Business Building - Branding

Today its the first instalment of another new blog topic - every third Wednesday of the month we'll be looking at 'Business Building'. It's a chance to learn something about running an Etsy shop, and it might be focused on Etsy itself, or it might be a broader look at running a business. It's going to be similar to our old 'Be An Expert' posts - which you can look back on here: Be An Expert Posts.

For now we're going to look at marketing - focusing on your branding. Etsy provided a huge marketing resource in Autumn 2017 to help you with your marketing strategy. Go here to see the list, and click on each chapter title to learn more about it: https://www.etsy.com/uk/seller-handbook/article/the-ultimate-guide-to-marketing/211784836636

Building Your Brand

In the first chapter the article touches on your branding. It's such an important step that we're going to talk about it some more. Branding is way more than just your logo. It's about what your message is, who your customers are, and how they will recognise your shop and products.

Fiona Humberstone has written a couple of great books on branding, and you can find out about her here: https://thebrand-stylist.com/

In the books she talks you through ways to plan your brand, like working out your brand intention and judging who your target customers are. She talks about colour psychology, fonts, photography styles, and more. As well as your logo. So those are great resources if you really want to delve deeply into your branding.

However if you'd like a quick few ideas to get working on right away, here's a more pared-back overview of creating a brand, in the Etsy Seller Handbook: https://www.etsy.com/seller-handbook/article/how-to-create-a-brand-identity-for-your/22930346711

Don't panic about your branding. It doesn't have to be perfect right away. Your brand is allowed to grow and develop as you find your niche. But branding also shouldn't be ignored - try little steps at a time.

Today look at your logo, and see if it's saying what you want it to say abut your business. Next week take a look at your packaging. Then think about your voice in the way you respond to customers, or in your shop announcement, or on your social media. Each small step will be building towards a better brand and a business your customers want to keep coming back to!

If you have any questions about branding, or you want to try things out on your team members before releasing them to the world, then start a topic over on the team forum here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/teams/14319/dorset-etsy-team or tag #dorsetteam on social media!

We will be back next week with the last of our new blog topics, see you then!

Introducing #DorsetTeamTips - Tips for running your Etsy shop

Have you always wanted to set up your own Etsy shop or currently run an Etsy shop but feel like you need some more tips on how to improve it?

The Dorset Team are running a new series called 'Dorset Team Tips' where sellers from our team will be sharing their tips for running an Etsy shop/ small business.

You can find the tips by searching #DorsetTeamTips on social media (particularly on Twitter).

Do you have a fantastic tip or idea which has helped you with your business or your craft that you could share to help other sellers? Please post your tips and include the hashtag #DorsetTeamTips in your post so that other members can find it. You can post this on any social media platform including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

See the #DorsetTeamTips posted to Twitter by clicking here

More to come soon....!

Branding Your Shop - Etsy Online Lab

One of the great things about Etsy is that they provide lots of educational resources to help sellers. Today Etsy ran a live online lab about branding your shop. The lab was run by two Etsy admins, Tess (who is also captain of the Etsy Success Team) and Parker and they went through how to build a brand which sets your shop apart, why branding is important, what makes a brand stand out and simple strategies which you can use to enhance your own unique brand.

If you missed the live lab you can catch it with it below:

We would love to know what you thought about the lab, what you learnt from it and what was the one thing you would take away from the lab.

Please either let us know in the comment section below on the blog or head over to our team forum for our branding discussion.