By day Jennifer is a graphic designer, by night – an occasionally DJ, animal lover, sci-fi junky and handmade artist! Jennifer runs successful shops on Etsy and ArtFire. This week she shares her marketing strategies with us.

What online marketing strategies are you currently using?

When I first started my etsy shop, I did a lot of posting in the forums. Lots of views, no sales. I headed into the Featured Seller chat room and made a lot of sales which built up a fan base and feedback. I have a blog at smiss00.blogspot.com that I haven't been great at updating. I am looking to add a featured seller segment to help bring something different to the table and bring in some different traffic. I've recently been buying Project Wonderful ads on other people's blogs as well. Votehandmade.com helps to get my items out there and brings in traffic, but I haven't had any sales as a result yet. I also use twitter, plurk, myspace and a little bit of .

What offline marketing strategies are you currently using?

Not enough! I have set up a vendor's table during a dark rave event at a local club. I had some real grassroots business cards I made for that which I printed off on regular paper and glued to cardstock. I wouldn't recommend it since the cardstock tends to curl, and getting the bubbles out of the paper tends to rip it. I'm on the process of designing some 4-color business cards and some small fliers to use at concerts and bars in my area. 

What do you find (on or offline) to be the most effective?

The featured seller chat room on etsy helped me meet a lot of people that helped me establish my shop and create a better shop, and I got a lot of sales out of there as well. After that would be twitter and plurk bringing in a lot of traffic.

Are there strategies that you have found didn’t work well for your business?

Posting in etsy forums seemed to be a COMPLETE waste of time. Posting to the promo section brought views, but not so much from people looking to buy. I haven't noticed a lot of buyers interested in browsing the forums, and if they do look through the promo section, it is just a flood of spam. It's not very compelling and any buyer would just walk away. I certainly wouldnt shop that way.

How do you figure out what’s working and what’s not? If I see a whole lot of views but not getting any sales, something isn't working. However, I haven't figured out so much how to rectify that quite yet.

How do you decide what marketing strategies to try and when to try them?

I talk to a lot of other sellers on etsy and artfire and see what is working for them. If I have the time and/or money I usually try it out. I would hate to miss out on an opportunity because I was scared it might not work. And now we have handmadenews.org as a great resource, so I have been checking out new ideas to try!

Do you have a few marketing initiatives in mind that you would like to implement in the future?

I just have the upcoming business cards and fliers in the works right now

For someone who is just starting their “at-home craft business”, where would you recommend they start in terms of marketing?

Talking to other sellers and definitely handmadenews.org. I wish I had a website of information available when I was just starting up. I love finding out what other sellers have tried and what has succeeded or failed for them. Maybe one of their failures may be the key to my success, so everyone can benefit.

Image Credits: Simply Smiss

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