Host 0:04
Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here’s your host, Jillian Leslie.
Jillian Leslie 0:11
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to The Blogger Genius. First off, if you have a friend who’s an entrepreneur who you think could benefit from listening to the podcast, please share it because the more listeners I get, the better guests I can get and the more value I can provide to everybody.
Also, if you have a suggestion for a guest you think I should interview, please reach out to me at Jillian@MiloTree.com.
Okay. For today’s show, my guest is Nancy Badillo. Nancy has a YouTube channel, a blog. She teaches people how to grow online businesses. Her focus is Etsy.
Now, I don’t know if you know this about MiloTree is we have an Etsy popup. What that means is you install it on your blog, it will pop up and it will say shop my Etsy store. So, it’s a way to get people from your blog directly to your Etsy shop.
Now, what’s interesting about Nancy’s story is she built an Etsy shop just being scrappy. She’s not a designer, and yet she built a successful wedding printable shop. She’s going to share all about how she did it.
Without further ado, here is my episode with Nancy Badillo.
Nancy, welcome to the show. It’s great having you.
Nancy Badillo 1:31
Oh, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Jillian Leslie 1:35
We’re talking Etsy. I want to know how you got into Etsy, how you started learning about it, kind of what is your entrepreneurial journey?
Nancy Badillo 1:44
Oh, of course. So I’ve been in the digital marketing space now for over 10 years. My interest sparked on how to make money online back in 2009 because I lost my home. Yeah. I think a lot of people went through it in 2007 to 2009.
I was laid off from my job and I lost my home. In the process of all that, I started googling how do I make money online because I needed a job, I didn’t have a job at the current moment, and I wanted to, I heard about people making money online. So I started doing that and I kind of started learning about it.
Like soccer basically, I love it. I started learning how to flip blogs, how to create a blog from scratch, how to do affiliate marketing, to how to sell on Amazon. And then just last year I started my YouTube channel because I’ve been wanting to do that for so long.
And then, how Etsy started for me was I Iwas already in my digital marketing career. I’m always looking for different ways to make passive income online. What is another platform I could tackle and make more money?
In 2014, I started shopping for my own wedding. I went to this one store and I spent like $65. Everything I purchased from that store were editable files that I’m doing all the work. Like they were already pre made. I bought them from that person. And then, I make them. I print them.
I was like, “Wow! This person has made easily $65 from me. It took two minutes. They didn’t do anything for their end besides creating the template originally, of course.
Jillian Leslie 3:30
Right. So these are editable principles like invitations, things like that?
Nancy Badillo 3:34
Exactly, yeah. Exactly. I bought an invitation. I bought a photo booth frame. I bought table numbers. They were all matching items. That made me curious because before that I’ve never heard of Etsy.
Someone recommend that. One of my friends were like, “You should check out Etsy for wedding stuff. They have original handmade items.” And I was like, “Oh, I’ll check it out.”
In 2015 I got married. In late October to early November, I told myself, “I’m going to do a case study. I’m going to open an Etsy shop and see how it goes.” I didn’t have any experience with graphic design, so to speak, because everything I did was I purchased it through a third party app like maybe Fiverr or Freelance. I will buy my graphic designs from there for my blogs and anything else I need it.
I just started selling quotes. My first year, I learned the hard way you can be sued infringement obviously by using quotes that are trademarked. I learned that really quick.
The second month of Etsy, I learned you get the infringement letter saying you can’t use those. I moved to wedding because by then I had a little bit more. I started using Canva.com.
Jillian Leslie 4:49
So you were creating your own images?
Nancy Badillo 4:51
Exactly. Exactly. So then I started learning a little bit more. And as I got more comfortable I said, “Well, I’m selling this quotes for like $5/print. Digital downloads so there was nothing that I was shipping out.
I was making money. My first month, I think I made about $104. But then the second month, I was like at $300. And I was like, “Okay, I’m up to something.” So that first year of Etsy was a learning curve, but I ended up making over $20,000 on Etsy.
Jillian Leslie 5:18
Oh my gosh! Just selling quotes? Okay. So quotes that weren’t trademarked that you designed in Canva?
