending much less, eliminating luxury items from their purchases, are anxious about their job security, and are facing losses in retirement programs.

I do marketing communications consulting work for a large real estate land office and you can only guess the challenges there. I appreciate so much the real estate broker I work with, as he is a staunch supporter of the marketing effort. His mantra is not to cut spending but to rev up marketing efforts in this sluggish market in order to be seen above the clutter. He will have the company well positioned at the time the economy improves and will win business in the meantime by being responsive to clients and their situations.

Realize that it is time for different business strategies.

Rigid business practices will not work anymore. Nimble business practices will win the business of 2009. What can your Indie Business do to review, rethink, and retool?

Position your company to be above the clutter
Position your products to be needed - take them from an impulse buy to a need buy
Position you, as the Indie CEO, to be helpful, flexible, understanding, and supportive of your customers and their situations

Three pages of strategies are available to you by Indie CEO and GalleriaLinda's resource page, or directly Download this 3-page report on how nimble businesses can win in 2009. You can do it!

Painless New Year's Planning for Your Indie Business

2009-01-02T19:06:00.000-05:00

It is time! The celebrations have given way to new days for our indie businesses. Away with the old and in with the new!

Has anyone ever asked, encouraged, cajoled, or otherwise arm-twisted you into writing a business plan for you business? Ah....I though not. My famous line is,"If you don't know where you are going, you will never get there." And, I could add, "If you don't know where you have been, you will repeat the same old results."

*Puts on marketing hat.*

Business plans are like math, even to me. They are boring, stodgy, stiff, suck-your-brains-out exercises that are supposed to help you direct your business strategy. Heck! A lot of us did not start this to be a business, anyway...right? GalleriaLinda was born out of encouragement from friends to sell. If you are selling anything, you are in business and you need to listen to this.

I have a fun, painless informal business plan for you. Just answer the questions and you will be surprised at what you see on paper as your business. It is created to identify where you are now, where you want to go, and if you need to change anything. It is not a formal plan but valuable marketing tool for you. Pretend it is a fun quiz! I am calling it a "Think-it-Through list because that is what it is.

If you want to get fancy, you can go to SCORE.org to download great business templates for business plans and other business documents. After this exercise, maybe you will want to do a formal business plan.

Get your GalleriaLinda Painless Business Plan "Think-it-Through" handout today!

Blogging is an Art - Will it Help sales?

2009-01-01T19:00:00.001-05:00

In the next few posts, I continue to work through some of the basics of blogging for you in this "Blogging is an Art" series, utilizing my background in marketing communications, as well as my experiences with blogging for GalleriaLinda.

Should I start a blog?

Will a blog help sales?

What should I write about on my blog?

Who will read it and do I need to promote it?

Where do I go to create a blog?

Q. I am an Indie CEO. If I start a blog, will it help sales?

The answer is....maybe....it could...if you play your cards right.

My experience considers blogs to be a "soft marketing" strategy and there are many online sellers that have gleaned some sales from featuring their work on their blogs. These sellers are also successful in bringing in reader traffic that is their target customer.

What is "soft marketing?" Soft marketing is really relationship marketing, where you build a relationship over time between you and the reader. This builds trust, familiarity, friendship, and warm fuzzies. Who wouldn't want to buy from a trusted, familiar friend?

Here is a great 30-min audio on soft marketing from Blog Talk Radio.

Soft marketing includes those things that you do for your business that are not blatant promotional selling efforts. Blogs and Flickr photos are examples of soft marketing opportunities. Sales can be had through these methods and are the result of successful "schmoozing!" It takes time and patience but can be very rewarding, not only as a customer builder but as a friendship builder.

Some ways you can utilize your blog content to enhance soft marketing for your products are:

Be friendly and professional

Some personal content could be good but be careful to come across as a true professional that runs a viable online business

Open the doors to your life as a business owner, artist, designer, creative - give a glimpse into these worlds

Build your brand by optimizing your content for SEO (using appropriate links)

Showcase your products and creations, giving history, information, and perspective beyond what is found in your shops

Know where and how to promote your blog to your target audience

Encourage comments to start a "conversation" with potential customers

You can also create your blog to be your own selling site!

