I've Joined the Virtual Craft Show at Cafe Handmade!

Today is the first day of SmuTopia's month-long exhibit on Cafe Handmade's Virtual Craft Show!

Be sure to stop by and cast your vote for best-in-show! I'll be keeping an eye on Google Analytics to see how much traffic is generated for my Etsy shop from this $10 investment. Wish me luck :)

Branching Out

After reaching 800 hearts this week in my Etsy Shop (Yay!) it occured to me (not for the first time) that after devoting so much time to developing SmuTopia Etsy I would be well served to spend more time developing my new shops on Artfire and MadeItMyself. I love Etsy and could never have reached this point without it, but it can't hurt to expose SmuTopia to new audiences in these alternative handmade communities. I have a few token items listed in both my Artfire and MadeItMyself shops, but plan to add new listings as quickly as my free time will allow :)

In addition to adding items to SmuTopia Artfire and SmuTopia MadeItMyself, I've also been creating new project wonderful ads for SmuTopia using photos of new work. Here's my latest, just added to my project wondeful bids today:

Finally, I have made an investment in some additional advertising by joining the Cafe Handmade Virtual Craft Show for next month! The cost was $10 for four weeks in the Virtual Craft Show......more to come on the results of that investment!

Sale on Zipper Pull Charms! (Plus Free Shipping)

I've updated all SmuTopia Zipper Pull Charms on Etsy with a sale price of $2.75! Combined with my FREE International Shipping offer on all items this is quite a deal :)

Adventures in Advertising--Project Wonderful

As part of the never-ending process of promoting SmuTopia, I recently began advertising through Project Wonderful. I learned about this ad service in the Etsy forums and have seen Project Wonderful ad spaces on many of the handmade blogs I read, so it seemed like a great way to get started while utilizing the experience and advice of my peers in the handmade community.

If you would like to either post your ads on others' blogs, or display ads from others on your blog, take a moment to visit Project Wonderful's home page. From there you can register for an account to create ads, then place bids for ad space on sites where you would like to advertise. Once you have registered and made a deposit (I started with $5 and most spaces I have bid on cost only a few pennies a day), you can also submit an application to host ad space on your site or blog (it will take a few days before you get a response, but the process is simple--no harder than adding any other button or gadget to your blog.)

One hint while creating your ads--they must be smaller than 100kb. I had to re size all of my ads because they were too big. I could have saved myself a step if I had checked the file size before trying to upload :) Once you have completed and activated your ad, you can search for ad space using the bid search engine on Project Wonderful. If you're looking to spend as little as possible I suggest changing the search options under the "bidding" section to show only ad spaces with a minimum bid of $0 to $0 with current bids from $0 to $0.50.

Post-Show Notes

Saturday 5/9 was the second Designers Downtown Market of 2009 and SmuTopia Jewelry was in attendance :) Overall, it was a moderate success--My sales total was double the booth fee, so it was a good day (if not quite a good as I hoped it would be.) I was happy with my set-up and my designs, there just wasn't a huge crowd, probably due to the hot, humid weather.

Now it's time to shift gears and re-focus on Etsy shop improvements and online advertising. I plan to create some project wonderful ads within the next few days and venture into the world of online advertising :) Stay tuned for more on this!

Weekend Giveaway 3/13-3/15: Beads!

Welcome to the weekly Smu*Topia giveaway! This week's prize will be a lot of destash beads in your favorite color! I have lots of orphan beads and other leftovers looking for a good home--the lot received by the winner will be valued at >$10 worth of beads!

To Enter:
1. Visit Smu*Topia on Etsy and look through my sold items to select one that you think I should relist.
2. Come back here and post a comment telling me your selection from #1 and your favorite color (so I can pick out your beads if you win!)

Good Luck Everyone!

FREE SHIPPING at http://SmuTopia.Etsy.com

Looking for a great deal? Check out my Etsy shop where for a limited time shipping is FREE on ALL ITEMS!

http://SmuTopia.Etsy.com

First Attempt: Banners for Web Advertising

These banners are the results of my first attempt at creating a web ad for SmuTopia. I received a conversation from a fellow North Carolinian offering me free advertising space, which was great motivation to make some ads (which I have been meaning to do for awhile.) Let me know what you think of my first attempt :)

Just Passed 100 Etsy Sales!!!

When I posted my first item on Etsy in January of this year, I set the goal of reaching 100 sales in my shop by by 1 year anniversary. Well, I hit my goal several months early! While I'm still celebrating this acheivement with a free-shipping sale at http://smutopia.etsy.com I am also starting to look forward and think about setting goals that will continue to grow my customer base and improve my shop. I've also begun to entertain the idea of opening a bead shop as a sister store to SmuTopia :) Anyone out there who has advice on improvements I could make, or new ways to promote my shop please leave a comment--I'm especially interested in your experiences with various forms of advertising....please share your experiences!

Etsy Success--500 Hearts!

Despite slacking a bit on promoting my Etsy shop lately, I've just reached one of my two first year goals: I've passed 500 hearts!!! WooHoo! I have just four more sales to go to reach my other first year goal of 100 sales :) My main priorities right now are to get more photos taken (I have a ton of new unlisted work at home) and to fill up my shop--I'd like to keep at least 40 items listed but I keep falling back toward 30. I suppose I should be happy about that since it means I'm making sales!!!!

Since I've almost reached both of my first year goals (in only 6 months!) I'm starting to think about where I go from here. I'm very interested in advertising my shop outside of Etsy and my blog, but don't really know where to start. Anyone out there who has input about advertising, please comment on your experiences--I'm sure there are lots of people out there like me who would value the info!