Nancy Badillo 5:25
Exactly. I started with the quotes first. And then I was like, “Okay, how can I increase not only my inventory, but how can I increase my income?” Because $5 a piece is great for like a side hustle, but I wanted to make more money. So that’s when I switched to all wedding.
I stopped selling the quotes, and I went to wedding signs that I sell anywhere from $8 a piece, all the way to $20 for custom photos. I started selling sitting charts that I charge $20 if you do it yourself, or $30 if I do it for you and add the guest list.
From there, I started just adding products that were a little bit more expensive. I just started creating. From there, we just went from, like I said $100 to $300. One month, I made like $3,000.
Jillian Leslie 6:13
Wow!
Nancy Badillo 6:14
And these are all digital downloads so I’m not sending anything to the customer either was just really neat.
Jillian Leslie 6:19
And you’re creating them.
Nancy Badillo 6:21
Exactly. I’m creating it. Now, I do use a tool called Creative Market. You could go in there and buy licensing graphic designs. I will go there, find graphic designs, make sure that you read you read the terms and conditions.
You buy these beautiful graphic designs, and you create your own image. And then, what I did was I started learning Photoshop. That was like the changer for me.
Canva is absolutely great for starters. But if you want to take your business to the next level and learn more, I highly suggest Photoshop even though there’s a learning curve. But once you learn, it is just amazing the things that you could do with it.
Jillian Leslie 7:03
That is incredible. And by the way, what is the name of your Etsy shop?
Nancy Badillo 7:07
Well, the one that I have right now that I currently use is called Etsy Marketing Tools. That one is for Etsy sellers. I have Etsy seller. I sell critiques to help Etsy sellers increase their business. I also have logos and other additional things for Etsy sellers.
Jillian Leslie 7:27
And this is a shop on Etsy, where you’re selling these tools for Etsy sellers?
Nancy Badillo 7:32
Exactly.
Jillian Leslie 7:33
And you’re still doing your wedding Etsy shop?
Nancy Badillo 7:37
Yes, I am.
Jillian Leslie 7:38
What’s that one called?
Nancy Badillo 7:39
That one, the one that you could check out right now is called Forever Happy Prints.
Jillian Leslie 7:43
Forever Happy Prints. Okay, we’ll be linking to it. That’s amazing. And then, when did you pivot into teaching other people how to sell on Etsy?
Nancy Badillo 7:54
I think for me it was when I first started on Etsy. I’ve never done eCommerce before. I did Amazon. They were a little bit different than Etsy. Back in the day, you could rank for any keyword, but now it’s a lot harder.
Jillian Leslie 8:09
On Amazon or on Etsy?
Nancy Badillo 8:11
On every platform, I believe. It’s a lot easier back in the day than it is now. The competition is crazy.
When I started with Etsy, I started researching how to grow in Etsy or how to make money on Etsy. I really didn’t find a lot of resources. I felt like the little bit of resources that I found, people weren’t as transparent or they will explain it but they wouldn’t show it.
I’m more like a visual learner. I like to go step by step to learn. So after I think it was about a year of me doing it, a year and a half maybe because I was pregnant by then too. A year and a half of me doing Etsy, I told myself, “Okay. I’m doing digital marketing right now in my blog.” My NancyBadillo.com. I had that blog since 2012.
I was doing digital marketing. And then, I was still making money, I was still driving but it’s such a wide niche that I wasn’t really making an impact. So I decided, “Okay. Well, there’s not a lot of people that talk about Etsy. I’ve had success with Etsy. I’m by no means no expert but I could share what I have learned with other people.” So I decided to turn my whole blog about Etsy and just focus on Etsy only. That’s where it started.
But I started mostly because I couldn’t find resources out there. Now there’s a little bit more people doing it but when I started a year and a half ago, there was a lot less people doing it for sure.
Jillian Leslie 9:44
So if we were to break it down, what do you think the components you need to have in place to be successful on Etsy?
Nancy Badillo 9:55
I think the first piece of advice is having a clearly defined, niche. Making sure that you’re not all over the place. A lot of people feel like if they have, like 10 different products and services, that that’s going to grow faster. In reality, it’s the opposite.
