Day 1 Tuesday, May 19, 2009
PROMOTION
1) Add your automatic icraft store signature to every email in Outlook or Outlook express. For Outlook go to Tools, Options, then the Mail Format tab and start creating your NEW signature. There is a little link button in the small signature frame to add your shop name as a LIVE LINK in every email. Make it easy for people to go to your shop. In Outlook Express, go to Tools, Options, Signatures then click on NEW. As far as I know you cannot put a live link in here. If you feel like you absolutely need to add a second store then create the second link or shop url right below your icraftgifts.com address. Your signature might look like the example below. I use about 5 different signatures depending on my correspondence but my default one is icraftgifts.com
Christine Skaley Reid
PillowThrowDecor
Luxury Handmade Originals
https://icraftgifts.com/pillowthrowdecor 2) Craigslist – Post at least one FREE AD
http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites I don't know if this link is live... you may have to copy and paste it into the address bar. We’ll be doing a series of ad postings on local Craigslist so pick your communities now. I don’t know if Craigslist is available to all of you. If not, pick another free ad site like Lycos , Oodle or pick one from the list of 53 others at the end of this assignment. Create a Google Gmail account for your shop and use this address in any free ad site. I don’t think Craigslist allows you to put your icraft url in the ad. I describe my pillow and mention “ 150 other styles available in a safe transaction site. For more information email me at …… “ I avoid spam by writing my contact email like this …PillowThrowDecor (at) gmail (dot) com. Do likewise!
3) List your store in a free local store/buiness directory. Bootcamp emphasizes LOCAL PROMOTION as it is the easiest and the quickest way to generate retail icraftgifts.com sales. One of the sites that I have my business listed in is
http://www.smartflyer.ca/webApp/start/Home.aspx which is a publication used by over 300,000 Canadians each month to find flyers and local deals from 100s of community merchants across Canada! Every region state or province has these free business listings. Find one and list your business and icraft url today.
SHOPKEEPING
Have a good hard critical look at your shop and make a mental list of some of your listings that need tweaking with new photos or new descriptions. Tomorrow we are going to do some updating. There is help on our new thread on the Message Board called “Exhibit Critique”
https://icraftgifts.com/forum/b17/store-critique/ I think it’s important that others have a fresh look at your store and give you their honest opinion.
NETWORKING
Call or convo a selling buddy on this site or another site and share with them what you have done so far today …especially the next task. It often helps to discuss goals with someone else to help you articulate exactly what you want to accomplish. Talk the Bootcamp program up. You will be amazed how interested people are in helping you meet your goal.
MISCELLANEOUS
1) Get your business cards ready. Order some. Get some. Make some. Do what you have to do to get ready to start getting your cards out. That starts tomorrow. I can recommend PolkadotPixels .com and she is one of our sponsors (look on the sponsor sheet shortly). She was very quick, reasonable and most importantly I liked what she created for me. She also did my blog, ads, banner, etc. So If you need help, she is offering a discount (free draw too) to design a business card that you can print off yourself or have professionally printed.
2) Bootcamp Goals - Spend some time thinking and writing down answers for the following questions.
How many items can you reasonably produce and list in the next 28 days?
How many sales would you like to make in the next 28 days?
What products would you like to introduce or eliminate from your product line?
To whom will your products appeal to? Describe your buyer (male, female, age, profession, etc)
What areas do you need to tweak in your shop? (pictures, bio, policies, shipping, descriptions, etc)
What networking activities have you been procrastinating but really want to start? (blog, .com,twitter)
Is there a seller/shop out there that you wish you could be like? Or admire? Why?
3) Go to the forum and share any or all parts of today’s assignment under WHAT HAPPENED THREAD. I really need feedback! Remember to sign out in the CHECK OUT THREAD tonight with a very quick comment saying DONE or ALMOST DONE or whatever you want to share. These checkouts are important … Free draws are coming!
List of 52 free ad sites
http://www.craftjuice.com/http://craftstylish.com/http://www.1000markets.com/http://www.byhand.me/http://thehandmadedirectory.com/directory/http://www.mixxmade.com/http://www.bluecanvas.com/http://www.plaincraft.com/http://www.43things.com/things/view/70128http://www.postaroo.com/postaroohttp://www.craigslist.comhttp://www.twitter.comhttp://www.facebook.comhttp://getcrafty.com/index_f.phphttp://www.stumbleupon.comhttp://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurlhttp://www.search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspxhttp://www.ecom.yahoo.com/dir/submit/intro/http://seocompany.ca/directory/free-web-directories.htmlhttp://www.pageflakes.comhttp://www.100craftlinks.com/http://youcraft.org/http://www.targetcrafts.com/http://asdcashgenerator.com/?ref=50684http://www.adwords.google.com/http://ArtsCollab.comhttp://artzee.net/http://www.blogger.com/starthttp://www.bust.com/girlweb/index.htmlhttp://www.cracker.com.auhttp://www.craftsitedirectory.com/index.htmlhttp://craftylinks.com/http://daisycraft.com/http://www.designstolove.com/http://www.dmoz.org/add.htmlhttp://www.electroniccottage.comhttp://freecraftfair.com/http://www.flickr.com/http://froogle.google.com/http://www.indiefriendly.com/http://indiefixx.com/http://www.indiepublic.com/http://www.linkedin.com/http://www.kaboodle.com/http://www.linkreferral.com/adwel.plhttp://www.ryze.com/http://www.squidoo.com/http://www.craftytips.com/http://www.creativity-portal.com/http://www.deviantart.com/http://www.votehandmade.com/
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