← Crickets to Cha-Chings
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to another episode of the Crickets to Cha Chings podcast by Gold City Ventures. I'm Cody Berman, and today I'm joined by Nancy Badillo of nancybadeo.com Nancy, how are you today? And can you give the listeners a little bit of a background on you in the Etsy space and why they should listen to what you have to say today?
- [00:17]
B
Oh, of course. Well, thank you first of all, for having me, Cody. I really appreciate it. And I've been in the space for over 15 years, so it's been quite a while. And how I started the space was essentially back in 2007. I went through the recession just like everyone else, and I was about to lose my home. I went online, I typed in how to make money online. Unfortunately, I didn't make any money. We didn't have the resources that we have now, and I ended up losing my home. I ended up going through a bankruptcy, a foreclosure as well. And through that process, I learned more about digital marketing. And I thought it was so interesting that there were so many people online claiming, right, that they make money. And I just thought it was so interesting. So I just took it upon myself to just learn more about digital marketing. So for many years, I did everything online from building websites to PPC to creating blogs and selling them, from freelance to doing ebay, trying to sell on ebay. I pretty much did a lot of things. And over the time, one of the biggest mistakes I made was that I was all over the place. So I knew a lot over the years. I learned a lot and I was all over the place. And then finally I decided, oh, what's Etsy? Let me try Xe out. And again, I didn't know anything about Etsy. I've never been a crafty girl. I've never sewn anything. And I was like, I learned about digital products and how you could create an invite or create digital products even if you're not like a graphic designer or artist yourself. I got into Etsy. I started selling digital products. I taught myself how to do it with Photoshop. At the time, I wasn't even using Canva. And my first year, I made like 21,000. And then my second year, I was able to triple that. And. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm onto something. And before that, I made money, but not, not consistent to quit my job. So when I started making money, then I decided, you know what, instead of being like, all over the place, let me micro niche or niche down and become like an Xy coach versus one minute I'm a blogger, the next minute I'm a SEO expert, the next minute I'm a freelancer, et cetera. So that's kind of how my journey started. But I had a lot of bumps in the road. For sure.
- [02:43]
A
I had a lot of bumps, too. And that is exactly why we do shows like this. So people can kind of take our 10, 15 plus years of mistakes selling digital products and skip them and hopefully start making sales a lot faster than both of us did. Because I know for me, my first couple dozen products were terrible. They didn't sell. I just felt like I was hitting a wall on Etsy. I was making like $50 a week, but. And I was constantly listing products. I just didn't understand keyword research or SEO or niching down a lot of the stuff we'll talk about today. So, yes, that is exactly what we're going for here. And thank you to coaches like you who make it possible for people to skip over all those mistakes and the heartaches and the obstacles and roadblocks.
- [03:20]
B
Of course, of course.
- [03:23]
A
So today I want to talk about some trending items and maybe some trending keywords. You are such a prolific content creator. I was scrolling through your Instagram this morning, taken tons of notes, furious notes, because you are just constantly posting like, okay, these are the keywords that are trending for Halloween this year. Or this is a planner that's doing really well. Like, you're using these various keyword research tools to see that, you know, this thing has a lot of search volume, not a lot of competition. It might be something that people should start looking into so we can take this in whatever direction you want. Nancy, if we want to talk about Halloween, we're recording this at the very beginning of October 2025. Or if you want to talk about certain key keywords that might be holiday or trend agnostic. Yeah, what. What are you seeing right now? What's working?
- [04:04]
B
So what I see a lot is that the reason why I post those type of content of like this planner or this particular printable makes X, Y and Z is because I feel like a lot of people feel like the market is too saturated. But the key is that if you do market research and you find out what people are searching for, and if you're very specific with trends as well, you use them correctly, you're able to make more money or ride that trend for that period of time. So, like I seen earlier today, a store had a Halloween birthday invitation that they did. They just uploaded that 30 days ago and they already had over 288 sales.
- [04:47]
A
Wow.