When you’re very niche down, you grow quicker. People might be interested in buying your wedding sign, but then might not be interested in buying a t-shirt that you sell that’s something related to different. It’s not even related to wedding.
So they’re more prone to follow you if you are in a niche related market. Defining your niche is very important. But also, additional to that is doing some market research. Make sure that you identify who is your target customer and your competitors.
Once you have that information, then you’re able to see if there’s a need for your product, or service on Etsy.
Jillian Leslie 10:56
Okay. Let’s say, I want to make jewelry. You would go on to Etsy and you would look at other jewelry sellers?
Nancy Badillo 11:05
That is a good way to do it. Yes, you could do that as well. When you do market research, let’s say you do go on Etsy, and you look up all the jewelry sellers, what you want to do is make sure that you don’t look at a store that has been open like 10 years. Because you don’t really know how many sales every month they got.
They probably got, let’s say 10,000 sales. It could have been the first two years they made 7,000. And every year after that they made like 300 here, 400 here. So that kind of going down. You want to make sure that if you do market research on Etsy, or any other site that this company has been open at least two years or less.
That would really give you an idea. If you’re selling something similar to them, or you have to make sure it’s better than theirs, if you’re selling something better than theirs or similar, that is going to do well in the market right now.
Jillian Leslie 11:57
Okay. So I look and I look at their sales. I look at what they’re selling. I try to find where my sweet spot is, right. So if somebody is doing initials, maybe I do your full name or something like that in my in my jewelry.
Nancy Badillo 12:11
Exactly. Exactly. What you could do also, just to give you an example, you could do bundles. Like for my wedding shop, I have also bundles of 25 items. It stands out because a lot of people instead of buying individually, the prints or individually the signs, you could just buy a package of 25 prints already premade for only $20 versus you buying 20 separate ones and pay like let’s say $75
Jillian Leslie 12:44
What would you say hot niches are right now?
Nancy Badillo 12:48
I think right now jewelry is a big one. I was surprised to see slime is a really big one.
Jillian Leslie 12:56
My daughter has bought slime on Etsy. So, yes.
Nancy Badillo 13:00
I mean it’s just incredible. I did research on it because I kept doing research on keywords for my YouTube channel, and slime keep coming up. I’m like, “What?” So then I went to Etsy and I did market research. It was like what we’re talking about.
I started typing in slime. I actually did a video on this on my YouTube channel. And I found like a whole bunch of stories. I only feature six of them, I think, on the video but I found a whole bunch of stores that sells slime. Some store had like over 5,000 sales with like 20 products.
And I thought, “Oh my god.” Like if I was younger maybe. And then, I even started experimenting with slime just to see maybe I could go into that market a little bit. But I definitely will say slime if you’re younger, or if you like it. Almost like your daughter.
Jewelry is another one. Weddings are really big. Another one that’s really interesting. And I started selling them into my store because I saw someone else doing it. Banners. Like wedding banners that you make and people could stand in front of them.
I actually started creating those just recently and had a good sales from it. So, that was another one.
Jillian Leslie 14:14
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Okay. I mean Etsy is a big platform. There are, I don’t know, a million sellers on Etsy. How do I get my store found? And do I have to pay to do it?
Nancy Badillo 16:37
I say yes and no. If you are in a competitive niche, and there’s a lot of people selling similar or kind of the same items like yourself, it’s going to be really hard for you to be found organically. There’s something called the Etsy listing score. How that works is when you upload a new item, you get a neutral score. So you get placement in the first page of Etsy.
And based on how people interact with that particular listing, I don’t know for how long they leave it there, I would say maybe under 30 days, but based on how people interact with that listing, based on people clicking on it and buying, not just clicking, but just clicking and buying, they do a listing score.
And if you rank really well, like if you create something that is absolutely, just for some reason, trending and people are clicking on it and buying it, you will stay on the first page of Etsy.
However, if your listing didn’t get any clicks, or likes, or you’re not showing it to the right people because you’re not using the right tags, you’re not showing it to your target audience. You’re just showing it to everybody and anybody. So you’re getting a lot of views but your conversions are very very low, what happens is that affects your listing, how you rank on Etsy search results.
