RESOURCES & TIPS
FOR ARTISTS, MAKERS
&
MULTI PASSIONATE CREATIVES
5 Tips for a Successful Handmade Craft Shopping Party
Want to sell your art or handmade goods? Try a handmade craft shopping party, inspired by those Tupperware parties. Read these tips to learn how!
Back when I was selling at craft shows regularly, I also hosted some handmade home shopping parties for friends & family to attend.
These handmade craft shopping parties were modeled after Tupperware or Mary Kay parties. I hosted the first party at my house in October 2009, and a few weeks later my friend Leslie hosted a party at a coffee shop here in New Orleans.
Recently a reader on my blog asked if I had any tips on getting started doing these shopping parties. After hosting a few of these, plus plenty of years of selling at craft fairs under my belt, here are 5 tips to help make your sales event a success:
#1 – GIVE YOUR HOST GREAT INCENTIVES!
After scouting some tips I found online, I decided to offer $25 in shop credit plus 10% of the total sales as shop credit to the hosts of my parties.
If you make mainly one type of item, like jewelry or handbags, you might want to offer the host their choice of a certain type of earring or clutch, but since I carried such a wide variety of products, I thought that shop credit would be the easiest way to go.
Think of these incentives as you would a booth fee at your local craft fair. The great part is that, unlike a craft fair, where you pay your fee and then have to make your money back, here you offer the hostess a percentage of your sales as shop credit. If she brings in lots of friends who buy lots of stuff, she gets to reap the benefits, but if the party ends up being a bust, you’re not out a ton of money. (But from my own experience, and the stories I’ve heard from more experienced handmade home shopping party aficionados, you’re more likely to do very well than not!)
Products on display at my first shopping party I hosted at my home.
#2 – MAKE IT FUN!
It’s a party, so treat it like one! Whether you’re hosting the party at your own home, a friend is hosting at theirs or you do it at a coffee shop like we did for my second one of these, make sure there are plenty of drinks and snacks available!
The owners and staff of the coffee shop loved us because we brought new customers into their shop, and at my first home party that I hosted I made sure there was plenty of wine and cheese to go around. Drinks and snacks can be as cheap or as expensive as you’d like… Each party could have a slightly different theme, depending on the host’s preferences.
Taking a cue from Tupperware parties that I had been to, I also made sure to create some fun and excitement with giveaways! You can pick out a few lower priced items to give away or do a drawing for $10 in shop credit. You can also create fun games or even do a demonstration of how you make your craft. People will see the work and talent it takes to create your items and they just might be more inclined to buy!
#3 – COMMUNICATE YOUR NEEDS FOR SET-UP!
The first party I did was at my house, so I had all day to get my set-up just right and use whatever random materials I had around the house for displaying my goods.
I invited other artist friends to set up in my home as well, and while we were worried at first how to make everything fit, by using furniture already in my home, we made it work. We accidentally scratched our credenza though, so whether at your home or someone else’s, if you’re going to use someone’s furniture to display your goods, make sure to throw a tablecloth over it first! That’s one of those little things that didn’t even occur to me but in hindsight I wish I had thought of it before we scratched up the furniture!
For my second event at the coffee shop, my friend Tressa from Flambeaux Design Company and I both set up for the party. Leslie, who had arranged things with the coffee shop manager, had given us details about the space and timing of set-up.
Tressa and I were both a little worried, because we thought we were only being allowed 30 minutes to set up. (I typically needed about an hour or so to feel comfortable.) Luckily it all worked out though… I arrived early to scope out the space and have some ice cream.
The manager introduced himself to me and not only let us set up earlier than we thought, but he also helped us move tables and even ran home to get us extra lighting!
I’d suggest clarifying to the host how much time you need to set up your goods before guests arrive, so there’s no need to stress!
My products on display at a pop-up shopping event I did at my friend’s guitar shop.
#4 – GET THEIR CONTACT INFO!
As I mentioned above, we did some fun giveaways, and the way I had people enter the drawing was to fill out a slip of paper with their contact info, including their name, email address and phone number.
I had lines asking if they would like to be included on my email newsletter list and if they were interested in possibly hosting a handmade home shopping party of their own. I’d ask, if the answer is yes, what day and time do they have in mind? I also left a blank for any additional comments or suggestions.
This is your captive audience… they’re already interested in what you do, so don’t miss the opportunity to stay in touch with them!
#5 – ACCEPT AS MANY FORMS OF PAYMENT AS POSSIBLE!
For a long time, I did craft fairs and I didn’t have any way to accept credit cards. I definitely wanted to, but I didn’t feel that I was doing craft fairs often enough to justify it.
These days, it’s easier than ever to accept payment by all major credit cards. Many crafters use Square or Venmo, but research which options are best for your business.
This is a definite necessity! The majority of my sales are by credit or debit card now, and some customers still like to pay by check, which I gladly accept!
Think like your customer – if you’re like me, you probably don’t carry much cash on you, so it’s often more convenient to pay by debit or credit card. Don’t miss an opportunity for sales!
I hope this helps some folks!
I had a lot of fun doing these handmade home shopping parties, and I think they’re a great alternative to craft fairs, especially if you’re just starting out and you can’t afford the booth fees of big events.
If you found these tips useful and if you’re just getting started selling your handmade goods at craft fairs, you’ll love my book, How to Make Money at Craft Shows:
Want more handmade business tips?
Check out the Badass Creatives YouTube channel!
How To Make Your Craft Show Display Look Great! Visual Merchandising Tips & Tricks
Getting started at craft shows? Here are a few visual merchandising tips & tricks to make your craft fair booth look great.
Want to learn how to make your craft fair booth look great so you can sell more art? You're in the right place!
In this video, I'm chatting with my friend & craft show organizer Nicole Stevenson all about craft show display ideas.
Nicole is the founder of Dear Handmade Life’s Patchwork Show - a series of craft shows throughout California, showcasing local handmade and independent businesses alongside food, crafting, activities and more.
Plus, for a preview adapted from my book, How to Make Money at Craft Shows, read on!
I’ve decided to share a few visual merchandising tips & tricks for making your craft show booth look awesome. Here are some things you can do to make your booth look killer.
How you set up your display will depend on the type of art you make of course, but use these ideas as a jumping off point. Be creative with your displays – you’re an artist after all!
Disclosure: This post features Amazon Associate affiliate links, which means if you purchase a product via one of these links, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. This helps to support this site and does not affect the price you pay.
What is visual merchandising?
If you work in, manage or own a retail store of any type, visual merchandising is something you should be familiar with.
Visual merchandising includes all the things about how you can make your store (or art or craft booth!) look great. That includes how you present your products for display and perusal to help you sell more of them!
Knowing the basics of visual merchandising is useful for more than just retail boutiques. Do you sell handmade art at local craft fairs? Knowing visual merchandising basics can make your booth look great and help you make more money! Hair salons often offer related hair care products to sell – learning how to merchandise them in an eye-catching way can help grow your business!
Visual merchandising isn’t just a realm for only the artistically inclined. In fact, visual merchandising has less to do with artistic talent than one might think – its primary function is to market your business, and to make your store or booth design and layout help your customers find what they need.
Visual merchandising should serve to fulfill your customer’s needs as they shop with you. A good store design and layout will ensure that shoppers can move comfortably and easily throughout the space, and it will allow them to find what they’re looking for. If you run a small, specialty gift store which aims to delight tourists with unique & locally made items, the way you set up and arrange your store should reflect your vibe.
5 Visual Merchandising Basics:
store design & brand image
layout
fixtures
signs
how you display individual products
A craft show display featuring a tiered shelving unit made of lightweight plastic.
Store design & brand image
Branding is a key part of marketing any business, and a retail store is no different. Your store (or craft show booth) design & layout should take all of its cues from your brand image.
Some people think that branding means having a good logo. A logo is certainly part of branding, but not all of it.
Think about major chain stores and how their logo, brand image, and store designs are all inter-connected. Victoria’s Secret feels pink and girly, since they sell women’s lingerie. GAP feels simple, fresh, and modern, as they specialize in classic, basic apparel. Hot Topic tries to sell to edgy teens, so their stores feature lots of darkly colored design elements and the music they play in their stores is the kind of alternative rock, punk or metal that their target customer listens to.
Layout of your store or booth
You’ll want to create a great flow to your store space, so that customers can move around easily and shop with comfort. Think about those little things that make you comfortable when you’re out shopping – enough mirrors and proper lighting near a dressing room, a chair to sit down (or for your friend to sit down in while you’re trying stuff on!).
Try to arrange your space so that shoppers can comfortably explore all of your products without feeling crowded or rushed.
Fixtures
Fixtures are what you hang and display your products on. There are tons of ways to do it! You can create all sorts of wall displays with gridwall or slatwall fixtures, which are readily available from various supply companies who cater to retail stores. You can also go DIY and build your own.
If you sell clothing, you’ll probably need some garment racks. I’ve also seen some really cool DIY versions of these for store merchandising, built from various piping materials found at a hardware store!
You’ll want to draw the eye of your shoppers up and around your booth display. You can do this by using different levels and heights in your booth. A table where everything is laid out flat isn’t nearly as interesting as one that has some things displayed at different heights. There are all sorts of great retail displays you can use to create different levels in your booth.