- [04:47]
B
Card. I mean, it's. It's pretty incredible. I saw another listing that was all about spooky, like artwork, like printables. I was well. And they had over a hundred prints. It's a little bit of work. However, that particular store did like over 13,000 in one month. Imagine, I mean, one product, they made $13,000 because they were able to tap in into and they understand, okay, in next month or two months from now is Halloween, what can we get a head start off and create products. And a lot of times it's testing, but you need to make sure that you are doing market research. You're seeing what is trending at the given moment. And a lot of times things are trending right before, like two, three months before. So if you plan ahead of time, you will reap, you know, the rewards for it. Because now people are finding your product and everybody's waiting till like the week off to add that product. So one thing that I always tell people with trends is that you need to jump on them a little bit sooner than later and at least two to three months prior, start planning for them. And then you need to use any, any marketing tool like Erank or Laura Marmalead to definitely go in there and start doing market research, figuring out what's trending already, what are people buying. And I'm not saying copying that design, but taking that idea, learning from that store, seeing where people are commenting good and negative, and then making something similar in that theme, but definitely different and even, possibly even better if you can.
- [06:26]
A
And then when you see search results pop up on Erank or Marmalead or Alora or Insight Factory or ever be. Pick your poison. There's a lot of good keyword research tools out there. What is like a green light, I should create this thing.
- [06:39]
B
Do you.
- [06:39]
A
Do you go by certain number of searches per month? Do you go by a certain level of competition? What's like the. I need to make this product qualification?
- [06:48]
B
It depends. Yeah. So if, if I see. If I do keyword research for a particular product and it has, let's say 3,000 monthly searches and only like a thousand in competition, that's relatively a good keyword to use for your product. And what I like, what I tell people all the time, is that you might not find all 13 keywords to look that way. You might find like four or five. They're pretty decent. And then the rest are a little bit more heavier in competition. So the ones that are the most important ones, are the ones you're going to focus on in putting it in your title, front loading in your title, putting it in your description, on the top of your description, etc. However, if you find, if you find a product that has like, let's say you were looking for wellness and you see something that says 13,000 monthly searches, but then the competition is like 3,000 or 4,000, that is something that I wouldn't think about. I wouldn't say, I don't know if I'm gonna do this. That that is a gap in the market. That is an indication that there's a whole bunch of people searching for this product and not too many people are creating it. So when you find those, those are gold. Those are unicorns, essentially. And what I tell people is you capitalize that in so many ways. So what you would do, if it's a wellness planner, you would create one listing. And then what you try to do is create different variations of that listing using those keywords and creating more because you're able to capitalize on something that might become your bestseller as well. And even if you, if you're not able to add additional products, there are variations of the same product always have like a product ladder. So because that one product is going to sell really well. So you have to look at your listing like a sales page. How can I get this person one? They're already going to buy. Because this, this keyword is really good. So most likely people are going to find your listing. And hopefully if you, you're selling what you're promoting and it's really good, and your photos are great. I mean, there's so many contributing factors, but everything, you know, you did everything correctly, then you're going to get sales. But how can you capitalize and increase your average order value for that listing as well? So that's another thing to think about. But that would be one that I would say, okay, this is what I have. I have to create this product. I can't, you know, lose momentum right now. This is the one I want to.
- [09:08]
A
Do that makes a lot of sense. So going back to, we can use this example or we could go back to the Halloween birthday invitation that you saw. You talk about kind of niching down one more layer. So yes, you can make a Halloween birthday invitation, but do you make multiple versions of a Halloween birthday invitation? And maybe it's by like esthetic. Maybe you do a boho Halloween birthday invitation and you do a retro and you do a cottagecore and whatever Else, you know, pops up in your keyword research. Is that kind of how you think of niching out and creating multiple variations of a product? We can use the planner or the Halloween birthday invitation, whatever is a better example.
