themerriweather council blog

Is there a subject I enjoy speaking about more than the Backstreet Boys? Honestly, no. Will I take any opportunity to discuss them at length? Absolutely, yes.

And that is what I’m doing on this episode of the merriweather council podcast but for a very good reason: there is so much to learn from the launch of their most recent album, and their use of a modern marketing strategy.

You’ve heard me talk about Taylor Swift and her marketing genius, and you’ve heard me talk about Gilmore Girls and the business lessons they illustrate perfectly. Now we can add BSB to the list of pop culture entities we can learn business lessons from.

For their tenth studio album, DNA, the backstreet boys pulled out a lot of modern marketing strategies that not only created a widespread buzz but also triggered deep emotional connections in their existing fan base. And as we know, that is a recipe for success.

So what did they do? Why did it work? What specific things did they do to activate their existing fan base’s emotional response? Listen to this episode to learn all about it. It was FASCINATING. Certainly, yes, I am a fan and I would have showed up either way – BUT because of the lead up to this release, I definitely showed up in a much bigger way than I have in the past for other releases.

LOOK at how happy I was on the day this album came out. Fan base was LIT, you guys. Please enjoy this gratuitous image of me being an absolute goober fangirl.

In this episode:

• A brief history of my deep obsession with pop culture
• Another brief history, this time about BSB
• WHY the release of this particular album was SO important
• How the Backstreet Boys used modern marketing to get back to number one.
• The traditional marketing that also helped
• How this all relates to you and marketing your handmade business
• A few personal anecdotes

Here’s that super fun “web series” I mentioned
(I still have no idea why i called it a web series.)

And the video for No Place that you have to love unless you have a dark, cold heart.

The modern marketing strategy along with traditional strategies that were used in the release of DNA can all absolutely be translated to your own business. Don’t miss this episode.

P.S. This if you get geeked out like I do about marketing and campaigns and engaging the audience and all the things (!!) then you should absolutely join us inside of The Council! The Council is our monthly membership experience for handmade business owners who want to take their business to the next level with the support of dedicated peers and an ever-growing library of exclusive content delivered at an easy to consume pace. It’s a win win all around. Come over and learn more about it.

You might also like…

• Episode 080: Marketing Lesson’s from Taylor Swift’s Reputation Tour
• What Small Businesses Can Learn from Taylor Swift’s Marketing
• Episode 079: Attracting Ideal Customers {A Lesson from Gilmore Girls}

Paying to advertise your handmade business seems like a really good option and it is likely you have considered it. You’ve probably seen it work really well for others. You have also probably seen or heard of experience that others had with paid advertising that were not profitable at all.

Today’s episode includes several things. It actually could have been two separate episodes but the ideas really piggy back on each other so I kept them together!

In this episode:

• A summary of paid traffic types
• Why I think you should NOT run paid ads to an Etsy shop
• The key factor in determining if you should run paid traffic at all
• Etsy optimization
• Etsy promoted listings + a realist that Etsy sellers need to acknowledge about search
• When paid advertising is a good option
• MORE

This episode is chock full, y’all.

I’m going in depth on explaining why you don’t want to pay to advertise your handmade business, or send paid traffic to an Etsy shop. You also don’t want to send paid traffic to any site at all if that site is not organically converting already. If you get organic (warm) traffic to your site and it doesn’t convert, there is a very good likelihood that your colder traffic that would come from paid ads also will not convert. What I mean by that is: do not pay to promote something that hasn’t proven itself yet.

But of course I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that paying to advertise your handmade business IS a good option, it just has to be implemented at the right time to the right place. (That’s a huge part of the reason why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t!)

If you are going to spend money on any kind of ad that ad should direct people to a place where its all about you – where you are the star of the show. If you need help optimizing Etsy that’s what we do in the Merriweather Council Etsy Training Course.

Your shop needs to be optimized for whatever action you want people to take while they are there. For most of you that means sales. If you are getting any traffic and none of it converts, DO NOT try to increase traffic with a paid ad. that traffic is even less likely to convert.

As for my fellow Etsy sellers: there is no downside to optimizing listings at all! Your promoted listings will perform better if they are listings that are optimized to begin with. And the optimization strategies you can implement in your shop will ONLY help you out, day after day, across the board. (You can get a significant head start on learning what all goes into optimizing your shop and why it’s so important during my Free Etsy Masterclass – and we have some sessions coming up soon! Click here to register to attend this free class.) Optimization goes so far beyond search results, my friends, make no mistake!

I hope you love this episode!

Enjoy

You might also like…

• Episode 080: Marketing Lessons from Taylor Swift’s Reputation Tour
• Episode 056: Discussing Taylor Swift’s Amazing Marketing Example with Kimber Casteel
• Episode 043: How Kara Lamerato is Using Podcasting in Her Marketing Strategy

Stop leading with discounts!

Ohhh, snap.

Some of you are not going to like this. How do i know? I speak about this quite a bit and every time I do, a handful of people reach out to say they disagree. I’m cool with that. I’m perfectly fine with disagreement. I just still really believe in this message. It’s my truth… but it doesn’t have to be yours.

My job is not to twist your arm about something you’re not into. I don’t find any joy in convincing people to do things they really do not want to do. My job is to share insights that I believe you could learn or benefit from. If you happen to find something I say valuable and worth trying then I’ve done my job. So listen to this episode with an open mind, and decide for yourself based on DATA.

The subject of this episode is discounting. The conceptual summary of this episode though is to stop leading with discounts so you can stop setting expectations you do not want people to have of you and your business. Everyone will be happier in that scenario: you AND your customers. Probably also your family because if you’re unhappy, they probably aren’t as pleased with that. So really, this is just a trickle down feel good strategy.

I’m sharing my experience with you, and that includes as a seller, as a consumer and as someone who has heard from and worked with hundreds of other handmade business owners – and I hope that you can learn from it!

Enjoy!

You might also like…

• Thoughts on Value and Pricing in Handmade
• Episode 061: Pricing Lessons from Grey’s Anatomy
• Bonus Episode 6: An Intro to the Pricing Workshop
• 4 Reasons You Shouldn’t Give Up on Using a Pricing Formula