Holiday Boot Camp Part 1

This weekend I blogged about Etsy's Holiday Boot Camp and will be sharing some tips with you each Thursday from the series. If you have an Etsy shop and want to follow along they have a weekly newsletter with assignments, articles and a handy checklist. I like a good checklist! You can also follow along with most of these tips for selling on any online venue, adjust the tasks accordingly. (Click on the 'week' links to view that week's newsletter.)

Week 1

The first week they had us take the pledge - so important to commit to something and share it with others to stay accountable. We were to install google analytics, which I already had set up in my shop. This is a handy tool to see how many are visiting your shop and to find out where your visitors are coming from. We were also asked to write a mission statement to help guide us through the busy holiday season and some participants stated goals for the next 3 months.

Tips for writing a mission statement:

http://www.quintcareers.com/mission_statements.html

http://www.digital-women.com/how-to/howto11a.htm

Set Your Holiday Etsy Sales Goals:

http://www.handmadeology.com/set-your-holiday-etsy-sales-goal/

Week 2

Week two is a little more involved. It includes making a list of your most popular items - both sold and the ones in your shop. You can quickly see what items in your shop have the most views and hearts at Craft Cult. I downloaded my sales data for the year, here is an easy lesson on how to use the tools on Etsy to do that. I also looked up my sales from October - December from the last 3 years. It was interesting to see what sold during those times and I could see where some of my promoting paid off last year.

The next step is to brainstorm new work you'll offer this season. Now I have been working on this for a few weeks and I shared some of my sketches on Saturday and you can see them above. I also have designed a new line of jewelry and I'm bringing back some of my popular holiday ornaments.

And the final assignment for week 2 is to find a Boot Camp buddy, so if you would like to take the pledge and follow along, add a comment here if you are looking for a Boot Camp Buddy too. I think it works best if you only have one or two buddies to really help cheer you on. I also think it is better to find a buddy who is at a similar place in their etsy career so one buddy isn't the mentor while the other mentee. If you are looking for a buddy check back in the comments to see if any of our readers are too, visit their etsy shop to see if they are a good fit, if they are - send them a convo.

Have fun and make a solid plan for a successful end to 2010!