← Crickets to Cha-Chings
Crickets to Cha-Chings
192. Earn More $ on Black Friday With These Uncommon Etsy Tips
00:36:24
In this episode, Julie Berninger and Sasha Hutchison discuss effective strategies for Etsy sellers to prepare for Black Friday and the holiday season. They cover the importance of creating gift guides, utilizing Etsy promotions, collaborating with...
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- [00:01]
A
Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Crickets to Cha Ching's podcast. I'm Julie Berninger and I am here with Sasha Hutchinson who is our right hand woman leading the one of our more newer and more important programs in the Gold City Ventures community beyond. So welcome Sasha.
- [00:17]
B
Hi, how are you today?
- [00:19]
A
Good. And I forgot to mention you have over 20,000 sales on Etsy and years of experience coaching Etsy sellers and we appreciate everything that you do for our community. So thank you.
- [00:30]
B
You're welcome, of course.
- [00:32]
A
Okay, so this episode is going to be more tactically minded at the beginning. We're going to talk about how to prepare your Etsy shop for Black Friday, which is a huge opportunity for all of us Etsy sellers to capitalize on the extra traffic and eyes that are going to be on Etsy. We know Etsy is probably going to be spending a lot of money buying ads on Google and the like, really pushing that gift mode. So we'll talk about how to take advantage of those various things and then at the end we're going to have a little fun. We're going to talk about just the holidays on Etsy in general, maybe some things that we've bought on Etsy and keep it a little light spirits. So, Sasha, let's kick it off. I know you came with a little list for us today. What's the first tip that people can do to prepare for Black Friday on Etsy?
- [01:11]
B
Okay, so I prepared this list and dropped it into the beyond community for the sellers and beyond. They sell. The sellers and beyond sell digital products and physical products. And so these tips apply for all those kinds of sellers. And I did a live event a couple months back about creating, becoming an affiliate for Etsy. You can become an affiliate for Etsy either through the program they have on Awin, which is an affiliate management company, or through Etsy itself through like their creator program. I joined both for the creative program. You can only join if you have a social media following following of some kind because they want to know that you have a presence online and that you will promote and stuff like that. So the so I told everyone and coached everyone to create a gift guide of products that would speak to your audience. So for example, my Etsy shop audience are people who are budget shoppers. And so I would, you know, make a list of the best Etsy gifts to buy for people on a budget or best gifts under $25 or something like that. Then you can share that with your audience on social media or through your email list in that Way you can get an affiliate commission on the products that they buy from Etsy. And that's how you can add more income streams to your own sources of revenue for your business. And Etsy likes, when the people who sell on Etsy promote other Etsy shops, they, they will actually, I've seen people do videos on YouTube talking about products they really like on Etsy and then Etsy itself will actually comment like, thanks for the great list of gift ideas. And so they're looking for that content, they will promote it and they will encourage it. And then that will help you get more affiliate sales of your own. But you can also take that same idea and create a gift guide of your own products. And so there's a lot of things that, you know, digital product sellers, we, if we're not doing personalized or customizable kind of like you know, pet portraits or you know, customizable products where it's like a sign or something with someone's name and like, like an anniversary gift with, with pictures and stuff like that, you can think of ways products that you have that can become products for a gifting event. So you could, you know, put, if you have past the present games in your Etsy shop, you could create a gift guide of products that people can use at these gift giving events. If you have gift tags or that you sell and you can put those in your gift guide that people can print out and attach to gifts, all those kinds of things. So you can create a gift guide for your products on Etsy and give those to your audience via social media or through your email list. And then you can also create a curated list of gifts for other people or for people to buy and give to their family and friends or whoever. And it's a great, it's a great way to, you know, you could even create it as a freebie. Opt in that people can opt into your email list to get like, oh, I want that, that gift guide. That sounds like a great idea. So there's a lot of ways that you can use the gift guide idea for your business, to grow your own email list to, to earn commission off the products that you promote and then also to promote your own products in a curated way that makes people buy them a whole bunch at a time. So that's my first tip.