Eventually, Etsy will say, “Well, no one’s really buying this listing. No one’s really interacting with it. Let’s push it down on the search engine.” So if that happens, because maybe you didn’t have great photos, maybe you weren’t targeting the right target audience, maybe you didn’t do proper SEO with the targeting.
When that happens, you are almost obligated in a way to do Etsy promoted listings. If not, then you’re obligated to find another resource like another platform. Whether it’s Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, to drive to others organic organically.
Jillian Leslie 18:41
Do you pay to promote your listings on Etsy?
Nancy Badillo 18:45
Yes, I do.
Jillian Leslie 18:47
How much does it cost?
Nancy Badillo 18:49
It depends on the actual keyword that you’re going after. There’s a key word extension that I recommend everyone to download.
Jillian Leslie 19:00
What’s it called?
Nancy Badillo 19:01
It’s called Everywhere Keywords. When you download that, it’s to Chrome.
Jillian Leslie 19:08
Isn’t it Keywords Everywhere?
Nancy Badillo 19:10
Oh, Keywords Everywhere, I’m sorry.
Jillian Leslie 19:11
It’s okay.
Nancy Badillo 19:12
So when you download it, it’s an extension that’s going to let you view when you go to Etsy search results, you’re able to view the cost per click for a particular keyword that you’re looking for.
So if you want to use, let’s say, rustic wedding signs. And you type that keyword in the search box on Etsy, on the homepage, on the top where the extension is, it will tell you, “Oh, this keyword is 54 cents a click.”
Therefore, the cost for that particular keyword if you want to rank for it on the first page of Etsy, is 54 cents per click. Now Etsy allows you to adjust the bid. So you’re able to say, “Okay. I don’t want to pay 54 cents. I want to pay 15 cents per click.”
Now, the disadvantage of doing that is that if you are already in a competitive market, selling something very competitive and saturated, and you are paying less than what other people are paying, 54. Etsy is there to make money. They’re going to prioritize the people that are paying the highest cost per click versus the people that are paying lower cost per click.
That’s the best way to find out how much something costs if you’re doing research on a specific keyword that you want to rank for.
My biggest advice is that if you are in a saturated market, then you almost have to pay whatever the price is. However, if you’re not in a saturated market, you might get away with not even have to run any ads because you could probably rank organically in the first page.
Jillian Leslie 20:48
Got it. Okay. As an Etsy seller, do you feel like you should just focus on Etsy? Should you you set up a blog? Should you also have a Shopify store? Should you be selling on Amazon as well? What are your thoughts on that?
Nancy Badillo 21:08
I think that a lot of Etsy sellers burn themselves out because they’re stretching everywhere so much. I think the best thing that you could do as a new Etsy seller, or even if you’re a season Etsy seller, is to always track your metrics. Etsy gives you great analytics.
If you go to your Etsy analytics dashboard, you’re able to see which platform drives the most traffic to your store. So if you go in there, you see that out of Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and say Twitter, they say Twitter’s the highest one.
What you want to do is to grow a brand. You still want to use all the platforms. You still want to have a Facebook page because there are people that use Facebook versus Twitter. You still want to have a Pinterest. You still want to have an Instagram, all the major ones.
But what you want to do is when you go to Facebook, you post, maybe spend like five minutes. Okay, get out of it. Go to Instagram, post, maybe check your your messages, notifications. Try to build some type of community and move on to the next one.
But the one that drives you the most traffic, let’s say Twitter, that’s the one that you want to spend a little bit more time on. That’s the one that you might want to run an ad and test it out. That’s the one that you want to build a stronger community.
You want to keep all of it just for brand purposes but that’s the one that you’re going to perform more energy on. That’s for social media. Now, for blogging, or having Shopify. I personally think a blog is the best platform, even though Shopify is more user friendly. I understand if somebody uses Shopify because of that, but having a blog on the side, or even Shopify gives you more leverage than Etsy to drive people.
Jillian Leslie 22:55
What do you mean by that?
