If you have a product for sale, but little or no traffic, then you have little or no sales so you need to work out how to promote your printables.
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In order to move your printables, you have to get them in front of the people who can use them. So what can you use to promote your printables?
Don't Just Wait For People to Find Them
This is the area where a lot of people get off track. They don’t want to come across as pushy or salesy, so they upload their files and then wait for the customers to flock in.
When this doesn’t happen, they start to doubt themselves and wonder if they did something wrong with what they’ve created.
Build Connections
What you have to realize is that the world of sales moves along by connection. At some point, in some way, you need to find a connection with the audience in order to turn them into customers.
Think about the products that you’ve purchased in your life. You weren’t born knowing about that product. Somewhere along the line that product was introduced to you. It may have been through an ad on TV.
So how to you build connections with people online in order to promote your printables?
Be Active Online
You might have heard about it on the radio, through a friend – or, through what’s most common today - social media. That’s one of the number one ways to drive traffic and get sales for your printables.
Don’t think that all you need to do is put your products up on a platform and that ends your efforts. You must be active online in order to develop a relationship with your target audience.
Your Own Blog
This means that you should have a way to engage with the people. You can do this by having a blog. Many people build a tremendous following by creating a blog that draws in traffic.
This traffic can then turn into sales because you can talk about the product on the blog. Host a few giveaways or freebies on your blog to get the people interested in trying out your printables.
Then connect with the receivers to find out how they liked it, what they found useful and talk about that as a blog post. This will help build trust and also establish you as someone who’s an authority in that area.
Pay attention to what your blog followers are talking about - especially when they mention a frustration or a hope that can impact their daily life. Gaining this information can give you ideas on how to create audience targeted materials as well as how to tweak what you might already have.
Other Bloggers
In addition to promoting your products on your own blog, you want to connect with other bloggers. This type of cross-promoting can help drive traffic to both your blog and your selling platforms.
Social Media
Social media is a great way to promote your printables. This works well for 'pretty' printables and 'helpful' printables. You just need to build a buzz up around your products.
Facebook is a huge platform for selling tons of stuff - including printables. You want to promote your items here because this platform sees over a billion users every single month.
Make connections here by finding like-minded groups. You need to be networking. Once you get to know these people, they’ll be more likely to recommend you to others if you have something they don’t sell.
Plus, in these groups, you’ll find tips, advice and more places to sell your printables from others who are doing what you’re doing. Sometimes, sellers are allowed to self-promote their products within the group.
This information would be listed in the description or rules. These groups will often have a ton of advice on driving traffic to your site or the platforms that you use. You can also often find joint ventures in these groups.
Someone else will mention your product on their social media or platform in return for you mentioning theirs. Or they’ll email their list. You would only do this for a seller that you legitimately believed in and knew would be a help to your followers. Otherwise, you lose the audience’s trust.
Next to Facebook, you also want to use Twitter to drive traffic to your printables. Because a tweet can quickly get buried, you may need to do some research to figure out the best time to tweet about your product.
Do keep in mind that people tend to tune out those who constantly tweet to promote what they’re selling. You don’t want to get ignored. So make sure that the majority of your tweets are not based on selling.
Work on developing relationships here as well. Be active on the platform. You can do this by interacting with others, liking and replying to tweets. Talk about tips for the niche, like wedding planning tips, etc.
Make sure that you use the hashtags that are associated with printables when you talk about your products. This drives traffic. For example, you might use #printables, #planner or #homeschoolworksheets.
You would use whichever hashtag is relevant to your product. If you were in the field of fitness, then you would also use the hashtag for fitness. If you’re not sure exactly which hashtag to use, you can do a quick online search.
But you can also use Twitter’s search option to get ideas for what hashtags will help drive traffic to your site. Just typing in “printables” pulls up everything from skin care to coloring pages to meal planners.
YouTube
YouTube is a platform that regularly sees more than 2 billion monthly users. You can leverage the power of this platform to drive traffic for your printables by creating videos where you talk about your printables and how to use them.
When you have success, you can create videos that talk about your journey and how others can get started. Sharing knowledge also helps drive traffic and boost sales.