- [04:39]
A
Oh my goodness. Gift guides. I'm so glad you kicked off with this because I've used it and it works. It truly works. So in another life, I had a student loan payoff blog and I would create gift guides for Purely traffic purposes because I got paid based on the ad eyeballs when people visited my site and every December the gift guides would just take off and I had one. I think it was like mother in law gifts. I tried to niche them down and I would do like a blog post with 10 or 15 gift ideas and then I'd make a Pinterest pin showing the gift ideas. Now what someone could do is put their own gift in the, put their own product in that list and I'm telling, I guess Sasha, they would use their share and save link.
- [05:21]
B
No, yeah, you want to always use your own share and save links on that. That's another tip I had because then you will save a fee money on your fees which for me that's the biggest line item expense for my Etsy shop or the fees. And so by promoting your own items, Etsy rewards you by making you pay less fees.
- [05:40]
A
Yep. And you know if you have a blog you could do this. The gift guides, they take a while. I'm not going to lie to you because you're going and you're finding the products and you want to do good products because if people like the list then they're going to share it on Pinterest, they're going to save it, you're going to get more traffic to it. So put some effort, don't just put random products, try to find good ones. And you could make more money like Sasha said, by signing up through Awin so that when people buy other people's products you get a small commission. But if you're like hey, I don't have the time for this, that's next year, then you could just link directly on Etsy. You're not going to get a commission if they buy not your product. But it could still be a way that you bring traffic to your own product. Because I think some people are going to be like I can't set all this up but I want to do it then. Okay, then just use your share and save link for your own and make that list. If you don't have a blog, are you allergic to social media or not? Because I know on TikTok I do a lot of Christmas shopping Ideas gathering on TikTok. So you can type in like gifts for husband, gifts for him, coworker gifts and you're going to get a random influencer that is copying some other influencers gift guide. And if you can be early to this and you can put your gift guide video out before people are doing this. Like if you're, if you listen to this and you're like, I'm going to record my gift guide talking about the gifts. And of course you have your own product in your house, so show that one. But then talk about the rest of them or whatever. Then other influencers who are trying to come up with gift ideas for their videos, maybe they'll include your product. Because I see. I mean, if you watch like more of those videos, you'll see the same products on all the gift guides. And you know that they just can't think of GIFs and they're trying to make a video. So I feel like this is just such a huge opportunity. I'm glad that you kicked this off first.
- [07:20]
B
Yeah. And if you need ideas for, for you're like, you say, I love this idea, but I have no idea what to make a gift guide of. Go to the Etsy landing page. It's best to do it when you're in incognito mode and you can go there as if you are a shopper and not signed into your account. Because if you're signed into your account, then it will be influenced by what you search for. So what you can do is go in into an incognito mode browser, go to the landing page of Etsy, Etsy.com and then see what they are promoting right now. So for Halloween, they did a big push for Pink O Ween. So if I was doing a gift guide for Halloween, I would have done a Pinkoween gift guide. Cause I knew that that would be trending and popular. So like, gifts for her, gifts for pet owners, gifts for the host. Those are really popular on Etsy right now. So those are the gift guides I would make because I know that that's what Etsy believes is trending and what people want to buy. And that would just be an easy way to do it without having to think too much and having Etsy do the work for you.
- [08:18]
A
Yep. Yeah. Etsy, they tell us these things for a reason. So we should read them and do what they're saying because they make money when we make money. So for whatever reason they're telling us these are the gift categories that people want. The app is really cool too. Have you tried the gift mode on the app yet?
- [08:34]
B
I don't use the app as much as the website because I like to shop on my computer because it's so tiny on the app. I know 50% of shoppers use the app, but I like to look on the computer because then I could see everything really big on my giant Monitors and that's for me. But I know you have an iPhone. I don't know if the features on the iPhone would be different from what I have. I have an Android. So. Okay, git mode on iPhone might be better because I know you get. Do you get the Explore feature on your iPhone where you can see videos and stuff?
