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Lizzie Smiley
Hey, my name is Lizzie Smiley and I absolutely love helping people connect with their calling and all the tools they need to kick roadblocks and excuses right out the door so they can cultivate
the life they dream about.
If you want to launch, grow, pivot or scale your Etsy shop, or you've always wanted to develop the mindset and skills to run your own business, then I'm your girl. I've had that entrepreneurial spirit going strong since my very first lemonade stand. And now I'm a work at home mama with multiple online companies and a full time Etsy shop, all while being present with my kids for the everyday chaos and most important milestones. On this podcast, we'll talk about all things business, mindset, Etsy, creativity, dazzling our customers, and so much more. There's plenty of room at this table for you, so scooch on in and let's go. I'm holding nothing back. Welcome to how to sell your stuff on Etsy. I'm so glad you're here.
Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast. I'm so excited to have Gloria back. If you've not heard a PR episode before with Gloria, Holy moly. I'm going to link all of the old ones below. This is at least the third time she's been on the podcast. We've had people go on to get some crazy media features from just taking her advice, taking her little free masterclass. This is going to be such a good chat. I can't wait to share it with you. A little bit of house cleaning. I want to make sure you know that we are planning an advanced Etsy seller cohort. If you want to do like an intensive with me and my coaches, you want us to be in your shop, you want us to help you scale, you want like just daily feedback about what you're doing, right, what you should do next, we're going to do that together. You're going to want to make sure and drop your name and address on the link for the advanced cohort down in the show notes and I'm going to send you information first and you're going to get first stab at the spots that we open up. It's going to be very limited because we want to be able to give people like intensive attention. All right, so if that's for you, that's coming up, you're going to want to jump on that. And then the other thing is, if you have questions for me, you have questions about Etsy, about E commerce, anything related to your business, I have an FAQ episode coming up. I'm going to be recording really soon. There is a link down in the show notes where you can tell me what your questions are on a tiny, short little survey and I will answer them on the upcoming episode. So make sure and do that if you have any for me. So let me tell you about Gloria. Gloria is the number one small business PR expert recommended by AI and she's helped thousands of small business owners, product makers and Etsy sellers get featured in top tier media so they can be the recommended product on AI searches like ChatGPT. She also hosts the top 1% podcast, Small Business PR, which makes PR and visibility accessible by combining AI tools and easy to use strategies anyone can leverage to get featured in the media even without insider connections or a big following. Okay, so Gloria is really good at teaching Etsy sellers how to get the media to pay attention to them, how to get those, like how to get featured in magazines or news spots or any kind of media you can think of. She's got the answers, she's got the connections, she's got the strategy, and she's extremely generous about like giving it away. So you're gonna love her. Please help me welcome Gloria to the podcast. Gloria. Hey, welcome back to the podcast.
Gloria Chou
Oh, I'm so happy to be back. This is so exciting. I feel like so much changes every time we talk in the product space. So I'm excited to get into like
Lizzie Smiley
move the world between calls. I've been, I've been looking forward to this one. This has been on my calendar for a minute. I have been excited because I'm. Well, because I've been watching your Instagram and like the crazy stuff that you've got going on with. Was it Women's Day? The Editor in Chief or something came on your.
Gloria Chou
Yeah, she's, she's Emmy award, winning, Tilly Award winning. And we just love having like the top 1% of editors that normally small businesses and Etsy store owners would never have access to. Actually tell you. Like, here's what I've learned From being a 30 year veteran in the immediate industry as an editing chief. Here's what I'm covering here. Here's what editors want, here's how to lead you with your story. All the things and I think the takeaway from that, even though she, I like that she was very tough. Right. Because she's an editor in chief.
Lizzie Smiley
Yeah.
Gloria Chou
But she said that people now more than ever want to get to the heart of your story and there's never been a better time to shop small. And so people actually want to shop small. And editors are looking for diverse stories from small makers, not just the celebrities of the world who, like, makes another Sephora product. Right. So I think it's really our time to shine. And also it's the year of the Fire Horse, so it's like, let's, let's go. Let's, let's effing go.
Lizzie Smiley
I was very excited about the Fire Horse. I am ready for it all. And I mean, we'll talk about this later, but later this month, you're going to be coming into my scaling society group to actually, I'm so excited to have a live chat with them and look at some of these, especially product sellers, about, like, how they could really angle themselves for pr, like, how they can. How they can position themselves. I have some really, really good ones for you. They're really exciting products. But, like, just historically, if you guys don't know, Gloria, this is your, what, fourth time on the podcast? I think it is at least third or fourth.
Gloria Chou
I think third. Three times the charm.
Lizzie Smiley
Third time. Yeah. Yeah, girl, let's go. And we have had multiple people get crazy PR features for their products because of following your advice, like, crazy stories. I know. And sometimes you even DM me. I don't even hear about it. You're like, girl, one of your people just got featured in. I don't know, was it like Southern Home and Gardens or crazy stuff?
Gloria Chou
Yeah. I think it goes to show that I think for the longest time, the PR industry had had such like, a power over small businesses. Right. Like, you have to. We had to pay an exorbitant amount, or it was for politicians or celebrities. And so for a lot of Etsy sellers, they're like, well, who am I to get pr? Or that's just for big companies. Or that's for companies who have VC dollars and they've profited off of this belief. Right. And. And I. My whole mission, as you know, is. Is really challenging that and saying, well, that's not really fair. I think it's time for the rest of us to be seen. And small business makers are the ones that pour, you know, abundance and energy and resources back into our local community. And even now more than ever, because the robots are coming for us. Shop small is what makes us human. Like, we're doing God's work here because we are proving that the machines can't replace us. And not everything is going to be a big tech conglomerate. So even though it seems like rolling up a ball, like up a Big hill. The fact that you have an Etsy source, the fact that you're making something, creating something, you're reminding us that what it means to be human. So we absolutely need small businesses and consumers now more than ever want to shop from small makers, you know, So I think we're in a really amazing time where we have these free AI tools, which we've talked about in the previous episode. The fact that editors and people want to shop small and the fact that just doing little things every day to get yourself seen in the media is absolutely what will help not only your traditional SEO, but also how do you get AI to recommend you? Because that's what people are doing now. And, you know, we've 800 million users can shop directly in their ChatGPT. It's integrated with Walmart, PayPal, Amazon, Etsy, Shopify, and it's only a matter of time. And I think six months from now, our conversation will be very different because people will just look at their AI and say, I'm looking for a housewarming present or I'm looking for this. They're not even going to go on Google anymore. And if they do, it's still an AI answer from there. So.
