What's the best way to market my online bitofwhimsyprims.etsy.com store for $1,000 or less besides Google AdWords?

ABOUT ME My name is Rob. I've helped a significant number of people here on Mahalo Answers to find ways to creatively and effectively market their online businesses. Beyond this, I am a professional and have helped other small stores find the answer to your exact question.

You can see some of the answers that I'm proud of here to get an idea about my qualifications to answer your important question: mahalo.com/answers/web-design/what-do-yo... http://www.mahalo.com/answers/internet-advertising-and-marketing/can-you-recommend-a-tool-for-online-publishers-that-helps-to-organize-and-automate-the-ad-sales-process mahalo.com/answers/technology-and-intern... mahalo.com/answers/music/what-is-the-fut... mahalo.com/answers/entrepreneurship/is-t... http://www.mahalo.com/answers/technology-and-internet/whats-the-best-shipping-label-printer-for-paypals-multi-order-shipping-manager-for-priority-mail-shipments mahalo.com/answers/ecommerce/can-i-conne... Specifically, I have years of successful online and offline marketing experience and in the past have been employed by large ad networks. In short, I know the Internet and I like to sell things on it.

Your dolls are very cute and selling the patterns is an exceptionally good idea. I've ordered one of your dolls for my 3 year old daughter and I bet she'll love it. MY ANSWER Here are the things that will make your store even more of a success.1) Ecommerce Basics: Build trust.

That is the whole secret to selling things online. You already have great products, great photos and a likely a good idea of product fufilment. All that is left is trust.

Trust is somewhat erroneous, but a good example is Etsy itself. Etsy is successful because people trust that their information is safe and that they will receive the products that they have ordered. You've chosen a good company to associate with early on.In every breath of marketing you take from this point forward, keep trust in the back of your mind.

If people trust you and your product, they will buy it.2) You've already got a great thing going with your dolls. Ring a graphic designer to create a logo will give your brand definition and visibility. Visit mahalo.com/answers/web-design/what-do-yo...0 Here, you'll be able to request the creation of a logo and people will send you their mockups before you pay.

You'll be able to pick the logo that you think will work best. Personally, I would request that the logo designer incorporate 3-4 of your dolls playing and create a stitchwork effect for the lettering. Use this logo EVERYWHERE.

3) Etsy is a really great marketplace for unique products and gifts but you should view it as a single outlet for your products. I'm willing to bet that your dolls are in a few stores (maybe on consignment) in your area. If not, get them in there!

But just like brick-and-mortar stores are one way to promote and sell your products, so is Etsy. You should list your products everywhere possible. Don't limit yourself only to Etsy, branch out to anywhere and everywhere that will let you list your products for free.

Find sites such as: ebay, craigslist, paypal stores, yahoo stores, etc. A word of caution: make sure that you keep a spreadsheet listing the site you've listed your products on, usernames, passwords, and the specific items that you've listed for sale. This will ensure that you have good inventory control and don't get caught having to refund a sale because someone bought an out of stock item. 4) Your Own Website I've touched on the basics of ecommerce (trust, branding, support, etc) and mentioned that you should begin to submit your products to multiple places online.

Next, you need to develop your own website. You're really good at making dolls, but you're likely not very good at making websites. That's nooooo problem today because there are plenty of outstanding "outsourcing" websites where people will create outstanding websites for reasonable prices.

There are 2 ways to go with this. First, you can hire a local "project manager" to get this done for you. Pay this project manager $100 (or so) and ask him / her to take care of the (somewhat) technical side of this.

Ensure that this person has even a little bit of experience online. This is an easy and fun job for many college students. The second option is for you to handle this part of it yourself.

You or your project manager should go to: mahalo.com/answers/web-design/what-do-yo...0 Post a project with this description (free): "I need a simple, small brochure website created. This website should have the following sections: Buy Bit of Whimsy Dolls About Bit of Whimsy Contact Us The main page should feature a large rotating image and description of my "featured" doll. I will send you all photographs and text that I would like inserted.