You can use clear plexiglass risers to prop up your products at different heights.
You might want to get adjustable height tables, or I know some crafters who use risers made for beds to create different heights for their tables.
My friend made me this tiered shelf using PVC pipe & plywood, materials readily available at any hardware store. I used it to display bags made from vintage bedsheets, made by my friend Kendra of Bonga Chop.
Many artists I know use wooden crates as display props and to add height. You can lay them on their side and display things inside, or hang things from the slats. You can also stack more displays on top.
I’m also a big fan of vintage suitcases as display props:
Craft show display featuring a vintage suitcase to display greeting cards.
I use mine not only to haul stuff to and from the event, but also to create some height and to display greeting cards or other merchandise. I sewed some ribbon into the fabric lining of mine so that I could easily hang stuff from it.
I’ve also used an old shutter to display hanging earrings (most of those pictured are by abiqutie), which I attached two metal shelf brackets to on either side, and then I clamp it to my table from behind.
My craft show booth featured jewelry displays including freestanding displays for necklaces and earrings as well as flat, stacking trays to accomodate more products. At the back of the booth hung colorful pink & blue sheer curtains and a handmade banner.
If you make jewelry, you might lay out some things flat on your table or in stackable jewelry trays (which I use to make my setup and breakdown quick and painless), but you should also use some necklace display stands or bust style jewelry displays to add some visual interest.
Signs
Signs, as well as price tags, are a key part of visual merchandising. Have you ever been in a store that was clearly lacking in signs or price tags, and felt frustrated when you couldn’t easily find out information about a product? Signs should reflect your shop’s brand image, in font, color and layout.
You can use signs to make sure people know more about your work and how much it costs. Don’t go overboard and clutter up your booth with too many signs. But do use them to inform. (And even to entertain!)
You might also want to buy or make a banner for your booth with your business name and/or website on it so that your booth is instantly recognizable. I sewed my own, but you can also order custom printed banners.
My friend Kerry has a more rustic vibe for her business. She used these vintage wooden soda crates to display her leather & lace cuff bracelets, and a vintage wire bin to display handbags.
How you display individual products
How you display items will depend on what you sell and the type of store you are of course.
Sometimes, big, unique or high cost items look great displayed alone, to make them seem more special.
More often than not, store displays look great when similar objects are grouped together. This rule especially applies to smaller objects.
For example, if you sell jewelry, and have a few different cases to display in and you carry a few different jewelry brands or designers, group your displays by designer or by general style. It will look much more put-together and eye-catching than if you just jumble all of the necklaces together.
Always on the lookout
I’m always on the lookout for new inspiration on how to make my display look better. I love checking out other people’s booths (but of course never copying directly!), as well as checking out retail stores with great visual merchandising. Anthropologie in particular always does a fabulous job with their retail displays!
Over at Pinterest, I collect some of my favorite retail ideas as well as visual merchandising displays I like as inspiration.
Here are a few great books about running a retail store that I learned a lot from!
The Profitable Retailer: 56 surprisingly simple and effective lessons to boost your sales and profit
Cute Little Store: Between the entrepreneurial dream and business reality
Winning At Retail: Developing a Sustained Model for Retail Success
Like these Craft Fair tips and want more?
Be sure to check out my book, How to Make Money at Craft Shows.
This post was originally published at MissMalaprop.com on May 23, 2013.
90+ Best Creative & Affordable Funny White Elephant Gift Ideas
ROFLMAO! Don't give the same gifts as everyone else! Be the hit of your holiday party when they open these funny white elephant gifts & Dirty Santa gifts!
I’m sure you’ve been invited to one or two of those office get togethers or holiday parties over the years. You know the ones – where you play “Dirty Santa” or the white elephant gift exchange game and exchange ridiculous gifts that end up making everyone laugh but that, for the most part, no one wants to take home.
Want to be the hit of your next novelty gift exchange party? Here are my picks for some of the best creative and affordable funny white elephant gift ideas!
This funny white elephant gift guide features Amazon Associate affiliate links, which means if you purchase a product via one of these links, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. This helps to support this site and does not affect the price you pay.
All-Time Favorites
Cards Against Humanity is the most totally inappropriate, and amazingly fun party game on the face of the planet. Which makes it one of the absolute best white elephant gifts around. (And one you’ll probably fight to keep for yourself. Or try to convince everyone to play after the gift swap is done.) If you've already played more rounds of Cards Against Humanity than you can take, try DRUNK STONED OR STUPID or Disturbed Friends on for size.
If you're throwing a Dirty Santa party and inviting everyone you know, you should see the best gift would be from me, and the card attached would say, "Thank you for being a friend and getting me these Golden Girls shot glasses."
It's important to learn How to Talk to Your Cat About Gun Safety (not to mention abstinence, drugs, Satanism, and other dangers that threaten their nine lives!) -- good thing this book will show you how!
Taco Tuesday will be a whole lot more fun with the Tacosaurus at your table. This T-Rex taco stand holds 2 tacos, ready for you to gobble up.
This Big Ass Bottle of Stinky Ass Spray is, quite possibly, the ultimate ridiculous office gag gift. Just the threat of its stench should keep the jerkwads away from your desk.
Does it get any more kitschy than pink flamingo lawn ornaments? That's why these babies make the perfect white elephant gag gift!
Who doesn’t love roasting a bunch of delicious s’mores around the campfire? This fun and affordable microwavable s’mores maker lets you make ’em, easy-peasy style, at home. It might not garner any laughs, but it probably WILL be one of those Dirty Santa gifts that everyone is fighting over because they actually WANT to take it home!
You’ve probably seen these creepy horse head masks around. After all, there’s an entire Internet meme centered around them. Which makes them a great weird gift to creep all of your friends out with.
A holiday classic, everyone loves the weird leg lamp from the movie, A Christmas Story. Bring on the smiles with this A Christmas Story Nightlight, which is a perfect size and price for a gift exchange.
Are you sick and tired of trying to teach your pickles to yodel? No worries, because this Yodeling Pickle comes pre-trained and ready to sing its little heart out! It makes a funny gift idea for the person who has everything.
This boyfriend body pillow serves as a warm arm around your shoulder, at bed time, or during a plane ride. (You can imagine all of the weirded out glances from fellow passengers already, can’t you?) This Hairy Belly Fanny Pack or Chicken Legs Knee-High Novelty Socks also makes a funny gift idea for a holiday Santa gift exchange!
Office-Friendly Gag Gifts
If your white elephant gift exchange is at your place of work, you’ll need to find a PG-rated gag gift idea. Luckily there are plenty to choose from that are both work appropriate and useful around the office! Dress up a co-workers' desk with the Funny Curse Pencils, Dragon Stapler, or Cat Post-It Note Dispenser:
Every office has that obsessive tea drinker or coffee fanatic, so get 'em the Hippo Tea Infuser, Build-on Brick Mug, or Death Wish Ground Coffee (which is fair trade, organic AND claims to be the world's strongest coffee):
Funny Coloring Books for Grown-ups
Coloring books for grown-ups may be the latest craze, but some of these coloring books are truly adult options. While they may not be appropriate for your child’s after-school activities, they’ll be a perfect fit at your white elephant party.
From The Fetish Coloring Book to A Swear Word Coloring Book for Adults: Eat A Bag of D*cks, these books pack a lot of lines to color in between and plenty of laughs along the way.
Beer Lovers & Winos
Everyone knows about wine charms – they come in handy at parties (like a Dirty Santa party!) and let you mark your glass so you don’t mix up your drink with someone else’s. Enter the BeerMo – a fancy schmancy mustache shaped charm to slip over the lip of your favorite frostie beverage, whether it be a beer bottle or some girly wine cooler. The Army Man Bottle Opener and Beer Holster also make practical yet silly white elephant gifts.
Gag gift for your favorite wino cougar friend? Check out this Sir Perky Wine Corkscrew, that looks like a very, uh, excited little man ready to open your bottle of Pinot Grigio! There’s also a Sir Perky Bottle Opener and a Sir Perky Novelty Bottle Stopper for the perfect trifecta of drunken gag gifts.
Need a funny gift for the ultimate wino in your life? This wine bottle glass holds a full bottom of wine, and you can drink straight from the bottle! If your favorite lush likes to drink on the go, this set of two Vino2Go Wine Tumblers is perfect. Pair it with a cheap bottle of Chardonnay for the perfect Dirty Santa surprise!
Pizza & Bacon Stuff
Whether you’re decorating your home for the holidays with food-inspired gifts or just want to make your friends smell like a greasy spoon, these food themed gag gifts are bound to be a hit at your holiday party!
A pizza Christmas tree ornament or pepperoni pizza Christmas stocking are a no-brainer, and really, who doesn’t want to smell like pizza? To be fair, DEMETER makes a wide array of weird scents that mimic everyday smells. Some are delicious smelling, like baby powder or vanilla cake batter, but pizza perfume?!? Sounds like a perfectly wacky white elephant gift idea to me!
I mean… who doesn’t love bacon? (Vegans, obviously.) That said, I’m not sure if I know ANYONE who loves bacon enough to bathe with it or have their car smell like it. But maybe you do? Either way, bacon soap or a bacon air freshener both make for a pretty hilarious gag gift!
