Thursday, November 14, 2013

Handmade Black Friday Preparation and Link Up

This post is our way of helping to prepare handmade artisans (people that make handmade jewelry, art items, or handmade components for making art jewelry) to link up to their website or store where are planning on running a Black Friday and or Cyber Monday sale.

Please use this image to promote our event.
Please link back up to our blog (see code below).

On Black Friday, we have scheduled a post to go live at 12:01am EST where the "Inlinkz" Gadget below will appear so shoppers can simply click on your link and visit your shop.
Add your shop link NOW if you want to be included!

With that being said, PLEASE plan ahead NOW:
1. Link up via Inlinkz below directly to your shopping page (Etsy shop, website, Art Fire, etc).

2. Write up blog posts about the event ahead of time - start talking it up now!
     - Use the square image above to help promote this event!
     - Add a link on your blog post to the "Black Friday Cyber Monday" Post (permalink is below).
     - Schedule a blog post for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and or Cyber Monday now so you are not stressed last minute. Give your sale details, coupon codes, run promotional giveaways for shoppers, have your email sign up easily available, etc.
     - Make sure you have the DATES of your promotion/sale clearly listed:
     - Black Friday Only.
     - Small Business Saturday.
     - Cyber Monday Only.
     - Black Friday through Cyber Monday Sale. Etc - Whatever you choose!

3. If you are running a Promotion or Sale - your customer wants to know immediately what that is. The link you provide below is your Black Friday/Cyber Monday landing page. It should have a place where you can CLEARLY STATE your sale and sale date! Remember - on Black Friday, the link below will be where people click to shop. 
     - Do you have a coupon code to use at checkout?
     - Are your items already marked down (use Craftopolis.com)
     - Are you having a giveaway for shoppers on that particular day?
     - Make it fun and inviting! Give people reasons to support handmade artists!

*Your link can be to your website, your Etsy shop, your Art Fire shop, etc.
*This is a Handmade Artist Promotion!


Helpful links for preparing your Etsy shops:
*Craftopolis.com (free editing of your shop listings - price, title, etc).
*EtsyOnSale.com (paid service for editing your Shop).
*Update your "Info and Appearance" section with coupon codes, sale dates, etc.
     - Click HERE to learn how to customize your shop.
     - Etsy banner size is 760 pixels x 100 pixels.
*Online easy photo editing site: PicMonkey.com
*Make sure to fill out your "About" page so that people can see more about your creative process.
*Update your "Message to buyers" under "Info and Appearance" to include any details about your event, and to link back here for shopping for more handmade, giveaway info, coupon codes for future purchases, etc.


Here are helpful permalinks and html codes for you to use in your blog posts to link back here so you can help promote other handmade artists:

UPDATED 11/30/13:
1. The Black Friday through Cyber Monday blog post:
http://lovemyartjewelry.blogspot.com/2013/11/black-friday-cyber-monday-handmade.html

2. If you want to share the entire InLinkz gadget on your blog post for the Black Friday through Cyber Monday you may copy and paste this HTML code into the body of your blog post:
get the InLinkz code

3. Copy and paste the HTML code that appears below this square image into your blog post or as a gadget on your sidebar so that when people click the image, it takes them right here to our most recent blog post for "Black Friday". If the image shows up too large find the s1600 in the code below, and change it to s200 (or whatever size pixel will work for you) when you are copy and pasting the code into your blog html box.
Love My Art Jewelry Black Friday Sale

If anyone has any further tips they would like to share, please add comments and links into the comment section of this post for others to read.

The success of running a promotion like this will be for everyone involved to help share and promote this event together!

13 comments:

LisaS said...

Great promotion here! We should all do postings of the event on our facebook and twitter etc. the week of... Also could make and promote a treasury on etsy for those that have shops there...promote through the etsy teams and with that new tool mentioned we could put it on pinterest. Need commitment from everyone to promote -Just my thoughts am happy to follow along with any/more/better suggestions ;)

Third Eye Gypsy said...

Thanks so much for setting this up Marsha! Wishing everyone a very prosperous Black Friday sale! xo Genea

Marsha of Marsha Neal Studio said...

