The Started-Up Success Guide, #6

Ready for our next topic?

Here’s #6…

Traffic is the most important thing
you need…

See, if you’re doing everything else
right, and you are having a hard time
getting sales, then there is one of two
problems happening.

You either aren’t getting enough
people to see your item…

Or you are kidding yourself about one
of the other ingredients, either the
quality of your design work, or your
pricing, or your photography.

If you make a good outfit…

And if you price it right…

And if you take good pictures of
it…

And if you get a good number of
visitors to look at it…

Then you will sell it. We can almost
guarantee it.

We see lots of people fail. And
usually when someone fails it is very
obvious why they failed.

Sadly, sometimes they email us and
express frustration, or say, “I just
don’t understand what I’m doing wrong”.

Sometimes they ask us, and we can
tell them, “work on your photography,
it’s not up to par”. But other times
people never ask us – and we certainly
don’t want to go around telling people
all the mistakes they are making. But
it’s not rocket science. Just follow
these steps we’ve outlined and you’ll
do really well.

Now on to the traffic issue…

Of course, we list our items on EBay,
or Etsy in large part due to the
traffic they can bring to the party.
EBay is still the biggest and best when
it comes to traffic. But Etsy is
certainly large enough to provide a
serious number of viwers too.

But how much traffic do they provide,
and is it the best traffic you can
get?

Well, it helps to understand how much
a viewer is worth. And luckily, it is
easy to figure out.

If you go to Google Adwords, and sign
up to start advertising, and choose
the keyword, “American Girl Doll
Clothes”, you’ll be told that each
click you receive will cost you about
25 cents. So to get 100 clicks to your
website you’d need to spend about $25.

If you list an item on EBay, and let
it run it’s course through a standard
seven day auction, then you’ll
probably get around 75-150 views.

So, for the listing fee, and final
value fee, and every other crazy
fee that EBay dings you for, they
are – respect it or not – providing
you with about $25 worth of traffic.

You can find cheaper traffic by
advertising on Youtube, or Facebook,
but not too much cheaper. And of
course that would mean you need to
have your own website to sell on.

Anyway, a logical question is…

Are there any better ways to get a
massive number of good quality
visitors to see your listings? I’m
glad you asked. Here are our best
recommendations:

First, consider making a Facebook
fanpage. This is your first step in
cultivating a group of fans and
potential customers off of the Etsy
or EBay platform, which is something
we highly recommend. The down-side
of course is that you have to keep it
up, and figure out how to get fans to
‘like’ your page.

Second, you can begin doing email
marketing. In our premium partner
content we have a screencast
explaining how to do email marketing.
It’s a great option, but again, it
takes some work to set up and
maintain, and of course, it means
you have to start writing a
weekly newsletter.

Third, (and clearly the best option
in our opinion), you can become a
premium partner and begin having
your outfits included in our
weekly newsletter.

Does it work?…

Our newsletter is growing by about
700 names per month, about 20 per
day. It has increased by over 6,000
in the last year, and that number is
accelerating.

How many clicks can you expect from
our newsletter? Well, in a recent
issue, we analyzed the results and
found the following:

The average number of clicks for a
partner’s outfit was 26. With a high
of 65, and a low of 8.

So, using the 25 cents per click
number that we know from our Google
Adwords work, the person who got 65
clicks received $16.25 in value
from the newsletter, (65 X.25).

The person who got just 8 clicks
received $2 in value from the
newsletter.

And the average premium partner
received $6.50 in value, (26 clicks
X .25).

And that was just for 1 newsletter.
We do 4 or 5 per month, one every
weekend. So, the average premium
partner is receiving about $25 in
advertising value from their
involvement with our newsletter.

Not a bad deal for a $9.99 per month
membership price, right? Of course as
a premium partner you also get one
free pattern each month, and all of
the great information on our partner
site). And you get the ability to
post your listings on our Facebook
Fanpage too – which has huge number
of fans.

I know this is probably starting to
sound like a sales job for becoming
a Premium Partner, and we do want
you to become one, but not because
it’s good for us, but because it’s
good for both you and us together.
And it’s good for our potential
customers too. We all win as we build
a solid partnership.

Of course, if you’re not going to
actually make items to sell, and/or
not going to take good pictures,
then becoming a Premium Partner will
have limited value.

But for those who are ready to take
advantage of the opportunity, we
really can guarantee a nice amount
of traffic. And traffic is the most
important thing you need to sell
your items for a good price.

Bottomline – Getting good quality
traffic to view your listings is a
key to your success.

Now go become a premium partner! It’s
easy, just visit www.libertyjanepartners.com
and hit the paypal subscribe button.

Jason & Cinnamon