Being a leader of a group of stranger’s is not an easy task. You have to learn how to deal with many different personalities. It takes a lot of patience and compassion to be a good Captain of an Etsy team.
It also takes a humble attitude and not being afraid to ask for help and delegate responsibilities to others on the team.
For the next few months I will be sprinkling in articles about Etsy and how their teams work in order to help you decide if they are right for you and your Etsy shop.
Keep in mind that being on a team is not a one way street. You will have a measure of responsibility to participate when you join any team. I’ll go into that in a future post.
For now let’s talk more about my experience and how it has affected me over the last 6 years.
I started my first Etsy team back in 2010 under the name Sunshine Farm Girl Co-op. It was a fun and diverse group of women from all around the USA. I did not know any of the women who joined personally at that time.
Over the course of 5 years I have forged lasting friendships with many team member’s even though I have never met them in person.
Our team did a number of great activities on and off Etsy to help get the word out about our shops. It was a lot of fun.
Here is a list of the different marketing activities that we did to help promote our shops.
Marketing Venues
- Gift Sampler Box – This was a great marketing strategy. The participating vendor’s sent in samples of their work and they went out to subscriber’s all over the USA.
- BNR/BNS Games – Buying Club played in Etsy treasuries
- Recipe and DIY Project book – This was a collection of member’s favorite recipes and diy projects and household tips that was published in a book. (see photo)
- Celebrity Gifting Lounge – Participating team member’s sent in samples of their work and it was gifted to Celebrities in a number of different events such as The Oscar’s.
- Social media networking – Participating member’s collaborated on social media
- Etsy Networking – Participating member’s collaborated on Etsy in a number of different ways
- Customer Follow-up – Vendor’s received a list of the customer’s that were in the Gift Sampler Box program so they could keep in touch throughout the year with updates about their shop.
Community marketing
I even shared our products in the community at area businesses.
They loved it as you can see in the above photo.
These are 2 sweet worker’s at Debbie’s Health Food Store
Food Truck & Craft Shows
As you can see I was very busy helping other Etsy seller’s promote their shop’s online and offline.
Tune in next week when I go more in depth about my current team that I am Captain of:
I’d like to introduce you to 2 of my Markets of Sunshine Etsy team member’s blog’s. Please, take a moment to visit Icky Chic Designs and EWD Marketing and leave a comment telling them you saw them on Markets of Sunshine blog.
IckyChicDesigns
Promote, Promote and Promote
EWDMarketing
Sending You Sunshine,
Marsha J.
Marsha, thanks so much for this great introduction about Etsy teams from a Captains viewpoint. You certainly have a lot of experience and I look forward to learning more from you over the weeks ahead.
Great Post!! Being a captain is definely work that is well worth while. As a team member, I find you get the most out of your team experience when you participate as much as possible. The life long friendships that are forged are priceless!!:-D
Thank you Lynda. This was a great look back for me which helped me to see just how much I did for my team member's.
Thank you Joanna! You have been a valuable member of all of my teams and your friendship is Priceless to me!
Lynda having you on my current team has been a real treat. You not only have taught me some new things about blogging but you have such a well thought out blog which shows in your posts. I am so happy you joined the Etsy team.
I love reading your posts, Marsha – you are such an inspiration! – and what a privilege it's been to belong to your JW Promotion Team! Am looking forward to reading about it next week. 😀
Thank you. I love blogging so I'm glad to hear that I'm doing something right. 🙂 And I enjoy our teamwork on Markets of Sunshine Etsy Promotional Team.
Thank you Sally for the encouragement about my posts. I try to speak from my heart and be real.