Funny Cookbooks
I feel like this road kill cookbook belongs to the Dirty Santa gift exchange hall of fame. It’s the perfect gift for this kind of event – after all, it’s the kind of thing no one really buys for themselves, but everyone loves to share the pleasure of browsing what’s inside, like cars slowing down to ogle a wreck. It’s human nature to want to gross ourselves out, right?
That said, Fifty Shades of Chicken: A Parody in a Cookbook and Cookin' with Coolio: 5 Star Meals at a 1 Star Price are cookbooks with funny names that actually appear to be useful. At least according to the reviews on Amazon, they seem to have legitimately tasty recipes.
There’s bound to be at least one person trying to go gluten-free at your white elephant gift exchange party, so Gluten Is My Bitch: Rants, Recipes, and Ridiculousness for the Gluten-Free is sure to be a topical choice!
50 Ways to Eat Cock: Healthy Chicken Recipes with Balls! offers a healthy dose of chicken history and recipes in a hilarious package. And while Breaking Bad has been off the air for a few years, this television classic is still totally worth of a parody cookbook like Baking Bad.
Bathroom Humor
Emojis!! Who doesn't love them?!? One of the all-time best emojis is, of course, the poop emoji! Lucky for you and everyone else at your Dirty Santa party, there's now a poop emoji pillow or a poop emoji travel mug, perfect for gift-giving! The I Pooped Today Coffee Mug is another great choice.
At least the Poo-Pourri Before-You-Go Toilet Spray and the Squatty Potty are practical gift ideas, but still utterly ridiculous at the same time!
This portable toilet also has its practical uses – after all, it’s made for outdoor activities such as hunting and camping. But just because it’s functional doesn’t mean it can’t be a funny gift! For bonus white elephant party points: wrap up this big 5-gallon bucket in a big box, but hide a bottle of booze or fake poop inside, to keep things interesting at the party!
Celebrities We Love To Laugh At
When you think of celebrities everyone loves to laugh at (rather than with) who comes to mind more than everyone’s favorite Baywatch hunk and German pop music star, David Hasselhoff? Seriously, if unwrapping this collection of the Hoff’s greatest musical hits doesn’t get a few chuckles or nervous laughs, I don’t know what will. (Okay, maybe unwrapping a life-sized cardboard cutout of David Hasselhoff instead...)
So… I’m sure this Justin Bieber Singing Toothbrush was created with the best of intentions. I’m sure that many pre-pubescent girls actually use it to brush their teeth and that somehow The Bieb’s sweet, melodic voice encourages those kids to brush a little longer. That doesn’t mean that this still doesn’t make a hilarious white elephant gift.
And who wouldn’t love to bring “The Joy of Painting” into their home via this Bob Ross Chia Pet?
Clearly what your next Dirty Santa party needs to liven it up is this pillowcase depicting a shirtless Nicolas Cage. I mean… this thing is a National Treasure. You’ll want to make sure it doesn’t get Left Behind at the party. (See what I did there?) I don't know if I'm more afraid of the fact that people are creating this stuff or that someone is purchasing it.
I'm sure that the Paris Hilton Siren Eau De Parfum Spray smells just lovely, but really Paris? Was this just an excuse to pretend to be a mermaid?
The Sweatin’ to the Oldies videos by Richard Simmons are a classic. Pair them with a Richard Simmons inspired costume for the perfect combo.
Crazy Cat People Gifts
Is your office all about their funny cat memes? Clearly this Space Cats Funny Kitchen Towel or "Are You Kitten Me Right Meow" Mug or Cat Astronauts Night Light would make a hilarious Dirty Santa gift for your holiday party.
Better yet, create your own weird cat memes with the DIY book, Crafting with Cat Hair or read the poems from I Could Pee on This out loud to your favorite cat ladies.
In need of a purr-fect scratching post? Let your kitty rock out on this Cat DJ Scratching Deck. And endless array of hilarious cat pictures will ensue.
Funny Gifts to Wear
This faux “sweater” is just what the doctor ordered for those ubiquitous hipster holiday parties where vintage ugly Christmas sweaters are de rigueur. Designer Alex Stevens also has lots of hilarious ugly Christmas sweaters like this Bye Felicia Ugly Christmas Sweater, Marijuana Ugly Christmas Sweater, or Sloth Ugly Christmas Sweater.
A beloved favorite of ironic hipsters everywhere, the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt is sure to be a crowd-pleaser at your holiday parties. Not a fan of wolves? Don’t worry, because you could always opt for a similarly ridiculous tee featuring kitty cats, a dinosaur or even an Abe Lincoln tee. Need a different hipster mainstay? The Size Matters! trucker hat is your best bet.
Funny Mustache & Beard Gifts
If there is one thing hipsters love, it’s facial hair. Beards, mustaches, sideburns, you name it… But what if you’re that guy who can’t quite grow a full beard? Or maybe you’re a girl and testosterone-ly challenged? Or maybe you just need an utterly ridiculous gag gift? Never fear: the Beardo Original Foldaway Beard Hat is here! This knitted beanie hat comes ready to keep your whole face warm with a detachable, foldaway beard! You can even get the beard part to match your natural hair color, plus a Respect the Beard can koozy to go with it. Oh, and make sure to get in the holiday spirit and decorate his beard with these Beardaments Holiday Beard Ornaments.
If it’s mustaches that make you laugh, there’s plenty of funny gag gifts to choose from. Get your drink on with the Moustache Rocks Glasses, Mustache Corkscrew & Bottle Opener or Great Moustaches Mug.
Zombie Gifts for Weirdos
A perennial favorite, anything zombie-related is always sure to be a big hit at parties. And this zombie ammo can is actually functional – YES, you can store gun ammunition in it and everything! Or you could use it to pack your lunch along with this Zombie Apocalypse Ghost Chili Hot Sauce, or even as a travel case for toiletries and cosmetics. The perfect compartment for zombie hunters on the go, especially when paired with The Zombie Survival Guide!
While the ammo can may be somewhat practical, if you want to go for some TRULY weird stuff instead, check out this Zombie Garden Gnome. Better yet… if your white elephant gift exchange is part of an office party, try this Creepy Headless Family Portrait Mousepad or Haunted Zombie Edgar Allan Poe Notebook on for size.
Sweet Treats
One part gag gift, one part gift they might ACTUALLY want? Once they unwrap this vanilla scented cupcake pillow, they might never want to let it go! This is going to be a funny white elephant gift worth fighting over!
Let’s face it: during the holiday season we ALL over-indulge. Might as well embrace it with this Ice Cream Chef Apron or Ceramic Donut Mug.
Funny Unicorn Gifts
It tastes delicious! That’s because this Bag of Unicorn Farts is actually a bag of cotton candy. Even better? 10% of all profits from this cute gag gift are donated to charities that support children with neurodiversity.
This Unicorn Snot Glitter Gel is a funny gift that will bring a little magical sparkle to the party. Smear this fun lightly-scented glitter gel on your body and face - don’t worry, it becomes translucent once applied to skin and it washes off easily! You can also clean up with the handcrafted vegan Unicorn Poop Soap! According to the makers, Outlaw Soaps, "The unicorns are currently on a diet of strict skittles and rainbow sherbet, so it smells like that."
So this canned unicorn meat is in no way edible or delicious (really, it’s just a stuffed, dismembered toy unicorn in a can), but it WOULD make a hilarious white elephant gift that is sure to get some laughs at your next office Christmas party!
The Affirmators! set of 50 affirmation cards is a feel-good yet funny choice for a gift exchange, while these Unicorn Animal Slippers are a cozy and colorful option!
More Great Gift Ideas...
I hope this list has inspired you with some funny gift ideas for your next Dirty Santa gift exchange or white elephant office party!! If you're looking for more ideas, take a look at these funny Christmas cards I found!
Like this? Bookmark it on Pinterest:
This post was originally published at MissMalaprop.com
The First Ever Badass Creatives Marketing Accelerator: What I Learned & What's Next
I recently hosted the inaugural Badass Creatives Marketing Accelerator for creative business owners, where I taught them about branding, websites, SEO, social media, PR & publicity, community building, and much more.
Last weekend, June 1-3, 2018, I hosted the very first Badass Creatives Marketing Accelerator. I’m so proud of what we accomplished during the inaugural “cohort” and I can’t wait to host another one. (But it’s going to have to wait. I’ll spill the tea on what’s next at the end of this post.)
It’s funny, because now that I work in the world of tech startups by day as Director of Marketing at LookFar, I had to explain to some people that it wasn’t an accelerator program by that world’s definition. Instead, I envisioned a retreat-style, weekend long workshop that would help creative solopreneurs and micro-businesses quickly accelerate their marketing strategy.
In order to make sure that everyone who participated would be a good fit for the program and to ensure that I could help them “accelerate” their business, I conducted phone interviews with interested potential participants to learn more about their businesses and marketing goals. In the end, I had 5 different women-owned businesses participate in the inaugural cohort: Bella & Harlow, Boss Bitch Design, Freeman Furnishings, Marrow Creative, and New Orleans Green.
(The program wasn’t intentionally women-only, and I’d be happy to have men join in the future, but there was a serendipitous alignment between the women who joined this first group. Even though they all have very different businesses and are at different stages of business, there were plenty of similarities in their goals for the weekend and their vision for how their companies could impact the world.)
