How to Grow an Idea/Business?

[02stu]

I've been selling these antler art things for about 6 months and sales have slowly picked up. I'm selling about 1 a week now on Etsy.com, but I'm not sure what the next move is. I've got a website truegearhead.com, and have tried social marketing which hasn't worked at all. What do you guys think what would be your next move?

Sites

https://www.truegearhead.com

http://www.etsy.com/shop/truegearhead

[jaywood]

Those are pretty neat. Good idea

What's wrong with selling on etsy?

[02stu]

Those are pretty neat. Good idea

What's wrong with selling on etsy?

Nothing, I'll continue selling Etsy but I want to grow beyond it. I need to advertise but I'm not sure of the right venue or how to get started

One of the things I struggle with is describing these things in a short sentence that I could use in google adwords or something

[cawb352]

The best advertisement is face to face. Start going to every event possible and sell a couple each time, pass out cards. There are lots of people who would hang on to it and give your number to their friends when they ask where they got it at.

[A_Whelan]

There are a lot of different aspects you need to think about when moving forward.

Firstly think about why the social media stuff didn't work. Does your target market use facebook and engage in pages, did you brand your page appropriately, how did you spread word about the page, etc.

Secondly set a goal that you want to get to. Maybe it's x number of daily visits to the site. Maybe it's a % of end goals (transactions) per visit. Stuff like that, having a measurable and attainable goal will allow you to measure progress. Important shit, progress is.

Third. Advertising is a tricky world. You can use google ad words and learn from that fairly easily. They even have a program that you can do for a certain amount. I'm doing my certification at the end of march which will give me the ability to sign up people for an account and google matches their initial sum of money for their ad budget. Also good shit.

Besides that hire someone, choose wisely, make sure they are credible. When you are pushing an advertising campaign or trying to go a social media way you need consistent information updates. Taking a few days off from it can be large steps backwards.

If you have any questions or anything specific. I'm doing a business degree with a concentration in marketing, due to graduate in April.

[s0urce]

The best place to start is to figure out who's currently coming to your website. Embedding google analytics is a nice place to start.

Who are they?
Where did they come from?
What search terms landed them on your site?

Next step is to figure out who you WANT to get on your site. Define your audience and optimize.

You've only got one product - so you can't exactly market to your past buyers - but you should consider this for the long run. Keep a spreadsheet/database of these guys in the event you have an expanded inventory in the future. This list will be worth its weight in gold.

Good luck.

[TexasTerp]

All great advice so far.

You need to get a much better understanding of your particular audience, google analytics is a great place to start.

You should study http://www.seomoz.org/ like the SEO bible, apply as much of their wisdom to your website as possible.

When it comes to social media, you need to dive deep into why it didn't work. How did you set it up, How did you use it (or not use it). How are you communicating, something you have to keep in mind is that social media doesn't work like traditional marketing. You don't just through up your product info and tell people to buy it, that's social spam and no ones pays attention to it. Social media is about culture and creating a community around your project. You have to create conversations with your audience long before you can start selling to them. Contrary to popular belief, social media is NOT a quick fix, it's a long term marketing scheme with the opportunity for fast, large scale campaigns.

You don't have enough product to really spend the time working on a google ad words campaign, it's probably not going to give you a good ROI.

You should spend some more time working towards other markets, such as hunters instead of just looking into automotive guys. Also consider other outlets to sell your products such as Ebay. Etsy may not have the type of traffic you're looking for.

That should get you started.

[Vedubin01]

mustang and off road forums would be a great start. Look at trying to give one free to one of the Horsepower TV shows for their shop. People will always look at it during the show if displayed and they will seek you out.

Grassroots magazine is cheap advertisement.

Next would be a small website.

[e46s54dr]

Maybe try sending one to powerblock and they will advertise it for you on tv? Slim chance but you have nothing to lose.

[Farbin Kaiber]

Where I'm at, realtree is a color. I'm pretty sure these would move if you got them out in a region with hunters. I'm gonna have to get in touch with you when the ball starts rolling, I bet they would move out here, and I want one on the wall in my new shop.