Matt is a Man with a (Holiday Marketing) Plan

September 11, 2008 at 5:58 pm · Filed under Marketing, SEO · By GreenMamba

Admin Matt delivered on his promise to share Etsy’s comprehensive 2008 Holiday Marketing Plan with the members of Etsy. And, what a plan it is!

From the Storque article:

Friends, the holidays are upon us, and for the last several weeks we have been working hard to make sure that we are doing whatever it takes to make the season a success for us all.  My role, specifically, is to bring more buyers here. What follows is a general look at the seven major areas of my holiday marketing plan. 

1. SEO and SEM

Etsy’s most significant marketing investment this holiday season will be in search marketing.  Search marketing comprises both Search Engine Optimization (“SEO”) and Search Engine Marketing (“SEM”).

SEO: Wikipedia describes SEO, or Search Engine Optimization as the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results for targeted keywords. With our new CTO, Chad Dickerson, and the help of a firm specialized in SEO techniques, we hope to increase the volume of organic traffic to Etsy from external search engines.  There are best practices that Etsy needs to adopt — simple things like appropriate descriptive title tags for all relevant pages —  to maximize this opportunity and ensure that search traffic is growing as fast as direct traffic and referral traffic. These changes will be implemented into the site on an ongoing basis.

SEM: Search Engine Marketing refers to buying paid search listings (e.g. “sponsored links”) on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other important search sites. We will be working with an outside firm specializing in search marketing to manage these buys and to measure their effectiveness.  While it’s always difficult to predict user behavior on search sites, a well managed SEM effort could be a very important driver of traffic to Etsy. Click here to learn more about SEM.

2. PRINT ADVERTISING

While the bulk of our advertising spending will be on search marketing, we think we can bolster brand awareness by advertising in a number of highly-targeted, socially-aware publications and their related websites. We are still determining where all the ads will be placed, but we will be running full-page ads in several magazines that are positioned well to reach potential Etsy buyers this holiday season. These ads will not be part of the CO-OP advertising program.

3. MEDIA OUTREACH

We spend a lot of time developing our messaging, pitching to the media and working with reporters and publishers on stories and product requests for the holiday season. We also take great care planning and producing beautiful, handmade press kits. Our new press kit is a unique handmade book full of gorgeous images of Etsy products and sellers. We truly believe in taking a very personal and thoughtful approach to pitching the media, and continue to realize relatively good success as a result of these efforts.   To view some of the press we have already received, please visit http://press.etsy.com and our monthly press report here.

4. IMPROVED SYNDICATION TOOLS

For the past few months, Jared has been developing something we have been calling the Super Etsy Mini. Like its little sister, the EtsyMini (see how-to use the EtsyMini), the SuperEtsyMini allows you to embed Etsy products on external sites. Now, however, it is purely customizable. It can pull from your listings, a specific section of your shop, a specific tag, the front page, your favorites, any showcase, gift guides, treasuries, or any custom collection of product you wish. Furthermore, it will now display these products in a variety of ways: floating through space like the Time Machine, as a slide show, or in a grid. The applications (team tags, affiliate programs etc) are really quite limitless, and we are excited to unveil it to you soon.

Furthermore, we will be adding expanded resources, downloads, widgets, and important business and marketing information into the Promote section of Your Etsy, so we can help you better promote and improve your own shops and businesses.

5. EMAIL MARKETING

We realize that we are not effectively using email to drive new and returning visitors to Etsy. We are planning many changes, but they will not be in place before the holidays. That said, there are a number of smaller but still very important improvements slated to launch pre-holidays. 

6. CONTESTS, PROMOTIONS, AND EVENTS

Contests/Promotions:

• Halloween:  We’re teaming up with Instructibles.com, Makezine.com and many others to bring you a fun challenge and spread the spooky spirit this Halloween. Whether you’re a crafty costume maker, party decorating diva, or a casual trick-or-treater, there will be lots of ways to get involved and lots of ways to win. Details to follow soon.
• NASA and Etsy SpaceCraft Contest: We are currently planning an exciting late Fall promotion with NASA. (Yes, the space agency.) I am not yet permitted to go into too many details, but I think this promotion will help generate a good deal of media attention and open Etsy to many new audiences. We will keep you updated.
• Holiday Sweepstakes:  One buyer-focused sweepstakes is currently in the planning stages for November/December.  The details are not yet confirmed.   

Upcoming Events:

We will be representing Etsy at various holiday events around the country. Details will be announced in the Storque as we get closer to the holidays. One of them, about which I am particularly excited, is New York Magazine’s Best Bets shopping event in New York City.