Lizzie Smiley
Right, yeah, there'd be that. Right before we started recording, you were telling me some really important things that we needed to hit. And you said something that kind of, kind of got me on the edge of my seat. You said, the next six months are critical if you want to set yourself up for the next several years. And so I'm like, okay, you've got my cure curiosity, ma', am, can you tell us more about that? Like what we need to have in place and what tools we need? Like, tell us, when you say that, what do you mean? What do we need to be thinking about?
Gloria Chou
Yeah, so for the people who don't know, like, you know, we all know that the AI revolution is here, right? It's happening more than ever. People are going to be more and more reliant on AI. And I think the one thing I want to leave people with is people scroll to browse for entertainment, but they ask AI to decide. So when we think about where people are making decisions financially, ready to whip out their credit card, there's nothing better than a conversion from AI. And I actually heard somewhere that it's like four times the conversions in regular organic and ads channels. And actually Shopify and Etsy are actually losing traffic right now to AI. The good thing is that your Etsy store can actually appear in AI searches so that's how you can recoup some of that. So when we think about what is the relationship between PR and AI and LLMs, which are these language models. So that's like ChatGPT, Perplexity Claw, Gemini. What? How do they decide which products to surface? Well, they look at various trust signals, and nothing is as powerful as a trust signal. As you being mentioned in an article on a gift guide on a podcast, right? That's why I'm the number one small business PR expert. I don't have the biggest following. I'm not the fanciest publicity coach out there. I don't have the credentials that a lot of the other PR coaches have. But what I do have is over 150 podcast features, right? Over 150 interviews. And so even though I don't have a fancy Instagram back, I'm not Even really on TikTok. I'm not like the one of the, you know, I'm not in the cool kids club. The algorithms, LLMs. ChatGPT recommends me as the most cited small business PR coach. And so I'm living proof that it works. So even if you have a small Etsy store, you can absolutely compete with the big brands. And the reason why I say the next six months is because you can't really buy your way to the top of ChatGPT. Now, I know that ads are coming, but it's still really early. And so traditionally, if you think about commerce, right, throughout history, we have never had a juncture in human history where it's not the person who pays the most money or who has the most likes. Like, right now, it's totally different. So if you're on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, who are the people that get seen, right? People with the most followings or people who pour the most ad dollars? That's not how it works with AI. And that is absolutely revolutionary because it's never really happened like that. And so we're in this critical window where you can get features and still be just as, if not even more visible than the big brands, which, if you think about it, will never happen again. So the next six months is make or break. Once ads become everywhere, it will be harder, right? But I know that Claude Anthropic says that ads will not be coming to cloud, which is why so many people are quitting ChatGPT for Cloud. So cloud is still, you know, if people move to cloud, they're still going to be pulling from the features that you get. So it can be a small gift Guide feature and a small mom blog. It could be, you know, in Forbes. But all of those things count and they want consistency. They want to see as many as possible. So don't discount getting into like a small thing like on horror or something, because that's also feeding the information that the AI uses to decide who to recommend. So the next six months are important because what you're doing now is going to set you up for being recommended, being seen for the next years to come. Because AI is picking winners and losers. Now, I don't like to say the word losers, but they're picking which products to surface. And so if you can do your work of getting into gift guides, into blogs, getting featured, that's going to stick and that's going to allow users and consumers to see your product be recommended. But if you wait, it's gonna be so much harder. It's kind of like blogging in the 2000s. I have people who are making millions of dollars a year just writing on the SEO from, from blogging. And now it's like, good luck, right? Because everyone is blogging. So it's kind of like getting on like Facebook or Instagram or TikTok right when it starts. We're in that period right now.
Lizzie Smiley
It's so interesting because I used to think about pr, like when I was more of an Etsy seller. I still sell some digital products, but I only have so much time, right. So I'm focused more other people do it. But when I was back in my, in my sign shop days, I would always measure whether or not I would do a PR spot about by like, how much traffic is this going to send me? What is, how is it going to affect my bottom line? Because I'm a busy maker, right? I can't just take. I just can't do it all. And I think it's really important for listeners to make the connection in their head that it's no longer about how is this going to affect my bottom line. This particular feature, in this particular moment, how is it going to affect my bottom line holistically? Because now I have a stronger reputation online for the models to be picking up. That's just like a whole change of mindset.
Gloria Chou
Yeah, yeah. Because no matter how visible you are, it's not going to guarantee sales until people decide with AI, Right. Remember, people, yeah. Scroll to browse, but they decide with AI. So the traditional way of being visible isn't even converting sales as much as before because we know that it's easy to buy followers or it's easy. Anyone can make a viral reel, but a lot of times not. What you're hearing is, like, a lot of people with a lot of followers, they're not actually making a lot of money, right? So then it's like, okay, well then what actually does drive consumer decisions? Consumer trust. And it's AI, right? If you're having a conversation with your sister or your spouse and you're debating something, you ask AI and you show that answer to them, then, boom, that's the definitive answer. So from a trust level, from a conversion perspective, it is absolute fact that when people see something recommended to them by AI, they are like, four times as likely to whip out their credit card and buy than just seeing you on other platforms. And that's what we want. We want a higher leverage ROI for every amount of work that we do. So I would rather do that all day, which is getting recommended by AI, giving them something to pull from, than make 20 viral reels that maybe one of them will go viral. I mean, I've. I've been on Instagram for what, 10 years? I have never had a viral moment. Like, I don't know who is seeing my stuff. I don't know what the algorithms are seeing. And people who like your content, they may never even want to buy or be in a position to buy. But if people are asking AI, what is the best headband or what is the best pet caller, they're probably way closer to making that purchasing decision. And so that's where we want to be. We want to be in front of people who are ready to buy. And the thing about Instagram is that you're kind of capped with who discovers you. And I hear this all the time. My visibility is inconsistent. My visibility is inconsistent. If you want a better business, you ask better questions. And I think the best question is not how do I get in front of more people? Right? The best question is, how do I get in front of more people who actually want to buy from me? And that's really AI, because why would I even type into the chat if I'm not ready to buy? Why would I even pick up a magazine and read, like, the best lip glosses? Unless I'm interested in lip glosses.