- [09:08]
A
It did show me that for a long time, but then it took it away. I think they were like, we don't need to be TikTok maybe. I don't know. I wasn't seeing tons of engagement there. But what I think is cool, I think you click the picture of the gift on the iPhone on the bottom and then just like you said, there's all the different gift categories and at the top you can select by occasion, you can select by person. So it's just a good way. If you're like, oh, I don't know what gift guides to make, pick one of the ones that they prompt you to view there. Because there's a reason.
- [09:38]
B
That's a good idea too, for sure. Because they have curated those categories knowing that that's what people want and that's where people shop. So that, that's definitely another great way to curate your content.
- [09:49]
A
Yep. Because they can see all the search data that we can't. The other companies, they're guessing based on algorithm.
- [09:55]
B
I wish you at all. Could you imagine the wealth of information?
- [09:59]
A
I mean, it's, it's very cool, but also very locked down. I get it. Because when I, I was working at Amazon in data and they were not. We were not allowed to release the search volume for various things and of course everyone wanted it, everyone wanted to know what it was, but nope, not allowed to be publicly released.
- [10:14]
B
I know it's a pipe dream. I can have my dreams.
- [10:18]
A
I don't like, don't they want people to, like, be able to make products that people want to buy? But you know, they do. They tell us in other ways. They tell us through reports. And honestly, not everyone's a data person. So that's why people like you and I exist, that we love data, but we want to have stuff on podcasts that we can share with people who don't love data. And it brings us to the next point. Sasha, what's tip number two?
- [10:39]
B
Okay, so you want, okay, so Etsy will. In your Etsy Seller dashboard, you'll log in and then sometimes Etsy will say, we're doing a promotion during this time and you have to run a sell for this amount off to be shown in the promotion. So during Black Friday, they always do this, and it may be something like 25% off. For digital product sellers, this is a lot easier to opt into easily because the margins are higher on digital products. So you're like, oh, I'll join the 25% off sale, that's fine. And I'll be in the promotional cell during the promotional dates. And that works for me. Physical product sellers, don't feel pressured that you have to join in. If this is going to eat into your profit margins and you won't make a profit, it won't hurt you. Because I've tested the waters, you know, if I opt into the promotional sell, is it increasing my sales? If I don't opt in, is it going to decrease my sales? It doesn't hurt you not opting in, but if you feel like you can opt in and you can do it at that sales amount that they're the percentage off that they're recommending you do it for, then definitely take advantage of that. But don't feel pressured like you'll be punished for not opting in. Definitely do it if you feel like it makes sense for your business. So that's the next tip.
- [11:54]
A
Love it. Plus one might as well. And you know, Etsy, they probably can see who opts into things. Like you said, not be punished, but why not? If, if it, if it works. Okay, what's tip three?
- [12:05]
B
Okay, so there's another thing that you can do. I did this in the beginning with just people on Instagram and they sold random things. And I'm still friends with these people to this day. So if you have any kind of audience on social media, I mean, you could even have 30 people following your Etsy Shop business account. Promote other people's things that are in their niche to make connections. You can also reach out to them beforehand. So let's say that you really, really want to promote someone's handmade Christmas decor item. You're a digital product seller, but you really like this product and you buy it and then you have it in your house. You can make a, you can reach out to them and say, hey, I bought this. I really like it. Just so you know, I also sell these kind of products that would, that, that would be great for your audience. But I'm going to make a video of it showing how awesome this is in my house. And if you want, I'll give you a freebie of my product, like a digital product. And if you want to, you could promote it to your audience so you're Kind of doing like a. A audience, or you're leveraging someone else's audience is the marketing term for it. So. And then you can tag them when you do the video and then they'll comment and be like, wow, I'm so glad you enjoyed this. And then their audience will come check you out. And so that's a great way to get more exposure for your own brand, is to do things like that. And Julie buys tons of stuff on Etsy. And I'm not sure if Julie does that, but if she doesn't, she should.