- [09:42]
B
Yeah. For the variation. Yeah. What I would do a lot of times it's like slight variations. So let's say it's a, it's a Halloween birthday invitation. It might be one for girls, one for boys, but it's just a slightly variation, maybe similar characters, but just a little bit slightly different. If it's like something else, like a, let's say like an invit, like a party invitation or like a wedding invitation, it might be the same invitation, the same style, but maybe this one has hendrias and another one has like roses. So different, slightly variations. And then if you're able to find multiple keywords that are doing really well. So maybe you found like the Halloween birthday invitation is doing well, but then monster invitation is doing well. Then you, you combine that together, you create an invite that has little monster. So it meets this keyword, but then also meets the keyword of people searching for Halloween birthday. So those are like, even better because now you're, you're, you're getting so many eyeballs from all these different keywords that you normally probably wouldn't think, because a lot of people put birthday invitation, birthday invitation, principal Halloween, and they keep repeating the same versus thinking out the box and saying, okay, so Halloween is trending. What other keywords go with Halloween that might be trending that I could capitalize in this season right now? Because once you find something and you trend, I mean, I mean, I have some students of mine that made like 5,000 on one listing in a month. I mean, it usually flatlines after the trend went away or the season went away. But to make that much money just from 12 listings that they did and taking like 20 minutes to do keyword research, I mean, it's pretty incredible.
- [11:24]
A
Yeah. Who cares about flatlining if you're making 5k off one product? Like, if you can do that for every single trend, if you can get, you can figure out what's going to be trending for Thanksgiving and then what's going to be trending for Christmas and then what's going to be trending for New Year's and, you know, Valentine's Day and so on and so forth. You can get little bursts like that throughout the entire year. My gosh, you can make a lot.
- [11:43]
B
Of money, get so good at it. Like, year after year, you start like Predicting like you start learning, okay, this is the time I should start doing this because last year I did good and I have like student of mine that they keep selling the same products year after year. They just put it back or they might deactivate it and put it back on the season and it still performs well. And mind you, some will have to do keyword research and kind of find new keywords. But I've gotten some that have told me, Nancy, I can't believe like it did well again. So sometimes that could happen too.
- [12:13]
A
Are there any keyword gotchas or things that people are doing wrong with keywords? I really liked your example of a lot of people just kind of keyword stuff with the same stuff. So for Halloween might be, you know, Halloween birthday invitation, birthday invitation, Halloween printable. But they don't think outside the box. They don't add things like monster, they don't add things like skeleton or whatever the, you know, one layer down niching might be. What are some other kind of keyword or tag or just wording errors that people are making when they're listing their stuff?
- [12:41]
B
I think that's the main one that I, I see all the time, which is just repeating the same keywords over and over with just adding like an extra keyword at the end or something. That is the main one there. The second one would be using very vague keywords that don't accurately describe what you sell. Or going after keywords like maybe you're selling like a table lamp. So you use the word home decor. That's too vague. And what happens with people that search on Etsy home decorations? They're searching, they're not, they're looking around, they're not buying, they're not searching with an intent to buy. They're more like, let me see what I find for home decor. But if you have like a small yellow table lamp, I don't know, I'm just making this up right now. If you use that keyword, that long tail key where you do the research first you realize like, oh, it's a long tail keyword, doesn't have a lot of competition. It has some search volume. It accurately describes what I sell. And then you use that keyword, the people, they actually find your store now they're buying, they're searching with an intent to buy. Because when you go online and you type in on Etsy small yellow table lamp, you're being so specific to what you want. And if I come across that listing that sells what I really want, I'm more likely to click and I'm more likely to buy from you.
- [14:05]
A
So that's such an important point. I cannot underscore that enough. And this is what we teach our students too, is like, okay, what do you think someone's gonna buy? They're buying a birthday card for their 70 year old father who likes golf, they're gonna buy just a generic birthday card. Or if they type in 70 year old golf birthday card and you have, you know, the big 70 on the card with like a golfer on it, like they're so much more drawn to that. There's such a higher buyer intent there because it's so much closer to the thing that they're, they're shopping for. I, I, I can't underscore that enough, Nancy. That's great.
- [14:38]
B
And then I think the third one I would say, and I tell this to all my new students, is that they end up putting like their shop name as a store. And I always tell them like, until you blow up and people are actually searching your name, never add your shop name. That's like a wasted space.
- [14:55]
A
Oh, in the actual title you're talking about or the tags of tag. Oh man. Yeah, definitely don't do that.