Prior to the weekend of the event, I asked each attendee to fill out a detailed worksheet that would help me better understand their brand, their marketing goals, their strengths & weaknesses as they saw them, and their vision for their company.
I then created a “Roadmap” for each attendee – basically an individualized plan of action that would guide what each business should be focused on in terms of marketing their business. The roadmaps outlined primary & secondary marketing goals and short-term and secondary action steps. I also shared my marketing vision for each business, based on the information they’d provided in the brand worksheet and our conversations.
I don’t believe in prescriptive marketing advice, or that there is a single “right” way to run a business or spread the word about a company. It was important to me to understand where each person was coming from, to help them understand the big picture about marketing their business, and then translate that into actionable next steps.
On the evening of Friday, June 1, 2018, we kicked off the weekend with a fantastic get-to-know-you dinner at Jack Rose restaurant. The fact that they have a painting by local artist Ashley Longshore of Lil Wayne in the restaurant lobby was one selling point, but the food and overall vibe of the dinner was exactly what I hoped for.
On Saturday and Sunday morning, we reconvened at Landing Zone, a co-working space in the Lower Garden District where I’d rented a conference room for the weekend.
My plan for the event was a mix of presentations where I would teach information about branding, websites, SEO, social media, PR & publicity, and community building, as well as group discussions and individual “hot seats” on how that information related to the specific needs of the people in the room.
On Saturday afternoon, my friend and speaker Lelia Gowland joined us to lead a session she called Professional Confidence through Self-Compassion (aka: How to Be Nicer to Yourself for Fun and Profit). I think it was just what we all needed after a lunch break on the first day. I know that for myself and many other high-achieving women, confidence and self-compassion can sometimes be hard to come by in a world of Instagram-picture-perfect comparison traps and perfectionism.
I also built in plenty of time for breaks, so that people could immediately implement some of the material we’d talked about and so that I could answer questions. (Or if they just needed a few minutes to decompress and take a break, they could do that too!)
In the coming weeks, I’ll also do some followup checkins via email with each attendee, as well as a 1-hour followup consultation with each attendee to answer any questions and ensure that they feel confident in moving forward with their marketing strategy.
What I learned:
I think everyone who joined me for the accelerator learned a lot, but I learned some things too, and there are a few tweaks I would make when I host similar events in the future.
First off, I learned that I could do this! While I’ve produced and hosted workshops before, this was my first time doing something of this magnitude, with everything resting squarely on my shoulders. I was inspired by a presentation on hosting retreats that I saw Michelle Villalobos give at NSA New Orleans in mid-March. She encouraged us to pick a date 30-90 days in the future, and just DO IT.
Within a week after seeing her, I’d decided on this June 1-3 date and the wheels were in motion. I figured a lot of things out along the way, and there were moments when I was afraid it wouldn’t work, or that I’d only have 1 or 2 participants, but I’m so glad I took the chance and believed in my ability to pull this off.
Second, there are some logistical things that I’d tweak next time. Because this was the first time I’d done this, I didn’t have a registration deadline, and one of my attendees signed up literally 2 days before the event. The over-achiever in me managed to create her roadmap in time and I feel good about how things worked out, but in the future, I’ll have a registration cut-off and incentivize early-bird signups differently.
I also realized that there were 2 different types of entrepreneurs that were interested in this program and that I am interested in working with. In the future, I would tailor each “cohort” to be focused on 1 of those 2 types of businesses.
In this group, I was lucky that everyone had a somewhat similar focus even though none of the businesses compete directly with each other. They are all product-based businesses and everyone was interested in learning how to use e-commerce to sell more of their products directly to their customers.
However, during my initial discovery calls, I also talked to service-based B2B businesses such as copywriters, public speakers, graphic designers, and accountants. The timing didn’t work out for any of those B2B businesses to join us for this first cohort, but I really love working with these types of businesses to come up with creative personal branding and marketing strategies that fit their business goals and personal strengths.
In the future, I’d offer 2 different accelerator programs to these groups of businesses, as the information they need is somewhat different.
What they said:
There are a few other things I’d tweak in the future too, but overall, I’m really proud of how this first event went. And when I asked for feedback from the participants I was happy to hear an enthusiastic and positive response.
Rosalie Torres of New Orleans Green told me she thought the program offered “great extended engagement in a small group setting that was easily tailored to individual needs with both lecture & discussion and individual time with Mallory. It’s an efficient kick start to all that’s important for truly taking marketing and social media from wherever you are to the next level.”
I’m really excited to watch everyone’s progression over the next few months and to see how their businesses evolve from here.
What’s next:
I had this moment where I thought I should use the momentum of this event and immediately get the next accelerator on the books. Then I stopped myself.
While I definitely want to do more of these accelerators in the future, my immediate priority is writing my next book.
I learned a lot from the iterative process of writing my first book, How to Make Money at Craft Shows. It started out as a bunch of different blog posts that I later added more content to and turned into a PDF book, which I sold via Etsy. Once that was accomplished, I later figured out how to format the book for Kindle, and a year or so after that, I self-published softcover printed copies via Createspace.
I’m planning to self-publish the next book as well, but I want to be a bit more deliberate and strategic this time. Over the next few weeks I’ll be working on the outline, and I plan to spend the rest of the summer writing the first draft. Once that’s done, I’ll dig into the logistics of revisions and preparing for publication. I’m also planning to launch a Kickstarter to pre-sell the book and to cover the costs of things like editors, layout and book cover design.
The topic of the book? It will be centered around “embracing your weird” and owning the things about yourself that make you YOU. They’re the unique qualities and interests that help us stand out, be memorable, and make an impact in the world. Whether you’re a business owner or building a personal brand in order to move your career forward, tapping into your “weird” is a key piece of the puzzle. Weird is not a bad word, and while we are all “weird” in our own ways, NO ONE is truly weird. We are all uniquely ourselves, but some of us have a harder time hiding it than others. My goal is to help more people feel like they don’t have to hide their “weird” any longer, but instead to embrace it.
UPDATE: since writing this blog post in 2018, I accomplished the goal mentioned above!
In 2019, I wrote, produced and performed my one-person show and a couple years later I self-published my second book, We Are the Weird Ones: Embrace Your Weird for a Kinder, More Inclusive World.
P.S. A HUGE thank you to Kelsey Campion of Marrow Creative for taking almost all of the photos seen here, except for the group photo from our dinner at Jack Rose.
This post was originally published at MissMalaprop.com
The Content Upcycle Method (aka the incredibly true story of how I made $4,752 from 1 blog post in 1 month)
The Content Upcycle Method enabled me to make more money blogging. Here's how I made $4,752 from 1 blog post in 1 month.
This post is about how I’ve learned to make money from my blog via affiliate links, so of course it contains some affiliate links. What this means is if you click through and make a purchase, I receive a small commission, at no cost to you. Affiliate links help me keep this site running so I can continue to share useful information with you for free!
I’d like to think I know a thing or two about upcycling. After all, I won 3rd place in Etsy’s nationwide Upcycling Contest back in 2007 and my winning design, an outfit made from FEMA blue tarp, was even featured by MAKE Magazine and Boing Boing. So it makes sense that I’ve been able to use the same upcycling mindset to turn some of my best blog content into a money making machine. Here’s my story…
I’ve known about Amazon Associates pretty much since I started Miss Malaprop in 2006, perhaps even before that. And while I earned my first affiliate commissions via Amazon Associates in August 2007, it wasn’t until the last few years that things really started taking off for me.
Quite frankly, I fumbled around for a long time without a clear strategy or understanding of how to make affiliate income. But now all of that has changed… In December 2014 I not only broke the $1,000 mark, but I made a total of $1,941.53 from Amazon Associates, compared to $259.80 the previous year.
In December 2015, my Amazon earnings totaled $6,324.96, though $4,752.50 of it was from just one blog post:
That’s a long way from where I started, making just pennies per month on Amazon Associates:
The Content Upcycle Method made it happen.
The basic idea of the Content Upcycle Method is this:
Find what’s working and make it better.
Rinse, repeat.
My most profitable post didn’t start out that way, and it hasn’t always looked the same. This post started as a much simpler roundup of maybe 10 funny white elephant gift ideas, and it originally lived on a different site, called Cool Stuff We Like, which I’ve since merged with Miss Malaprop. (And more recently moved over here to Badass Creatives.) Over time, I noticed that post getting traffic in Google Analytics, and took the opportunity to update it, tweak it and make it better. Over the last few years, I’d spend some time each fall updating the post and removing any dead links or out-of-stock products. I added more products and continued to build upon the foundation of a pretty good post to make it a really great post.
A couple years ago, I revamped the post to be even more shoppable. By arranging rows of curated product photos that clicked through directly to the pages where you could purchase them, I made my blog post feel more like an e-commerce page, making it super easy to convert browsers into buyers. And my earnings skyrocketed because of it.
It took me a really long time and a lot of trial and error to figure all of this stuff out. But hopefully by sharing my story I can save you some time. Here are a few more things I learned along the way…
Affiliate marketing does not, should not, have to be sleazy or spammy.