- [13:30]
A
Honestly, I was just thinking about it. Like, I buy tons and tons of things on Etsy, like, a lot. Like, which obviously makes sense, right? My whole life is Etsy here. I want to support sellers. We'll get into what purchases I've made already for the holiday season soon. But I think there's just so much potential for collaboration. And a lot of us on Etsy understandably, are afraid to kind of stick our neck out and let someone else know that we exist because we're afraid someone's going to swoop in or take our idea or we, like, don't even know the first step of doing this. So when you're thinking about, okay, I'm sitting here, I'm listening, I have an Etsy shop. You're suggesting this person contact another Etsy seller on Social. Or like, who. Who are they contacting? Are they DMing them? Like, how do you envision this work?
- [14:10]
B
I DM them. And so what I did back in the day originally to do, to start doing this collaboration type thing is it was a giveaway. So I was like, I want to give away a digital product to get people on my email list. And these other people were like, yeah, I'll give away. One person was a quilter. Another person did handmade wedding products, and another person did earrings. So I was the only digital product seller. But they all wanted to collaborate. We all collaborated. And the giveaway was one product from each of us and people would opt into our email list. And that was the first way I was able to grow my email list. But another way you can do that is you can do this idea too, where you reach out to another seller and you. If you bought something from them or if you want to buy something from them, or if you want to do a freebie swap of some kind, or you really like their items, you can just reach out to them and say, hey, I would love to do a collaboration where I promote your products on my Instagram or TikTok. Or whatever. And then if you want, I can give you a freebie and you can promote my product if you'd like. If you feel like it's a good fit for your audience and you can cold email people. This, this is a cold pitch. But because it's about. It's giving them instant benefit, they're mo. They're more likely to reciprocate. And for me, doing a, doing a giveaway together with people, they're instantly in and doing a freebie swap, like this kind of, you know, audience swap, they're more apt to do it. Your direct competitors will probably give you the cold shoulder. Like, I wouldn't be pitching my com. My direct competitors on this. I wouldn't do it. But for a physical product seller or someone who sells, you know, I don't sell any cordial templates in my shop, and I know editable invitations are popular during the holidays, so I would reach out to a cordial seller and say, hey, I'd love to promote your editable cordial templates. If you wanted to promote one of my spreadsheet products for budgeting in the new year, I would love to give you a sample of that and I would love for you to promote that because that is a product that doesn't directly compete with them. And we're still in the same realm. Digital products, but they're totally separate audiences. But those people may be interested in like, budgeting and for the new year or budgeting for gifts or stuff like that. So you can go about this different ways. But I, I'm encouraging people because I'm very open with information. And so many people are closed off and they're like, I don't want to promote anyone. I don't. I want to be in a silo. I'm like, that's fine. But I want to help you grow your business. And if you want to help me with mine, that's fine. But I'm open. I'm opening myself, my audience, to you. So do you want to do the same for me? And, and most people, they are very open to the idea if you put yourself out there, but just not your direct competitor.
- [16:54]
A
Yeah. And maybe there's like an accessory. Like maybe you sell some sort of tea accessory and then somebody else sells tea subscriptions. And then you guys do some sort of collab on social or, you know, email list or whatever. Like, you could start brainstorming who is an accessory brand that I could work with. Or I'm even thinking, this, this may not work, but I haven't tried it personally, but when we're Talking about those TikTok gift guides, if somebody was one of the top videos last year, that person's very incentivized to make a new video this year and update it. So maybe you could send them product and you know, depending on how hard it is for you. The tough thing, we as Etsy sellers, particularly handmade sellers, they it's your time often that goes into this. So I can totally get why you're like, oh, I don't want to do something that I don't know if it's going to work. And unfortunately with these kind of marketing stunts, you don't always know it's going to work. And I think as the business grows, you might become more comfortable with allocating a certain percentage of your revenue to marketing and you might be willing every year to try something different or, you know, your time in the case if it's not cost. But all businesses, when you get to a certain level, there's a marketing budget and you know, they spend money. A traditional business might do Facebook ads or postcards or whatever. So it's totally normal for you to have a marketing budget and it's totally normal for you to experiment. But I also understand if you're like, I don't think this fits either do.
