Hey Handmade - Would you spend £35 on a Craft fair?

mouse mugs 

Craft fairs can mean 8 hrs on our feet and the return on our investment in time and money can be a bit of a gamble.  Sales often vary wildly from event to event dependent on the organiser, the advertising and the weather! I've always wondered whether investing the money you spend at a craft fair in advertising your online shop and the 8hrs you spend at the stall in updating and improving your online shop would be a better use of time and money. (even if not as exhilarating and sociable).



So if you are comfortable spending £35 on a table at a craft fair with a thousand or so visitors,  take a look at the following offer to market your Etsy shop as an interesting alternative this year.

'Hey Handmade' is a new website from Tim Adam of Handmadeology. The website is offering an online marketing opportunity for Etsy sellers at £35 ($54) for 3 months of advertising and link juice from a dedicated listing page.  Is this a better long term investment than your next craft fair?

I emailed Tim to ask why we should buy a listing on Hey Handmade:

I have been selling on Etsy since 2007 and in that time I have grown my social network far beyond what I imagined.   Handmadeology has also far exceeded my expectations reaching 1 million visitors in its first year.  Through Hey Handmade I am allowing Etsy sellers to tap into my extensive social network, SEO knowledge, and readership.

For only $54 you will receive:

A 1 item 3 month targeted promotion (via social media and Handmadeology)
A permanent page on the site with backlinks that builds SEO and Google Page Rank
The 7 day promotion Check List
Etsy Traffic Goal Tracker
A Copy of the E-catalog

For a limited time you can get 2 items for the price of one... details HERE.

You will also have the confidence of buying right on Etsy in your Handmadeology Etsy shop! 


Tim Adam is one of those people that has a great idea and tends to make it work, I'm sure this site will be popular in the US, but I asked him whether he thought it would also work for UK Etsians...
He said - "Ok.. so i just checked out Handmadeology's traffic in the last 365 days.  The Uk takes up 3% of over 1 million visitors.  The Uk is the third highest country as far as traffic is concerned"


So it's clear that Handmadeology and most of Tim's social media connections are in the US / Canada, and many will be fellow Etsians / Crafters - However, Etsy is a global market place, Christmas is 3 months away and crafty etsy people tend to be the types that enjoy buying handmade too...

If you go for it make sure your photos are outstanding - if they are poor, it will be a waste of your money - go for the craft fair option instead!  You are paying for 2 listings, so you will also need to choose images that will tempt people in. See my Craft Photography Hall of fame for examples of great craft images I love. Hey handmade will be making treasuries too, so if you have a great product and good shots you could benefit from even more exposure.








Your comments make my posts way more interesting so I'd love to hear from you - do you think this is a good offer - are you tempted to go for it?


x Hilary :) .
(all the images I use are chosen from the Craft Blog UK Flickr group)