When I first started out, it was hard to find really good information about how to be a successful affiliate marketer. Sure, there was Problogger, but Darren Rowse had earned most of his Amazon Associates money through his site Digital Photography School by linking to cameras and other expensive photography products.
There was also a lot of spammy advice out there for creating affiliate income. (There still is.) I read articles that told me to find hot-selling, high commission products to promote like acai berry weight loss pills. (Seriously?) Sure, people might be buying this stuff, but the thought of trying to sell something that may or may not work felt unethical and totally icky to me.
There had to be a better way, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it work for my own site. You see, back when I started my blog 10 years ago, my goal was to eventually open a retail store (both an e-commerce site and a brick & mortar) selling handmade products and eco-friendly goods. While Amazon carried a handful of the eco-friendly brands I liked, there was no clear way to earn affiliate income by writing about most handmade goods. (These days there’s Amazon Handmade, plus Etsy has an affiliate program, so it’s become a lot easier!)
Every once in awhile I’d do a review for a new book about green living and include affiliate links, but I wasn’t posting about products that were available through Amazon with much consistency. I also tested some of the banner ads and product ad widgets that Amazon provided, with no luck.
Finally, I decided to start promoting products that I loved, but that I might not normally write about on my main site. I learned about Squidoo, a site where people could write “lenses” or pages about pretty much anything they wanted. Squidoo no longer exists, but creating product-focused “lenses” there taught me a whole lot about earning money through Amazon Associates. I also created a second site, Cool Stuff We Like, which I treated like a sandbox, a testing ground to experiment with new types of posts.
The key to the Content Upcycle Method: always be testing.
Giving myself the freedom to experiment and write about all different types of products on Squidoo and Cool Stuff We Like really upped my game. As I noticed that a certain type of product was really popular, or a certain type of post performed really well, I could take that knowledge to tweak old posts, make them better and create new content.
When I first started Cool Stuff, I would usually write a short post about a single product. I also set up an Amazon aStore on my site. (Those are pretty much useless, I quickly learned.) I’d regularly check my Google Analytics to see what posts were most popular and which products were getting organic search traffic. These days, I also set up Hotjar heat maps on my most important pages to see how people are interacting with them.
One thing that building Squidoo lenses taught me was the value of long-form product guides. If I noticed that a particular type of product was getting some Google action on Cool Stuff, I would create a lens on Squidoo around that theme that included tons of products and useful information. (Note: this long-form product guide strategy works well for both e-commerce shops AND affiliate bloggers.)
For example, I had a post on Cool Stuff about Beer Bottle Mustache Charms. I noticed that post had started getting a lot of organic search traffic, and I knew that the mustache trend was really big at the time. So I created a long lens on Squidoo about cool mustache stuff… everything from funny mustache t-shirts to Hello Kitty themed mustache stuff to mustache baby pacifiers.
While the mustache trend has waned in popularity and I no longer have lots of content dedicated exclusively to mustaches, I did upcycle a few of the most popular items into other guides, and the Beer Bottle Mustache Charms are a featured item in my most profitable blog post, Funny White Elephant Gift Ideas.
Now, one of the reasons why Squidoo no longer exists is that many people took this concept way too far, and many of the lenses there started getting pretty spammy. There’s a big difference between creating a carefully curated list of products around a specific theme with the intention of truly helping your readers find and discover them, vs just throwing in every product under the sun that fits a certain description.
Always ask yourself, “Would I buy this for myself or gift it to a friend?” Which brings me to…
Think like a magazine editor.
Become a curator of products and make it easy for people to find products that they’re already looking for but that are currently hard to find by simply searching Google or Amazon.
For example, one of my most profitable posts to date is my post about 5 Craft Show Must Haves. I started selling at craft shows back in 2004, and it took me a really, really long time doing them before I discovered some of my favorite tools of the trade. In recent years, I noticed that while I was doing shows, other vendors kept asking me where I got my director’s chair or where I found my fitted tablecloths. My display and setup process has evolved a LOT over the years, and these are products I definitely did not have when I first started doing shows. So I created this blog post with the idea of helping other people by sharing the specific products I use, that make my life easier when I do art markets.
Just like my craft show set up evolved over time, so has that blog post. Since first publishing it, I’ve closely monitored its performance, always looking for potential new ways to tweak it to provide more value for visitors as well to optimize it for more affiliate sales. (I’ve also upcycled some of my older blog posts about craft shows into a book, called How To Make Money At Craft Shows.)
Optimize for SEO and include the search phrases potential visitors would use.
I also have a very specific aesthetic when it comes to my personal style, whether it’s the clothing I wear or how I want to decorate my home. It can be hard to find interesting products on Amazon or other e-commerce sites, especially if you’re not familiar with the specific brands that cater to your style.
There are tons of great products that are buried on Amazon or in Google searches because the e-commerce vendors who sell them have tagged and described the items in such a way that they never come up in searches for qualifying adjectives like “cute” or “cool.” By doing the legwork and gathering awesome products under a specific theme, you’re helping your readers and making it easier for them to shop.
(Note to e-commerce entrepreneurs: this is another reason why SEO is so important! You have GOT to learn the terms your ideal customers are searching for and include them in your product listings!)
When upcycling your existing content, don’t forget to use a technique that Brian Dean of Backlinko refers to as W.A.G. or “Write. Ask Google.” Do a Google search of your primary blog topic and pay attention to the phrases that Google autosuggests as you type, as well as the “Searches related to…” section at the bottom of the search results page.
If any of these phrases are relevant to your blog post, try to include them naturally in the blog content. (But don’t force it, and never resort to keyword stuffing, i.e. repeating keyword phrases over and over in a non-sensical, spammy way.)
If you wanna make some serious bank selling products online, learn how to become a Pinterest rockstar.
I’ve been on Pinterest since almost the beginning. I think I joined after reading design & lifestyle blogger sfgirlbybay / Victoria Smith mention it way back when. But it wasn’t until 2013 that I started putting some serious effort into it. That’s when I saw Moorea Seal give a conference presentation about how she grew her Pinterest following to 916,000+ followers.
When I saw Moorea speak, in August 2013, I had about 1,200 followers or so that I’d gained organically over the years from pinning mostly for fun, without any real strategy behind it. After her presentation, I got serious about optimizing my board titles, board descriptions and pin descriptions for search and getting really niche with my boards. By the end of 2013, I’d tripled my Pinterest following, and as of this writing I have over 12,000 followers.
I can say, without a doubt, that Pinterest has been critical in growing my affiliate income as it is one of the top traffic sources for my site. Here’s an example of how much traffic Pinterest sent to my site in December 2015:
In the video below, I show more behind the scenes details about how much traffic Pinterest sends to my website and how I made money on Pinterest with Amazon affiliate links:
In my class The Power of Pinterest, you'll learn a Pinterest marketing strategy for creative small business owners: https://skl.sh/2wRj7qv
Create vertical images optimized for Pinterest.
Growing my personal following on Pinterest was important, but even more important was creating Pinterest-optimized images for each of my posts.
Vertical images perform best on Pinterest because of how the site is laid out, so I began to create tall images with multiple products grouped together:
I update the graphics for each of these posts periodically, to swap out any products that are now sold out or discontinued, but the popular older pins continue to live on.
The power of Pinterest is that you can get tons of traffic to your website from Pinterest without ever even having a Pinterest account of your own. If you create Pinterest-optimized images that people will naturally want to share and bookmark for themselves, it’s possible for one of their pins to go viral and send your site massive amounts of traffic.
Even if you’re not a designer by trade, you can easily make beautiful pin-optimized images: Canva offers a Pinterest template that is super easy to work with, and their Design School features TONS of free resources to learn from.
Once you’ve created those beautiful, vertical images that will perform well on Pinterest, you’ll need to add them to Pinterest and enlist some help to spread the word. That’s where Tailwind’s Tribes feature comes in handy.
Tailwind offers a lot of cool features that will help you gain more traction in your Pinterest marketing and make it easier to get your content seen by more people. You can batch schedule your pins to lots of different boards at once, but have them go out at different intervals so that your Pinterest-worthy content is being seen at different times by different people.
The Tailwind Tribes tool is particularly handy. Tribes are basically communities of people who are all pinning images that have a similar theme. There are tribes for fashion, travel, beauty, and pretty much every topic you can think of.
Whenever I’m speaking or teaching about Pinterest, I always describe Tailwind Tribes like the “give a penny, take a penny” jar at a checkout line. Basically, you add your own images that you’d like re-pinned by other people to the Tribe, but in exchange, you should be re-pinning at least as many pins from other Tribe members as you’re contributing to the group. Givers GET, and Tailwind’s Tribes feature makes it easy to help out other Pinterest users and share each other’s content.
Want to learn more about how to increase your website traffic with Pinterest? Check out my Skillshare class, The Power of Pinterest:
The Content Upcycle Method is NOT a get rich quick scheme.
I’ve realized over the years that my strengths lie in the long-game. The reason I’ve been able to figure out the power of content upcycling is because I’ve stuck with it, and tested, tested, tested.
All of the methods outlined here, including content upcycling, SEO, affiliate marketing and Pinterest are a marathon, not a sprint. You have to be patient and commit to doing the work if you want to see the big payoff.