Instagram is another social media platform that you can use and it’s often one of the most overlooked platforms for driving printable sales.
The number of businesses on Instagram is big and there are more than 200 million Instagram shoppers every single day. That’s a lot of opportunity to get your printables in front of an audience.
Because it’s a visual platform, your products will have the chance to shine. That’s because with this platform, you’re not just showing a potential audience what you have to sell, you’re showing them how what you’re selling can make a difference in their lives with the images you use.
For example, you can upload an image of your weight loss tracker being used in before and after fitness shots. You’re selling what people hope to achieve rather than your printable alone - and being able to see that moves people to make a purchase.
Right up there with Instagram to use to drive traffic, there’s Pinterest. Pinterest is a hot social media site for printables. It’s like the world’s biggest online bulletin board. For starters, it has well over 200 million users monthly.
Men and women alike both enjoy this social medial platform. You’ll find that you have a huge target audience of women on Pinterest and these women are especially interested in the stuff they see on the site, thanks to the visual appeal.
Customers routinely turn to Pinterest to find things to make their lives prettier, easier or more organized - all things that you offer thanks to your printables. If you do a quick search of the site and type in something related to the niche, you’ll find thousands of results and you’ll also see that there’s a wide variety pinned.
You’ll see pins for planners, workbooks, wedding invitations, scrapbook pages and more. But you do need to know how to use this platform well. Make sure that you show off your printables.
Make a variety of boards all relating to your products. Don’t just show them like they’re a sales listing. Instead, put your printables into categories like “activities for kids” and then have a pin on your coloring pages.
Or do one for overworked or exhausted moms and showcase your printables that make life easier for moms - like your quick meal recipe planner. Create mood boards on Pinterest that tie in with your products and how these things on your board helped you to stay motivated to be creative.
It could be something like a beautiful sunset, a funny image, your pet or whatever. People enjoy seeing behind the scenes. Making sure that people are able to find your products is easy if you use the right hashtags.
These are #printable followed by hashtags that are connected to whatever it is that you’re selling such as #coloringpages or #wedding or other associated words. Just like on other platforms, Pinterest can help you move your product if you use it right.
Make sure that your images are pretty and show why your product is the right one for the consumer to pick. Across each of the social media platforms that you use, make sure that you take advantage of the advertising space you’re given for free.
This is where you can put your bio or “about me” and you can put direct links to your printables or your website. If you don’t have an email list, start one by promoting a sign up offer on your social media.
Social Media is Advertising
You can promote your printables easily using social media. Every time you get ready to launch a new product, start talking about it before the release day. This whets customer’s appetites and makes them curious. Make up your own hashtag to use for your product that’s coming out but you should also do this for some of the printables that you already have for sale.
Whenever you post about your products, you always want the customer to react. That means you need to use a call to action. Something like “click here to download” would work, but you can use whatever.
Nothing drives traffic like the idea of getting a good deal. You can get attention to your printables by announcing that you have a sale for a limited amount of time. Toss in a bonus they can’t get any other time or that’s only available for those who saw it on Instagram and people will want that deal.
Be Helpful Not Pushy
You might wonder exactly what you should post about the product itself. You want to showcase it without coming across like a pushy salesman. The types of stuff you’ll post should vary, but tie in somehow with the printable or the lifestyle that the printable can give the buyer in a non-pushy way.
For example, you can create posts where you talk about what led you to create the product, or about how you personally use the product. You should also show all the things associated with the product - like stickers, additional sheets, etc.
If there’s a good review about your product from a user, post that on your Instagram.
Be sure on Instagram that you have links ready where the customers can find the platforms you use to sell them on.
Use tags on all your posts. You’ll want to use an Instagram business account over a regular one. You’ll gain more leverage to know how to target your audience for sales with a business account.
One of the things you get by using this type of account is access to the valuable metrics that will show you how followers react to what you post. This can help you tweak your post content as well as give you proof of what consumers like and are looking for.
You don’t want to use this solely as a “buy my stuff” means of interacting with followers.
Share tips that you’ve found helpful in your life and let them get to know you. That connection is invaluable for helping to sell your printables because you can talk about what you need in your life, and the resources that answered that need - which was your printable product.
Penny xx