I also need you to set up a simple payment gateway with Paypal and Google Checkout using this system: mahalo.com/answers/web-design/what-do-yo...1 This project should cost about $150 - $200 5) Ok, so now you have your products in a bunch of places and you have your own website to facilitate direct sales.It is time to market. Put on your "yellow" hat and think creatively. Online marketing alone will not create a successful, sustainable product line.

I have found that with products like yours that a 60/40 split is key. That means that 60% of your marketing should be done online. But importantly, 40% of your marketing should be done offline.

What happens when this 60/40 rule is applied is that it creates a dedicated local community base along with a free flow of online customers. When online sales are low, you'll find that offline sales flourish and that above all else your efforts in both will amplify each.6) Places To Market Online If you have your products in a variety of places in addition to Etsy, you're already well on your way here. All of these products will (in a little bit of time) be indexed by all of the search engines and will start to turn up for odd online shopping keywords.

Importantly, there are ecommerce malls that rely on "scraping" different stores to list your products automatically. This is a big deal internationally (Europe, Japan, etc) and as long as the search engines find you, you don't have to do a thing.Blogs. Blogs are a great way to get your products out there.

Write up a short introductory article about your dolls and submit it to as many blogs as you think are appropriate. Importantly, submit your article to each and every blog that you read and contribute to. Submit your article to these blogs: http://www.google.ca/search?q=craft+blog Press Release: Write a press release.

There is a bit of an art to writing press releases so you may want to consult friends and family for their proof-reading abilities but in short, you want a clear, simple, exciting press release about your adorable dolls. Submit your press release here: http://www.prweb.com/ This will cost you $140 and will advertise your products & site across many different venus Email. Email everyone you know.

Tell them that if they email everyone they know and tell them how much they love your dolls & patterns that they'll not only be helping you out, but if they CC you in that e-mail that you'll send them a customized doll of their very own to say thank-you. This friend-of-a-friend type of campaign is very effective.Podcasts. There are a bunch of podcast about hand made items.

They are ALL hungry for people to interview. Look them up here: http://www.google.ca/search?q=craft+podcast and send them an e-mail with a link to your website and say that you'd like the opportunity to be interviewed on their show. Cross-linking.

Since you have your own website, you are free to cross-link your website with other similar sites. Find other nice hand-made goods and ask those people to add a link to your website if you add a link to theirs. This is invaluable for search engine optimization (SEO).

Youtube and video sites. Make a quick, cute, video of a child sleeping with your dolls. Also, create another quick video of someone using one of your patterns to create a doll.

Distribute these on youtube and all of the other video sites. Be sure to say and write your URL in the video.7) Places to Market Offline Following the 60/40 rule, you need to build your online marketing efforts by marketing offline as well. Locally: Are there any small shops in your area that would consider selling a few of your dolls?

If so, ask them to distribute information (your website) about your dolls with each sale. What local craft shows take place in your community? Craft shows are an excellent way to market.In my area, there are literally dozens of craft shows.

I suggest that you obtain a vendor list from the organizers and negotiate with 1 or 2 people at EACH craft show to carry a selection of your Dolls on consignment. Ask these people to distribute a business card (http://www.vistaprint.com for cheap ones) that have your website url on them. Classified ads.

They work. Take out inexpensive ($25 - $50) classified ads in 3 or 4 newspapers at a time. If you can, place your logo and website URL in the ad.

In different newspapers each month, rotate the classified ads around to keep them fresh and noticeable. This will work wonders because not only are you listed in print, but almost all newspapers have an online classified section closely tied to their paper listings. Not Locally: There are many (many) craft and gift magazines.

Do not take out ads in these magazines. Rather, contact (use phone and e-mail) the editors AND column writers of these magazines. Give them the press release you composed above, photos of your products and perhaps even a free sample.

Ask them if they will accept a written article, interview or if you can be featured in the magazine. You'll have to try hard with this one to break into the first magazine but after the first one, it will snowball. CONCLUSION I sincerely hope that this has answered your question, BitofWhimsy.