It’s important to remember that it took me a lot of time and trial and error to figure out the exact types of content and methods that worked for me. My hope is that by sharing this information with you, I can help you speed up your own process. While I discovered these methods after I closed down my old e-commerce store, the same tactics described here could be used for an online shop as well as an affiliate marketer.
(It’s also important to note that some of the links mentioned in this post are affiliate links – that said, I only share tools and products here that I’ve used or would actually buy myself. If you click on an affiliate link here, it doesn’t cost you anything extra, and it enables me to continue to providing valuable information like this post to you for free.)
Making money with affiliate marketing, including Amazon Associates, is kind of like investing – it’s the power of compounding where it really gets profitable. It takes some serious time and effort to build up enough links to Amazon products to make lots of cash. That said, it is TOTALLY doable.
While some product categories on Amazon offer a fixed advertising fee, ranging between 1-10% commission, most products fall under their volume-based advertising fee rates, which means the more products you sell, the higher the commission rate you earn. The volume-based commission rates reset at the beginning of each month, so you will start off the month selling products at a 4% commission, but if you sell tons of goods, you could be raking in an 8.5% commission on each product sold by the end of the month.
This is why it’s so important to keep upcycling your best content and to create tons of links, doorways if you will, to get people onto Amazon’s site. Even products that net you only a few cents in commission still count towards the total number of products you’ve sold in a month, so they will help build up your overall earnings.
The other brilliant thing about Amazon is that there are SO many things available to buy. That’s good for you for two reasons: it means more types of products to link to, and it also means that once people get to Amazon they often realize there are other things on the site they need and want to buy. I see all sorts of stuff show up in the list of products I’ve made commissions on each month… some are mundane household necessities like cleaning products or curtain rods, and others are as weird as enemas or sex toys. (Seriously, people have purchased all of those things through my Amazon Associates links. And I never linked to ANY of those products.)
Have you found success with the Content Upcycle Method?
I’d love to hear about your own experiences upcycling your content. Leave a comment below and let me know how it’s worked for you!
SEO Advice for Artists: Squarespace Artist Website Review
In this website review, I'm going to be offering up some SEO advice for artists by looking at the website of artist Glenyse Thompson.
In this Squarespace website review, I’m going to be offering up some SEO advice for artists by looking at the website of artist Glenyse Thompson.
Glenyse has built her own website using Squarespace, which is an easy-to-use website builder that I often recommend to artists and creatives who want to create a website on their own without a lot of hassle. Her website looks great overall, but there are some ways that this artist’s website could be improved to get more search engine traffic and to sell more art online.
Watch the video above or read on for the transcript:
The Transcript:
Hi, it’s Mallory, AKA Miss Malaprop, back today for another #BadassCreatives website review. Today we’re going to be looking at the website of Glenyse, who is an artist. She’s awesome, I’ve followed her on Instagram for a little while. She offered up her website for some feedback, so let’s take a look.
Here we’re looking at the website of Glenyse. This is her shop page on her website. As you can see she’s a very talented artist.
I’m going to scroll down a little bit. If I hover over any of these, it gives me the title of the piece, and the starting price points since most of these are prints or original art that come in multiple sizes. Just to click in as an example, let’s just look at this tote bag. This is a really beautiful tote bag. This gives me a little bit of information about what it’s made from, but there’s not a ton of information on this page.
If you watch my website review of Kate and Moose, it’s kind of a similar issue. There’s just not a lot of actual text on this page for a search engine to understand, to look at and analyze more information about what this bag is.
We see that it’s a tote, but to search engine, just calling it a tote doesn’t actually tell them that it’s a tote bag, or that it could be great for carrying groceries, or all these other things that we as humans sort of naturally associate, but that if you’re typing something into a search engine, a search engine needs things explained a little bit more clearly.
There’s not a whole lot of text on this page to help explain what this product is to a search engine. It is a beautiful product. I would say similarly to my review of Kate and Moose, it would be great to have some more photos of this tote bag in action. Maybe somebody holding this bag so I can see how big it is. Maybe a picture of the insides, so I can see how much stuff I can carry in this bag.
I’m also noticing that there’s not, as far as I can tell, any sort of shipping page or FAQ information about general things that I might want to know as a customer if I’m going to give you my money online and order something from you. Now, usually on a website we have some sort of shipping page. What happens if something is wrong, like this arrives and it’s damaged or something? What’s your refund policy? Your potential customers want to know all that good stuff. I would consider adding some of that basic information. Pretty much any website, if you’re selling something online, needs to have some version of that.
Now, your website in terms of how much art, and how many products you’re selling is pretty straight forward. You don’t need a super in-depth FAQ or shipping information. You’re not Amazon.com, right? You don’t need some crazy long list of details, but I think having some sort of information would be helpful. If I am just looking at this page, I’m not even sure if you’re going to charge me for shipping. I have to actually go through the steps of clicking on purchase, and then figuring that out.
One other thing that I noticed is in your URL: “http://www.glenyse.com/shop/colorfulconversationstote” that “colorful conversations tote” all runs together.
I see that you’re on Squarespace, and there is a way to set your URL structure when you’re setting up a new page. Ideally what you would do for search engines, and also just for people, is to have a hyphen between each word, for example: “colorful-conversations-tote.”
To a search engine especially, with the way you have it now, all of this just runs into one big word, and it’s hard for a search engine to understand what this page is about because of that. A URL is a really important piece of search engine optimization.
Now, the other thing that I know is that your website is fairly new, so one thing that I would recommend is trying to build links to this website.
Let me grab just your main URL, Glenyse.com. I’m going to copy this, and I’m going to hop over to a website. This is created by Moz, which is an industry leader for search engine optimization. They have this tool called Open Site Explorer. If you really get into it you can pay for the paid version of this, but you can get a little bit of information just from this free tool. I’m going to pop your URL in here, and we can kind of get a little bit of feedback about how many links you have pointing to your website.
Moz has it broken down into something called, “Domain Authority.” That’s the domain of your whole website. Then there is also “Page Authority,” which is the authority for any given page on your website. These scores are based on a scale of 1 to 100.
They’re giving you a domain authority for your entire website URL of 11 out of 100, which isn’t super great. Then a page authority of 1 out of 100. Notice how it says, “Just discovered links, zero in the last 60 days, and established links.” It sees no links pointing to you. Now, there might be links that Moz just hasn’t discovered. This is a fairly particular tool, and it doesn’t always pick up all the links that may be out there. If you have Google’s Search Console set up, that will usually show more links, and Moz’s Open Site Explorer might not pick up all of the same links pointing back to your website.
It’s important to note though that links are really important. I want you to try to get other websites who might be inclined to link back to you, to point links to you.
Let’s look at some potential link building opportunities, and from what I can see it seems like you are already on the path to doing this, and you’re doing a great job so far.
I clicked through from your About page, and your artwork is posted in a photo article, Energized Abstracts on Artsy Shark. This was just posted very recently, January 12th, 2017. This is a blog post, and they invited some of their artist friends to share a favorite work of abstract art, and you are right up top. It shows off a piece of your art, and they did link to you, which I love. You’ve got a little information, then they shared some other artists too.
That’s probably why this post hasn’t shown up on Moz yet, because it’s a really new fresh link so Moz probably just hasn’t crawled it yet. Definitely keep on this path, and keep trying to reach out and get more features of your work, and get those links pointing back to your website.
Now, one final super nit picky thing, but it’s also a really easy fix. With Squarespace I know that this little box, this cube, is the generic default favicon that comes with Squarespace websites. It’s a really, like I said, kind of nit picky thing. You can see how on Squarespace’s help website and on Moz Open Site Explorer, they have their own little icons that help stick out in the browser, and just make it feel a little more personalized and professional. It’s a really easy tweak.
This article on SquareSpace’s support website actually tells you how to add it, and it’s a really easy thing to do. You just go into the backend of your Squarespace website to your logo and title section, and you just upload a little image. That is a really easy fix that will make your website pop a little bit more.
I hope this artist website review was helpful, and I hope you subscribe to my YouTube channel and check out some of my other videos featuring website reviews and SEO advice for artists:
Ready to learn more about how to get more traffic to your website and make more online sales?
Do you sell your handmade work online? Want to sell more? Search engine optimization, aka SEO, is the process of tweaking your online shop to help your potential customers find you more easily in search engines.
My class, DIY SEO for E-Commerce, offers an introduction to e-commerce search engine optimization specifically designed for artists, makers and online shops:
How To Break Into Digital Marketing { 7+ Tips To Land The Job }
Want to get into the digital marketing industry and change your career? Here are my top 7 tips for how to break into digital marketing and land the job.
This post was originally published at MissMalaprop.com on November 18, 2016.
I’ve recently had a few conversations with people who want to know how to get a job in digital marketing.
Whether you’re looking for a career in social media or want to get an entry level job as a SEO or PPC professional, there are a few key things I’ve learned over the years that would be helpful to anyone looking to change directions in their career.
When I made the transition to a full-time day job in digital marketing in 2014, I was 30 years old and had no formal training in what I now do for a living. However, as an entrepreneur, I had uniquely positioned myself to get a new job in the digital marketing field.