This is good, especially if you do not have your own web site and do not care to list on selling venues or it can be an extension of your selling strategies. There are several ways to do this that include:

PayPal "buy now" buttons - individual buttons from PayPal that you place by your item photo

flogd.com - selling format that can be placed on blogs, Facebook, MySpace and other areas

Don't expect the money to come rolling in, however, you can make good strides in increasing views of your work, becoming better known, branding your business, and making friendship sales from your blog.

One last reminder is that you must bring in the right people to see your blog in order for the relationship marketing to work well for you. That is another blog series to come about finding your target customer, so check back very soon!

The "Blogging is an Art" series continues in the days to come.

Know Your Selling Venues - Bonanzle?

2008-12-31T18:20:00.000-05:00

I came across this excellent review of Bonanzle.com as a selling venue from eCommerce-Guide.com.

The link to the eCommerce-Guide.com was posted in a comment on another great review of Bonanzle by the Rose Works Jewelry blog. Rose Works Jewelry has done some good focus group marketing on forums by soliciting comments about experiences on selling venues.

The Rose Works Jewelry Selling Venue Series is still ongoing so check back there to see if she reviews your selling venues. As of this writing, there are reviews on Bonanzle and Etsy, as well as a growing list of selling venues and a post about the series.

In addition, at Indie CEO, you can see a comprehensive list of 47 selling venues put together by GalleriaLinda over the last year.

GalleriaLinda has a shop on Bonanzle and I find many unique features offered to sellers. Although Bonanzle is not a "handmade only" venue, you will find professional sellers of all kinds of merchandise, including handmade and vintage. According to Alexa.com and Quantcast.com, Bonanzle is making great strides with traffic and seller shops for the seven months they have existed.

Try them out! You will love some of the features, such as such one-page listing process, image-cropping, live chat in the store, price and description estimator, and options to receive instant messages (IM) through AIM, Gmail, MSN or other networks. You have options for local pick ups and an option to take offers on your items or a fixed price.

It is free to list as many items as you wish and are allowed four photos for each item. A final value fee is charged only when items sell.

All-in-all, my few week's experience with GalleriaLinda at Bonanzle has been great in setting up shop and the live chat facilitates getting to know your fellow sellers. It is like walking down the mall and popping in for a quick "Hi!"

Blogging is an Art - Should I Start a Blog?

2008-12-31T10:13:00.001-05:00

As GalleriaLinda, I participate in a variety of indie arts forums online find many comments and questions continually brought up about blogging. The questions I see are about why to blog and the comments are about how to blog from a content perspective.

Over the years, I have created two blogs. IndieCEO is a business blog that is targeted to a specific audience - the Indie Arts business owners online.

My second blog, gallerialindashowcase, is my jewelry blog that is targeted to both my customer and other online sellers. While I consider it somewhat businessy, it contains lighter topics relative to creating jewelry, photography for online stores, some tutorials, and more.

In the next few posts, I will work through some of the basics of blogging for you in this "Blogging is an Art series".

Should I start a blog?
Will a blog help sales?
What should I write about on my blog?
Who will read it and do I need to promote it?
Where do I go to create a blog?

Q. I am an Indie CEO and should I start a blog?

In short, the answer is YES!

Early blogs were setup to be fun, personal diaries with daily life antics that allowed friends and family to keep up with what you are doing. Today, blogs are big business.

Think about using a blog to enhance your online Indie arts business. Some advantages to having a good, targeted business blog include:

Name recognition for you and your business
Can set you apart as an expert in your field
Great SEO & search support if you plan your blog with this in mind
Features your work to your audience and works for you 24/7
A place for potential customers to be sent by you to learn about you and your products/services
An extension and enhancement to your web site and online plan
An important part of your marketing plan if used correctly
Once seasoned, a potential for utilizing advertising opportunities

WHY do you want to start a blog? Because everyone else has a blog? Because you want to use it to promote your business? Because you want to ramble on about your inner musings in life? Because you want to make it an extension of your creative expression?