I also hope that it has give you direction and further motivation to get your product further out into the world! You've got a really great product that will attract buyers.It's tough work doing grassroots marketing like this but for $1000 or under, you can spread your product infront of A LOT of people with the things I have mentioned here.

Here are several ways to market bitofwhimsyprims.etsy. Com 1. Connect with bloggers and have them plug it in their blog Check out the Makezine Blog, other craft blogs.

Look into a blog directory of craft blogs like crafts on Blog Catalog or Blogflux and start contacting them. blogcatalog.com/directory/crafts dir.blogflux.com/cat/crafts.html Search for craft blogs and start contacting them. Below are a few you should look into, and maybe some of them will plug your crafts.

Craftzine http://blog.craftzine.com Craft Gossip http://craftgossip.com Thimble http://www.thimble.ca Craft Tutorials http://crafttutorials.net Inspirational Craft Blogs URL7 Makezine http://blog.makezine.com 2. Look at affiliate marketing sites like Driving Revenue. They may be able to set up an affiliate store for you.

Driving Revenue http://drivingrevenue.com 3. Contact Crafts People on Twitter Get a Twitter account and start connecting to people. If any of the above bloggers have Twitter accounts contact them.4.

Contact someone like Savvy Auntie and see if she would plug your product to the aunts of the world. blogcatalog.com/directory/crafts0 5. Go Squared Add your site to the Go Squared Network blogcatalog.com/directory/crafts1 7.

Join a social network for crafts and spread the word to other crafters Design to Love blogcatalog.com/directory/crafts1 8. Start Blogging about it and join blogger networks such as Scoutle. Scoutle http://www.scoutle.com 9.

Post some free ads on Craigslist, Oodle, Listasaurus, and Google Base etc. Craigslist http://www.craigslist.org Google Base http://base.google.com Listasaurus http://www.listasaurus.com Oodle http://www.oodle.com 10. Get out! Meet people in public places, go to events, join meetup groups with other crafters and spread the word!

Join Meetup. Com, and get out to connect with other crafters. Join the entrepreneur groups and start meeting people.

The more people who know, the more you will sell!11. Get an easy to remember domain name like WhimsyDolls.Com and have it redirect. You can also get a better search engine optimization ranking with a more memorable name.

Hopefully this helps market bitofwhimsyprims.etsy.Com and Good luck!

One of the best places is sell your digital product is at clickbank.com. Rather than selling it yourself, you can leverage on an army of affiliate marketers to sell your products. The best part is that you do not have to incur any overheads nor pay them a salary to work for you.

They are paid only when your product is sold. The affiliate marketing tools at clickbank.Com automatically takes care of the online payment by the buyer, and payment to your affiliated sales people and to you. If you are selling physical products, set up an e-store at ebay.com.

People who visit ebay.Com are ready buyers who know what they are looking for. By selling on Ebay, you do not have to worry about attracting traffic. It is very easy to set up an e-store.

You do not have to engage a programmer to set up an ecommerce website for you. One of the most important online marketing tools that you must have to build an online business is an autoresponder service. With an autoresponder, you can follow up on your prospects with email messages automatically.

You can subscribe to Aweber. Com, the most well known online marketing email delivery system for about $20 a month.

1. Buy the bitofwhimsyprims. Com domain.

People want an easy to type domain. People often confuse what are subdomains, so get the . Com one.2.

Advertise in local shops near your place. If people live near you, they can come visit you, and shipping costs are cheapter (or even free)!3. Create a Twitter account.

Not just Twitter. Get a Facebook account too. 4.

Sell through Amazon and other online stores. The easier it is to get to you, the better for your customers. The better for them, more profits for you!5.

Craigslist ads. These are very cheap and very targeted, great for business.

There are many good ways of advertising. Writing articles or creating an interesting blog and use your website in the writer resource box. Use Craigslist: craigslist.org/about/sites Traffic exchanges are also powerful ways of boosting traffic to your site.