Here are my top 7 tips for how to break into digital marketing and land the job you want:
1. Get great at marketing yourself.
I created this blog and personal brand Miss Malaprop way back in 2006. While my original goal was to develop it into a brick & mortar and e-commerce store for handmade and eco-friendly goods, a strong personal brand has served many other purposes for me over the years.
If you want to do marketing for a living, you must first get great at marketing yourself. No matter what type of job opportunity you are applying for these days, potential employers will be checking your social media profiles and online reputation.
You are in control of what they see, so make sure your online presence is putting your best foot forward.
Make LinkedIn your career bestie.
If you want to work in digital marketing, and your LinkedIn profile looks abandoned or doesn’t exist, it’s going to reflect badly on you.
Think of LinkedIn as your resume on steroids. Fill out as many of the fields as possible, and use your profile to sell yourself to potential employers.
In sales, people talk about selling benefits over features of a product. You must think about yourself in the same way when writing your resume or updating your LinkedIn profile. Think about the benefits you brought to past jobs, not just the mundane features of the jobs you performed.
Use a professional, but eye-catching headshot, not a photo that looks like it was taken during a night out partying and you cropped out someone else’s head.
Keep those other social media profiles clean.
If you want to work in digital marketing, you need to keep all of your other social media profiles presentable. Either lock them down tight so that random people and potential employers can’t find those drunken photos or political rants or better yet, create a public social media presence that you’d be proud for anyone to see.
I’m a pretty private person in a lot of ways. I don’t post a lot of personal stuff to my social media profiles. I do, however, keep all of my profiles publicly visible. And I carefully curate the messages that I want to present to the world.
Your social media message is your calling card. What does it say about you?
2. Create your own website or online portfolio.
Consider creating a personal website, blog or online portfolio to show off your personality, expertise and past experience.
For most companies, personality and how you fit with the existing company culture are just as important as your knowledge and experience. If you come off as rude, entitled or immature online, you’re going to give potential employers reason to pause.
Although some coding experience is definitely a plus if you’re going into this field, you don’t have to be an expert web developer to create a beautiful, professional website. While I’m personally a huge fan of WordPress, I’ve been using it since 2004, way before simpler one-stop solutions like Squarespace existed. If I had to start over from scratch today and needed to build a portfolio, I’d totally go with Squarespace. (Note: while this post was originally published on WordPress in 2016, it now lives on Squarespace here at BadassCreatives.com!)
Squarespace is a fully hosted solution, which means that you don’t have to figure out the basics of web hosting AND how to set up your website software AND then design and create the content for your website. They offer lots of beautiful templates that make it super easy to create a home base on the web in minutes.
(I’m seriously not being paid to say this, I promise. I’ve seen too many small businesses and solopreneurs pay big bucks for websites that they couldn’t update themselves and didn’t know how to manage. Squarespace is absolutely a better solution for most micro-business owners and freelancers.)
3. Stay on top of industry trends and be constantly learning.
One of the things we pride ourselves on at my day job at FSC Interactive is that we as a company are constantly learning, testing and staying on top of the latest changes and digital marketing industry trends.
Change is a constant, both in life and in this industry. The more you can diversify your skill set, the faster you can move up your career ladder and the more indispensable you will be to employers.
If you feel confident in your knowledge of social media management best practices but aren’t familiar with SEO or paid search strategy, learn more about those sides of the industry. Learn the basics of HTML, CSS or Javascript. (Codecademy has lots of free, awesome resources for learning web development basics.)
Stay curious and be open to always learning new things. Here are a few resources to check out:
Social Media, SEO & Paid Search Industry News & Trends
4. Seek out small freelance jobs to build your resume.
If you’re having trouble getting full-time jobs at social media agencies because you don’t have enough experience, seek out freelance gigs for small businesses to build your experience and pad your resume.
Working with smaller companies will usually lead you to learn a wider range of skills. It can also force you to be more entrepreneurial, as you’re usually working with a smaller advertising budget. You’ll need to be more creative to get better results.
Keep track of your projects, but more importantly, keep track of your results and wins.
If you manage a campaign for a small company that grows their Instagram account by thousands of real followers in a few short months, create a case study about how you did it and show off the results of your efforts on your website.
This same methodology is often how big social media agencies land big corporate clients, but it can also work for you in your job search.
Here are a few places to look for freelance digital marketing opportunities:
Dreamers // Doers: Jobs + Gigs (Facebook group for women)
5. It does matter who you know.
As much as we’d all like to think that it doesn’t matter who you know, it does.
When I applied at FSC Interactive, I had an edge because I’d already worked with the company a few years earlier when I invited them to be on a panel I was organizing at a local conference. I inadvertently made a connection to my potential employer a few years before I needed it.
Knowing the right people helps you hear about opportunities earlier and often gives you a better chance at getting them.
As I mentioned before, many companies hire based on how you fit with and/or add a unique perspective their existing company culture. If all things are equal between you and another candidate in terms of experience, but you went to high school with one of the staff and you are a great fit with the vibe of the company, 9 times out of 10 you’re going to be the one to land the job.
Who you know doesn’t just land in your lap, however. Especially when you’re just getting started, you need to put yourself out there and make connections. Here’s the caveat: networking gets a bad rap because so many people do it badly.
Whether it’s an in-person networking event or a Facebook group for like-minded professionals, you can’t just go in and immediately try to sell yourself.
Act like a human. Be nice. Be friendly. Be helpful. No one wants to help someone who is needy or whiny. People do, however, usually feel indebted to help people who have helped them first. Givers get.
When you’re young, or in the early stages of a career transition, you must hustle hard but it must come from a place of giving and helping others. Look for people who have done what you want to do, or people further along in their career.
Don’t just ask to “pick their brain.” Figure out what you can offer them to make it worth their time. And be respectful of their time. (It’s the most precious gift any of us have.) To start meeting cool people in this industry, try connecting with your local chapter of the American Marketing Association or the Public Relations Society of America.
6. Get good at interviewing and negotiating.
Okay, so you met the people, you have the skills and you got the interview. Now what?
Nailing the job interview and negotiating the job offer are learned skills, just like anything else. When I was interviewing for my current job at FSC Interactive, you can bet your bottom dollar that I studied the art of interviewing and negotiation. For women especially, I cannot stress what an important skill this is. If you don’t ask for what you want, you’ll never get it, and I guarantee you that most men do ask for it.
Here are some job interview and salary negotiation resources I recommend:
The Briefcase Technique – how a 2-minute video can help you earn thousands
You Got This: The Ultimate Negotiation Guide for Professional Women by Lelia Gowland
7. Put it out into the universe, and be persistent.
Most people give up pursuing what they want right before it happens. Half of success is just hanging in there.
If you want something, put it out into the universe. Mention it to other people – you never know who might come across the right opportunity for you and be ready to send it your way. People are often very willing to help, but you have to make it easy for them. Let them know the types of jobs you’re looking for and the skills you have. Give them a reason to root for you, and they very often will.
Don’t give up. So many people expect things to come easily or fast. We’ve been sold on the idea of get-rick-quick schemes, but those are just that. Schemes.
If there is a job you really want or a company you really want to work for, don’t let one “no” turn into the final no. (Unless, of course, the company has said, it’s not a good fit.) But if you know that you got turned down because of lack of experience or something else that you can work on and change, do it. Go home, study and get that experience and go back to apply again.
Attitude is everything. Most companies would rather hire someone who is motivated and open and willing to learn than someone who thinks they know everything already.
BONUS TIP: Make it easy for decision makers to see your worth.
This bonus tip comes from long-time reader Justine Grey. Like me, Justine took a non-traditional, self-taught path into the world of digital marketing. She started out selling handmade jewelry on Etsy but after blogging about her experience getting her products into retail stores, Justine eventually shifted to paid blogging and affiliate marketing through her first site CreateHype.com. So when she got her first real digital marketing job at FreshBooks in 2012, she knew she’d have to get creative to get the gig.
In Justine’s words, here’s how she did it:
“Although the traditional resume I submitted got the recruiter’s interest, I knew it wouldn’t wow the interviewers making the hiring decision. My situation was unlike most of the people they were meeting and I felt these two things might work against me:
I had no formal education in digital marketing – none for that matter, as I went straight into the workforce after high school
I had such a variety of marketing projects under my belt and the resume template did them no justice.
With that in mind, I got to work creating a document that organized everything I wanted interviewers to know in priority order. While it had portfolio elements, I tried to incorporate a lot more including:
Professional Timeline – 15 different milestones spanning 8 years, that took me from unrelated industry job to savvy digital marketer
Testimonials – 4 high quality testimonials from past clients and industry peers who could speak to my digital marketing skills
Popular Work – screenshots that demonstrated social proof – such as a Youtube video with over 100,000 views and a thank you note from a famous influencer
Positive Reception – screenshots of emails where recognizable companies praised my marketing abilities and invited me to collaborate with them further
Case Studies – Here I highlighted 3 successful marketing projects I worked on – giving info on results I produced and exactly how I did it
Top Articles – A few articles I felt best showcased my blogging abilities
Ideas for the company – A handful of marketing ideas I would implement if hired
Resume – The traditional one I sent to the recruiter, purposely placed near the end
Reference Letters – From folks who wouldn’t be able to provide a phone reference
Although I could have emailed this doc to my recruiter and hope she passed it along, I needed to guarantee they’d see it. So I had the document printed professionally and brought in copies for every interviewer. The reactions were amazing – they quickly disregarded my boring resume and happily leafed through the upgraded version. There were lots of oohs and ahhs, and one guy even got distracted by it in a good way.
