Advertising...

I've been thinking about different places to advertise my shop lately. Marketing your store is pretty easy these days... and most are free. Just because someone is asking $40 a month to advertise with them, doesn't necessarily make it better. Yes, they may get more views on their website, but I've gotten just as much exposure on other websites that were free or close to free.

Why am I posting this information? Well, it's not exactly a secret. I'm sure many of you already know of these forms of advertising :)

- One place for example is myspace. Yes, there has been much talk over the years with this website being kinda scary... but it is a great way to advertise your etsy shop or whatever you are selling online. When you set up your free page on myspace, it's good to have it in a similar style or theme with the items that you create. If you clicked on this myspace link, you will noticed how brightly colored my page is. I wanted to keep it all in line with the work I create.  There's also a pic section where you can load your images of your items. You can also direct link those images onto your page, or your can upload them to flickr, photobucket, or your server of choice. Flickr and photobucket are also free! I have upgraded my flickr acct. to pro, because I just love the community there, and it's also a great place to advertise (but don't put your shop link underneath your photos!!).... you can still use flickr for free and link your images to your myspace, without paying a penny. After setting up your page, you will need to get contacts! This is the most time consuming, but once you get lots of contacts (search on there for like-minded etsy artists, crafters, etc) ... you can post bulletins and other things to let the ppl in your contacts know that you are having a sale, or posting new items... I have sold tons of items from people seeing my new items on myspace, or seeing my bulletins for sales...

- Another way to advertise is project wonderful... I have mentioned this a few times here on my blog. Right now it's super cheap on my blog here at only 2 cents a day! If you have a blog, you can also set up a project wonderful acct. It's super easy! At first I wasn't too keen on the auction type format of getting ads and getting bumped, but after you get the hang of it, it's kinda fun!

- Other free places to advertise are craigslist, weloveetsy.com, plug boards, indiepublic, the etsy message boards, facebook, twitter...

Hopefully this will help you get started :)  Also, if you need help with an ad graphic, I can make them! I also make animated ads as well... just email me or check out my shop.