Don't have any social media followers? That's okay because in this post I'm going to share with you how you can make sales in your shop even if you have zero followers.
If this is your first time joining me, my name is Mei, and I help makers, artists and designers create a consistent income selling their handmade products online.
Media Outreach
The first way that you can make sales even if you have zero followers, and this is my favorite way, is with media outreach.
This means getting your products featured or mentioned in magazines, blog posts, by social media influencers, by celebrities, on TV shows, on radio channels and so on.
This really, really works.
Most of the successful businesses out there have a proven track record of having some amazing media mentions, and that is how they made it.
You don't have to have tons of followers to do this, but you're probably thinking “How do I do it?”
Well, it's a very straight forward process:
- Make a list of all of the magazines, blogs or social media influencers that you wanna be on or to work with
- Research who they are and find their email address
- Send them an email pitch
- Send them a follow-up
Because most likely these people that are getting your first email pitch they're, likely, not going to respond to that first email.
When you send them a follow up seven days later after they don't open your first email, they're much more likely to respond to you.
The whole point of this is to offer your products for free so that they talk about you or review you. It's an opportunity for a magazine to take photos of your products so they can put it in their magazine.
This is how I grew both of my businesses, and anyone can do this even if you don't have any social media followers.
Giveaways
The second tip I have for you is: doing giveaways.
Now, you know there is kind of a catch 22 here with giveaways because you kind of need some sort of following or audience to promote that giveaway too, right?
So, my recommendation, if you're willing to do this, is to promote your giveaway first within the network of your family and friends.
Now, the second thing is where it gets kind of ninja, and where it's super important that you do this.
Giveaway Software Tools
Now, there are giveaway software tools that you can use to make it so that whenever one of your friends joins your giveaway, they can use a link that is given to them through the app and share with their friends so that when their friends click on this link, your original friend gets points for referring other friends to your giveaway.
The giveaway winner is just the person who accumulated the most number of points.
This is how to make your giveaway viral, and it is how you can very quickly reach beyond your original network of family and friends and reach people beyond that.
What I love about giveaways, is if you do it correctly and if your prize is a product that you sell, you are attracting a lot of people who are essentially raising their hands to say “I love your product, I wanna win it.”
This is also a great way for you to build your email list.
Facebook Groups
Tip number three that I have for you: is to network in Facebook groups.
So, join a bunch of facebook groups where you know your ideal customers are hanging out at.
If you, for example, make children's' clothing, then you probably want to join a few parenting Facebook groups.
When you're in these facebook groups, you really want to be of service to other people.
So, don't go in there with the expectation to just sell, sell, sell and just keep promoting your work.
Instead, what you want to do is actually contribute, and post meaningful comments in other people's threads and just mingle with people.
This definitely takes a little bit of time, but it's super, super effective. I know some businesses that grow by only using this strategy.
Another important thing that you have to make sure you do when you're doing Facebook group networking is to make sure that your personal profile on Facebook has all of the information typed in.
It is most crucial that you tag your business page in your about section on your profile.
When you're in a facebook group, and you've left a really cool comment, and someone clicks on the link to your profile a little pop up appears with your profile image, your first and last name, a little bit of information about you, and your business page will appear as a link if you've done it correctly, and people can click on that and go directly to your business page and become a follower.
Of the three ways that I've talked about before: Media outreach, giveaways and networking on Facebook groups, what excites you the most? What are you most interested in? Let me know in the comments.
Wear (or Use) Your Products
If you have products that you can wear, you definitely want to wear this whenever you go out every chance you get and make sure you bring your business cards with you.
I know people that have gotten wholesale orders just because they are wearing their product while they're walking into a gift shop and the store owner was there and really loved that person's necklace and asked: “Where do you get that necklace?”
This happens so often!
So, you're really losing out if you don't wear your products out.
Paid Advertising
Now, I know this is not for people who are just starting out but if you have a way that you're making an income (maybe a day job) and you want to start your business I highly, highly encourage you to invest in some education, on how to do paid ads, and then to actually do them.
Because paid advertising is the fastest way for you to grow your business, hands down.
Of course, it costs a little bit of money to do that, but when you get it right, it's kind of like an ATM machine.
You can put a dollar in and get three dollars back. Isn't that amazing?
Facebook Advertising is so incredibly powerful, because you can target to the minutia. There is so many interesting settings that you can turn on and off, and you can really hone in on your ideal customer with using paid ads.
And currently, with both of my businesses, paid advertising is how I make most of my income at this point.
And you definitely don’t need any of the social media following as a prerequisite in order to do paid advertising well.
There is an entire culture of business owners who can make sales right from the get-go, even though they have zero social media followers because they just got started, and it is all because of paid advertising.
So, it definitely works and is so powerful. If you can use it, I really encourage you to look into learning how to get that started.
Great article! What are the giveaway software you mentioned? I’m about to launch a new product…