Later, I found out the document played a huge part in me getting the job. But it turned out, it was less about the info it contained (though they loved how I curated everything) and more about the obvious time I put in. In the end, I set myself apart from other candidates and got the gig by making it easy for the decision makers to see my value.”
There you have it!
I hope this post has been helpful for you. Now… Go forth. Be awesome. Show potential employers how awesome you are (without sounding like a pompous jerk), and get that digital marketing job.
The Elusive Glamour of Quitting Your Day Job
It's true that hustling takes courage. But having a day job, whether part-time or full-time, does NOT make you a failure as a creative entrepreneur.
I’ve become increasingly frustrated with this notion that the only way to be successful as a creative entrepreneur (or any type of entrepreneur, for that matter) is to “quit your day job.”
I’m glad to see people I respect calling out the hype surrounding 6-figure blogging, creating online courses and telesummits, and the nobility of being a digital nomad. I’ve been sucked into the hype at times too, but once it gets into your head, it can easily send you into a downward spiral of imposter syndrome and “I’m too late, it’s all already been done” shame. (I’ve been there the past few weeks, let me tell you…)
I’m so sick of the implication that because I have a day job (which I quite enjoy, thankyouverymuch), I’m somehow less of a creative entrepreneur. That because I’ve opted for a dose of stability I don’t know what it means to be entrepreneurial. I call bullshit.
I recently received an e-mail from a mom helping her daughter with a school assignment. The 7th grader was working on a career project, and she chose Craft Artist as her career of choice. Part of the assignment was to “interview” someone in that field, which is how they found me, via my post How to make a living as an artist or crafter. They asked me to share how I got started and some of the pros and cons of a creative career. I told them:
You’ll probably work twice as many hours as you would if you had a traditional office job. Not only do you have to make the crafts or art, you also have to run a business and deal with accounting & bookkeeping, marketing your products, customer service, shipping if you sell online… Your income can also be really variable, so you really need to learn how to budget and put money aside for the lean times. Honestly, I’ve always had some sort of part-time job in addition to my crafty career. Some artists are able to support themselves full-time, but that is the exception not the rule. But splitting your time between half day-job and half crafty job isn’t bad either – I like having the balance of part of my time for my own projects and part of my time at a steady structured job. I actually just cut back a few months ago to 32 hours a week at my day job in order to have more time to myself to work on my own projects.
Since cutting back to 4 days a week at my day job a few months ago (partially inspired by my friend Nikki Carter’s own 32-hour work week switch), I feel much more balanced. But I’m not going to lie that giving up 20% of my salary is easy-breezy. That said, having a day job, even a part-time one, affords me certain luxuries that freelancers and full-time entrepreneurs do not always have.
Take health insurance for example. My partner David left his cushy 6-figure I.T. day job ten years ago to pursue his dream to work in film. He’s worked his way up from lowly Production Assistant to positions as Director of Photography and Camera Operator, but those freelance gigs don’t come with health insurance. And thanks to our idiotic ex-governor Bobby Jindal, it’s ridiculously unaffordable for him to get health insurance on his own. I even priced out what it would cost to add him to my health insurance if we got married, and it’s STILL ridiculously unaffordable.
My mom, who has run her own business since I was a kid, went through breast cancer treatment a few years ago with no health insurance. I can not even begin to express the amount of financial turmoil that it caused. (Neither of them still have health insurance, as of this writing.) So yeah… I’ve got to admit that there is a lot of comfort in having a day-job where I can easily get health insurance and other benefits and earn a stable income that still allows me to pursue my own creative endeavors on the side.
More than that, I’m lucky to work at an agency where my entrepreneurship is encouraged. I think we’ll see more companies encouraging intrapreneurship in coming years.
One of my favorite books that I read last year was The Self-made Billionaire Effect. I’ll admit that when I picked it up at Barnes & Noble I hoped to glean some entrepreneurial wisdom and get inside the brains of people like Elon Musk and Warren Buffett. I ended up really enjoying the book, but in a different way than I thought. It’s actually designated as a business management book, and it shares how most self-made billionaires are what the authors call “Producers” and most people who traditionally end up in management positions are what they call “Performers.” (Most people are actually somewhere on the spectrum but lean towards one side or the other.) They mentioned how many of the most successful Producers have a Performer partner that they work closely with and it’s these partnerships that make them truly successful. The book shared ideas on how to find Producers within your company and how to give them free reign to test their entrepreneurial ideas so that they continue to innovate within the company, rather than leaving to start their own ventures.
This idea of intrapreneurship is something that’s really important, because not everyone is meant to be a full-time entrepreneur, nor is everyone lucky enough to be one. But entrepreneurial thinking is something that should be more widely encouraged, in all parts of life. The world needs more people who are chef-like, rather than cook-like. But just because you are a chef, doesn’t mean you need to open your own restaurant.
I gave a presentation yesterday at my day job during our weekly “Think & Drink” company meeting about Failure As Opportunity. Much of what I covered was meant to be a thought-starter rather than a definitive statement. I asked questions like, “What makes ‘best practices’ the best?” and “If everyone is doing it, how much longer will it work?” These questions were aimed at examining digital marketing strategies, but I think they make sense in a larger context too:
“Do I want to make 6-figures just because everyone has told me I should want to?” and “Do I actually want to do this creative thing I love full-time?”
Working with one foot in each world, the realm of creative entrepreneurs and the agency side of digital marketing, gives me a unique perspective on both. I see things happening in the mainstream land of SEO and social media that many creatives may not be aware of yet. But I also see solopreneurs who are able to swiftly test new ideas that a more traditional agency and their clients may hesitate to try out.
Having a day job has other benefits too. For example, I’ve been pursuing more public speaking gigs. I guarantee that my day job at a digital marketing agency has given me credibility and made it easier for me to land speaking opportunities at events like New Orleans Entrepreneur Week and the Boost Your Business event hosted by Facebook at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. But would I have been able to get my current day job if I hadn’t already built my own personal brand as Miss Malaprop over the last 10 years? Maybe not…
My dual careers compliment each other. One of the easiest ways to turn your blogging side-gig into more money is to use it to acquire the skills to land a better-paying day job. That’s exactly what I did. More than a decade of blogging and running my own business taught me skills that are highly desirable. There are plenty of people who have a basic understanding of social media marketing, but every time FSC needs to hire someone for the search department it’s much more difficult to find people with experience in SEO and paid search. My experience as a blogger and running an e-commerce store gave me a basic understanding of SEO and Google Analytics so that I could get hired and continue to improve my skills. One of my co-workers also learned the ropes while creating his own blogs.
Much like Regina pointed out the faulty accounting that many people use in their online income reports, I think there are a lot of people in the online entrepreneurial space that make it appear as if they make a full-time income from their creative endeavors. I know lots of entrepreneurs who have some sort of side-gig that provides them with a regular paycheck, whether it’s teaching a class at a local college or university or regular freelance work from an agency.
(I’d also like to point out that being a “freelancer” and an “entrepreneur” are not necessarily the same thing. For the most part, freelancing is still just trading time for money; you just have to be the salesman, marketing department, accounting and HR in addition to actually doing the work.)
There’s nothing wrong with any of these options. The point is that there is no one right path for everyone. But sometimes with a million shouting voices telling you the “right” and “wrong” way to do things, it can feel like there must be.
It’s important to remember the creative part of being a creative entrepreneur. If you’re just replicating someone else’s formula, that’s not very creative at all.
I was listening to an episode of Tara Gentile’s Profit Power Pursuit podcast the other day where guest Abby Glassenberg was talking about the importance of carving out a niche online. This episode was really refreshing to me because Abby has also been blogging for more than a decade and, like me, she’s combined a lot of different topics under the same umbrella. Lately I’ve found myself struggling with the fact that I don’t have just one topic I devote my online business to, and I’ve been feeling like I don’t have a niche. Abby pointed out how being yourself, with all of your varied interests and personality quirks, and fully expressing that is the best way to carve out a niche that is truly unique. Building a brand based on your individual personality is a niche that no one else can compete with.
The online world gets very noisy sometimes. I’ve recently been trying to take a bit of a break, and show myself some grace in the process. There will always be people who prey on the hopes, dreams, and naïveté of others. But you don’t have to let yourself get sucked into their B.S.
I’m sick of letting myself feel like I’m not qualified to speak on being a creative entrepreneur, just because I have a day job. The truth is, after more than a decade of building a personal brand and multiple iterations of my creative biz, with side-jobs and full-time jobs all along the way, I’m probably MORE qualified than the entrepreneurs who’ve gotten lucky or had overnight success. (Although most of the “overnight success” you see online is anything but.) The long and winding path I’ve had is more similar to what most creative entrepreneurs will encounter. That doesn’t make it any less worthwhile or rewarding.
Having a day job, whether part-time or full-time, does not make you a failure as a creative entrepreneur. Yes, it’s true that hustling takes courage. But so does living life on your own terms, whatever that means.
You do you, boo.
This post was originally published at MissMalaprop.com