- [18:19]
B
You know, but you have to realize as a business owner that you are going to fail and you are going to pitch people and they are going to give you the cold shoulder. I remember I pitched someone to become an affiliate for my course and my course had nothing to do with, with the reason why they rejected me. And I was like, you obviously didn't even look at the sales page. You just were totally not even open minded. But that, that's fine because then I said, okay, this person wouldn't have been a good fit anyway because they weren't open to collaboration. And you just have to, you know, get. For every, you know, I will pitch 25 people to be an affiliate or something, I'll get two or three yeses. But to me, those three yeses could equal 20, 30, $50,000. So it's worth it to have those failures to get those big wins. So you have to it, it's easier to. You can grow a lot of relationships with different business owners if you put yourself out there first because a lot of people, they aren't going to do it first. But if they know that you're open to promoting them, then they're more likely to reciprocate because people like to be nice to each other. And you just have to switch your mindset from, you know, I, I, I don't, I'm not sure. This might be bad. I'm scared to fail, too. I'm gonna take risks because there could be a giant payoff at the end of it. It's totally worth it. It's been worth it for me.
- [19:47]
A
I know we have people in beyond. They're like, oh, I tried to find affiliates or partners. And then we're like, okay, how many did you pitch? And they're like seven. And we're like, okay, try 70. I've pitched 1,500 people in a week, which is not a good idea. I don't recommend that. I'm not saying you have to do 1500, but just get used to people saying completely ignoring you. Yes, some people are going to be rude. They're going to be rude back. And you're like, why are you rude? But some people, they just react rude. I don't know why. And then, you know, every one in every 25, like you mentioned, it's going to be great. And you don't need 70 people. You just need, like two to be interested in this. And, you know, you get, you learn from it. You get used to it. Um, it's fun to network with people, get to know people. Helps grow the business. So love this idea. Also plug. I just recorded an episode with Deanna Seymour about how she used local businesses as collaborative partners for her Etsy shop growth. And I think about that, I'm like, oh, maybe for the holidays, is there a way somebody could collaborate with a local business? And for her not to give away too much of the podcast, but she used local businesses as the pickup spots for her product. And I'm not. She also sold on her own website, too. So I'm not going to get into the legality of whether Etsy allows this or whatever. But for the businesses, the benefit for them is that they would get more foot traffic in their location where people were coming to pick up the thing. And she had a whole elaborate thing, how she did it. But I just want to mention, like, if you're not collaborating, maybe Black Friday or holiday season's a good time to think about how you could do that.
- [21:17]
B
Yeah, for sure. Collaboration is great and it might not work out, but when it does, it's very rewarding. And put yourself out there. You never know what could happen. You have no idea. And you don't have to, you know, if you don't want to be on social media with your face and Stuff you could do a freebie swap for email list stuff like that. So just think about all the different ways that you're comfortable with collaboration, and it will. It will be worth it. Trust me.
- [21:44]
A
Totally. Totally. Okay, next tip.
- [21:46]
B
Okay, so I want everyone, if you haven't started hinting to your audience about a possible Black Friday or a Black Friday sale that you're going to have, start doing it next Monday. Because, you know, in the United States, the. The beginning of the month was distractions with the election and all those things. And I noticed that after the election ended, I had an uptick in sales of. Of Christmas products. People are starting to buy Christmas products. I'm like, people are thinking about Christmas right now. So it's Friday today when we're. When we are filming this, are recording this podcast. So Monday of next week, that would be the 11th of Veterans Day.
- [22:23]
A
Veterans Day.
- [22:24]
B
You could send out a veterans email or do a social media post about Veterans Day thanking all the veterans. Then at the end of it, you could hint at your Black Friday sale that will be starting at some time, and you can email your audience or say in your social media, you know, put an overlay on even a faceless reel or something. Say, you know, something big is coming. Those things that pique people's interest, like countdown to the big day, exclusive subscriber announcement, you know, and that kind of marketing creates engagement. People get really excited about that. So start to hint at it. I fell into the trap, you know, when I first started that I had to have everything ready to go for my Black Friday sale before I started to talk about it. And I think you don't. You can just start to hint about it while you're getting prepared for it and deciding exactly what you want to do and things like that. So make sure that you start hinting next week because everyone is looking. They're actually, they're. They have their, you know, shopping hat on right now, and they're ready to start buying.