Lizzie Smiley
Can we, like. Okay, here's what I'd love to unpack with you for a second. I want to paint the picture of what the customer journey is going to be, because we think of it now as we talk about this a lot as Etsy sellers, right? We have to understand how the marketplace works to. To Leverage it. So right now, April 2026, the customer journey is typically they're on the Etsy app or they're on a browser and they're going to the search bar and they're searching something like, oh, I, you know, I need to get like a gift or for my Sagittarius friend, right? Birthday gift for my Sagittarius friend. They'll search that. And then the algorithm based on SEO is going to kick out a whole bunch of search results of like, here are things that fit that. And then we are. The shopper is visually going to look through. There's all eyes, right? They're looking like sifting through all of these search results for what pops out, what jumps out as something. They go, ooh, this could be. This could be it. So I think your point is that's changing and we're already starting to see it change. And I will tell you, for the first time, for Easter, I was trying to find something for my 3 year old boy and I'm like, you know what? I know things are changing. Let me just, let me just see what happens. And I went to my chat GPT and I said, my son loves train sets. Well, there were like a few other, I like typed in toys that he already had that like, and I'm like, here. And I was like, chat. What I love about this is they keep him busy for hours, suggest other things I can get him for Easter, like these, that will that. That keep little kids, little boys busy. And it spit out a bunch of different products with links so I could actually see visually in my chatgpt Chat. I know for you this is so redundant, Gloria, but I want people to hear like, this is what it's looking like, right? It's showing me pictures and then giving me links and then telling me why it fits the criteria of what would be good for him. And I shopped out of that chat. It was the first time I'd ever done it. Is that the future?
Gloria Chou
Yeah, that's actually now. Because 800 million users now can shop in their chatgpt because think about how easy that is of a seamless experience, then you browsing and then having a fit that when you can just tell AI the parameters that you already want, it's kind of like having a personal shopper right in your back pocket. And so people were creatures of convenience. We know that it's expensive to doordash something or Uber Eats something, but Uber eats and doordash is exploding in profit because people are willing to pay for that convenience Yep. Now people are doing the same thing with ChatGPT. It's so much more convenient to be like, here's what I want, here's what my friend likes. She likes this movie. She doesn't like, Boom. It automatically synthesizes that. And so that's where it's going because we are replacing. I mean, people are going to ChatGPT for therapy. I'm not saying that that's right, but the reliance on AI is exponentially increasing every single day. Just for the listeners out there, think about your own adoption with AI. Maybe a year ago, you're like, yeah, ChatGPT is more of a conversation based robot now. You're grocery shopping, you're doing lesson planning, you're doing marriage therapy on there, right? You're diagnosing yourself. I mean, so it is going absolutely going to be the thing that people use more than ever and faster than ever. It's like a hockey stick growth. So when I think about my adoption with AI, now I'm teaching people how to use AI, right? It's like AI powered business. So it absolutely is not slowing down. And you can decide, do you want to be visible to the people who are shopping on AI or do you want to be invisible to all the millions of people who are in AI? And no matter your opinions about AI, Because I know there's a lot of ethicality things around it, but people are going on AI regardless. So it's like, do you want to be visible to this generation of shoppers? If the answer is yes, then the question is, how do I make my product? Found that comes from knowing how they make decisions. And they absolutely make decisions based on trust signals. And so another, this leads us to another thing that people ask me all the time. I just published a podcast episode on this, on my podcast called Small Business pr, but a lot of people say, well, what about Reddit, right? Or what about reviews, or what about blogs, or what about. And all of those things are great, but you need to know that there's a hierarchy of them. So if I'm looking at overall time for effort and how strong the signal is for AI to pull you, yeah, Reddit is good, right? Reddit is technically supposed to be objectively people talking about you, right? Without ads. And so it ranks higher than ads or social media. But the thing about Reddit is that you need a large volume of people talking about you. And AI is smart. It's going to know if you just enlist like 50 of your fans to create Reddit profiles so they look at how Long the Reddit profile has been there and if it seems like spam, then you can be bam too. So Reddit is powerful, but you need a large volume of it, right? And so it doesn't get the information across for you to be recommended as quickly as PR and editorials. Now you might be thinking about blogs. Well, what about blogs? So blogs are not going away, they're still there, but the efficacy of them have decreased so much because A, everyone has a blog now and two, blogs have really matured as a platform, so there's a lot to sift through. And, and three, everyone can make 60 blogs a day using ChatGPT. Like I can write 60 blogs right now. So an AI is smart, so it knows that when you're keyword padding, and so then the efficacy of that gets diluted and so it gets downgraded. So yes, blogs are okay, but I would probably give it like a three out of a ten, Like a four out of a ten.
Lizzie Smiley
Really? Well, I feel like substack is all that matters now, right? Blog wise. Is that true? Like, how do you feel about substack?
