Skip to main content

So, You want to be an Entrepreneur - Turning your Idea into a Business - Part 5 Advertising and promoting

Today is the last post in the "So, you want to be an Entrepreneur" series, although really this is the tip of this iceberg!  This entire blog is about being an entrepreneur, but since I must break things up into topics and weekly focuses, we are wrapping this one up!  Today is Part 5, and in case you missed Part 1, Part 2 , Part 3, and Part 4 follow the links!

So, now, hopefully you have narrowed down products and product lines, and thought about at least one target market for each one.  When you start doing the things I am talking about in this post, you may find that you must go back and redo each of those.  I cannot stress enough that product lines and target markets need to be narrow for this step or else your advertising dollars or your hunts on where to advertise are going to be impossibly large!  Please remember again, you are not excluding shoppers, and you really don't have to exclude products, but you do need to have a target market that is find-able, and a product line that seems developed.

Yesterday, one of our members mentioned that finding target markets was her biggest struggle, and I am happy to have given her some suggestions to at least find one market to focus on. She is committed to developing at least one more item to fill out her product line and give shoppers another option if they don't want to purchase a more expensive item.  Giving customers a range of items in a range of prices is great.

All these items are made of a sustainable material and would fit well in some of the current organic
cooking/sustainable/farm to table trends that are hot today.   So, her target market is people who value organic/sustainable foods, cooking, and living.

So, how to start targeting these markets ...
  1. Update your titles and tags to including descriptive words such as organic, sustainable, green, earth friendly, renewable, biodegradable, etc.  If you have many products, try out these phrases on just a few of them and then review in 30 days to see if you are being found in more searches.  
  2. Be conscious of using words that may have multiple spelling variations such as ecofriendly and eco friendly, make sure you use both. 
  3. Utilize hashtags on Instagram. It is recommended that you use some widely used hashtags, but also some that are narrower.  Hashtags such as "organic", which currently has over 29 million uses, is going to land you in a very broad category.  Hashtags such as, "organicfood", "organiclife", "organicliving", and "organicproduct" are going to land you in smaller more targeted categories.  "Sustainable" is also a broad category, although not nearly as broad as organic.  Hashtags such as "sustainableliving", "Sustainabledesign", and "sustainableproducts" would be more targeted.  The hashtags "farmtotable", "farmtofork", "farmtokitchen", and "farmtoproduct" are also good ideas and the use of all of these examples will give you visibility in a wide range of searches on Instagram.
  4. Tell your buyers in the description why your items are organic and/or sustainable, and why they would be good companions in a kitchen that is focused on organic and sustainable foods.  Also stressing that quality and usability is not lost.
  5. Take pictures of your items in use that would be desirable to foodies - you may need to pay for this service if you cannot do it in your home kitchen.  However, it is always best to try and create pictures in your own setting so that that feeling can be recreated and all of your pictures will have the same look and feel.
  6. Follow foodies and chefs on Instagram after you have loaded your Instagram page with 9 pictures of your items with food.  Make comments on their posts, but do not spam their posts talking about your own products.
  7.  Search for foodies and chefs with an organic or sustainable cooking trend - https://blog.feedspot.com/organic_food_blogs/ - consider contacting them for advertising opportunities.  
  8. Search for other sellers that have companion items and see if they blog or have mentions in blogs, magazines, and places that your items could be featured as well. 
This list of things could go on, and the next frontier for these suggestions is to make pictures with info-graphics for Pinterest, interacting with all the foodies and organic/sustainable people you followed on Instagram, and then start looking for them on Facebook.  Run Facebook ads that target people who follow the foodies and other organic/sustainable Facebook pages.

This advice is specific to one seller, but I hope it gives you ideas of how a small targeted focus can be utilized without removing a larger more generalized placement.  If you are stuck on what your target market is, feel free to join our Facebook Group, or contact me for a personalized coaching session!




Labels:

Comments

  1. JeanieJuly 6, 2018 at 9:10 AM

    so very helpful, April!
    Thank you for sharing

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownJuly 6, 2018 at 9:37 AM

      You are welcome! Thanks for reading along!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Slowdowns and Slumps - When to freakout, When to take action, and What to do about it - Etsy Stats

This week I am talking about Slumps and Slowdowns ... how to know if you are really in a slump or slowdown, when to freak out, and what to do about it! Today is all about analyzing stats.  Over and over I have witnessed people freaking out about slowdowns because their stats are down from a day ago, a week ago, and a month ago ... but just this is not enough information to know if you are really experiencing a slowdown.  Retail sales are cyclical, and you need to know your cycles.  If you cannot deal with the natural cycles in your business, then you need to develop a new product line that will work opposite those cycles in your current business.  Trying to even out cycles in your current business is much harder than creating a product line that you market to a different market to fill in slow cycles.  Also note, that cycles in business will fluctuate year to year, and your sales should be increasing during these cycles year to year.  Although as your bus...
Post a Comment
Read more

Managing your Expectations - Part 3 - Where are you going and how will you get there

When starting a business, a lot of people will tell you that you need a business plan.  However, a lot of people starting a business simply start with an idea or just simply wanting to supplement their current income.  A business plan isn't something that they think is necessary.  Business plans are thought of as something that only large businesses trying to get funding need.  However, business plans can provide an important road map for even the smallest of businesses. In a lot of cases, people spend more effort planning a dinner or lunch date, than they do on planning their business.  It starts with an invite to eat, should you invite others, what time will you meet, what restaurant will you eat at, where is the restaurant, map the location on your GPS, do you need to make reservations, how long will it take you to drive there, do you need to make arrangements for parking, how expensive is the menu, what will you wear, and how long will it take you to get r...
Post a Comment
Read more

Time Management - Tips for Women Entrepreneurs - Part 3 Prioritizing Your Time and Your Activities

This is Part 3 of the Time Management series you can find part 1 here , and part 2 here .  Mapping out blocks of time to dedicate to your business is very important, knowing what to do in those blocks of time is even more important.  Today we will be talking about both prioritizing your time and your activities! So, you are ready ... you've found blocks of time during your day, now what do you do with that time? The first thing you need to do, is evaluate when your magic hours are.  This is the time of day that you are your best.  Your brain is clear, you're at your highest motivation, and you are ready to go.  For me, those hours are first thing in the morning, however, I know others whose peak hours are late at night.  This is the time of day that you need to do the items that require the most of your brain and energy.  Since I know these hours happen for me in the morning, I adjust my schedule throughout the year to maximize this time.  It...
Post a Comment
Read more