How This Mother-Daughter Duo Built Their Etsy Empire with Salted Words
My special guests today are Robin and Tracy of Salted Words who is a mother-daughter duo who have a passion to change the world through words. They sell beautifully crafted handmade signs on Etsy and through their website which you can find in almost every room of my home. In this episode, you’re doing to hear their story of how they built their Etsy empire.
How to create a boutique experience on Etsy
It’s so important to create a clean and cohesive shop on Etsy. So even if they’re not the same product, maybe they’re not similar but making sure they look like they belong in the same family. “This gives people the feeling of who you are and experiencing your brand when they enter into your online store,” says Tracy. This gives your shop a more boutique feel. Like every item has been hand-picked by the shop owner. Just by the look of it, there’s a sense of trust and that’s what they try to do with Salted Words.
Secrets from the pros to selling on Etsy
Etsy is a changing and evolving space, they explained they’re still learning new things today. Etsy is always adding and doing new things but the goal is to always get your rankings to the top. One huge way Robin told us they do this is to make sure all of their pictures are styled very well and to the best of their ability. “Pictures can be the biggest hurdle because we could set up 1 setup but people get bored of seeing that same thing,” she says. So they’re constantly changing things and working with others. Instagram has been huge for them because the people that buy their signs generally love to share their signs.
Robin went on to say, “We also pray a lot because Etsy is always changing.” This can become frustrating especially when you’re first starting out. Now they have an established shop and the stats behind it. Etsy sees that and knows you’re a reliable seller and that can help move your listings to the top. They’ve also been reading a lot about SEO and changing their listings titles to make sure they’re as descriptive as possible.
Why you still need a website for your Etsy business
The number one reason you should also have a website on top of your Etsy shop is that you don’t want to rely solely on a platform your could get booted from or can get shut down. The simple fact is that you don’t own that platform.
Another reason is that you get to keep most of the profits whereas on Etsy, they’re taking a not-so-small cut off the top of everything you sell. Your margins are always going to be better when selling directly through your own website.
These two reasons aside, you don’t want to give up selling on Etsy. You’re going to make up whatever you may lose in margins with the amount of traffic that Etsy gets and brings to your shop. It’s important to have both if you want to maximize sales and profits in your business.
What this looks like for Tracy and Robin is that they have their Etsy shop set up as what you see is what you get. Whereas the website is where they direct customers who are looking for custom signs.
How to use influencer marketing to sell more products on Etsy
Working with influencers has been amazing for Tracy and Robin. “It’s been the one thing that has made our business what it is and in its entirety,” explains Robin. Just by scrolling through Instagram, you can find so much inspiration by finding those accounts with beautiful homes to others who are DIY’ing it. Tracy and Robin started asking some of those home decor accounts if they’d be willing to work with them on creating a new design or creating something specific to them for their homes. They found this type of marketing has really worked well for them and has been a total game-changer so far.
More from Tracy & Robin
Tracy and Robin share so much more in this episode, from their beginnings in business to marketing that business. Their journey is such an inspiration to us! To see more of their work visit Salted Words on Instagram @saltedwords and online saltedwords.com. I hope you’ll hit play on this episode to hear their full story on The BrandWell Podcast.
KEEP BRANDING WELL,
Victoria