- [23:25]
A
Love it. Okay, next tip.
- [23:27]
B
Okay, so then this is my last tip. I actually was talking to people. I was a lot of people I know last year this happened. Their Black Friday sale was the entire month of November. It wasn't just Black Friday or through Cyber Monday. And I was like, oh, man, that's a long sale. And that's, you know, as a seller, you're like, do I have to compete with that? That's a lot. And someone I know right now, she's running a sale, this. Starting yesterday for the next, you know, four days. So it's a five day sale. She's doing it before Black Friday, but she was calling it her Black Friday sell. So then I was talking to someone else and two years ago I had a friend who, she's a top digital product seller on Etsy. She did a Black Friday sell and she, she saw a little bit of an uptick but not what she'd wanted. But then last year she ran an end of the year cell and that did 10 times better than her Black Friday sell. So. So if you are a digital product seller or something, you're like, oh, I don't know about Black Friday sale or physical product seller and you're like, oh, I don't know Black Friday. I feel like people are over it. I don't know. Think about doing an end of the year sell and you could do that the entire month of December. You could do it the entire month of, you know, you could run it from the middle of November through December 15, whatever you want to do. But that could be a different kind of sell and it might have different messaging to your audience and they might be more open to that if you feel like they're exhausted from Black Friday sales and stuff like that.
- [24:59]
A
Yeah. And they could also have other priorities because I know my husband and I, we want to get our daughter something musical and so we're waiting for Black Friday and that's our priority on Black Friday. So this, these other ancillary gifts and things, we just may not have the mental space to like buy everything we need on that one day. So that makes sense. I mean, giving people more days, take advantage of it, less competitive the other days. That's smart.
- [25:22]
B
Yeah, for sure.
- [25:23]
A
I love that.
- [25:23]
B
A lot of noise during that time to people. Like lots of ads and emails and stuff being thrown at them. So yeah, you would be cutting through the noise.
- [25:33]
A
One thing I've been thinking of and I'm curious your opinion on this, Sasha. I'm guessing if someone has a bestseller don't touch it but often sellers will say, oh well, I'm going to holiday up my listing images or adding like if, you know, if you have two keywords you @ the end you want to chop them off and add some sort of holiday gift keywords. I'm guessing we have a if it's not broke, don't fix it mentality. But you know, if someone you're not making the sales you want could, could be worth trying to seasonal. Seasonal. Ify your listing. What are your thoughts on that?
- [26:07]
B
I do that for my stuff at different times. Like I have a product that I had put up for Father's Day. It didn't sell as well. It was too much competition. So I repackaged it and put the keywords for Grandparents Day and it sold 20 to 1. So I feel like that's totally fine. There's a shop that sells like, planner pages, single planner pages. They have some bundles, but I noticed every season they change out all of their listing images. I mean, they have like 300 listing images. So this is very impressive to me. They put autumn sell 40% off or something at the top of each listing image. So you could put that at the top of your listing images that you want to season five. You could put, you know, Black Friday sell bonus Black Friday gift or something like that on your main listing image and things like that. Or you could take a product that, you know, maybe didn't do as well for another holiday, and you could tweak it and turn it into a Christmas product or Thanksgiving or New Year's Eve or something and just repackage, retool it and do that as well. That may move the needle on the demand for that idea.
- [27:14]
A
Yeah, and that's. That's a solid point of how you can take. How can we look at our existing inventory and just change the marketing so that it hits up a different customer segment? And I think using the words that Etsy is telling us and putting that and labeling it with that makes a lot of sense. So last year I mentioned how for whatever reason, Etsy seemed to want people to push Hostess gifts and teenager gifts. And that makes sense. I mean, hostess gifts, people are visiting people's houses. The teenager gift one, I never would have thought of that in a million years. But there are a lot of younger kid gifts on Etsy. Maybe it's less competitive, but still searching for older kids stuff.