- [15:01]
B
That's a tag. And then when, when I'm analyzing their keywords, I'm like, is why, why am I set zero there? I'm like, because no one's really searching for your score. Once people start searching, searching your name and like maybe you blew up and they're searching for Kodi printables, then at that point it makes sense to kind of add it to maybe all the listings, etc. But in the beginning, you know, make sure to use keywords that are buyer intent keywords. Make sure to use long tail keywords because they're, they're more targeted traffic, the people that you actually want. Stay away from broad keywords, vague keywords that don't really describe what you sell. And don't repeat the same word over like, you know, the same thing over and over. Like birthday in by Halloween, birthday in by Halloween, birthday in by printer. Don't do that. Those are the, all the things that I, I'm thinking on top of my head right now.
- [15:54]
A
Yeah, those make perfect sense. I think those are great things to avoid as an Etsy seller. A new or existing. What I really like though about digital products and going back to your example of, you know, monster Halloween invitation is that with digital products versus like a small yellow table lamp, it would be really difficult for you to like quickly change the adjectives to Describe that table lamp. Like, it'd be hard for you to. It's a. It's work for you to paint that thing blue or it's work for you, like, paint that thing orange or to, like, put stripes on it. But with a digital product, you literally take a Halloween birthday invitation, you throw a couple monster elements on there from Canva, you throw a couple skeleton elements on there from Canva, and all of a sudden you can completely change the keywords that you're targeting in a flash. Like, I'm such a. I like. I call it templatization, where I'll just, like, create a base template that looks pretty good, and then I'll just make a million variations of products using that base template.
- [16:43]
B
Words out of my mouth. Exactly. That's what I love about digital products. Like, people get so hang up on, you know, I don't know if I want to do it. I'm like, it's so much easier in a way that. So easy has a higher margin. I mean, I literally could create a wedding invitation and do 10 variations of it and change the flowers and maybe change a few things here and there and have 10 new listings in like 20 minutes. And.
- [17:09]
A
And you don't have to ship them or anything. They just exist.
- [17:12]
B
And. And when I used to, actually, when I started Etsy, because I did. I don't know if Canva existed then, or maybe I didn't know about it. I taught myself how to do Photoshop. So when I was doing digital printables, it was a headache because the person will order from me, I would edit, and then I would send them a mockup, like three mockups. And then after that, approve or not, and then go from there. And now it's so much easier, you know, when it comes to just a digital download, which I did back then, too. Or, you know, you could just use Canva templates, give them the link, and you do it once, and you sell over and over and over. You don't have to edit or do anything else. It is so much easier. It's easy.
- [17:55]
A
I just looked it up while you were talking there. So Canva came out in 2013. I think the first time I ever used it was, like, early 2017. When did you start creating products? I know you quit or you got laid off in 2007. That's when the whole economy crashed. And then you kind of started teaching other people in 2009. Were you creating digital products at that point?
- [18:12]
B
Oh, no, no, no.
- [18:13]
A
Okay.
- [18:14]
B
I don't think digital products were even.
- [18:16]
A
I Mean a thing.
- [18:17]
B
A thing at that. Back then, to be honest, I just, I. I don't even know how I came across Etsy, but when I opened my first store, it was 2016.
- [18:29]
A
Okay, so Canva existed, I guess.
- [18:30]
B
Yeah, Canva existed. I just didn't know about it. I had just learned about, like Creative Market and how you could just buy something from there and, you know, put in your template in Photoshop and create something. And that right there blew my mind. And then I had to learn Photoshop. So that took a lot of time, but I didn't really know Canva at that given moment. I think I started using canva now, maybe 2018, almost like you 2018. Around, around that time. Because I think that's when it started kind of like blowing up. And then I had my YouTube channel and then I was thinking about thumbnails and other things I could use Canva with. And I think that's where I was like, oh, wait, they got Canva templates. Yeah.
- [19:15]
A
So as someone, as someone who's been creating digital products for almost a decade, you started with it sounds like Photoshop and you move over to Canva. What are some of the biggest design mistakes you're seeing from new sellers, your students? Just people on Etsy. Like, is there a list main listing image too crowded is just like their colors off. Is the aesthetic off. What's, what's some of the main mistakes you're seeing new sellers make with design?