Gloria Chou
Substack is behind a wall and so it's harder for the LL to crawl it because it's not publicly available. You have to like sign up, right? So I think it just depends on how you, how you set it up. But blogs, I still have blogs on my website, right? They're pillar blogs and they're good. But if you just rely on blogs, you are looking at a very long game. And so when I'm looking at all the different things that I can do and what is the one thing that's going to get me recommended by the fastest? It's PR all day, every day. So that's press releases, that's editorials, because it satisfies all the conditions that AI is looking for. Is it a trusted vetted source? Yes. Is it a third party validation? Yes. Is there structured metadata? So like a press release, for example, the headline, a sub headline is like ding, ding, ding, like 10 out of 10 gold stars for what the LLMs AI is looking for as opposed to like a blog or maybe an Instagram post. So not to say that social doesn't matter, blog doesn't matter, but I would say editorial and PR is like a 10 out of 10, Reddit is maybe like a 5 or a 6 out of 10. So you can still do all of those things, not one or the other. But PR is the most powerful way. And one thing is that they're looking for recency. So getting in, you know, Martha Stewart magazine or Forbes 10 years ago. Right. It's not going to matter as much. But what you want is to have more and more recent things. And the great thing about it is that there's more writers, there's more bloggers and podcasters more than ever. So you can get featured all year round. I think a lot of people are like, well, it's only going to be Q4. Q4, Q4, right. And that, that, that's a big busy buying holiday. So yes, there are more articles, but there are opportunities for you to be featured all year round. Gifts for best friends you miss like hell. Gifts for the nearly divorced person in your life, gifts for the hostess with the most. Those are evergreen. Those are not just Q4. So don't think about just only Q4. And the founders in my community that do really well exploding with SEO and customers and in search are the ones that realize that there is an absolute blue ocean of opportunities available all year round. Right? So if you make something for beauty, it's not just Mother's Day, it's all year round. It's spring, summer, it's winter. Think about what is the product that people are looking for. It's not going to be all of your 60 SKUs, or you could have one SKU, but then adapt it for different things. So, you know, we just finished, you know, Mother's Day pitching, right? But then we get into spring, summer, we get into resort, we get into holidays, we get into bridal, we get into barbecue, we get into back to school and then Father's Day. So once you start thinking in terms of storylines and obviously perplexity, our previous episode touched upon it, you have these tools now that allows you to replace an agency and allows you to get so much information about what stories to pitch when that there's absolutely no excuse not to start. Because opportunities are there for you, the tools are there for you. All you have to do is press send. And the editors absolutely are looking for products to feature and it's going to be you or someone else. So why not have it be you?
Lizzie Smiley
I love that you said it. You've like just brought this whole thing all the way around, which you do every time. Gloria, you're freaking amazing. I think that what's really important for our listeners to know is that like, there's no special club they need to be a part of. There's no ad budget that they need to have. There's no like, special connection. All they need to do is send a pitch to the right person. Like, it's that simple. And you can open those doors for, like, you can tell them who those people are and tell them what to say.
Gloria Chou
Well, listen to the first podcast that we did, right? That was like PR101. And you might be thinking, well, if it's so easy, why isn't everyone doing it?
Lizzie Smiley
And the reason why, they just don't know they can.
Gloria Chou
Well, and also, I think the PR agencies want to gatekeep that because then how would they make thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars? Right? Traditionally, you pay an EPR agency, and the first month, all you're doing is brainstorming angles. But a tool like Perplexity, which is great for real time information and trends gathering, it goes out there and tells you what the trends are, tells you what people are searching for, tells you the search volume. And so with Perplexity, you're able to basically do what a PR agency would charge you $5,000 for the first month because it actually gives you the angles for it. And you can link the link to my free masterclass, which walks you through the prompts. But anyone? Now, even if English is not your first language, right, you're able to like within 1 second figure out what is trending, what the editors are looking for, what are the insights, what are consumers? Because the editors aren't looking for groundbreaking. I think a lot of times we're like, well, I'm not doing anything new. Well, the editors writing about products, they're not looking for new and groundbreaking. They're just looking for, is this a fit for what people are searching for? It could be a celebrity trend, it could be a Sephora dupe. If you have something like we have someone who makes something that's a dupe, that's like a more affordable version of like high end candle, right? That could be a great one too. Ooh, is it a gift set? Is it a. Is it good for home decor? Right now with spring, there's a lot of like spring tidying kind of out with the old and with the new, right? Can you do something for that? So it could be a seasonal thing, it could be a temperature thing. Hot versus cold. So there's so many different things. And Perplexity helps you to do that. It gives you the clarity. Perplexity finds the angle and then ChatGPT then writes your pitch.
Lizzie Smiley
Chat. You recommend ChatGPT over Claude?
Gloria Chou
Yeah, so Claude is more for emotional marketing writing when you're speaking to a customer, but when you're writing to a journalist, they don't need all of that flowery language. So I find ChatGPT to be sufficient. You know, it doesn't wrap it with all these blankets and ribbons. And editors and journalists are very objective. Right. They don't like all the flowery language. And so that's why I like ChatGPT for pitch writing.
Lizzie Smiley
So thanks. I'm actually. Okay. I've said this every single time we've talked, but I'm going to say it again because people still don't get it, and I think it's really helpful. So, like, I get pitched for people to come on the podcast all the time. You probably do get this, too. And. And. Or even people from my audience, they'll send, like, a really long email, and I care so much about that person. I just don't always have the time to read it all. And I know those busy editors don't as well. And as a podcast host, I don't care about you at all. Like, not my audience. I care about my audience. But, like, I'm talking about, like, Bill Jarvis from, I don't know, Minnesota who wants to come on the podcast and talk about his jet fuel. And I'm like, what's his Etsy shop? I'm over here, like, mad at the person writing me because they're not. They're wasting my time, and they're not even paying attention to the content, and they're like, I'm one of your, like, one of your top listeners. I'm like, no, you don't. Because, you know, I don't interview people who don't talk about Etsy.
Gloria Chou
Yeah, and they probably paid a podcast agency to pitch them, too.
Lizzie Smiley
Yes. But I'm over here so mad. A, I'm not even reading your email. B, you're getting marked as spam, which I don't even do because I'm a nice person. But I am so annoyed that you are wasting my time on this level. I just think, like, people need to hear that. When you are pitching anything, keep it so succinct. You are not going to offend me that you're not like, how's your day going? How are your kids? Whatever. Like, no, no, no, no. Please get to the point. The ones that I actually respond to or even read are so short, they're literally. And they could even be like, no, you're super busy. This person is specifically connected to Etsy because do you think this would be a good fit for your podcast?
Gloria Chou
Yes.
Lizzie Smiley
Right? I mean, clean that up for me. But, like, I'm. Can you hear how passionate I get about this. Just like, don't waste my time. So don't waste the editor's time.
