Ways to promote your work - How does it work for you.

[Jan Simpson]

How many of us out there find it hard to self promote ourselves - Galleries, exhibitions, craft shows, outlets - there are so many ways to sell our work but I certainly am always looking for new ideas. How about a discussion from people sharing their experiences - what really works for you, what does not.

I have tried many ways and as far as approaching galleries - have found that the best way to really get a result is to find out by phone what days the owner is in, have a little chat and then appear on the doorstep with a box of goodies to show them. Usually they are really polite and the one thing with gallery owners is you really tend to get an honest opinion - not often I have come across people who are totally up their own ...., but you do have to be pretty thick skinned to take the criticism when it is levelled at you.

Anyway, thats this discussion started - let's see where it goes.

[omshanti]

...yeah, it did take a while -- but everything I have up in the salesrooms (including the catching up I did today) now has photos at the cafe, with tags, descriptions and links to the Salesrooms.

Now, I'm pooped.

[Jill]

Hi omshanti

I think it is worth it because the live feed shows people are definitely picking up tagged pictures on searches in google and then visiting the pages. They also often leave via the Salesrooms.
I am getting some increases in traffic to the Salesrooms now but it is harder getting people to actually stop and bother to Register as buyers. I know quite often having to register on a site stops me from bothering as well and I wonder apart from the offer of going in a prize draw which is up already what could be done to entice visitors to the site to sign up?
I have an offer from the Student Design guys who have done work before of us paying £50 for 2 potential new Salesrooms site designs which we could chose from. Then it would be another £60 to implement the change. This may be reasonable in website design terms but it would take away from the already limited money we have to spend on advertising. £110 in total is a lot of clicks on adwords or stumble on or sites like that. What do you all think is more important a site revamp or getting in more advertising? Let me know what you think on this when you have time.

Thanks
Jill

[omshanti]

Glad it's driving in more traffic!

Hm. I like the functionality of the salesrooms very much -- more than Etsy in some aspects. I wouldn't change the functionality at all.

As for look and feel -- I dunno. I'm not sure I'm the right one to be commenting on this, because I don't care so much about how something looks as I do about how much it works. And, yeah, 110 pounds (don't have the symbol on my keyboard!) is a lot of advertising.

Think they'd take some of it in trade? ;)

As for the signing up...yeah, I understand. I hate signing up for things too, though if I find something I want to buy I'll do it. Perhaps people are worried about security? Is there, I dunno, a verification thing we could go through to say 'really, we're okay'?

Can't think of much anything beyond that. :/

[Jill]

Hi omshanti

Because we couldn't afford a custom made Salesrooms site I did spend some time before we opened testing the ready made software available. At one time I had pumpkin seeds coming from Australia and a soft toy from Australia just to test the check outs and make sure they took Paypal etc. A lot of the software didn't do what we wanted. Finding Rainworx which the Salesrooms is on now was great in the way it worked. Even the fact you can switch currencies back and forward helps with international sellers. Besides that it seems to run smoothly.
Any changes would not affect the functionality of the site just the looks. The basic layout would also have to stay the same. I'm just concerned that the way it looks now may be putting some visitors off registering. But it is hard to tell.
Would be glad to know what anyone else thinks.

Bye for Now
Jill

[Sophie]

Your right. I think the best way to find a job is face to face especially when dealing with art. Even if you try to find an office job; it is almost impossible over a phone call or emailing your résumé.

[princee18]

i agree with sophie, now your personality, presence and body language is also reckoned among your qualifications.So if its the matter of art, online contact may not work.

[omshanti]

Jill reminded me that I should mention this here...

I'm doing a series in my blog on how to promote your shop -- so far I've got two articles up:

Promoting Tips & Tricks Part I: Shops

Promoting Tips & Tricks Part II: Descriptions and Photos

And there will be many more to come. I'm looking for advice as well as giving it, so stop by and join the discussion!

Kate

[Jill]

Hi

And very useful Tips and Tricks they are to Kate.

Bye for Now
Jill