How To Promote Your Etsy Store On Pinterest

Etsy is outranking all other sites on Pinterest by a wide margin. This is expected since their brand falls in line with the interests of Pinterest users. How can you use Etsy’s success to your own benefit as a shop owner? You can use Pinterest to boost traffic and sales for your business.  For better results, have a clear idea of what goal you want to attain by advertising your shop.

There is no problem with having many goals, but it is better to have one main goal and then other secondary goals.  Most Etsy shop owners should aim at getting click throughs from Pinterest. These clickthroughs lead to a purchase. It doesn’t hurt to have many followers but that should not be the main objective—it is a “Vanity metric”.

Pinterest users are almost always interested in making a purchase, unlike users on other sites. You do not need an outrageous following to make a decent amount from Pinterest marketing. First, focus on how to promote your shop then you can go for other ideas.  On Pinterest, your brand is the main event. Therefore, understand if and how your activities affect your brand. Image is very important and you only have one chance to make a first impression. 

Almost every Etsy seller spends a lot of time practicing their craft; they barely leave time to promote their products. Be realistic when deciding on how much time you will be able to commit. Check out these promotional activities that promise huge returns on invested time. It is advisable that your username be the same as that on Etsy. Branding requires consistency.

You can either open a new account for business or convert your personal one. The features on the two account types are not different but the terms of use are.  Your profile should be complete with an avatar (preferably the same as that on Etsy), your location and a link to your Etsy shop. While filling in the description, incorporate some keywords for SEO purposes but do it naturally. Remember you are doing it primarily for human buyers not search engines.

You can borrow ideas from Etsy Top Sellers’ profiles. Set up your Pinterest boards; the boards reflect your Etsy shop. They are like your shop sections on Etsy. More boards with fewer entries are better than fewer boards with too many pins. Since every board calls for its own separate description, think SEO and use this to your advantage. Ensure that your images are optimized for Pinterest.

The first picture on your Etsy listing gets pinned more often, so it should be impeccable. Different content performs differently on various platforms; that is why your site should be optimized for Pinterest. Tall and skinny images are better than short fat ones.

Your description must be appropriate for Pinterest, featuring a strong call-to-action.  Build your audience on Pinterest. If you can afford it, advertise on Pinterest. Otherwise, promote your boards on other sites such as Tumblr and StoreWoot. Pin regularly in a schedule so that your audience is not overwhelmed. Another thing, join group boards and interact with other sellers. 

Are you the kind of seller who is hooked on their Shop Stats? It is normal for sellers to keep their eyes glued to their stats every day, sometimes several times a day. This can be unhealthy. Even when you are having a great, busy month, just a day of low favorites or views can dampen your mood.

Unveiling new ways to watch your Shop Stats can reduce daily anxiety and remind you of the time you have put into the growth of your shop. The five stats below will help you focus on the long-term trends of your shop.  The views to sales ratio are also known as the conversion rate.

It is measured over a long period of time. For instance, check your conversion rate for January to June and compare it to the previous year six-month period. If last year you had 1000 views and two sales and this year you had 800 views and two sales, you might think that your shop is not doing well because of the decreased views; while in reality, you are selling more items per view.

Focus more on increasing sales than increasing views. First, make your tags accurate and descriptive so that the right audience lands on your listings. Eliminate unsuccessful keywords. Second, increase the chances of shoppers buying your item by answering as many questions as possible. You can know whether shoppers stay around when they discover your shop by checking out the “Traffic Sources on Etsy ”, part of your shop stats.

Traffic from your About Page or Your Listings means you have someone’s attention. It tells you that potential buyers are checking out your shop.  Does your listing description make people want to visit more areas of your shop? If you sell complimentary items, link to other shop sections or items from the listings description. Internal traffic is good but you need to learn about the external sources that drive shoppers to your shop.

Whenever you represent your brand on Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, or any other platform, it is an opportunity for a potential buyer to land in your shop. Unknown external referrers are an untapped potential source of traffic. When an unknown website or blog drives traffic to your shop, dig deeper to know where they featured any of your items.

Thank them and ask if they would like to receive periodic email updates or newsletters of your shop. Keeping track of all external event-related traffic is impossible. Owner of Harp and Thistle Stitchery, Erin Flanagan, decided to register her events against her stats. She realized that, following an event; there was a huge spike in sales and traffic.

Encouraging repeat business is a great method of increasing sales. Specials and coupons help reward loyal customers and they are likely to buy from you again. Coupon performance may not be in Shop Stats (it is in your Order Item CSV) but it is useful in tracking. Which coupons are working best for your target audience? Coupons can be shared in Message To Buyers or by packaging them with orders.