I am going to jump over to the LMAJ Pinterest Page and create a board called Handmade for the Holidays. That way we can pin handmade items from people promoting here and people can re-pin from that.

Making sure that it is clear that these are wish-list items for people to purchase to support handmade - NOT tutorials or free range to rip off designs :)

If there are treasuries created - use of TreasuryPin.com would be helpful and tag the description with @LoveArtJewelry so we are notified and can re-pin.

Thanks LisaS!

Marsha of Marsha Neal Studio said...

Here is the Love My Art Jewelry "Handmade for the Holidays" Pinterest board: http://www.pinterest.com/loveartjewelry/handmade-for-the-holidays-lmaj/

Please help promote artists and their handmade work by following, sharing and re-pinning!

@LoveArtJewelry

baymoondesign said...

Thanks Marsha for organizing this effort. I appreciate your tips on how to promote this. I will do my best to promote!

Work Of Our Hands said...

I'm not too computer smart.......copied the HTML but that is what displayed and not the graphics badge
How did I mess up?
Oh and THANK YOU for this !

VRB said...

Thank you so much, Marsha! Super ideas!

VRB said...

Oops! Sale info!

Black Friday and Cyber Monday Week sale in my Etsy shop, Victorian Rose Boutique. Use coupon code HMBFCM40 at checkout for 40% off any in stock confection!

www.VRBBoutique.etsy.com

Marsha of Marsha Neal Studio said...

Sometimes it is easiest to copy a version of the image (right click and "save image as" to your computer). Then you can just copy the URL of the link you are trying to share - for prior to the event - it would be to the search for Black Friday (it's in the post) and when you upload that image, you could add a "link" to that URL.

The HTML code is something you have to imbed within the code of your blog post (click between the types of "view" when composing) or if you have a blogger blog - you can add a HTML code gadget, then put the info in there.

Hope that helps...

Marsha of Marsha Neal Studio said...

Also - for those of you adding HTML, two tips:

1. If the image is not the right size, there is one place where you can fiddle with that...

When you copy the HTML code in that box, then paste it into the correct place on your blog or website - do you see that part in that computer jargon that says:
/s1600/
That is the size of the image.
You can - most of the time - just replace the numbers and make the image size smaller.

If I wanted the image to be 200 pixels wide, I would backspace over the 1600 and put in 200.

So it would be: /s200/

Then Hit Save and see how that works.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't - but it should in this case.

2. If you want to add the HTML into your blog post but have no clue where it should show up, this is what I do:

~Compost your message in the regular view, keeping in mind where you wan the HTML code box or image or list to appear.
~Where you want to add the HTML code - while composing - put ADD CODE HERE.
~Make sure it is in all capital letters and that you have it on it's own line exactly where you want it.
~When you are completely done composing and adding images and you have a draft saved (you may even want to do a test post or copy and paste it into a word document for backup) that is when you then switch your view over to HTML.
*Make sure you have a second window open where you can easiiy click and copy your html code you need.
~While in HTML view, scroll down until you find your ADD CODE HERE. Highlight just the words - not any brackets or anything else, and paste your HTML code where ADD CODE HERE was.

If you do this correctly, whatever that HTML code is supposed to show, will seamlessly appear in your post.

Save your post, click back to regular view, and go with it!

If you messed it up completely, then that saved version of your post over in that word document - copy and past that so you can try again.

Good Luck - You can do it! Just try it on a test post and figure it out!

Anonymous said...

Thanks again for doing this. I made a quick blog post about it and also shared on my FB page. Best of luck and many sales to you all!

PyxeeStyx said...

I have been trying all week to get my shop added and I can't even find the "inlinks below" where I'm supposed to add my link. I've clicked every link in this email, but nothing seems to go to the right place. Can someone please help. I'm really frustrated.

Marsha of Marsha Neal Studio said...

Sorry you had issues adding your URL to the collection (the collection closed on 11/28/13 to add your link). You can always add a link to your shop or website into the Black Friday to Cyber Monday post: http://lovemyartjewelry.blogspot.com/2013/11/black-friday-cyber-monday-handmade.html

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