There are so many articles, forum posts, etc. regurgitating the same information over and over and over about what it takes to be successful, what ‘magic recipes’ there are to get a lot of views or sales on Etsy, for example, things like that. At first, I read everything I could lay my eyes on, but there comes a point where you realize you’re reading the same things again and again, and then it’s kind of exciting because either you’ve reached a point where you’ve actually learned enough to know what to do and start doing it, or everyone else is just repeating what they’ve read.
It’s kind of hard to discern the two sometimes.
But I think it’s a mix of both for me. I’m able to skim things that I know I’ve already read, and pull out nuggets of really helpful information among the ‘fluff’, so to speak.
For me, what’s really the most important about establishing myself as an artist and growing a client base (because that’s really what it is… it’s fun to know people have your artwork in their house! But you have to also think of them as clients with your business) is having a product that my target audience falls over themselves for. If a product I have in my shop isn’t getting much attention, I don’t automatically throw it away and assume it’s a failure, but I try to look at it and think of what about it might not be *as* appealing to my target customers. It might be cute, but for whatever reason, it doesn’t push them over the edge into “OMG WANT”ville. Otherwise they’d buy it.
This isn’t to downplay the importance of things like great photography, properly distributed and optimized keywords, marketing both online and offline, etc. But at the end of the day, if your product doesn’t speak into your customer’s ear like a beckoning lover enticing them to buy it because they simply *MUST* have it, then all the marketing in the world isn’t going to help.
Be awesome. Make awesome products. And most importantly, continue to make your awesome products awesomer. See what happens!
(Oh and snag a guest spot on a really popular tv show or get featured in a national magazine or any other 1 in a million chance occurrences. But don’t count on it happening to be the reason you’re successful! Roll that snowball instead of waiting for a blizzard!)