If you participate in any forums, put your link in the signature section. Also, submit your site to search engines: munising.com/advertise/submit_search_eng... These can all be free methods. You can create an online listing for your business for free at listings.yellowpages.com/ A list of traffic exchanges: toptrafficexchanges.com/ An article directory I found through Google (if this one doesn't suit you, there are many more): articlesbase.com/ Free classifieds (once again, one of many if this one doesn't suit you):classifiedsforfree.com.

Other answerers have suggested some good places to put your link but along with creating a facebook page you could also join the Etsy fan club on facebook. On Etsy if you find other popular vendors that you like you can add them to your favorites and that will put a link back to you on their page. You can also post your link on the StayAtHomeMom.Com classified board - there is nothing like a power team of moms promoting your etsy site for you.

Definitely print up some cute simple business cards that you can leave at coffee shops or just give out to people when you see someone who might be interested - nothing worse than talking to someone about your site and then having to write it down on a scrap piece of paper or even worse having no pen or paper handy and relying on the person to remember your web address. Etsy is just now gaining a lot of buzz online and so it is the perfect time to get your site name out there. Registering your own domain name is an excellent way to promote yourself too.

Then you can point your domain name to your etsy page or you can create your own site for free with a wordpress website (using your own domain name) and promote your etsy page through there. Some people might consider that an extra step but it is one that you would always have full control over. Good Luck!

Talk to my boss, he's promoting our Silicone Valley startup digitalsupporttech. Com: support@digitalsupporttech.com.

I am having one source which needs you to login everyday and click on targeted links provided, this is not paid to click site, but doing so will definetly drives traffic to your website. I think you should give it a try, go ahead... if you like it! linkreferral.com.

Join lots of forums. Make sure you put a link to some pictures and your site in your signature. Participate in the forums.

This will up your Google rank. Start a blog. wordpress.com is free to start with.

Make sure you link back to your site and other sites that sell similar products. Again this raises your overall Google rank. Talk to those people you are linking to and ask if they would please link back.

There are lots of mommy blogs where you can trade a few products to be used in raffles and such for links to your site and advertising. Find some podcasts to participate in. The Jumping Monkey's podcast that Leo Laporte use to do would have been a good place to get heard/seen.

There are several podcasts that have to do with raising kids and being a parent. Posting a question to Mahalo Answers is a good idea; however, you should have put in the http:// in there so that it would have been a clickable link. Create a twitter account if you have not.

Make sure you have your website in your bio. Twitter regularly about things that interest you. As you build your following twitter about your site whenever you make something new.

Finally direct question @jasoncalacanis he is a marketing genius.

Use affiliate marketing if there is any mark up possible on the products. Contact Never Blue media at neverblue.com/contact.html they might be able to seriously help you for low cost or not cost just a bit of the action...could move thousands of units.

First by a domain name with your search keywords in it...such as "handmadedolls. Com", "whimsyhandmadedolls" ...Google will put you towards the top of the search for handmade dolls... Second, network using social media like facebook, twitter, mombloggers and such because people love to have a lookiedo at what you are up to 'cause they are nosey...this drives traffic... Third, join widgetbox "art" or other network and place on your blog or site... Fourth, offer money for people to critique your site in their blogs...this is important because every link to your site from somewhere else tell google you are hot! Something like "$5 for your opinion about my stuff!"

All together now...keywords in your domain, social networking, ask friend in you network to blog about your stuff and link...Google will love you and you won't have to pay for adwords! Good luck!

There are many ways to market your store online beside going for Google AdWords. First you can try Searching for FREE Ad posting where you can create any ads you like with minimum of 3 ads per day. If you are interested with that you can visit freeonlineads.co.za.

You can try to market it also through Blogs which offers free posting or you can get blogging services for a cheap price.

