Promoting a New Store?

[Killie Howlett]

Hello.

To start off:

Well my store isn't neccissarily new, it's just i'm back from a little over a year of being off secondlife. I know everyones making mesh items now, I've purchased some full perm builders component mesh items, trying to make things, Anywho. What I'm trying to say, I'm trying to get my little store back out there. I was featured in BOSL magazine when the teens merged with the maingrid, and yadayada, I've been in fashion shows on secondlife, but my large fan base pretty much died while I was gone. So. I'm pretty much starting from scratch trying to get people to buy my items. It was easy back in the days of teengrid because our world was so small, now I'm trying to open my talent out to the large world. I'm currently poor but I do have a store in world right now along with a marketplace store. So i'm just curious on ideas to get people to actually come to my store. 

 

I have a large variety in things too.

Denim, Jackets, Purses, Accessories (most of the accessories I put in a freebee box so people can get a glimpse of stuff I make that is actually good quality), Uhm I have Mermaids, With AOs I've made, Elf ears, Lolita Dresses, Wedding gowns, 1950s dresses and poodle girl skirts... I have a large variety of items haha. 

 

I'm just curious, are there any good groups to join to promote my buisness? I'm already in Fashion Consolated but it seems no one really pays attention to buisnesses that aren't major in that group.

Oh and all of my items are under 150L. Most under 100L. So I highly doubt there is anything to argue about with being overpriced haha.

so with that being said. Are there any good ways to promote a store? Or am I really messing up by saying I used to design on teengrid and should never mention that? Haha

 

Some videos of my products: 

mermaids:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUNmi3Q45A0&list=UUTgkM8rIcRxW1icVy-IGrSQ&index=16&feature=plcp

 

 

TL;DR

Suggestions on promoting a new store? C:

 

 

[Pamela Galli]

As you can imagine, this question is asked regularly, and there are numerous good suggestions made in those threads.

[Dianelou Boucher]

Hi Killie! Nice meeting you when I dropped by your store!  Your stuff is cute, and with such reasonable prices, you should be able to do well.  As I mentioned when I saw you, the store is unfortunately a little hard to find - the LM in your profile lands shoppers outside what I assume is the sim owner's store, and ban lines kept me from flying over to your store.  I had to do a separate search for your store to actually get there.  You might want to change the LM in your picks (just stand in your store when you're adding the pick to your profile and choose that as the landing point).  You might also run a classified ad in addition to listing your store in your picks.  You're going to have a LOT of competition in classifieds for clothing, and unless you're willing to spend a lot of money getting your ad near the top, you're better off listing items that you think are unique to your store in your ad.  For instance, be sure to list your mermaid costume, poodle skirts, etc.  If someone is searching for "dresses", they'll get a million ads, but if they're specifically looking for "elf ears", you have a better chance that they'll find you.

If the sim owner has a group for that sim, find out if it's okay for you to advertise in the group, and send out notices when you have new items out or you're running a sale.  It's also a good idea to start your own subscriber group - Subscribe-o-Matic, for instance, is free for under 500 subscribers, and it's absolutely invaluable for letting customers know about what's going on in your store.  I try not to bombard my customers with notices, but I do give out a small gift once a month and send out at least one notice with pics of new items every couple of weeks.

You might also want to join one of the "weekly sale" groups as a merchant - there are several groups that promote a one day a week special sale.  It's a fairly easy way to promote your store, as everyone in the sale group will get pics of your items and a landmark to your store, and if they like what they get on sale, they're likely to come back and even join your subscriber group (it will also increase your traffic, which can't hurt).  My only warning here is not to join more than a couple of those groups, so that you're not constantly selling your items for less than full price.

Entering a hunt now and then as a merchant can also be a good way to promote your store.  There are a lot of differing opinions on whether hunts are worth the trouble as a merchant, but if you're selective about which ones you get involved in, they can also increase your sales.  Personally, I try to avoid hunts with hundreds of merchants, just because the customers in those hunts tend to "grab and go" without really looking around the store.  With Halloween coming up, you might want to find a Halloween-themed hunt, since you sell costumes, and make sure your costume items are at the front of the store during the hunt.

Most importantly, keep doing what you're doing, which is making cute, high-quality items!  Good luck!

 

[Mickey Vandeverre]

Excellent video!  great way to showcase your creations.

How much time do you have?

