Five Reasons a Craft Seller Should Have a Blog
Welcome to Episode 1 of the Craft Seller Success podcast. In this episode I talk about five reasons why I believe that having a blog can help a craft seller improve their business and get more sales.
Listen to the Podcast here, download it for later or read the transcript below.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Listen on iTunes
To see the other episodes available – Craft Seller Success Podcast Main Page
Transcript of Episode 001
This is the Craft Seller Success podcast from Tin Teddy. Episode number one, Five Reasons a Craft Seller Should Have a Blog
Welcome to the Craft Seller Success Podcast – helping craft sellers sell their crafts
Hi, I’m Debi Richardson from Tin Teddy.
In this episode I will be talking about 5 reasons why a craft seller can benefit from having a craft blog. Whether you sell on Etsy, Amazon handmade, via a Shopify or a similar store website, through social media, or in person at shows, a blog may well be able to help your craft business.
Let’s look at five reasons why.
1 – A place of your own, a hub
Your blog can be the hub of your business. Here you have your contact details, links to your social media and other online presences and information about how you run your business.
You can use it to showcase a catalogue or gallery of your products. You can also link to other parts of your business such as online shops, videos, resources or even other blogs you might own. Everything is in one convenient place.
And as all the elements of your craft business are featured on the blog, you need only supply this one URL. My own business cards just have www.TinTeddy.com on them in a bold font. I do not need to include social media links etc as I know that people can easily find them from the blog. You can concentrate on promoting this one core URL everywhere. No matter what you add to, or remove from the business, your links will still work and you know that visitors will be able to see the current offerings.
Your blog is your personal bit of the internet. You can let as much of your personality shine through as you like. Blogging can be a lot of fun and a fulfilling creative process in itself, as well as helping your craft business.
For a craft seller, a blog is your own personal bit of the internet. Here you can let your brand's personality shine out.Click To TweetMany bloggers post on a regular basis and this helps your blog get found by search engines such as Google. One post per week seems to be the most common frequency, but you can post as often as is right for you. Being regular is more beneficial than being frequent.
In future episodes of this podcast I will discuss more about how you can use your blog as the hub of your own little empire.
2 – Customer Support
Your blog can also help you with customer support. On your blog you could have articles that help your potential or existing customers.
For example, if you sell coats for dogs then you could have articles on your blog on how to measure a dog for a coat, or how to clean the coats, or even ways to store them safely. You could then reference those articles when customers enquire about your products. And you could also include a link to the articles with each purchase of a dog coat.
You could add a Frequently Asked Questions section, usually known as FAQs. Here you list, well, the questions you frequently get asked about your products. Customers will be able to get answers quickly and easily. You could include information on things like returns, using or caring for your product or possible problems a new owner might encounter, then provide a link to this page with every purchase.
This can help lessen the number of emails you get asking questions, which a busy craft seller will no doubt appreciate.
If you sell personalized items, your blog can be a handy location to showcase the different options available. And for those of you who make custom products, your blog could have a gallery of your best creations to inspire new customers.
And your blog is the ideal location to share more about your business with your visitors and followers. You can show them “behind the scenes” pictures, articles about your crafting background and inspiration and, of course, the latest news from your business!
The blog can also include a contact form, or contact details making it easy for potential customers to send you messages.
3 – For marketing your own products
Your own blog is an ideal place to market your own products! You can post about your new products (or old ones that need a bit of attention). You can use as many pictures as you want, embed videos or sound files and generally say what you want to say. It’s your space!
You can also use more subtle forms of marketing such as articles about your materials “Why I only use Japanese glass beads in my creations” or a behind the scenes type post, “From Wheel to Kiln, How I make my bowls”.
Many craft seller bloggers include pictures of finished products in use (often called lifestyle shots) and posts about successful sales – “Here is a blue shawl I sold last week. The buyer has contacted me and tells me that it was a very well received birthday present for her one hundred year old grandma.” Sharing little stories like this adds colour and interest to your products. Your customers may let you share their own pictures or quote them – but do ask them first!
