Etsy Marketing Primer-vera

For those of us who are serious about our Etsy marketing, this is a must-read article in the Storque. It is written by Etsy's new marketing consulant, Lou Sagar. Here is an exerpt from his bio:

A few years ago, I wrote a book "Zona Home". My vision was that Home is Sanctuary. It is where most of us enjoy the opportunity to be creative and expressive. We tell stories about our family, our heritage, and our loves...I work today as a brand strategist, and I love what I do.

If you are busy making things like I am, make things that will get the most attention on Etsy, the article lists the holidays and themes that will be highlighted. An easy one to work into just about any product would be gardens. Update your tags, if you haven't already. I don't think having winter as a tag will get much attention this season.

As always, photography is the major issue for online sellers. Here are some quick tips that you can use right now. Use a cyc. This will create a background that is not distracting from your product. For small products, a 12 inch square of scrapbooking paper can become your cyc. For larger items, get a roll of paper or of fabric. When using fabric this way, wrinkles and folds create a distraction, so I like to use suede or a well pressed piece of linen.

The other thing you can start using immediately is a reflector. Anything that is large and white can be used as a reflector. The lid from a large rubbermaid container works great. Sometimes you need helpers to hold these for you while you shoot the photo. If you have a tripod and a timer, you can be the photographer and the assistant yourself. Try holding the reflector at different angles and pay attention to how the light changes. The idea is to bounce light back up from the source (usually a window for me this time of year) onto your product.

Above is a little example of using the cyc and the reflector. I left the table uncovered for contrast, but you might want to cover the table in something white, to reflect more light. In the last shot, you can barely see the pincushion I used to prop up the glass case.

Of course Etsy has a ton of photography tips as well. Here is a handy link to those. I found instructions for a cool trick that some of you might like to use on colorful items to make your photo look like this one with the background black and white and the item in color. The instructions are for photoshop. The place where I found them, photo.net, could be a good resource for you.