If you have an hour a day, set up a twitter account, and a tumblr and flickr and pinterest acct.   take a ton of pics and post them every day in all of those places,  then tweet them several times a day.  be sure to use the #secondlife tag.  tweet for others, and they will tweet for you.  if you are just starting on twitter, you need to follow everyone in SL.

make sure you use the proper LM as suggested.  people want to do it all in one click.  attach that LM to all your pic posting, make sure your store name is on all the pics you post.

link from twitter any time you are featured on blog.

If you have two hours a day, set up your own blog, and do the same with the blog.  post daily.  tweet daily.  learn how to use keyword phrases, many people shop SL using google search, and they like to do it fast, which means....

If you have three hours a day, then load a bunch of stuff to marketplace.  keep fingers crossed that it loads for you. 

Cool stuff you have.

[Porky Gorky]

I got into all that social networking and blogging last year and just found it took up too much of my time. Working full time in RL I get 2 to 3 hours a day working on SL and doing the social media thing sucked up allot of that time didn't push my sales up significantly. I found spending the majority of my time building new and fresh content resulted in the highest return for my time.

[Pamela Galli]

---

Porky Gorky wrote:

I got into all that social networking and blogging last year and just found it took up too much of my time. Working full time in RL I get 2 to 3 hours a day working on SL and doing the social media thing sucked up allot of that time didn't push my sales up significantly. I found spending the majority of my time building new and fresh content resulted in the highest return for my time.

---

Same here. I can't do everything so I have to do what is most important, and that is to update old content and build new. I tweet here and there and do a blog post every now and then, but I don't think it has as much impact as turning out fresh new content regularly and promoting those to my customer base.

 

[Mickey Vandeverre]

hi Porky!

it's a suggestion, an option.  that's why I asked how much time she had.  you also have to work it right.  some will get it, some won't. 

she said she's been gone for a year, and has to start over.  if I had to start over, that would be the quickest way, knowing what I know now.  If you have to build your customer base again, it's a way to reach quite a few with a few simple steps.

When you and I started we had some inworld tools that worked.  classified ads, labeling product for an inworld search, marketplace search, etc.  When I started, all I had to do was to set stuff out, and they arrived, and then you worked with those customers, building.  I don't think it's that easy anymore. 

I have also learned over the last year, not to rely on an SL tool, but to take it out of game, and put effort into something more reliable.

There's a lot more to making it work, than what I laid out.  But that's true in any business.  You dip your toe in the water, see if it's something that will work for you, or not.  you try everything, or at least I did. 

Learning the process is a decent education that will transfer to any other business.  for me, it transferred immediately, overnight, to using etsy and ebay again, when I sensed that they were going leave marketplace neglected.

Agree, that it's some work.  I got a bit carried away, and am reducing the time spent, to work on some other projects, and not using what I built there.  Shame, would be inclined to use it for someone else, but no one ever asks, or it always get poo poo'd.

But it reminds me of real life, when people always asked how are you making all of those sales?  I would sit down at their desk, jot down the steps for them, and then they would say..."but that is too much work, I can't do that.."

ok.

 

[Sassy Dirval]

Killie,

 

I think you're already off to a great start on your marketing.  I have a ton of tips and things to consider in my marketing blog (instead of posting them all here):

 

http://secondmarketing.wordpress.com

 

As for groups, try Fabulously Free in SL (FabFree).  If you have loss leader item (freebie, dollarbie, under 10L) you can promote the item in thier group notices if you have a Fab Desginer tag. The group is over 20K in size.  Contact the group officers for merchant details and rules.

 

Hope this helps.

Sassy

 

 

 

[Kimm Paulino]

I wrote up my personal experiences starting out marketing, well promoting really, our new store here: http://kimmscripts.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/kimms-pocket-money-guides-marketing-a-new-business-in-sl/

I tended to find that, as a store with a small amount of merchandise, I never really had the quantity of new posts/products for some of the more popular new product feeds.  This details some of the other things I tried.

Kimm.

 

[Czari Zenovka]

Thank you for the links, Sassy & Kimm.

Re: Kimm's statement: "I tended to find that, as a store with a small amount of merchandise, I never really had the quantity of new posts/products for some of the more popular new product feeds.  This details some of the other things I tried," I'm in the same situation as a merchant who prefers a smaller store.  I was recently turned down by one of the newer "sales for the day" type group because I didn't have enough items in my store.  The contact person said they loved my items (I had noted in my application I have more items on the MP than in my store), but they wanted to see more of the items from MP *in* my store.  There are various reasons for that but at any rate, that cut off one potential marketing idea.  It didn't really bother me though since, for the way I personally prefer to run my SL store, I find hunts more attractive and beneficial for me.

I think there are some marketing techniques that are "universal" and others that are more advantageous to types, size, niche, etc. of the business.