All of these are good, but my experience suggests that it is best if you pick one reason why you want to blog. If you don't know where you are going, you will never get there. If you don't know who you are writing for, no one will read it.

Some things to think about before you actually start your blog are below:

Why do I want to blog? What is my core reason - pick one. Everything else will fall out of this one objective.
Do I want to blog about business topics, personal topics, a targeted craft topic, a specialty topic, or all the above?

Who will be my target audience? Fellow indie artists? Friends and family? A targeted group within the arts community? An outside group supporting a cause? Or all the above?
Where will I find this audience?

How do I plan to promote my blog?

Who benefits from the blog? Me? Them? Others? All? (goes back to why you want to blog)
Do I have time to nurture this blog with rich content that is interesting to my target audience?

Once you have worked through this, you will have a better idea of how to plan your blog. Blog planning can be as simple as understanding what you want to do with your blog from the questions above, or as complex as a written plan to include promoting and marketing methods; advertising; statistics review, measurement and improvement; content editorial schedule, and more.

Check back for the rest of the "Blogging is an Art" series!

Selling Venues Galore!

2008-12-30T13:00:00.000-05:00

It wasn't but a little over two years ago that I was looking for a way to post products online for GalleriaLinda without doing the auction thing. I really dislike the auction process, although many sellers love it.

A friend of mine in another state who does not even make crafts, told me about Etsy.com. A friend of hers discovered Etsy and was setting up shop, and told her, and she told me. That is how we find out a lot of information! At that time, there were very few venues online that I found, other than Ebay, which was not an option for me.

Since then, and since Etsy has been a successful pioneer and benchmark in targeted handcraft selling, a lot of venues have popped up. Now, there are a variety of venues to select and the decision can be overwhelming. I personally found and documented almost 50 selling venues...not including auction sites.

You might be interested in the post on the INDIE CEO blog called "Selecting the Right Online Selling Venue" that will give you a few pointers on where to start when thinking about the best selling venues for your products and customers.

For traffic ranking on many of these selling sites, GalleriaLinda found Shiny Adornment's blog post here.

For your use, here is GalleriaLinda's List of 47 Selling Venues. At this writing, this list is just a list. It does NOT include auction sites and there are likely a few more to add.

The venues listed can be categorized into what can be sold, US sites, sites from other countries, those that bring in traffic, those that don't, and various other categories.

There are so many other things we can research on each, such as traffic to each as Shiny Adornments posted, as well as demographics, fees, listing limits, payment vendors, and much more.

Why do I care about all of this? Simply, to keep up with competitive research and to see where my target customer shops.

I have a feeling that many readers have blog posts that may present some of these. If so, please leave a comment with your blog post URL.

As you work your way through this list, I would love for you to comment back about your impressions of the venues that you like or dislike.

If you currently sell on venues on this list, please let me know about your experience in the comment section!

The Ice is Broken by The Jeweled Rabbit

2008-12-29T21:38:00.000-05:00

Vintage Silvertoned Filigree Cufflinks
from The Jeweled Rabbit on Artfire

Congratulations to JeweledRabbit who bravely stepped forward where no man has gone before to be the very first to follow the INDIE CEO blog!

JeweledRabbit is from one of my favorite countries, Canada, and is a fellow jewelry lover. Take a look at JeweledRabbit's friendly blog for warmth, information, and a fabulous post on Twitter web tools! What better way to start your business new year?

Visit The Jeweled Rabbit on ArtFire for exciting jewelry and tell her that GalleriaLinda sent ya!

Your friend and fellow Indie CEO,
GalleriaLinda

Selecting the Right Online Selling Venue

2008-12-29T19:29:00.000-05:00

It seems to be the time of year to try new things!

As a business owner of the online jewelry business GalleriaLinda.com, I read forum posts in the various indie arts areas online and have found that when one person discovers a new or little known selling venue, everyone jumps on board and clamors to set up additional shops. Much discussion is had and I too get caught up in the excitement and sheepishly admit I have a variety of shops setup all over the Internet, some which are empty! Many, as it turns out, are not conducive to selling to my target customer.

