My word for 2013 is Shine! I chose this word because I feel like I've spent much of my life being a bit unsure of what I was doing and now, finally, I seem to have worked out what it is that makes my heart sing! And hence, it is now time to share that with the world!
As any of you in creative businesses know, marketing can be a hard nut to crack, especially when selling yourself does not come easy. Marketing successfully does take a lot of work, but it doesn't have to be expensive, dull or soul-destroying. In fact, I think if done in an open, honest and community-minded way, it can be a whole lotta fun and of benefit not just to you and your business but to others you come into contact with! This is basically because the way to market successfully is not to sell sell sell but to share share share. Sharing is the new selling! Cool, huh!
My challenge for 2013 is to learn how to successfully market my business and to have fun doing so! My budget is tight so I'll mostly be using free social media, although I will experiment with some paid opportunities I expect. I hope that by learning to market myself better, I will be more able to shine and fulfil my hopes and dreams for this year - to come out from under the shade of our backyard gumtree and shine my light out to the world! Lofty? Yes. But why not? Life is too short to be dull!
So here's the plan. Each month will have a special focus. During that month I will focus lots of time and energy on that one thing to figure out exactly what works, what doesn't work, what's fun, what isn't fun, and ultimately, what my ongoing marketing plan will be. I'm going to record each step of the way so I can share my hard-earned tidbits of marketing wisdom with you all at the end!
January - Website
January is almost over and you may have seen a few changes on my little blog here.... that is just a taste of what's to come as an ongoing project for 2013 is to overhaul my blog, website and online store!
February - Etsy
One of the big changes I have made this year was closing down my Big Cartel store and just having an Etsy one. This may seem crazy, but I have my reasons (I'll tell you, but not today!) And so February will be a month to focus on Etsy - making more sales, getting featured more often and making more connections.
March - Facebook
April - Twitter
May - Pinterest
Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are the big three (in my opinion) social media platforms. So I think they each deserve a month in the spotlight!
June - Instagram
Instagram may not be as big as the previous three, but it is my personal favourite so it gets it's own month too!
July - Google+
Google+ has never made sense to me. This month that is going to change!
August - Tumblr + Foursquare + Flickr
I don't know much about these sites so I've grouped them together. Basically, this month will be about figuring them out, seeing if they can work for me and then if I will stick around!
September - My Blog
Now that I've got my head around the various social media outlets I'll focus on really growing my blog audience in various ways - social media, free and paid advertising, article sharing etc.
October - eBook!
I hope that after all this research and experimentation I'll have lots to share with you. I'll be doing so throughout the year but I think it would be cool to put it all together in an eBook, don't you?
November + December - Relax!
Ok, we all know I won't be relaxing because these two months are my busiest time because of Christmas orders! So I won't have a marketing focus but I will be continuing all the marketing plans I have developed throughout the year in the hope that I have my biggest Christmas season yet!
So that's a rough outline of my plan for a year of marketing! I'll blog about it month by month and would love your input, tips and company along the journey.... are you ready to join me as I learn how to market my creative business? Let me know in the comments!
Jen x
this sounds great! i definetly need to learn how to use all of these as i have no clue about marketing. i will be following along for sure! :) thanks so much for sharing!
ReplyDeleteYay! Glad to have you along.... it's SO hard marketing yourself so hopefully this will help both of us!
DeleteHey Jen, this sounds great!! I'm interested to hear about your experience with Google+ (I had an account there for a while but closed it recently) and Tumblr (I still have an account but have banned myself from browsing it because I got obsessed with Doctor Who memes!).
ReplyDeleteI would also recommend that if you come across a platform that you don't understand or that doesn't produce much that you steer away from it. It is better, IMHO, to be good at a few social media outlets than to be bad at many. I guess what I mean is don't spread yourself too thin.
Yes, I agree Fleur! This experiment will help me work out what's worth it and what's not. Tumblr can be kind of addictive, hey! I haven't done much there yet so will be interesting what I make of it! x
DeleteI can't wait to hear more. This year I plan on growing my business and I need to drastically improve my marketing skills. I'm ready to learn as much as possible.
ReplyDeleteGreat! Hopefully you'll learn some tricks alongside me!
DeleteThat's brilliant, I think I will follow along with you too and am looking forward to your posts. I recently spoke to a social media manager who I know quite well, (I trust her judgement.) She predicts Google+ is going to take off in the future so I've been meaning to spend some time there especially.
ReplyDeleteGood to know! Let's hope we can figure it out then!
DeleteLooks Awesome! Can't wait to follow along :)
ReplyDeleteYay!
DeleteI'll be following! It's inspiring to see you really going after what you love and making it happen.
ReplyDeleteAwesome Jacqui - so nice to have you along!
DeleteHi Jennifer! Wow~ You have been busy and will be busy!! Your new look is great! I'll check back often to see what your up to:) Good Luck to you, in every thing you do. Lynn H @ Turnips 2 Tangerines PS: Google+ has never made sense to me either, I guess it's time to learn!
ReplyDeleteThanks Lynn! Yes, I have been busy and having a lot of fun in the process! Here's hoping I'm able to shed some light on Google+ for you!
DeleteGood luck Jennifer. I will certainly be following your progress and learning. So understand that it's difficult to market ones self. Not an easy task. Good luck.
ReplyDeletei def would love to join in - i actually dont use many of these social tools - i detest facebook and really never got twitter and how it could help my type of business. for twitter, i think it would be awesome for like food trucks - telling people where they will be each day, that sort of thing. but what am i supposed to tweet about a soap company?! "hi - i make soap- it's the same as it was yesterday" hahahah i dont know, so i would def love to see what your advice is.
ReplyDeleteveranellies.blogspot.com
Thanks Trisha! Twitter is a strange one, isn't it! I'm sure there's a way to make it work for soap..... hmmm, I'll have to think about that one!!
DeleteThis is all great advise and ideas! I really hope to grow my blog this year. I don't care so much about how many followers I have but I strive from inspiring people. I need to do some of these things as well. I look forward to reading your monthly posts.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same Jessie, although sometimes it can be fun to crunch the numbers too ;) I think you do a great job of inspiring people so hopefully some of my experiments will help you reach more of them!
DeleteApproximately 4 months ago, you wrote that Instagram is not as big as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Although I don't think it has reached the popularity of the three, Instagram is a big thing now. It is quite behind when it comes to audience reach but the market you have in this platform, we can say, is filtered as this app isn't accessible to everyone. We can assume that they belong to the upper class and have higher chance of patronizing your etsy products.
ReplyDelete