Tips for new Content Creators?

[Verleira]

I've started my own business here in SL, only on the MP at the moment. 

I was wondering what sort of Marketing and or advertising tips more experienced creators could give. I've been looking for groups to advertise in, though my products at the moment are sparse I am creating daily, would help a great deal to know what steps to take for marketing and getting my name out there. 

 

any advice would be greatly appreciated. 

thanks in advance! 

[Fionalein]

I am no creator but I can tell you how I find new stores and that will be the same from a creator side

a) there are events - hard to get into and folks stopped looking at the smaller ones sadly - if you however have a niche product there are niche events lik ereneaiscance afir which are still good to reach your target customer bases

b) gifts - lots of folks hop to stores to grab gifts - there are dozens if not hundreds of groups dedicated to grab gifts. However if you do not do all your mesh yourself you ahve to be careful with the licenseing conditiosn of your templates

c) word of mouth - a stony and hard way but if you are really good folks will eventually notice that.

You will notice a lot of folks will stick like glue to their chosen companies telling you those are the best: don't be fooled - most of those are just bribed into behaving with lots of free gifts and never spend a penny there. They might however influence other folks with money to buy. Best example is the SL land vehicle market - there are hundreds designers in it. If I ask my friends which are the best they will usually tell me two companies that hand out freebies and rely on external meshes not suited for use in SL... You can tell them ten times why the models by those designers who do SL specific meshes are better - the stores with the freebies will stay the best ones in their opinion...

So the freebie path might get you a loyal base of freebie collectors who eventually might swap over to buyers... but beware of overdoing it, there is no guarantee they will become buyers.

[Cindy Evanier]

Not having an in world store means a lot of my advice won't help because when we started out we did a lot of hunts and gifts to entice people to the store but other ways to get yourself known:  (All the things Fionalein said above ^^)

1.  Use your profile as an advertising tool.  You could put pics of products in your pics with links to your MP and a paragraph on what you are about.

2. Flickr and facebook have 100s of groups and pages where you can advertise your products (just be aware of their posting guidelines) 

3. Paid advertising.  There are a few sites you can pay to do a lot of the advertising for you.

4. In world groups.  Most of them are full of other merchants doing the same thing and so you are often just advertising to people who aren't interested in shopping but every little helps in the beginning I say.

5. Events as Fionalein already mentioned.

6.  Offer demo's especially if you have no in world store. Most of us here will chant DEMO DEMO DEMO before purchase.  

There is probably more but I just woke up ?

[Tamara Artis]

I can see only 2 items in your marketplace. Maybe you have more and there is no point for me to write this but I would make sure that I have more items, at least one page in the marketplace. So here are some random tips...

• First, make sure you have many items. 
• Learn how to create good vendor photos (they sell products) or hire a photographer. The item needs to be most important thing and take the majority of the space in the photo - I am looking at horns. It is not good to put horns in 1/3 of the photo space and rest to be just letters. Also, you need more than 1 photo - as many as you can put in the MP product.
• Have few freebies on the MP and check every day how they sell. If not, make better products. MP is the place to practice without investing much money. 
• When you start to get more frequent MP sales you are ready to rent a shop in-world. 
• At this stage, while you are still new, everything you create, give to your friends and random people. As soon as someone asks what are you up to, send them something you created. 
• Dedicate one profile pic for your new business, write a sentence or two to describe what you create, put the link to your MP shop and put the photo of your best item. 
• And of course everything what others already said because they are all great advices!

Good luck and don't forget to have fun

[Verleira]

Thank you for all the replies, I'm putting to use most if not all the tips you've all suggested. It's going to take some time before i am able to have an entire page on the MP but that is the goal. multiple pages. 

 

Thanks for taking the time out of your day to help a newbie out 

[GarouGrey]

I'm following this as I too am a new content creator (at least new to the attempt to sell), and highly appreciate the advice.