Promotional Team

Something I've been working on this season is forming a small group of Etsy sellers to join me in promoting Handmade for the season. My girlfriend Sarah Walker of Essentials8 and I have talked recently about the changes that have been happening over at Etsy lately.  You know,  their recent decision to take on outside manufacturers. This has definitely changed the game a little - the ability to search for handmade has become a little more difficult because of this.  

You may have noticed this yourself when searching Etsy for your favorite handmade wares. Try putting in Handmade Jewelry in the search field. You're not only going to find some handmade jewelry but you'll also find jewelry manufactured in China.  I haven't spend the extra time to see where in the 250 pages of listings, my jewelry shows up in that search. But I can imagine it's probably somewhere around the middle of that number.  In order for my jewelry to show up in the first 10 pages, I need to pay Etsy advertising/promotional fees or search ad fees. 

I've decided to bypass this process and promote in a different sort of way for the holidays.  Sarah and I have teamed up with a candle maker, a tie-dye artist, and a Graphic designer. For the season, we have each had business cards or coupon cards made up that we will insert in each of our outgoing orders, with a little note to our customers urging them to check out a few other local artisans in our group.  Doing this will open up the opportunity to promote sales for each of the shops participating.

We'll also be handing out these cards at our upcoming holiday shows, promoting each other in social media and we'll even be trying to purchase something from at least one of the other participating shops ourselves. 

Each of our customers will benefit from the coupon codes we've included. It's a win win situation- each of us being non-competing sellers, promoting our shops to the same demographic.



Check out their websites if you have a few minutes this morning!

Sarah  is the owner and proprietor of Essential8 where she sells her line of natural home and body products each with only 8 ingredients or less!

Sarah Masci of SarahMasciDesign is a local Graphic designer who creates everything from cell phone cases, to wall art!

Check out - CopperandKraftCandle  where Theresa sells her handmade Soy Wax candles and melts each with alluring seasonal scents such as Home for the Holidays or Merry Mistletoe!

Anne Stacy is the owner and proprietor at InTheFold apparel, and sells Colorful creative tie-dyed clothing .




All of my orders going out between November 15 and December 20 will include cards with special discount coupon codes for the local artisans above.