7. LIMITED TEST WITH NPR

We are also considering  experimenting with sponsoring public radio in selected American markets where Etsy has strong penetration.   The goal of such spots would be to drive brand awareness of Etsy.com.

——————

Please understand, this post is really just an overview of the marketing side of things here at Etsy. We are undertaking a great deal of work in all other areas of the site as well: product design, development, merchandising, programming, etc.  I also want you to please realize that not all the details are finalized at this point. Some aspects of this plan are subject to change, and may do so. 

To further discuss this topic, please see the associated Forum thread.

Comments (9)

Addressing the Issue of Resellers on Etsy

September 11, 2008 at 2:44 pm · Filed under Listings, Miscellaneous, Site Terms, Site Use · By GreenMamba

Today admin Matt, together with the Community and Customer Care Teams published an article in the Storque addressing the very hot topic of resellers on Etsy. It outlines the company’s plan for combatting the influx of infringing shops and goods, which will focus on the point-of-entry - or shop set-up - stage.

Dear Etsians,

With the exception of properly tagged commercial supplies and vintage, Etsy does not permit the reselling of items not made by the seller (see the DO’s and DON’Ts on Selling). We take this rule very seriously, and we share your frustrations when we see resellers intent on listing here. We know that this has been a growing concern of late, and we are addressing it as such.

So, what are we doing?

Creating Measures at the Time of Shop Creation and Product Listing
To a large extent, we created this issue for ourselves by defining in great detail what is and is not permitted for sale on the site, but at the same time establishing few, if any, barriers to entry to setting up a shop on Etsy (simply put a credit card on file). There is no doubt that more emphasis needs to be placed at the first point of contact with new sellers. Our focus must be on keeping these products from ever reaching the site. To this end, we have created an internal team that is focusing on developing and building these safeguards, as well as clarifying and highlighting our policies to new sellers who very well may just be confused. We have been following the many good ideas that have been raised in the forums and sent to community@etsy.com, and we are including them in our planning. We appreciate your input, and ask that you continue to share with us.

This will take some time. So…

In The Mean Time
We have also more than doubled the number of our employees who are trained to properly investigate and remove those in violation. The expanded team is already at work. Furthermore, we have taken steps to make sure that banned resellers are blocked from creating new accounts.

Flagging:
A far more robust flagging system is also already underway and will be implemented in the weeks to come. We are confident that it will allow us to handle flagged items and moderation more quickly and succinctly.

We do ask that you do not use the forums as a place to call out members as resellers (see the Community DO’s and DON’Ts). Oftentimes, these individuals are simply confused. Etsy admin need to treat each and every case (which often involve both buyers and sellers) as a private matter. Furthermore, many cases are not nearly as cut and dry as they may seem at first glance. This sometimes means that shops will not always be removed as quickly as we all would like.

Please continue to flag items that you feel do not belong on Etsy. We do fully investigate every flag, and this takes some time. I know this can be frustrating when it seems that there is inaction on the part of our Content Team, but we assure you that flagging does work. Can it be improved? Yes. Are we improving? Yes.

All of these steps are just the beginning. We will continue to work tirelessly to maintain the integrity of our marketplace. Tomorrow September 12, the Chatt with Matt will be on this subject. Please join us in the Treehouse room of the Virtual Labs at 1pm Eastern time. In anticipation of this discussion, we have closed commenting on this article so we can follow all your comments and suggestions in this forum thread

Comments (3)

New Sub-subcategory: Supplies>>Beads>>Polymer Clay

September 3, 2008 at 8:45 pm · Filed under Categories, Forums, Miscellaneous · By GreenMamba

A plea from a frustrated polymer clay artist brought a lightning fast admin response and resulted in a new sub-subcategory under Supplies. See this thread for details.

Editorial comment follows:

I’m going to take this opportunity to ‘call out’ admin HeyMichelle. She entered the fora this evening and has been super-busy answering questions and moving relevant threads into Ideas from other sections, to give them the exposure they deserve.

So, !Kudos Michelle! for a job very, very well done! Your efforts have not gone unnoticed and are much appreciated!

Comments (5)

New Etsy Employee

September 2, 2008 at 5:02 pm · Filed under Etsy Staff · By JB

Source: This Storque article

Etsy has a new hire on the product team, named Sean Flannagan. Etsy username sean11.
Sean Flannagan graduated from the New School in New York and previous to working for Etsy, was associate web director at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan.
Source: http://deeplinking.net/about/

Comments (2)