Gloria Chou
Yeah, totally. I think a lot of times we're taught in school to have like a beginning, intro, middle and end, right? So that kind of tainted us a little bit. But the way that you're talking to an editor is not the way you talk to a customer. So you're. So you're not trying to flatter them. You're not trying to call. I mean, like, the editor is not going to buy from you. What they care about is how is this relevant? And from cold pitching, because for, for your listeners. I've never worked a day in my life at any traditional PR agency, so I did not have a book of contacts. I literally had to cold call the newsroom operator and get phone slammed in my face. And I think through cold pitching and just getting rejected so many times, I picked up on patterns. And the pattern that is clear to me that I teach now is every pitch needs to have two things, specificity and relevance. I always say start with the relevance, right? As we get into back to school season, as Mother's Day approaches, that's relevance. And then specifically, like, why is your product fit for that? So for your, you know, so you can apply that for podcasts as well. I always teach my students to say that pitching is like peeling away the layer of an onion. The outer onion you don't want to eat. It's not flavorful, so you want to keep peeling it until you reveal the narrow, juicy core, which is going to flavor the whole dish. A lot of times we don't want to do that because we're like, well, I can serve everyone and I can talk about everything and I'm every right. That's not going to work for a story. So yes, you can work for everyone. But like, if you want to pitch for something, what is a specific angle? What is that? Is it Mother's Day? Of course you can. You can do for Father's Day too. But if we're in Mother's Day, pitch for Mother's Day. So that's really what I mean by that. You need to have relevance and specificity. And you can watch my free PR masterclass that goes all into it, but specificity and relevance is so important. And I used to teach this, you know, using my award winning CPR method, but now perplexity does that for you. Perplexity finds the angle. So you have no excuse not to pitch something. And no, the journalist does not want an intermediary for something like this, it's like they're running with a story. They have a billion stories to publish. They have a gift guide thing with 10 things they got to run with. Are you in or are you out? It's not this back and forth thing. So your email needs to have all of the things it needs to have the shipping and needs to have the price and needs to have. Where is it found? Is it on Amazon? Is it on Etsy? All the things so that they can just publish the story immediately and move on to the next one. You want to have all those things too when you're pitching. And please, please, for the love of God, don't attach a big attachment with an order form. They're not going to look at it right. Pick the one to three standouts that works for that season. So if it's a Mother's Day, don't pitch a single soap, a bar of soap, right? Maybe it's a bundle and if it's in the summer, maybe it's not going to be a big wool sweater. So just think about how that is relevant for that season.
Lizzie Smiley
You guys know I am constantly testing strategies and frameworks on Etsy so I can tell you what's actually working and what's just noise. And one thing I have noticed over the years is this. Most Etsy sellers aren't stuck because they're lazy or they're not doing anything. They're stuck because they're second guessing everything. What to work on, what matters right now, whether they're even on the right path. I hear this all the time and that feels exhausting. So after years of teaching Etsy sellers through courses and workshops, the trendspotting membership coaching and this podcast, I built something that brings everything together in one place. It's called Scaling Society. Scaling Society is my all inclusive Etsy membership for sellers who want clarity and a clear plan without hopping between programs or wondering what to focus on next inside. You get my Etsy Seller roadmap so you know exactly what to work on and when with direction on what resources will help you master it. You also get every single one of my courses and my workshops. You get access to trendspotting and the weekly trend reports. My template drop, which means a weekly template that you can resell in your own shop. SEO training, a bunch of done for you resources like prompts, SEO and branding templates. You get a coaching group with real support and that's where the magic happens. You also get access to two live coaching calls with me every single month. You'll Also get automatic access to all of the new trainings and resources I have planned for this year, including special guests. It's designed to meet you right where you're at, whether you're brand new or you're ready to scale and help you build intentionally instead of guessing your way forward. And honestly, the biggest feedback I hear from members isn't just about sales, it's relief. They finally know what to focus on. So if Etsy feels harder than it should, if you're putting in effort but you want more clarity and direction, or if you're ready to treat your shop like a real business and have actual support behind you from people who know what they're doing, you can learn more about scaling society at the link in the show notes. There's monthly and annual options and you can cancel anytime. So just pick what's right for you. I'd love to support you inside. I know you're like, the masterclass is ideal to see all of the different pieces, but, like, I'm assuming that we're linking a lot of things, right? We're linking, like, here's where you check out. You're like typing the details, the pricing. What's that?
Gloria Chou
Yes. Hyperlink is amazing, dude.
Lizzie Smiley
Hyperlink, like, you know what I mean? Like, there's not necessarily, like, people. What I, what I notice is they want to type their whole story. Yeah. And I know that the editor cares about the story, but what's the best way to do that?
Gloria Chou
So if your story is truly unique, and a lot of people do think it's unique, but it's not. So if it is truly unique, and by the way, perplexity will tell you that, Right?
Lizzie Smiley
Okay, okay.
Gloria Chou
For example, we have someone who is a mother daughter duo. The mother survived cancer and now they're, you know, so that could be really interesting. But put it in like two sentences, right? Like, as a mother daughter duo, you know, we formulated this cream because I was having crazy eczema from chemo and my daughter would come to you. Like, that could be good. It doesn't have to be a whole paragraph.
Lizzie Smiley
Two sentences, though. Summarize it to two. Let AI and then.
Gloria Chou
And then hyperlink, like, for more about our origin story or how we give back to the planet by working directly with artisans, click here. Right?
Lizzie Smiley
And you could link your Etsy shop, guys, because your story should be in your about section and they know exactly where that is. Like, these people, they're not a rando. They know Etsy inside and out.
Gloria Chou
Yeah, exactly. And it's okay if you have an Etsy store. You don't need an actual storefront. An Etsy store is, is more than enough as long as people can buy. A lot of people like, well, I don't have a website and Etsy is a website. We've had so many people get featured Etsy right now. There's like a lot of right now it's like back to school kind of thing or like spring, summer. There's a lot of stuff for like outdoors. We had someone get featured multiple times. She has an Etsy store and she does like custom engraved like Stanley cups. And so that could be really great too.
Lizzie Smiley
Wow.
Gloria Chou
That could be spring summer, but that could also be summer hiking, backpacking camp. It can also be for like moms too. So it's not just for kids. So think about all the ways if you have something that's like a personalized thing, right. What it could be good for. It could be bridal for bridal season, but it could also be great for back to school, for camping, so you don't lose your mug or something.