Nancy Badillo 22:56
You could drive people and collect emails. Etsy makes it really impossible to do that. You could grow your email list that you could remarket them. Remarket them new products or services that you have later on.
On top of that, you have a section where is your e commerce store, so you could actually sell from your actual blog, or you could send them to your Etsy shop if you like as well. But I will recommend also having the eCommerce section on your blog.
The coolest thing is that you’ll be able to do research on keywords. Let’s say I’ll keep the wedding theme. If you’re in the wedding theme, you can say the top best wedding trends for 2020. You create an article and you put this article filled with Etsy links or filled with your eCommerce products. And now, you’re driving additional traffic to that particular article and you might have new customers as well.
Jillian Leslie 23:51
So I have to say I agree with you. We always recommend people with Etsy shops also have a blog because you can own your blog and your Etsy shop can be taken away from you. I’ve talked to too many people who’ve had their Etsy shops closed down.
I always say you want your own space, your own little real estate on the internet that you own that nobody can mess with.
Nancy Badillo 24:17
Exactly, and you have more control too what you can do with it as well.
Jillian Leslie 24:20
And with MiloTree, I have to just do a little plug here, you can use your pop up on Etsy. We created an Etsy pop up where you install it on your blog and it will pop up and it will say shop my Etsy store. And it will link to your Etsy shop so that you can drive sales to that.
And then you could also use the MiloTree pop ups to collect email addresses. So you can kind of keep targeting your visitors to your blog and sending them where you want to send them. Or kind of funnel them into doing the things that you would want them to do.
Nancy Badillo 24:57
Exactly. Exactly.
Jillian Leslie 25:00
That’s interesting. Let’s talk about optimizing your… I know keywords or tags on Etsy are really important. Can you talk about that and what the difference is? Or how you optimize your listings?
Nancy Badillo 25:14
Yes, I can. So it’s very important to understand and study up SEO. It’s going to help you get more visibility. It’s going to help you attract the right audience if done correctly. And of course, because you’re attracting the right audience they are looking for your products with an intent to buy. That is also going to increase your conversions.
You definitely would need to learn. I think the most important one is targeting your audience. A lot of people, when I do Etsy shop critiques or my freelance clients when I look over their Etsy store, they don’t have it optimized, they don’t have the right tags.
I always use this example. If they sell woman running shoes, they have the word shoes only. And what happens when you use broad terms like that, usually broad terms, one, they’re very competitive to compete. You’ll see 600,000 other listings that have the same keyword.
Secondly, you’re not targeting a target audience because now you’re showing your listing to anybody and everybody that types in the word shoes when in reality you only sell woman running shoes for women. So you definitely want to focus on using, I always tell people longtail keywords, those really help you drive in people that are searching for your products that are more prone to buy from you.
Your search volume will be less. So when you start looking at your Etsy stats, and you do longtail keywords, you’ll start noticing that your views are less. However, the quality of people are better so your conversions will be a lot higher.
Because if I’m looking for running shoes, and I’m a woman, I’m going to type in a woman’s running shoes. Versus, if I type in shoes, I’m going to get everything. I’m going to get boots. I’m going to get kid shoes. And I’m going to just be like, “Okay. This is not what I’m looking for.” I don’t want to look at it like that from the perspective of the buyer.
Jillian Leslie 27:23
What’s interesting is it seems like your theme is niche. Be in a niche. Know your niche. Target your niche. Those long tail keywords are those specific keywords. So you really want to understand your audience, serve your audience. All your products should be focused on this specific audience and to kind of build organically from there.
Nancy Badillo 27:46
Exactly. Let me back up a little bit more. If you’re a beginnerin Etsy. You’re like, “Well, I have no idea who is my target audience.” What I always tell people is what you do is you create your products, you do research, try to find keywords that describe what you sell.
And in a month or so, like in a month or two months, collect all the data. You’ll be able to see the demographics. Who’s clicking on your links? And I highly recommend connecting your Etsy store to Google Analytics. You actually could do that. A lot of people don’t know that. I have a video on it also my YouTube where I go step by step.