Surely, some of the criteria that I read in discussions are very good, such as the technical aspects of a site (ease of use), the look (cluttered or clean), type of products sold (handmade or not), statistics (for shop, site, items), and even the response rate of the Admin running the site. To be sure, ALL of these are important.

However, I see that we are leaving out the MOST important factor in this mix - that of your target customer and where to find him or her.

Defining your target customer and the demographics surrounding them is the core of all marketing and promotional efforts that you take on and should define where you spend your dollars and energy. Without that juicy bit of discovery, you may as well be throwing darts in the dark.

How does one make the important decision of selecting an appropriate online venue before going through all the work to set up shop and list product?

Check out demographics web analysts, quantcast. There, you can enter the URL for the selling venue and discover a lot of statistics and customer demographics.

I created a quick Handout from GalleriaLinda that compares several popular online selling venues (ArtFire, BigCartel, Bonanzle, eCrater, Etsy, HandmadeFuzion, iCraft, and ShopHandmade). Not all the statistics are on this page, as I focused only on customer demographics and also the comments by quantcast. Some of the information was surprising. Visit quantcast and see what you can find out about the selling venues that you use.

Download GalleriaLinda's online selling venue customer demographics overview here! And, be sure to visit GalleriaLinda.com to see how stores in several of these venues look.

Warning...You Are Entering a Business Dead Zone....

2008-12-29T09:42:00.001-05:00

WARNING!! You are entering the business dead zone....

That vacuum is what we call the last week in December. As the wrath of the main holiday is over and we are left in a steaming pile of gift wrap, clutter, and lethargy, we struggle to get back into our routines. And, there is more!! Here comes the New Year's holiday. Oy!

The short week between the Christmas holidays and New Year's Day is a business dead zone. While there are people who work this week, many don't and vacation times make many desks empty. What does this mean for you? It means that you cannot move forward with much that involves other business associates, whether they are vendors, employees, or customers.

In my many years in the corporate business world, I discovered early on that business does not crank up from the holidays (here in the US, at least) until about January 15. People are recovering from the holidays and are slow to get into their routines. Years ago, I quit the frustration of trying to “do business” during this time and started PLANNING for this welcomed slow time.

This is a GOOD TIME for:

Remembering your customers, writing notes
Nurturing your online marketing plan
Updating, checking all of your online venues for policies
Continuing education
Updating and researching certifications
Creating new products
Planning out new services
Catching up on administrative work, like taxes, data input
Updating your business plan (yes, you heard me!!)

For my marketing consulting business, I am planning out my scheduling and working on obtaining new clients locally.

For my GalleriaLinda.com online jewelry business, I am implementing and nurturing my online marketing plan that is outlined in my business plan (yes, you heard me!!).

This is the time to make the slower business activity work to your advantage!

Even though you may not make the sales you desire, what better time to use this vacuum than to enhance your business through planning that will increase your business throughout 2009! Happy New Year!

Launching INDIE CEO!

2008-12-26T14:47:00.000-05:00

T minus 5, T minus 4, T minus 3, T minus 2, T minus 1....and.....we have liftoff, ladies and gentlemen!!! (The crowds roar)! I thought this fitting since I live near Florida's space coast and this scenario is quite common!

Welcome to INDIE CEO, a blog that strives to be helpful to independent business owners (who, by default are CEOs of their businesses), especially those individuals within the indie arts community. I am very excited to launch this venture, as it has been on my mind for over a year, and now, through careful planning, it has become reality!

I mention "careful planning," because that is what we all should be doing when we start any venture, even a blog. You need to know where you are going in order to get there.

It is my hope that you will find a lot of helpful things here such as, non-intimidating ways to plan your business, street-smart marketing, basic business structure, forms, downloads, guest articles, and ideas to help your business grow within the boundaries of your own situation. Oh, and motivation too!

This is the beginning of a wonderful conversation with all of you that will allow us to capture your ideas, as well as mine. We are in this together and are, by default, CEOs!