I read a few interesting articles over the weekend and thought I would share them with you. Are you ready for the Holidays? Have you done everything you can to get your products out there for buyers to find this season? It’s not too late if you haven’t and these articles will help with links to holiday marketing guides, tips on customer support and info on creating effective “call to action” text and buttons for your web site.

Allbusiness.com – Five Holiday Season Marketing Tips to Help your Small Business Stay Profitable & Top of Mind this Year!

5 Effective Calls to Action That Will Get Your Visitors Clicking

5 Tips for Getting More Exposure from Bloggers, Tweeters and Fans

I was clueless when I made my first fragrance and essential oil purchases. I was not able to read a manufacturer supplied description and get any REAL sense of what a fragrance would be like. Top note? Middle? Wha? While I still rely on fragrance samples, understanding fragrance notes guide my decisions on which samples I will order. Notes also guide my decision as to which product types the fragrances will be used in. If you’re new to working with fragrances, the articles listed below will give you a good, basic understanding of fragrance notes and fragrance families.

How to Describe a Fragrance

A Guide to Fragrance Families

Wikipedia: Perfume

I’m thinking these will look great on my patio next summer.

Visit Zuzu Top to see more.

Everyone loves a good mystery and Christy from KBShimmer has used this knowledge to move her discontinued, surplus and less than perfect products.  Products that have encountered cutting mishaps or color woes can really pile up and this is a great way to sell them at a discount to recoup some of your costs. Package up a few mystery bags of your own at your next show to see what happens! I took a peek to see how these were selling for Christy and she’s sold three in the past two weeks. Great idea Christy!

Christmas Spice Cold Process Soap

Chocolate Mint Cold Processs Soap

Erin of Inner Earth Soaps lives in Bondi Beach, Australia. She has been making handmade soap since 2006. She enjoys the process of designing new soaps and coming up with new and different color/scent combos. She uses a lot of additives such as clays, botanicals, silk fibers, honey and sea salt.

To see more of Erin’s soaps, visit her Etsy Shop and her blog.

Sonnee posted about this fabulous looking soap on The Dish Forum. Inspiration for “Zebra on the Beach” came from her swimsuit! Just goes to show you that inspiration truly is all around us. Sonnee tells us how she made it using real silk cocoons on her blog: Duffin’s Soap Bakery

Handmadeology University has a nice collection of detailed articles/tutorials on marketing your products online. If you haven’t read the articles yet, read them today and put the info to good use for the holiday rush.

Day 1: Mindset: Business and Technology

Day 2: Facebook

Day 3: Why Blogs Build Your Customer Base

Day 4: Get 100+ Twitter Followers in 24 Hours

Day 5: Time Management Tips

Many soap/candle/handmade crafters do not use special packaging for the holidays. It could be the time and effort involved to design and implement seasonal packaging or it could be the expense. I believe that swapping out simple elements in your current packaging is probably the safest and less time consuming way to go.  Here’s a few examples:

Yummy Suds Soap Company has simply wrapped a holiday themed paper around simple soap boxes to give it holiday flair. These soap boxes happen to be made from seeded paper that will grow when planted. you can find and purchase at Of the Earth if your interested. You can find holiday themed paper to use for the cigar band at almost anywhere these days and the cost is minimal.

Here’s another example from Humble Beads:

This technique can be used on anything really. Lotion bars, tins etc. You can tie a ribbon or wrap a cigar band around just about anything.

the following following examples of Kate Spade, Mandel Bros., Marshall Field & Co., and Carson Pirie Scott boxes are pre-printed but you could easily achieve the same effect with stamps.

And if none of that grabs you- just wrap the entire product in holiday paper and tie some ribbon around it. You’ve been wrapping presents since you were a kid. Should be easy enough.

I know that some of you are groaning at the extra work and so do I.  Personally, I’m a gift bag gal because I HATE HATE HATE wrapping presents. But going the extra mile for your holiday shows will pay off. Details like these will set you apart from the soapmaker next to you. Think of shoppers like me. I hate wrapping presents and have little time for it. If I have to choose between two products of equal quality – I’m going with the one that’s ready to put under the tree.

Essential U Blog – Sitting on the Social Media Bench
Great article written from an industry leader on why you need to get into the social media game to grow your business.

Twitter and Facebook Updates to Show in Search Engines — Are You Prepared?

If you use Twitter and Facebook to promote your business, this news can be good or bad.  Good – because it can boost your chances of being found in a sea of Bath and Body Web sites. On the flip side – this could be BAD because it can boost your chances of being found for interactions that you’d rather not be found for.  How are you representing yourself and your business on Social Media sites? What are others (who can also be found) saying about your products and services? How are you promoting good reviews of your products? How are you dealing with negative comments about them? Are you dealing with them at all? This news makes the first article I posted by EssentialU all the more relative to your online business.

For more info:

Google blog post announcing they will include tweets in search.

Confirmed: Twitter and Facebook to Be Part of Bing Wave 2 (Not to Be Confused with Google Wave Beta)

Read teh article: Twitter and Facebook Updates to Show in Search Engines — Are You Prepared?

TOOLS YOU CAN USE

Etsy Hacks

Anyone that uses Etsy knows how labor intensive listing can be and will understand why I was thrilled to find Etsy Hacks for FireFox. Installation is painless and in the end you will be able to do the following and more:

• copy listing – create a new listing based on an existing one.
• item zoom – adds a zoom icon to images in search and shop listings.
• edit this item – edit or delete a listing from the View Listing page.
• buyer info – add extra information to the “buyer” box on a receipt page.
• forum wrangler – add extra features to the Etsy forum pages.

Etsy Hacks are free to use and can be found here: http://www.etsyhacks.com/ (For FireFox only.)

Magpie Twitter Ads

Thinking of  advertising on Twitter? Magpie may be for you. You select the Twitterers, approve/disapprove the tweets and decide how much you want to spend. You can spend as little as $20 on your campaign and you can allocate how the ad dollars are spent: on an entire campaign; per day; and even per keyword, placing the budgetary control entirely in your hands.

For more information, visit the Magpie Web site.