Etsy only shows you a certain amount of data. They don’t show you the whole picture. Google Analytics will. Once you start collecting data, then it’s your job as an Etsy seller to start understanding it, to start refining it.
You’re not going to get it right away. You’re going to start fixing it little by little trying to identify who is your ideal customer. And once you start identifying who’s your ideal customer, it will get easier when you are doing research for your keywords because now you have a better understanding.
However, some things are very simple to understand. If you are selling wedding stuff, well, your ideal customers are woman that is getting married, probably within the next six months or a year. So that’s easier to identify. You could kind of start with those little points.
And then, as you collect data within 30,60, or even 90 days sometimes depending on how much traffic you drive, then you could refine it and keep refining it and keep refining it until you found who is your target customer. Like the ideal person that looks for your products with an intent to buy right there and then when they find it.
And then once you do that and you kind of have like an overall of who is your ideal customer, the next steps are optimizing your store completely, which means when I say that is making sure that you are understanding how to do a title correctly by putting your main keyword in the beginning of your title.
How to do your listing description correctly, which means how to add your meta description in the first 155 characters of your listing description. How to include the main keyword that you added on your title, also on your meta description.
And then on top of that on your listing description, adding the additional tags. You get 13 tags that you can use for that particular listing. Adding those tags in your listing description so you can optimize your listing.
When the search engine, whether it’s Google, Etsy, or any other large search engine, find these keywords, you actually rank higher in the search results.
Jillian Leslie 30:42
Interesting. This hard question, but how many products should you have in your shop?
Nancy Badillo 30:52
It’s hard because sometimes people have products that they can really recreate so much of it. I would say a good number is 50 products.
Jillian Leslie 31:01
Fifty products, okay.
Nancy Badillo 31:02
Fifty products. And if you are in a hard niche that you can create more products for whatever reason, what you could do is duplicate the listing but change everything else.
Like you will take whatever listing, if you have a wedding dress that you’re selling, you duplicate that listing, change the title, change the tags, change the listing description. It’s the same dress, but you’re now using more keywords to target more people. If you do that, like five per listing, and you only have five items now you got 25 items.
Jillian Leslie 31:33
But here’s the thing, if somebody goes to your shop, then is it weird that they’re going to see the same wedding dress just described differently?
Nancy Badillo 31:39
Yeah, it could be weird, but it’s just a method that you could do to increase it. But I see what you’re saying. It can be weird. Now, another technique you could do if you don’t want to do that is that if you sell like me principles, and then you have a wedding sign that you created with pink flowers, you could recreate the whole sign but make it with red flowers and recreate it again and make it blue flowers. And now you have three different combinations.
They look different. More keywords. And more tags, obviously. And then more traffic comes to your store. And that’s an easier way to kind of double your inventory without having to come up with a whole new line of whatever you want to make.
Jillian Leslie 32:20
Got it. For Etsy sellers, they’re typically creators creating products, how much time do you recommend they spend creating? And how much time do you recommend they spend marketing?
Nancy Badillo 32:37
I would say 60% and 40%. I think I’m 60% making the products and 40% promoting. I think other people might argue and say promoting more, but I think that you kind of need to stay in your lane and do what you love to do.
If you’re new Etsy Seller and you are trying to figure out, not only now you have to create your products but you have to figure out how to do SEO, how to market yourself and other stuff. It could become quite overwhelming. So I think that if you have a marketing strategy, and you say, “Okay. I’m going to do more of my products of what I like to do, and I’m going to do 40% of promoting and focusing on that one platform that we talked earlier, that is driving me the most traffic.”
I think that’s the easiest way to start without feeling so overwhelmed, without trying to figure out every platform, without jumping from Etsy to Shopify to here, without giving that one opportunity of growing a shop. Because now your attention span is everywhere. And that actually hinders you as an Etsy Seller, I believe,
Jillian Leslie 33:39
I totally agree. I totally agree. Okay. Now, what tools, we talked about Keywords Everywhere, what other specific tools do you think Etsy sellers should be using or would benefit from?