- [27:54]
B
Yeah, that's.
- [27:54]
A
I think they were pushing like stem gifts. I forget the exact ones. We'll have to link to a link to the holiday guide they had last year and the new one this year. But always good to kind of relabel what you have in marketing. Maybe a new listing marketing package for whatever Etsy saying people want.
- [28:12]
B
Yeah, Pink Christmas is big this year too. I think. Pink, pink, everything do pink. So if you have, you know, gift tags that didn't sell well last. Last year, maybe change up the product to be pink and then put Pink Christmas as your tag or in your title or something, and then you would be able to get more sales on that. But yeah, definitely pay attention to the keywords. That Etsy is promoting in the gift guides, even if it's a physical product and you're a digital product seller. Because we know pinkoeen could be anything. That could be a shirt, that could be decor. I mean, that could be anything. Yeah, but people were buying pinkoeen signs for, you know, candy bowl signs, you know, please take two. And the keyword pinkoeen sold that sign because of it was in that design aesthetic. That's popular.
- [28:57]
A
Yeah. After Barbie movie, everything is pink now. We'll never go back.
- [29:00]
B
Yeah, that's true.
- [29:02]
A
So with the Etsy holiday guide, I read the most recent one, I felt very old because I had no clue that this stuff was popular. But apparently chrome is the color of the holiday season. Had no idea. So we'll link to the holiday guide below in case people want to see if the aesthetic or, you know, maybe adding some of those keywords if what they're already selling matches in a popular aesthetic. I was kind of surprised by that. Did you know Chrome was in?
- [29:29]
B
I mean, did Chrome ever really go out or. I guess it did. It was like chrome, then gold. Then what is it? Rose gold was big for a while. Remember that?
- [29:40]
A
Yes.
- [29:40]
B
Rose gold is out now. It's pink, I guess, and chrome. So I don't know the trends.
- [29:48]
A
Someone that is a reluctant TikTok user, because I have to for this business stuff, I was recently thinking, okay, I'm gonna get some sort of jewelry for myself. So I bought these hummingbird earrings from Etsy because I'm into hummingbirds. Like very into hummingbirds. Bought those. And then I was looking on TikTok for ideas, which TikTok is beautiful for ideas. And all these people were giving jewelry tours. If you haven't seen this yet, it's gonna blow your mind. But people will just, like, show off their hands and like, oh, this is what this piece is, all this stuff. And anyways, I learned that David Yurman is in again. And I was pumped because it was in when I was in college so long ago. So things are like, buy anything new? I already have that one thing that someone gave me as a college graduation gift. But I'm bringing this up because knowing what is popular right now is sometimes can feel annoying. Like, I'm like, hey, how am I going to mentally catch up on Chrome Christmas being popular? But it's like so helpful for E commerce because for whatever reason, people want that. So staying on trend of what people want. And even like, you know, if you're someone listening and you sell jewelry, if you could type into TikTok jewelry tours and maybe you can see what videos people like in the space. And you can do a jewelry tour for all your, you know, here's my holiday look or whatever. And show your jewelry as part of one of the pieces. It's just a way that you can sell your stuff during this time of year. So.
- [31:06]
B
Yeah, and it takes the thinking out of it. You don't have to guess. You're like, these people are literally handing me the keys to Castle. And pay attention to the videos that have tons of, you know, favorites comments and things like that, because then, you know, this is it. This hit with people. I don't have to think too much. They did all the work for me. I'm just using this. Look at the hashtags, things like that and what brought people to it.
- [31:29]
A
Yeah. And you don't need to make 500 videos because that's what I think is the most annoying part. It's like, I don't have the time. You can make four if you just copy and put your own spin on whatever was already the more popular one. Because people like that two point. So anyways, I think that's a good, natural stopping point for this. Sasha, if anyone is interested in our beyond program, like what. What would you. It is. And we'll link to it below.