Most types of blog will have numerous areas where you can include adverts to your own products.
This is a great way to showcase seasonal items, new items or whatever you want to be in the spotlight. You can swap them about and customise them as you wish.
And you can, of course, link from your blog to your Etsy or Amazon handmade store, or a Shopify, Wix or other shop site. You may be able to embed a mini version of your store on to the blog.
Or you may be able to sell directly from your blog, or even have a full online shop as part of it. Nowadays there is often no real difference between a blog, a traditional website and an online shop!
I will talk more about selling from your blog in later episodes.
4 – Building your reputation
Today’s craft sellers face a lot of stiff competition, both from other people selling handmade items and from “the big boys” like Amazon, eBay and so on.
Whilst it is very hard to compete on things like price, quantity or fast delivery, when you are a small seller, being small can have benefits. It is much easier to establish yourself as an authority figure in your particular niche.
Many craft sellers work hard to build their reputation as an “expert in their niche” and this is something that a blog can really help with.
You can write regular articles about your niche, each one of which will help attract new people to the blog – and therefore to your products.
There are many thousands of people selling, for example, wedding jewellery. But if you have a blog with lots of useful wedding related articles then you will appear to be something of an expert on weddings.
Or, if you sell children’s wear, you could blog about childcare. There would be lots of potential articles you could write about this niche, including information, tutorials, recipes and product reviews.
Over time, potential customers will trust you more and come to see your brand as an authority.
The more focused your particular niche, the more you could benefit from working on establishing yourself as an authority figure.
But even if you are selling in a very broad niche, you can still benefit from having good blog posts out there, working like little ambassadors for your brand.
For lots more information on building up authority in your niche, check out episode 16 – An Expert in Your Niche.
5 – Monitization
Many bloggers enjoy additional income from their blogs. Whilst you do not have to monitize your blog for it to be useful to your craft business, you may find that it requires very little extra work to do so.
One popular way to do this is to include affiliate links. Basically you have a coded link to a product for sale on another company’s website. If a visitor to your site clicks the link and then buys the product, you will get a small commission from the seller. There are many businesses that offer affiliate schemes so you may well be able to find one that would work well with your blog, earning money for you but also useful for your visitors.
For example. if you sell handmade cat beds, you could include affiliate links on your blog for cat food, cat toys or even cat boarding. These links could be useful for your blog readers, and bring you in a little extra cash.
Another form of monetization is advertising. You host adverts for other businesses on your blog. There are a few ways to do this including renting advertising space directly, being paid for every time someone clicks on an advert or being paid based on how many times the advert is seen.
You will see lots of posts on Pinterest, Facebook and other social media where bloggers are boasting of the huge sums they have made from monitizing their blogs. The truth is that many bloggers only make a little this way. Perhaps £20 a year or so, some even less. Your blog needs to be quite popular and established, with a good flow of traffic, to stand a chance of earning the big bucks. But as affiliate links and adverts are what is often called “passive income”, ie once you have set them up they earn money for you without your having to do anything, they are definitely worth thinking about. And it is also true that SOME bloggers really DO earn a LOT of money from them.
I will talk more about monetization in a later podcast as it is a very big subject!
In Conclusion
It is quite easy to set up a simple blog for your craft business, and can be very economical, or even free to do so. I believe the benefits make it worth considering.
In the next podcast, Episode 2, I will discuss how to get a blog of your own.
We will look at the different options available, how easy they are to set up and use and how much they cost.
Thanks for listening. Please subscribe to the Craft Seller Success podcast.
Check out www.TinTeddy.com for more Craft Seller resources.
Until next time, byee
The Craft Seller Success Podcast from Tin Teddy
Featuring Deborah Richardson and Matthew French
Original music by Matthew French
Helping craft sellers to sell their crafts.
You may want to check out episode 24, Free Websites That Could Help Your Craft Business for lots of useful resources.
Do you already have a craft seller blog? I would love to hear how it has benefitted your business – or any problems you have found with it. Or can you think of other reasons a craft seller should have a blog? Please comment below.