Nancy Badillo 33:52
I would say, I guess it’s not a tool. Well, kind of a tool. Etsy Promoted Listings. If you know that you are in a saturated market, Etsy Promoted Listings will do wonders for you. Especially if you have amazing photos, amazing products because you get more eyes in your store. So it’s really important to do Etsy Promoted Listings.
Jillian Leslie 34:14
And these are the paid listings?
Nancy Badillo 34:16
Yes, the paid listings. Exactly.
Jillian Leslie 34:17
Okay. Got it.
Nancy Badillo 34:19
I also recommend doing Facebook Carousel ads. They’re really nice because you could add up to 10 products in one actual ad. If you don’t have a large budget, and you’re just starting, you just want to spend like $60 a month and you don’t want to do like five different ads, that’s the quickest way to add 10 different items in one ad and put it up.
Jillian Leslie 34:45
Okay, that’s great. That’s nice.
Nancy Badillo 34:47
And then, I will say also, another tool which we talked a little bit about, is Google Analytics. If you don’t understand how well your store is performing, if you don’t know understand what are your top list and what are your bottom list, you’re not able to grow your store or grow to the next level, if you really don’t understand the ins and outs of your business.
Jillian Leslie 35:11
Now, are you also selling your stuff on Amazon?
Nancy Badillo 35:15
Yes, I am.
Jillian Leslie 35:16
Could you just speak to that briefly?
Nancy Badillo 35:19
Well, for Amazon right now, I have it paused. Only because I was going through some stuff with my husband’s health. So I had to like pause some stuff. But Amazon is very similar. If you are really looking to blogging, Amazon, Pinterest, all these different platforms, it’s all about having a great photo. Product presentation station is really important.
I think with Amazon, what I learned is that your product presentation kind of has to be better than your actual product, if that makes any sense. It’s not necessarily that when the person gets the product, they’re going to be disappointed.
I guess the best way I could explain that. It’s almost like when you go to Amazon, and you find something. Let’s say you see a sweater that you like. And you’re like, “Oh my God, it’s so pretty. I want to buy it.” You weren’t intentionally looking for that but you fell in love with the product presentation of how it looks. Maybe it has a cute girl modeling the shirt or something, and you’re like, “Oh, my God, it will look so great on me.”
And then you order the shirt or the sweater, you get at home, and then you open the package and you try it on and you’re like, “Oh, it don’t look that great on me.” It doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re just pointing at the product. You’re getting exactly what you saw. It’s just that the product presentation of it was so great that it compelled you to click and buy.
So I think that’s the one thing I learned a lot with Amazon that has helped me with Etsy. And Etsy also did a survey in 2018. And they said 90% of people purchase, not because of the price, not because of shipping, not because of the great listing description, it was mainly because of the photo.
It’s really important to have a photo that is very very great and it shows your product. So that’s one. Having additional photos as well, not just having one photo. And then also, making sure that you build credibility with customers with the listing description. Making sure that everything and anything they need to know about this particular listing is there.
You’re going to get the random people that will still message you and say, “Hey, when do you ship?” and you have it there. Well, you know, that’s just a given. But having that it’s going to help you.
You can look at it this way: The SEO is how they follow you. The photo makes them want to click. And then the listing description makes them want to go ahead and buy from you.
Jillian Leslie 37:42
They feel safe.
Nancy Badillo 37:43
Exactly.
Jillian Leslie 37:44
I think that is such a great way to talk about it. And now, do you think that Etsy sellers should also be on Amazon or be selling on Shopify or anything like that?
Nancy Badillo 37:59
I think, no. I don’t think Amazon is for everyone. I think that if you are an Etsy seller, I think the blog way is the best way.
Jillian Leslie 38:08
Okay, so set up your blog so that you can be writing articles and doing roundups and linking to your shop and collecting email addresses.
Nancy Badillo 38:16
Exactly. Because Amazon is kind of the same thing. You can collect emails. They have the pros and cons, obviously, from Etsy and Amazon, but it’s kind of similar. And with a blog you have so much flexibility. It can give you so much more.
Jillian Leslie 38:30
Right. I agree. I agree. Okay. Tell me about what you’re most excited about in your own business right now.
