The Golden Rule of Digital Marketing by James Hanway

The Golden Rule of Digital Marketing

By: James Hanway of After August Co

In the age of social media and social media marketing there is a lot of talk and theories about proper protocol (or lack thereof). There are some who enlist blasting would-be customers with a timed tactical strike of media messaging; a mind numbing assault of keywords and links. Word search algorithms and preference driven messages tailored to individual click history have taken over traditional market research and consumer analytics. It is truly a strange and often annoying world in which we exist online today, and it may seem difficult and daunting to compete for exposure. 

When we started our small family business in the Spring of 2019 we had only a vision of an aesthetic and my wife's artistic talent. I come from a sales and marketing background in the Info-Tech sector with Xerox so naturally the online business side of our two person operation would be mine to handle. At its inception our business was less than a framework. We knew what we wanted to sell (well at least part of the what - our products and services have grown and changed with us), but we had no idea how to sell or market anything online. 

The first step after the what was very naturally the where. A digital marketplace was very important to us starting out (and still is!) because it provided a lot of the framework which we hadn't the resources to build ourselves. Our answer became Etsy. We did the research and the pros out-weighed the cons by a decent margin. As you may have heard someone complain about if you are an aspiring artisan; there are fees. There are listing fees and sales fees and taxes, but as long as you design your business model with everything in mind, you can still be successful. This is not to say that we got it right the first time (far from it). In fact we have had to evaluate and manage and change our pricing and shipping rates (as well as our expectations) several times over until we became more or less satisfied with the end result - i.e. we are not losing money anymore. The point is, these are things that CAN and are meant to be changed; we did so to enable ourselves to grow in the marketplace. The most important piece of information when picking a digital marketplace in which to reside is that you have done the research and found something that makes sense to YOU and your business. The fee schedules are a necessary evil; they exist to keep the infrastructure in place. We have found Etsy to be the most effective infrastructure for our business so we remain loyal fans of their marketplace. 

With the what, and where under consideration the next obvious point of interest is the who. Who will we market our small business to? Who do we think will be our target audience and how to we communicate effectively across not only the Etsy marketplace but also the broader social media networks? To us this became a much more daunting task than the aforementioned two. Although we are both thirty-somethings with smart phones we also have 3 kids, and social media has lost much of its luster it had in the early 2000's when we were in prime positions for downtime (for us it was AIM or AOL Instant Messenger that was the preeminent online forum and main mode of communication in our 'heyday'). So, it was time for a little social media exploration alongside our Etsy tinkering. At first creating a Facebook page and an Instagram Account seemed like good first steps, so we worked on those first. Having linked the two, I began looking around at things like Pinterest and Reddit for helpful ideas and found that Reddit in particular is a great repository for knowledge on all sorts of topics - including Etsy and online marketing (browse at your own risk though - there are a lot of ridiculous and otherwise time evaporating nooks and crannies to Reddit). The last network we joined was Twitter. Twitter has also been a very useful resource for connecting with other artists and for overall networking. 

In terms of a social media 'strategy' I have centered on one in particular: "social media market to others as you would have others social media market to you" - also known as the golden rule of online marketing (I have no idea if this is actually a thing, but it sounds good and vaguely familiar right?). When we have something to post about we generally post about it, and we try to make the most of what and when we are marketing. Timing is a thing, and posting something you want or need someone to see is important and generally requires some practice and research. When we do post something, we try to  make it applicable or interesting to our target audience, we include as many pictures as possible, and we ALWAYS include a destination link to Etsy. This last part is as crucial as the others. The entire point of social media marketing is to gain traffic or visits to our Etsy site. When we post something, we are attempting to engage our audience enough to WANT to come visit us. Basically, the 'moral' or 'ethics' to the story is; don't be a social media menace. When posting something think it through, craft it in a way to create desire or share information, and do it in a way that is not obnoxious or presumptuous. Finally, when we are not shamelessly plugging our own wares we make a point to visit other small businesses and promote those other artisans we relate to. Having a social media conscience is as important as having one in the physical world. No one wants to be bombarded by something they are not interested in. After all, the online small business community is still a community! It exists and survives by the energy of its constituents! 

Today we are by no means rich or influential. We do not have brand ambassadors or a little blue ticker by our names, and we have not reached the upper echelon of any social media network. We DO however have a decent sized following and we are steadily growing. We have found an online niche and we are adapting within it alongside the online market. There have been challenges which we have overcome and ideas which have been scrapped or improved upon along the way. Most importantly, through our patience (especially through the first 4 months of literally 0 sales) we have been able to allocate resources effectively and have invested in ourselves at a time in life when so many things are uncertain. This to me is the greatest accomplishment thus far - what I feel has made our small online boutique business successful. We are still here and we are growing, not because of a surprise fad or random happenstance; we survive because we have invested in ourselves, worked around the clock, and have never given up on what we have wanted most - our small business.