Holiday Marketing for Handmade Businesses

Whether you’re one of those people who put up their Christmas tree on Halloween night, or you wait until December, as a Handmade Business owner there’s no denying that the holidays are here. Let’s make sure your holiday marketing strategy is ready to bring in the bucks!

You may be in the midst of making inventory, but don’t forget your holiday marketing strategies! 

We’ve been talking about marketing for the holidays for a while now, but this week is the time to put the finishing touches on your plans, especially your social media holiday marketing.

Time to put “the star on the tree”, as they say. (Do they say that? If not, they should!)

Disclosure: some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Remember the Purpose of Social Media Marketing

Your marketing plans most likely have several “branches”. You may have email marketing, social media, and maybe an “in person” marketing strategy for craft and holiday fairs.

Each serves a specific purpose, so let’s review the purpose of social media marketing:

• Drives traffic to your website (or Etsy shop, or Facebook shop)
• Builds “brand recognition”
• Builds community 
• Builds trust

Notice that “converts sales” is not in this list!

While you may in fact make some sales through social media marketing, this is not the primary purpose. What it will do is bring potential customers to your website or sales pages, and then those pages should be designed to close the sale.

Let’s look into how your social media marketing will help your business bloom this holiday season!

Drive Traffic to Your Online Shop with Your Holiday Marketing

Part of your social media marketing strategy for the holidays is to get people to your shop. 

To do this, your posts must be direct. TELL your followers to visit your shop!

For example, you may post a new holiday product you just created. In the caption, once you describe the product, put a “call to action” (CTA), which could say, “Go to the link in my bio to shop now.” 

Of course, make sure you have a link in your bio! One of my favorite scheduling tools, Later, does this beautifully. It allows you to assign a specific link to each post on Instagram.

If you’re posting on Facebook, you can put the link to that product right in the caption.

***SPECIAL REPORT****

We interrupt this blog post for breaking news – Instagram is releasing the “link” sticker in Instagram Stories to all users!

Now when you post in Stories, go to the stickers area and look for “LINK” – you can then add a link to your product in your story! 

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog post.

What is Brand Recognition and How Do You Build It?

We all know of brands that are instantly recognizable. Even small businesses – some have a style and product that tell you exactly who they are the instant you see them.

There are certain makers that I recognize as soon as I see one of their products. Why does this happen? How did they create this recognition?

• They use a color palette and fonts in their marketing that is consistent with their brand.
• They have a unique way of taking their product photos that is associated with their brand.
• Everything “matches” – their logo is on all their social media accounts, and they use the same photos, colors, fonts, tone, etc. on all their accounts and their shop.
• They post consistently on social media, so I come to expect a post from their shop on a regular basis.

This is the core of brand recognition. And you may be developing your brand right now, which is absolutely okay! But you can still be consistent on social media so your followers see you.

You know the saying, “out of sight, out of mind”, right? We want to keep that from happening!

This does NOT mean that you need to post a lot! Pick a schedule you can manage. I always recommend using a scheduling app such as Later, as it makes your life soooo much easier.

But even then, if you can do three posts a week, then pick three days and post on them every single week. 

I do believe frequency will help, but the quality of your posts is most important. So if you have the choice of posting 7 sort of “okay” posts or 3 great ones, go for the 3 great ones!

What Makes a Great Post?

While we’re here, let’s talk about this a bit!

Take some time to scroll on Instagram, and notice what posts make you stop and engage.

Usually, the photos and videos are really interesting. They are well-lit, maybe styled in a pleasing way, and feature a subject that is appealing to you.

These are the same elements that will make your followers stop and engage with your posts.

In general, you want to entertain, engage, or educate your followers. How you do this is unique to you and your brand!

What posts have your followers responded to in the past? Do more of those! 

Try to include videos, especially Reels, since Instagram is definitely favoring them at the moment. 

Building Community Through Social Media

I think for handmade businesses, community is a much larger piece of the marketing pie. There is a certain type of person that prefers to buy from handmade sellers. 

As a seller, you can create and build this community by asking questions in your posts, and taking the time to respond to comments.

You can also build an email list! If you haven’t started one yet, now is the perfect time. In that email list you can share information with your list that will let them feel as if they are part of a special group.

(And email lists are one of the best ways to make sales, so the sooner you start building one, the better!)

Earning Trust is The Key to Success Online

Building trust is one of the most important parts of building a successful business online. If you think like a buyer, then think about how you need to decide to give a stranger your money online, and then wait to receive a purchase in the mail!

And if you’re a small business, that trust is hard to achieve. You don’t have thousands of satisfied customers (yet) to say how great you are. You’re not a big name brand that’s instantly recognizable.

By consistently posting on social media, answering questions, showing your products and just showing up, you are continually building that trust with those that follow you.

As a buye,r if I see a business that I’ve never seen before, I search them up on Google. And then I read the comments on their posts! If I see they’re engaging with followers, that they have a presence online and that there are not a lot of complaints about them, I’m much more likely to purchase from them.

Holiday Marketing for Handmade Businesses – Top Tips for Social Media

Take some time this week to review your social media marketing strategy for the rest of this year. Make sure you have a consistent posting schedule that hopefully includes engaging posts that will capture your followers’ attention.

Make sure you have links to your products set up, hopefully in a Link In Bio format that makes it easy for followers to get to your website.

Once you get your social media marketing strategy in place, it’s time to fill those orders and hopefully have the best holiday sales season yet! 

And if you’re looking for help with creating images for your social media, check out my Clear Cut Canva course. I’ve got all you need to use Canva for creating gorgeous designs for your business.