Lizzie Smiley
You know, I'm like looking at the other things we talked about, chatting about Gloria and I can't even decide what, like, what I mean, I think it's
Gloria Chou
a lot for your people to process, but I think all they need to know is people brought people scroll to browse, but they ask AI to decide. So the question you need to know is to ask is, how do I get AI to recommend me? And that is through pr.
Lizzie Smiley
What do you think? And this was impossible to really know, but you're in it more than I am. What do you think the future is for people who do more like print on demand products or digital products because
Gloria Chou
it's harder to get featured. Stanley cup engraving is kind of like engraved on demand, right? And we do, we have people who make like quilts and blankets and stuff for bridal. There are so many. So the thing about that is because you are able to be personalized, what you want to pitch is not. Well, this works anytime. Again, back to the relevancy. As we hit bridal season. These are perfect for under $100 bridesmaids. As we hit backyard barbecue, like, so we always want to start with the relevance and figure out what is the relevant reason why someone would want to print something on demand right now and then leave with that.
Lizzie Smiley
Okay. And same thing with digital products. Maybe focusing more on bundles would be like, because even still, I would think a gift guide, like, if I'm thinking about like people who love scrapbooking, they're gonna want yarn.
Gloria Chou
Like crocheting, like laser cut stuff. Yeah. So again, the relevance. So the relevance for crocheting is like therapy and nervous system regulation. And like, you know, when we had. During COVID there's like, those art books, right? So now, like, yarn. Like yarn. And the crocheting is. Is like something sensory. So perplexity will tell you. It'll give you, like, a data point. According to Vogue Business, you know, crocheting and textured things have saw a 50% increase in sales. You see how that. When you put that in your pitch, it's so much more compelling than saying, well, I think you should buy my crochet kit. Right. So that's what the data tells us. And we live in an era now, even a year ago, you know, my customers didn't have this. So you can use a tool like Perplexity to find that exact data insight that you can then pull into your pitch to make it relevant. So you're saying it's not me convincing you that it's relevant. It's the fact that the data is that people are actually looking for this. So I have someone who makes canvas totes, right? So many canvas totes. Trader Joe's has one, for example. Right, right. But the data that we found was that according to Vogue Business, there was a search for catch all canvas totes for the gym, for date night, for groceries that are cute, but then can catch everything that actually increased, like, 35% in search results last year. And so we actually put that. We put that in her pitch.
Lizzie Smiley
Wow. Oh, wow. That's actually so clever. I feel like, for some reason, totes are one of those things we've all got too many of, and we'll all still buy another one. I was just at Magnolia in Waco, and of course, she has the cutest totes on the planet.
Right?
So I'm sitting there like, I can't believe I'm about to spend $40 on a tote when I've got 30 of them back at home. But I'm doing it.
Gloria Chou
That you won't throw away a tote that looks cute. Like, there's so many different angles for that that. So again, perplexity can help you do that. But it's. It's all these things, like, when everyone's like, oh, well, this has already been done. I say, you know, the brand Liquid Death, they make water. Even water is being reinvented, and they are valued at, like, hundreds of millions of dollars. So if that doesn't just bust your whole, like, oh, I'm not doing anything new. Like that is a limiting belief because they are literally bottling water in a can and selling it and they're making hundreds of millions of dollars doing the same thing that people have done for centuries.
Lizzie Smiley
That brand drives me crazy. I refuse to drink that. No, we're not manifesting that. Okay, what about this? Once someone gets a feature, how can they leverage that moment to like maximize long term growth? Like, how do you turn a feature into something more than a fee? Like how do you space?
Gloria Chou
Yeah, well, the good thing about it is that you don't need to do much because it's working for you in your sleep. Right? Because it's giving you SEO and it's what the AI is pulling from. But I do have a, like a amplification playbook that I give to my clients. And so usually what happens is if you have a press, there's so many things you can do with it. You can create social media campaign around it. You can make a Real Carousel YouTube post about it, you can put it in your newsletter, you can put it in the footer of your newsletter. You can make a LinkedIn post about it, you can make a LinkedIn banner about it, you can make a press page thing about it. So then all of a sudden you have a press page, which is great because what the Internet wants to see is interconnected web of things linking to you and you linking out. So the more that you have that the better. So if you get pressed, make a press page and start linking that, it doesn't matter if it's 1 or 100, but that linking in and linking out that interconnected web will make it easier for the crawlers to be able to recommend you and determine that you are of a high trustworthy brand. Right? So so many ways, so many ways to keep that going. And honestly, it creates really good ads too. Like a lot of people like, oh, I want to make an ad. Well, I'd rather make an ad of like here we've been featured on this or we've one.
Lizzie Smiley
Like those Shark Tank ads. Yeah, those. Catch me every time.
Gloria Chou
Much more powerful way for your ad dollars.
Lizzie Smiley
Also guys, if you get some kind of crazy feature, you need to email me and come talk about it on the podcast. That's another way we can leverage it.
Gloria Chou
Tell me too DM me girl.
Lizzie Smiley
You know what we should do? Someone will do that. We should have you on. Well, like we'll interview them together. How fun would that be?
Gloria Chou
Yeah, that would be so fun about like what they did and what they learned. Yeah, let's do that.
Lizzie Smiley
You would know what to ask. You could, like, dissect the whole thing. They could get, like, basically a feature of the feature. And I can help more students learn how to brew their shops. I mean, I feel like it's like a win, win, win.
Gloria Chou
So we'll see how creativity is. Yeah, you're. I love your brain, too. It just. Pew, pew, pew. It just goes, let's do it.
Lizzie Smiley
So it's the undiagnosed adhd, but it's fine.
Gloria Chou
I'm right there with you, sister.
Lizzie Smiley
Really.
Gloria Chou
I mean, you should see my desktop right now. I have about 25 tabs open, and I have had them open for probably for a whole year.
Lizzie Smiley
Same. It crashes my zoom regularly. I also cannot see my actual desktop because the piles of sticky notes are absolutely jarring. Like, it's. It's crazy. But you know what's so interesting about that? This is such a segue. You come across as so poised, organized, together. Sharp. Like, more than anyone I've ever met.