This is a short answer but it's the best. Go to your local university and hire a business, pr, or advertising student as an Intern and offer $1000 for a month. They could generate tons of traffic just with the manual labor of twittering, email, and contacting people.

They are like an underpaid over motivated PR Firm. It will work I promise!

Honestly, the best way you can spend that money is in $1,000 worth of your dolls, given away from a blog you write about making them/your small business. Nothing will sell those little fellas better than people seeing one, and wanting more! Word will spread.

There is actually a company that I've noticed on lots of the sites that I visit that handles your advertising for you. It's called Project Wonderful. They advertise for a large number and variety of sites.

Here is their purpose statement from their website: "Let's say you're an advertiser, and you want to put your ad on a certain site. To do this, you just place a bid in that site's auction. Bidding is a fast and easy process where you tell us two important pieces of information: what you want to pay, and when you want to pay it.

Our system examines all bids, every second of every day. If you're the person willing to pay the most at that moment, your ad is displayed on the site! It's really as easy as that.

You're only charged for the time in which your ad is the high bidder - and all charging is done to the nearest second. You can change your maximum bid, or cancel it entirely, at any time. And we provide full performance tracking for your bid (displays, unique viewers, clicks, effective cost-per-click and cost-per-display rates, and more).

It's entirely up to you. To find out how we can get your message out for the best price going, click below on How we help advertisers get the best deal. " They even have stats for each site so you know what you are paying for.

Lots of their advertisers are etsy people, so it must work well. Hope this helps.

Facebook offers ads to folks that target their interests.

Here are some tips that might help you. 1) Buy a domain name that is has good keywords in it.2) Setup a new hosting account with you new domain name.3) Create a new website with a blog 4) Put content on your website and blog 5) Write about your store in your blog and link to your store in every post 6) Join all of the social networks that you can and spread the word 7) Put pictures of your inventory on Flickr 8) Put your website, blog and store addresses in your email signature 9) Start a newsletter highlighting what you do or a product in your store 10) Comment other people blogs and post in forums (make sure your forum signature has a link back to your store or website or blog) I hope this helps you out. Best of luck with your online venture.

If you need any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me. My email is jason@webfusion. Com and my website address is www.webfusion5.com.

We specialize in building online businesses.

I know of people who had been using facebook or myspace. They post pictures of their products in topic related group pages without spamming. The picture has the link to the website.

This way they get to the right target without annoying everybody else and increase the chances of a purchase. It also helps to write press release articles and post them. You can do this for free.

You can create a group and gather your friends so they can tell their friends and so on. I would like to know what is the name of your store.

Find blogs and other sites with groups of people in this market. Create meaningful contributions to the groups. Link to your product without coming off as a peddler.

Find niches to fill with your product, sell to organizers to give products to the attendees, or other type of 1 customer buys thousands of products.

Add a link to your store on your mahalo question, open a twitter account, thank Jason Calacanis with an @JasonCalacanis. And watch the hits rise. Im not sure how many followers of his sew but...

Honestly I think if you're posting this question and offering a reward for it, you're getting alot of eyeballs... My answer would be Mahalo answers. :).

I think you already did by putting the URL in the question. I think Mahalo and its CEO will promote the H-E-doublehockeysticks out of this record-setting (in M$) question, driving traffic to this page and therefore your store. (See my source for evidence.) Hopefully, you'll get a few blog posts out of it, too.

Depending on what exactly you are selling you may want to consider companies that do things similiar to google adwords. Location based and other demographlic based advertising is available and some of it is not even in the search realm. I'd try some facebook ads for people who have listed interests similar to what you sell, they are great for niche products.

I'm not an advertising expert so I don't know of any specific conversion rate information but i'd definitely give facebook a try.

You are already doing it. Posting in Maholo Answers, posting of social networking sites, etc. You've already made a big splash with the way you're advertising. With the power of the retweet the "word of mouth" of your product has already spread far across the Web.

The best way to market your Etsy store for less than $1000 is to post a M$101 question on Mahalo Answers so that Jason Calacanis tweets about it.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.