- [19:36]
B
I think a lot of it is that what you said, like, is too crowded, there's no space. Right. Maybe the designs that they picked are not the best looking or the formatting of it. But I think the biggest one is the user experience. Like when you send the Canva template for a customer, I always tell my students, you know, make sure you have your thank you message. Make sure to include instructions if you have to create a video, because it's a little bit more complicated type of product. Some, some are do a video. But it's all about the user experience. If that customer downloads the product and they don't know how to use it and they're like stuck. Don't assume everyone knows how to use Canva. There's a lot of people that don't. And that's another one. A lot of people say, I don't know if I want to sell Canva templates. Why would they pay me if they could just do it themselves? Well, let me tell you, I'm the first one to buy a Canva template for my son's birthday. Because sometimes I don't have the time to do it even once do it. So I think that's the biggest ones that I see is the whole the PDF, they just slap a thank you in the top. They have the link, but they don't have any follow up, like any discounts. They don't say, you know, hey, for your next purchase use. Like they're not focusing on return customers. They're more focused on, okay, what's my next customer? And then the user experience is really important because if the customer downloads the file and for whatever reason they're clueless on how to edit, maybe they, they did five minutes and five minutes to them is like 30 minutes wasted. Like they're going to get frustrated, they're going to leave you a bad review. They might not buy from you again. And the user experience is everything because when somebody buys from you, they're more likely to buy again if they have a really good user experience. So from the design aspect is everything you said and then from the user experience is a huge one that I see is a missed opportunity for many people.
- [21:28]
A
So last thing I want to hit on and you just read my mind with what you were just talking about there as you talked about boosting average order size and customer ltv, like getting people back to your shop or you know, maybe bundling and ordering multiple items.
- [21:40]
B
Yeah.
- [21:41]
A
How are you doing this tactically? Like, is this something you're doing in your listing descriptions and you're listing images? I know it sounds like you're getting people on like an email list and promoting your products that way. I guess. What are some of the. I know this, this could probably be a whole podcast in and of itself, really. But what are some of the quick hitters that people are missing?
- [21:56]
B
The, the big hitters are, is that you want to think about your exe listing. Like every listing is a sales page. That's how I sell it. It's like a sales funnel page. So what you want to make sure that you're doing is that on every listing you have all 10 photos. On every listing you have a video. On every listing you have a product ladder. And a product ladder could be maybe you sell, let's say the wedding principal and you're like a wedding invitation and you offer them as a bundle. You could say, hey, for another $10 more you could get the poster and you could get the thank you card. And then for this other additional bundle, you could get the whole bundle. And that's what you want. You want to increase your average order Value you want, you want to take that person from 5.99to like 2599 if you're able to, right? So that's one way you could do it. You could have upsells in there. Another thing that you could do is personalization. You could say this printable is $5, but if you add your name is an extra $3. Or if you add this additional thing to it, like maybe a photo now, it jumps to an additional, let's say $5 additional. You could have something like that where they have to choose what customization or personalization that they want. That's something else that you could do. You want to make sure that when you're doing the customization or the upsell, it makes sense for the customer. So they could say, okay, this is. Yeah, I want my name there. Or it would be great if I could put the photo. Another thing that a lot of people feel like is clickbait. And I learned this not because I was doing it on purpose. I just learned over time. I started noticing this on my main store that I had was if you're offering different sizes of printables, and let's say that the smallest size, like your 4 by 6, you sell for 3.99x is going to show the smallest price. It's going to show the 3. 99. You're going to get more clicks than the person next to you that says 8. 99. Because they're seeing the 4 by 6 size. They don't know. Once they click to the 11 by 14, it goes up to $8. A lot of people hate when I say this, but I honestly feel like a lot of my students do that with like just physical and digital. You could do this with. And they get more clicks and eventually people end up buying the products because they're like, some people like me, if I find something and I like it, I'm gonna get it. I'm not one of those people that I'm gonna be. I gotta look at 30 stores. I, I don't do that. I'm an impulse buyer. So, yeah, maybe I click because it was cheaper, but then maybe later I, I go up in size or whatever it is, right? Like, I'm like, oh, I don't need the 4x6. Darn, this is gonna be 15. I thought it was 3, but I end up paying the 15 because most people are like me, some are not, right? They're shoppers. It depends on the type of person. So that's another tip that you could do. If you're Able to do it. And then what you want to make sure that you do is that if you're saying, well, I don't. I can't do customization, I can't do personalization or anything, try to add something in the description that says, this product goes well with this. Most customers buy this with this, like a recommendation. That's another upsell there. But you have to look at your listing as a sales page. Can I come. Can I get their email? So make sure that you have in your photo, whatever you're offering. If you're offering a lead magnet. If you're offering a checklist. What? Like, when I first started my main store, I offered three PDFs. One was what to do if you're getting married in six months, what to do if you're getting married in 12 months, and what to do if you're getting married in. I think it was 18 months. So it was like a checklist of month one. This is all the stuff you gotta get. Month two, all the. It was so valuable at the time for so many people. That. That one principle that took me, I think, like four hours. Because that's when I was learning Canva. So it was like a headache for me. Putting all the little. The little boxes was the worst part. Creating the.
