Has this ever happened to you? You’ve sacrificed hours of hard work and have poured your heart and soul into your latest product, and no one seems to be noticing it. Personally, I am all too familiar with that feeling of being overlooked. Gaining that initial visibility can be one of the most difficult things about being a shop owner.
When I first opened my shop in May of last year, I really struggled with getting my products noticed. My products got a few views and a like here and there, but it wasn’t until late June that I made my first sale and earned a whopping $4.90. I made two additional sales that month, and while it was exciting to see people purchasing my designs, I was really disappointed that I wasn’t doing as well as I had expected.
Over the next few months, I tried out several different strategies to help get my products seen, and I’m happy to say that most of them really helped. Since then, my shop traffic and sales have steadily increased each month, and recently, I hit the big milestone of making my first 100 sales.
These tactics I used really helped my shop gain some recognition and continue to do so. I hope that by sharing them they will help you out too!<\/p>
It is a little frightening giving a product away for free; however, it is an excellent way to get a lot of exposure and can even help generate some sales! My first free good was downloaded by over 40,000 people and my second was downloaded by over 42,000! Each time I offered a free good, I would see a dramatic boost in traffic to my shop. As far as sales go, when I offered my first free good I was actually a bit disheartened because most people see an increase in sales and that week I had zero. Although, when I offered my second good a couple weeks later I made 11 sales. Every Wednesday, Creative Market sends out a newsletter showcasing the latest handpicked goods. This newsletter goes out to a lot of people and can give shop owners a big boost in views and in sales. While I have yet to make it into the newsletter, I have made it into the handpicked section of the site a few times. It does offer some exposure and helps get your product seen by those who would’ve otherwise missed it. SEO is oh-so-important because it is going to help customers find your products. Something I’ve noticed with a lot of shops on Creative Market is that people are not using keywords in their preview images. I often see images named “main.jpg†or “cover-1.jpgâ€. When you don’t use keywords in your image name you’re missing out on potential search results with Google. Properly name your images!
As of now, I have had the pleasure of offering two of my products as free goods on Creative Market: my Outer Space Seamless Patterns<\/a> () and my Sacred Geometry Vectors Volume 001<\/a>.<\/p>
Now something that I wish someone had told me that week I didn’t see any sales is don’t let it discourage you. You have thousands upon thousands of people checking out your shop and a lot of them may choose to start following you. Your products may not be what they’re looking for at the moment, but those new followers are all potential customers and they clearly see something that they like. Stay excited about the exposure that comes with offering a free good!<\/p><\/span>Strive to Get Handpicked<\/span><\/h2>
One of my goals for 2020 is to release 1-2 new products every week. It’s a bit ambitious, but I’ve been sticking to it so far. The reason I’m wanting to launch consistently this year is to help increase my chances of being handpicked and hopefully make it into the newsletter. Not to mention, the more products you have in your shop the more chances you have to make sales.<\/p><\/span>Search Engine Optimization (SEO)<\/span><\/h2>
When adding a new product, it’s also important to make sure that you are using keywords in both your product title and description. Don’t forget about that tag section either! You want to think of all the possible words and phrases your customers might search for. What type of product is it? What trend does it follow? What is it used for? Using keywords is going to help your product show up in search results on both Creative Market and Google.<\/p>