Etsy Artist Spotlight – Earmark Invitations

Today’s Etsy Artist Spotlight is shining on Bridgette from Earmark Invitations!  You are going to love this shop, and she has tons of tips that you won’t want to miss!

Here’s Bridgette….

What inspires you?

Pretty much everything! Nature, Friends, Family, Colors, Travel. We can pretty much find inspiration in anything from the small and mundane to the obvious – train ride through a foreign country!

What’s the best thing about where you live?

The beach for sure! We just moved into our first home this past December and it is 2/10 mile to our private neighborhood beach, it may be a bit rocky to some, but to me it is awesome! I am so sad that summer is ending soon… I did not get to use it nearly enough!!

Is your shop a business or hobby to you?  Did you start out that way?

Business. Started out as a favor to some fellow brides and turned into my business very quickly from there. I thought to myself “I just might be able to do this for a living!” and went with it! Now here we are almost 8 years later with a full fledge invitation and stationery studio!

How do you promote your shop?

Everywhere that is Free! 🙂 Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Flickr, Forums and so forth. I talk about my company whenever I can. I never go anywhere without my business cards! Sometimes I will just leave them in random places, on airplanes, in bookstores… you never know who will be standing or sitting where you just were!

What advice would you give to new Etsy sellers?

• Keep going! Do not stop, if items are not selling than something is not working, figure it out and never look back!

• Think, rethink, and do not be afraid to make a change or two, could be as simple as the title of your product.

• PHOTOS are the most important part of your listing, make sure to put much thought into them! They are what will sell your items. Constantly make sure they are as good as they can be!

• Network each item. Typically, every time an item sells, I go and relist it, then tweet it as “sold and relisted” and sometimes I will go and put it in Facebook too. This brings in a bunch of initial views on the item and in turn gets a lot more potential buyers in your shop. You can use sites like tumblr.com and it will tweet it, blog it and facebook it for you automatically!

• Sometimes it is worth it to relist a few items each day, keeps your shop fresh in each section, keeping you on the first few pages of each search and category.

• Make sure your keywords are relevant and will come up in the most searches.

• NEVER price your items too low! I know first hand that it can scare a buyer to purchase the cheapest item, automatically, you put yourself in a lower bracket, when your item could actually be worth much more!

• Join a couple of teams. Etsy has such a wonderful selection of teams and they can be so helpful! Choose a couple and be active within them.

Could you share with us a couple Etsy shops that you love?

I could share a ton of my favorite etsy shops! ha ha! But here are a few that I love and each one is a tremendous person and seller. They are a tremendous inspiration to me.

thepeachtree.etsy.com | muyinmolly.etsy.com |  narikosnest.etsy.com |  mpaperarts.etsy.com | windsongessentials.etsy.com

Where can we find you? {shops,blogs,Twitter, Facebook…other links}

• Website: www.earmarkinvitations.com
• Etsy Shop: Earmark Invitations
• Blog: eigreetings.blogspot.com
• Twitter: twitter.com/earmark
• Facebook: facebook.com/EarmarkInvitations

Isn’t Bridgette wonderful?  You’ll love her shop and don’t forget to check out all the neat party banners!

Earmark Invitations makes me want to throw a PARTY!

Thanks Bridgette for all your helpful information!  I can see why your so successful!

~Kim