- [31:53]
B
So beyond helps people to grow their own Etsy shop. And a lot of people will join beyond after hitting like a hundred sales in their Etsy shop. And they're like, now what? You know, I did this. Now what? Now I want to actually have revenue goals. I want to grow my business beyond Etsy. I want to add different revenue streams to my business. So, you know, if we talked about how you can join the Etsy affiliate program, affiliate income is the very first thing I did after starting my Etsy shop to add a second stream of income to my business. I now have eight or nine streams of income for my business. And that's how you can grow to that six figure and beyond. Mark Julie is a seven figure entrepreneur. So she started with her, you know, blogging, then she pieced on affiliate income, then she did Etsy, then she had her podcast. So. And you can get sponsors with the podcast. So there's all these different things you can do, and that's what beyond helps you to do, is to understand all those different ways that you can take your existing Etsy business and grow it beyond Etsy. And I use Etsy as seed money to grow my brand and to grow what I do to make money so that's what we do in beyond is we help people to discover that what makes sense for them and their business naturally as a natural progression of their Etsy brand and how to grow it. And a lot of people love it and they've been super successful. We have super successful bloggers on there who've, you know, they came from the blogging world and it's also. They're successful people and beyond, but they like to be with other people that are creative and excited to grow their business and it gives them other ideas and it's people who aren't just beginners. This is people beyond the beginner stage who are looking for a community of people who will grow with them. And that's what it's about.
- [33:38]
A
Yep. And you get access to Sasha for one on one coaching for a fraction of the price that in general or either of us because I'm also in the community too. It's like, you know, I, I found in life just get in a smaller room if you want to have access to people. So, you know, we, this is a small room of entrepreneurs and you, and you're going to get more individual attention in this group. And this is mentioned. This is different than E Printables. E Printables is our main flagship program. Beyond is an additional, it's an additional membership that's for a little bit different of a target avatar. Um, the, the group here are. They wanted, they want to make this a business. They're here because they want to grow their business and that's what the purpose of it is.
- [34:19]
B
Yeah. And they understand that, you know, maybe they don't want to put all their eggs in one basket. And they say but what does that look like? I want to understand how other people have done that and how I could do that for myself. And that's what we go through. We have tons of course, I mean we have tons of course content like learning about email, teachers, pay teachers, starting a blog, affiliate marketing. There's content on how to level up your own Etsy shop, how to make videos to make your Etsy stuff pop, how to do social media marketing, how to sell on social media. It's endless. There's a lot. You can go through it and, and go through every single module and still find stuff to apply to your business. Even if you feel like I know what I'm doing, I'm at the top of my game and I would say, but there's probably more that you can learn. I mean I'm constantly learning. I know Julie's a lifelong learner and so it's nice to get, like she said, into a room with people to see what else I could learn. I mean, I'm in an Additional Mastermind on YouTube because I wanted to get even more knowledge on that topic, like, what are things that aren't obvious to me that I've learned on my own and discovered and done right. And it's been helpful for me to go even further with that knowledge base. And so that's what we like to do, is take people who are past the beginner stage of Etsy and want to know what else is out there for them.
- [35:37]
A
Yeah. And if you haven't been offered beyond, it's because you probably didn't reach 100 sales on Etsy. That's kind of what we use. But that being said, we're an open community. We're not, like, gonna not accept someone if they're like, hey, actually, this is more what I am going to do. You're welcome to join, but if you were not offered, it's because that's what we said. Like, hey, this is probably the best fit for this person. That being said, if this, if you're like, oh, this is actually what I want, then we're. We're open arms, we're welcoming you.
- [36:02]
B
Yeah.
- [36:03]
A
Okay, cool. Well, Sasha, this was so fun. Good luck to everyone with Black Friday holiday sales. Let's keep the conversation going. And if you have any additional tips and you're watching this on YouTube, please leave them below. We'd love to learn from each other. Thanks.
- [36:14]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Please share your tips if you have them. We want to know what they are. And. And if you have any questions, drop those too. And, yeah, thanks, everyone.