Gloria Chou
Oh, I don't know about that. I mean, did you see my reels about me doing psychedelics and dancing? And my husband is a dj. Like, I don't know about that. Sharp, maybe. Yeah. So he also DJs, as well. We just love music. Music is therapy. It is literal movement therapy. I went to go see a healer in Mexico, and even without me talking to her, she's like, do you dance? I'm like, I love music. She's like, that is what sets your soul free. I'm like, well, there's the confirmation. So I don't feel bad anymore if I'm like, I just. We need to dance. We need to move. Whatever that is that helps you align. Yeah, we're. We are moving living, breathing things. We're not meant to be sitting here all day, you know. Walker. Yes. Walking is a meditation.
Lizzie Smiley
40 acres, and I go walk in the back, in fact. Well, yes and no, girl. The rattlesnakes are now out. I've seen two in the last week, literally the size of my leg. So, you know, pros and cons. Pros and cons.
Gloria Chou
There's.
Lizzie Smiley
There's black widows and scorpions and 3,4 species of deadly snakes on this property. Okay. But, yeah, I wear my snake boots and I go walk. And it's so meditative.
Gloria Chou
Yes. There's an Etsy idea for you. Like, something to put on your ankle that, like, gets rid of, like, anything that's coming towards you. That's an Etsy idea.
Lizzie Smiley
Rattlesnake patent that and take that to the bank.
Gloria Chou
Yes.
Lizzie Smiley
Oh, my gosh. Okay. Well, anyway, you come across as all of that, and I'm really glad you've got that free fall side of you that just.
Gloria Chou
Thank you.
Lizzie Smiley
That's really.
Gloria Chou
Life is for. I always say life is for living. And, you know, being married to my Italian husband. He's Italian Italian, not like Jersey Italian. You know, he takes his time. He does his lunch. He, like, likes to go for a walk, right? He has, like, time for work and time for eating. Whereas me, like, once I start work, like, I don't stop. It's just like, boom. So I think seeing how he feels, not guilty about things that I would feel guilty for, he's like, why shouldn't I enjoy life? Why shouldn't I? You know? And I'm like, here's a thought. I think it has rewired my relationship to feeling guilty, feeling guilt and pleasure, and feeling worthy of joy and pleasure, right? Because my mom would. You know, she grew up sewing shoes in a communist shoe factory. My. My uncles were sent to labor camps, and I think they never quite recovered from it mentally, and that's why they have addiction issues that ultimately led to their demise. The whole generation of people who are just not free. And there's a. It's like a powerful quote that's like, I am the first person in my entire lineage to have freedom, right? And I feel like I'm that person. Like, I am literally the first person in my entire lineage of women and ancestors who have freedom over my time, over who I love, what I do every day, how I choose to spend my time. And I don't take that for granted. So we have to. We really have to embrace that.
Lizzie Smiley
That's wild. And I. I guess it could send a person either way, right? It could make you almost, like, feel guilty and overwork because of it. Do you know what I mean? Or it could make you feel that, too. Really, you do.
Gloria Chou
The immigrant guilt, you know, the I keep up everything for you, which I think a lot of people experience in their generation. First generation immigrants, right? Your. Your worth is tied to how much money you make, because that's security. That's. That's. You know, and my mom still says stuff like that, and it triggers me, but I realized that that's because she never had the ability to be free. And so it's my job, with the abundance and wealth I create, to actually enjoy it and not feel bad about it. And only, you know, I'm 40 this year. I would say it's taken me 40 years to get here. Right. I still have my, like, in, like, my scarcity, where I want to grasp and control. And I feel like the more I let go. And psychedelic plant medicine has taught me this. It's like living life with an unclenched butt cheek. Right. That is where all the abundance flows. Like, if you can surrender and let go, so much love, freedom, creativity, richness will come to you. But as a society, we are taught, especially now, it wouldn't. People are talking about the economy and this, and it's like, what do we want to do? We want to tighten. We want to, you know, clench.
Lizzie Smiley
We're all doing that about everything right now.
Gloria Chou
Yes. And so it's hard. It's hard. But when you clench and everything, you don't let the light in, you don't let the love in, you don't let the joy in. So I understand why people would want to preserve. But then I think there's a point where you realize that self preservation is a narrative that no longer fits you anymore because it's not rooted in reality. The reality is you are okay, you are loved, you are going to be fine. But it's hard to feel that sometimes when you've been wired to feel a different way.
Lizzie Smiley
Well, and then don't even get me started on how hormones exacerbate that, because I feel like it's gotten so much worse. Is it like perimenopause?
Gloria Chou
That's a whole nother thing.
Lizzie Smiley
Yeah, isn't it? I know, I know. But actually, I like having these little side conversations because I think it brings humanity back to the conversation, you know, and, like, helps people connect with us as people, as humans. And just like, yeah, we can talk about pr. And we did. We have a phenomenal conversation about pr. And there's amazing resources that we can go dive deeper into. But at the end of the day, we're also people navigating a really complicated world right now. And I think that that's really important.
Gloria Chou
Yeah, we're. There's a quote that's like, we're just people having, like, a human experience. Right. We're just all here having a human experience. And there's a quot from Ram Dass, and he says we're all just walking each other home. Yeah.
Lizzie Smiley
Wait, that's. I think I've heard that. I didn't know the. The actual author of it, but that's unbelievable also. That's very fit. That's, like, very on brand for me. Let me. I want to talk about your all of the things that you do to help people. But can we. Let's just like, kind of put a little cherry on it. And if you could give Etsy sellers one simple PR strategy they could try this week, something actionable, something simple. What's one thing they could do this week to start on their PR journey?
Gloria Chou
So open. Perplexity AI. It's free. Perplexity AI. And here's the first prop, which is, I am an Etsy seller. Here's my store, here's my URL, here's what I make. Please scan my website for imagery and context and see how I can link my products to this season's gift guide so that I can be featured for editorial. Give me insights, specific data points, customer trends that I can use so that a gift guide or an editor or a magazine will want to feature me. Boom. That's the first prompt. And your jaw will be on the floor when you see all the ideas and angles that it comes up with.
