If you are a handmade product creator who is dabbling the idea of launching your handmade business online, these are the most important 5 things you must do before you make the first sale. Even if you are someone who has just launched your handmade business online or struggling to make sales, you must review your strategy to include these 5 steps, it’s never too late.
There are a tonne of things that you need to do to start your online handmade business, I know. But it is not important that you do everything perfectly before you launch, what is important that you launch ASAP. That is because however perfect your strategy is, there will be several iterations before you are able to finalise everything. So, here are the 5 things that you must have ready to launch your successful handmade business online:
1. Do your market research
This is the most common folly of handmade product creators. They are so much in love with their creations, that they are not really listening to the market. Do your market research. Go online, search on Google, Etsy and other market places to see if people are really searching for your product and to what extent. Learn what are they exactly searching for.
See if there are other people selling similar products.
Having some competition is actually good news.
This means there are businesses thriving selling similar products. It is highly unlikely that you are the first one to have the product idea and even if you are, it is very time and resource consuming to introduce a new to the market product and be successful selling it. So if this is your first business, the product is not for you to sell.
2. Photographs, Branding and Website
The biggest barrier to sales for any online business is the lack of touch and feel experience by potential buyers.
Just think about it, if you were an offline retail store you would just have to choose a favourable shop location and get your products out there. Anyone walking by can enter your store, touch and feel your products and buy from you. Making sales is as easy as that.
But when you operate a handmade business online, it is you who is responsible to help your potential buyers experience your products to the best possible extent you can. And you do that with great photographs, branding and an customer friendly website.
Your photographs must do justice to your products. Don’t be lazy in this aspect. Take product photographs from multiple angles and depicting them in use. Ensure the lighting is sufficient and photographs are clear.
Your branding is what sets you apart from your competition. If you think about your business as a person, how does it talk, what colour of clothes does it wear, is it a he/she, what lingo does it use and all sorts of questions to personify your brand. Now translate the same to your brand. Branding encompasses your logo, fonts, colour palette, brand voice and tone. Set your brand guidelines and follow the same everywhere for a uniforn brand experience. We have a few brand kits and branding workbooks in our free resources, that you can take inspiration from.
Your website is what replaces your offline store, so make it worthy. Choose your website colours in accordance with your brand guidelines. Add multiple photographs of each product and provide all the product details that a potential buyer would like to know to make the purchase. Make the process of finding your products easy. Reduce the number of steps to finally complete the purchase.
3.Build your email list from Day 1
An email marketing strategy is a huge asset for your business.
Your email list is your only customer list that is not affected by any algorithm changes.
Don’t wait to become famous till you start collecting emails, by then you would have lost a lot of sales opportunities. So start building your email list day 1 and a relationship with your potential buyers.
Once you start promoting your business online, you would be spending money, time and effort to bring potential buyers to your website. But not everyone of them would end up buying. Would you let them just walk away hoping that they might remember to come back to your website? No, this is where email marketing comes into play. All you have to do is setup a small signup form on your website and give visitors a reason to leave their email. Then you need to write some automated email sequences to build a relationship with them, so that they remember you. This way you don’t need to spend more money or effort on bringing them back to your website.
4. Have a strong social media marketing strategy
Being actively present on social media is not optional anymore. Your social media handles are your secondary websites and being active on social media means you are active in your business. Being active on social media doesn’t mean you have to post everyday, even if you don’t have quality content. Post only as much as you can without getting burnt out or compromising on your content quality. Remember, quality over quantity. And don’t forget to be “social” on social media. Engage with your audience.
Social media is important for your business’ social proof.
If someone decides to look you up on the internet, they should be able to find you. And more important what other people are saying about you.
Social media can get overwhelming for business owners, but you can deal with it if you plan ahead. Have a social media calendar template to suit your business. Plan your entire month’s content in advance. This way you know what photographs you might need to take and what to create with them. Plan for festivals and occassions in advance. Dedicate a day of the week for creating content and prepare content for the entire week and schedule them in advance. This way, you will not get burnt out and avoid posting sub par content on your social media.
Don’t be all salesy in your social media channels. Provide value and product awareness. Guide your audience through the entire sales journey from awareness to purchase. Incorporate user generated content or UGC as an important part of your content strategy and don’t underestimate the power of Influencer marketing.
5. Know your numbers
Every good businessman/woman knows their business numbers like the back of heir hand. Knowing the numbers doesn’t mean that you memorise the prices of your products, this means you have done the math- of arriving at your pricing, know your expenses vs income, know at what sales you will break even, know your profitability, traffic goals and are aware of what KPIs matter the most for your business.
Unless you know what to track, how will you even know whether you are successful and if not, where are you going wrong!
If you are someone who is looking for help launching their handmade business online, we can teach you the actionable steps, tools and strategies to start a successful handmade business online inside our course Handmade Business Owners Academy- Start a successful handmade business online.
Still not convinced about taking the course, that’s okay! We might still be able to help you…
We have curated a resource library specially for handmade business owners like you. Access multiple templates, cheatsheets, workbooks etc for free by clicking here.