- [26:02]
A
And now we have the tables feature. I know Canva back in the day was so much harder.
- [26:07]
B
Yeah, I remember, like, I'm like, is this even worth it? But at the time I was getting married, so I learned a lot about weddings, like having plan A and B, having insurance. I got married in Puerto Rico because I'm Puerto Rican. My husband and I had to get our health check down here and bring that. If you don't have that, you can't get married. Like, I learned so much. I was like, oh, this would be a cool, like, checklist. And I had bought this book at Barnes and Noble, like, this big. And I just took that and created a checklist. But anyways, that checklist got me like 63,000 email subscribers. Wow. So that's what I'm saying. Like the power of. If you provide something that people want, especially back then, that it wasn't. You couldn't go to ChatGPT and ask, if I'm planning a wedding six months, what do I need to know? It wasn't like that. You had to read everything. So people love that checklist. My store was a wedding store primarily before I turned it into everything. So that helped me get a lot of emails. So make sure that your freebie is valuable. Because we are in a trust recession right now. So people are going to give you the email that easy like they used to back in the day. So you have to make sure that in your photo, whatever freebie you're offering is valuable or whatever discount you're offering is to them, it makes sense. They're like, oh, I need to get this. Like, that's a good discount. And then you put that in your photo and you also put it in your description because some people look at all of the photos and don't read and vice versa. So you want to make sure that you cover everything. So therefore you don't miss opportunities. So offering again, bundles up sales, personalization, whatever the product is. I'm sure there's something that falls in those categories and that you could offer. And then obviously, Cody, making sure that your listing talks about the high value problem that your product solves, not just list the features, talk about the benefits. If you list the features next to it, write the benefit of that feature. That's what I always tell my students. So what is the benefit of this feature? Right next to it. Right next to it. Always think about the customer. Put yourself in their shoe. And when they read it, they feel like, oh, she's talking to me. This is what I'm going through right now. I need this. So those will be like the main rules. Just focusing on that and obviously optimization, you know, making sure your keywords are in your description and your title, et cetera. Choosing the right category so you show up in the. In the right search.
- [28:32]
A
That was gold, Nancy. Everyone take notes. That's why we call this Hidden Gems. That was. That was really good.
- [28:36]
B
Okay, thanks.
- [28:37]
A
As we bring this thing to a close, where do you want people to follow up? I know you're very prolific on all social medias. Instagram, you have a huge YouTube following. Where do you want our listeners to get more of Nancy and your Etsy teachings?
- [28:49]
B
Oh, thank you so much. I guess the easiest is my website because once you go in there, you find everything else. So. Nancyvadejo.com Perfect.
- [28:56]
A
All right, we'll link everything up in the show notes and in the description. Thank you so much for your time today. This is a lot of fun. I've been smiling, I've been learning, I've been taking notes. You have again, shared a wealth of knowledge. I think everyone has some homework to do on their own Etsy Shop with some of these tips. So thank you.
- [29:11]
B
Thank you, team.