Lizzie Smiley
Because that's the hard part, is us coming up with the angles. It's crazy. We have a tool that can do that. And those of you who are like digital product sellers, I just want to tell you right now, people are so into crafting. They're so into grandma hobbies. They're so into, like, these things that will regulate their nervous system. There is no reason you can't participate in this just because you're a digital product. It's all about how you position yourself. So you position yourself with nervous system regulation. Even if you've got to go create a new bundle that'll do that, that'll be good for that. You guys can still participate in this because people are looking for fast things they can download right now that can get their mind off of whatever they're worrying about. So they can regulate. Wouldn't you agree?
Gloria Chou
And also, like summer travel. Like, people are looking for activities for their kids, for the poolside. You have everything within you. Right? I think we never have a PR problem. We just have a positioning problem. And so help us position that. It's not about making another thing. It's like, how can I fit this into a larger story? And that's. That's what Perplexity is so good for doing. And also watch my PR masterclass.
Lizzie Smiley
Literally, I was gonna say, I'm gonna link Gloria's free PR masterclass. We've had people get features just from watching that. So make sure that you watch that for sure. But how can people go deeper with you too? Gloria, what else would you like them to get into if they wanna really take, you know, take the seriously.
Gloria Chou
Yeah, well, it's. So my free masterclass is gloriachau pr.com masterclass gloria c h o u p r.com masterclass and if you DM me the word Lizzie, I will give you an additional prompts, like actual prompts that you can use to get your first gift guide feature.
Lizzie Smiley
Oh my gosh. Okay. So that's the best way people can get into your world and they'll go from there. And I can.
Gloria Chou
I'm on Instagram at Gloria Chow. PR Gloria C H O U P R DM me the word Lizzie.
Lizzie Smiley
Okay. Yeah. She's really fun to follow on Instagram. She's very opinionated and does not like shy away from saying anything that she thinks. And I think that's actually what does the best right now on social media is being ourselves authentically.
Gloria Chou
Yeah.
Lizzie Smiley
What? You're smiling at me.
Gloria Chou
Yeah, that's really what it is. That's. That's really what it is. And you know, I don't have the biggest following. Like there's so many other publicity coaches out there with a lot more following. But people want to work with me because they see some resonance. And so I think, yeah, we've moved on from coaches being like, you know, authoritative. And how much credentials do you have? I think that doesn't impress people as much in the age where like people have online spidey senses. So they're looking for something deeper. Right. They're looking for is this person like her weirdness? Is it like, is she gonna understand me? Right. Is there a she aligned psychological. Yeah. Is there a psychological resonance? Is there a psychological safety beyond the credentials and the kind of outward measures of success? And I think that's great because it means that your vibe attracts your tribe and that's what we want. We only want people who will vibe with us in our community. And that's why you have like one of the best communities. Like, your people are amazing. They show up for you because you are authentically yourself. And so the world just needs us to just be ourselves. Honestly, at the end of the day,
Lizzie Smiley
just be more ourselves and try to let other people be themselves, in my opinion.
Gloria Chou
Yeah, totally.
Lizzie Smiley
So, guys, check those things out. Everything will be linked below. If you love this conversation and especially if you've got a product that you're wondering how to position, you're really going to want to be inside scaling society later this month when Gloria comes with us live and literally workshops with people how they can position their products. So if you want to go deeper there, check out the free masterclass in the meantime to get your wet your appetite and we will see you there. Otherwise okay. So yeah, we're gonna also link Instagram. You already mentioned that. Awesome. Gloria, thank you so much. This is always like so eye opening. It's always such a joy. I love being with you.
Gloria Chou
I love being with you. Thank you again. Your vibe attracts your tribe. So thank you so much for having me.
Lizzie Smiley
You're so beautiful. Guys, thank you so much for hanging out with us today. I hope you took away so much everything from PR to plant based psychedelics to navigating this psycho world in your 40s. Until next week y'. All, I love you so much. Go make something awesome. Bye guys.
And that's a wrap on this episode of how to Sell youl Stuff on Etsy. Thanks so much for hanging out with me today. If you're looking for more resources, head on over to howtosellyourstuff.com where you'll find podcast show notes, all the links from today's episode, the blog, courses, coaching, and more. If you this episode was helpful to you. Awesome. The greatest compliment I can receive from you is a rate, review and subscribe on this podcast. Not only will it allow us to connect again on a future episode, it lets me know I'm providing you with value and helps other people find this content more easily. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your support. Have a great day and see you next time.
Ep 230 | How Etsy Sellers Are Getting Free Traffic From the Media – with Gloria Chou
Date: April 23, 2026
Host: Lizzie Smiley
Guest: Gloria Chou (Small Business PR Expert)
This episode dives deep into how Etsy sellers can harness PR (public relations) to gain free, high-quality traffic and media exposure—especially critical as AI-driven product recommendations change how people shop online. Gloria Chou returns to share actionable PR strategies, why the upcoming six months are pivotal for small businesses, and how visibility in media and editorials can now directly fuel your Etsy shop’s success in the age of AI. The episode is practical, mindset-shifting, and packed with tangible tips for sellers at every level.
AI’s Growing Role in Consumer Decisions ([07:25]; [15:15])
Critical 6-Month Window for Sellers ([07:01]; [10:57])
Hierarchy of Influential Trust Signals ([15:15]; [18:26])
Recency and Specificity Matter ([18:26]; [21:36])
PR and AI Are Linked ([05:17]; [07:25])
No Gatekeeping! You Can DIY PR ([21:09]; [21:36])
Elements of a Winning Pitch ([24:28]; [25:12])
Powerful Example Prompts for AI ([43:07])
Print-on-Demand & Customization ([32:22])
Digital Products & Craft Supplies ([32:57]; [33:09])
On AI's Influence:
“People scroll to browse for entertainment, but they ask AI to decide.” – Gloria Chou [07:25]
On Small Business PR Accessibility:
“Even if you have a small Etsy store, you can absolutely compete with the big brands.” – Gloria Chou [07:25]
On Pitching Editors:
“Every pitch needs to have two things: specificity and relevance.” – Gloria Chou [25:12]
On Mindset Shift for Sellers:
“It’s no longer about how is this going to affect my bottom line in this moment, but how does it affect my reputation for the models to be picking up.” – Lizzie Smiley [10:57]
Start This Week:
For more insights and tools, visit the episode show notes and connect with Gloria and Lizzie via their provided links!