Nancy Badillo 38:37
I think what I’m excited about is keep building my YouTube presence. I just started a year and a half ago, I’m almost at 8000 followers. I am in a smaller niche. So it will take a little bit more time to grow. But I’m okay with that because I understand that.
And also, I should be done by the end of this month. My Pinterest online course should be done. I’m really excited about that, where I teach, not only Etsy sellers but if you have a Shopify store, if you’re a small business owner, how to drive traffic from Pinterest to your business using Pinterest.
Jillian Leslie 39:12
Cool. First of all, do you have any parting advice for people who are wanting to jump into selling online?
Nancy Badillo 39:22
Yes, I do. Yeah. I think the best advice I can give anyone from just talking to so many Etsy sellers is that there’s no instant gratification with Etsy or any other business. You get what you put in. I think that you need to take it, and I’ll give a little bit more on this, you need to take it one day at a time.
Maybe write a list of things to do. I don’t believe in the to do list. I believe in creating a list to do, making myself do the list within the next 30 days, if I can do them, and prioritizing that list. So saying, “Okay. These are all the things I need to do for August.”
And then, what are the most important things I need to do, and committing to doing them because we also self sabotage ourselves. We overthink it. We say, “Okay. We’re not smart enough or not. Or you, you know, you supposed to do that one thing, you know, fix your SEO, but you keep playing around with social media, you keep doing other stuff.
If you have this massive list of things you’re supposed to do, prioritize them, and then do like some sort of blocking time for it. Don’t get so overwhelmed with learning. It takes time to learn Etsy. It takes time to learn SEO. Especially if this is your first time doing it.
You’re not gonna know how to do everything all at once. The best way to learn is through experience. I could tell you ’till I’m blue, if you do this, this, and this, it will help you but until you do it, that’s when you start seeing the results and start understanding and plugging in the “Okay, this is what she meant. Oh, I see it now.”
So it’s just having patience, not getting overwhelmed. Making sure that once you do that one thing, pat yourself on the shoulder and say, “Okay, I did that.” There’s no instant gratification.
I think the last one is start treating Etsy like a real business. I feel like a lot of people think because Etsy is so easy to join, and you don’t really need that much to join, under hundred dollars I think you should be fine to join an Etsy store or even less than that, if you can create your own banners and stuff like that.
They don’t treat it as a real business. They don’t have a photo of themselves. They don’t have the about me section filled out. They don’t have a banner or their photos. They’re not taking the time of creating great, amazing photos.
Just treating it as a real business and making sure that you do everything that Etsy recommends you. Make sure you do it. They have great resources. If you go to the Etsy Seller’s Handbook, which is incredible. All the information you get there alone. It took me a long time to figure out that they have that massive resource.
It just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Now, I think that they also realize that they need to give that to Etsy Sellers, but a lot of people don’t read it.
Jillian Leslie 42:08
Oh, that is wonderful. Okay, Nancy, how can people reach out to you?
Nancy Badillo 42:14
I think the best way is going to my blog at NancyBadillo.com
Jillian Leslie 42:17
Can you spell it?
Nancy Badillo 42:19
Yes. It’s N-a-n-c-y-b-a-d-i-l-l-o.com. And then I have all my social media platforms there and where I could be reached as well.
Jillian Leslie 42:30
Awesome. Well, Nancy, I have to say, this has been wonderful. I have learned so much. Wat I what I really like is your information is easy to follow. I mean it’s not rocket science. It’s you do put one foot in front of the other and you could build a successful Etsy shop.
Nancy Badillo 42:49
Oh, thank you. I really appreciate you having me on the show Jillian.
Jillian Leslie 42:52
I hope you guys liked that episode. What I see over and over again is building online businesses takes time, effort, stick-tuitivenes,s and learning, and testing. That’s kind of the equation.
Oh, and one last thing before I go, we are adding Sparkles to your MiloTree pop up just to give it a little extra glitz and glam. If you would like to test it for us, please reach out to me at Jillian@MiloTree.com. If you have not yet tried a MiloTree pop up on your site, head over to MiloTree.com and sign up today. And I will see you here again next week.
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