377 – 3 Free Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website with Kerrie Fitzgerald

Gift biz unwrapped episode 377.

I'm going to do a subscription box business,

and I'm going to sell pet products individually online.

Keep it simple.

Get fancy later Attentive.

Gifters bakers,

crafters, and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one.

Now you are in the right place.

This is give to biz unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode,

packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources, and the support you need to grow.

Your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal,

Sue moon Heights.

Hi there.

Sue and thanks for joining me here today.

One of the most fulfilling things I've discovered through starting gift

biz on unwrapped is the warmth comradery and generosity of the

community that we formed.

You're so giving and so talented.

And of course,

I always want to give back to you too,

to do something that can make your efforts easier and your

result greater.

So I asked you how you surprised me.

It wasn't help with an email marketing strategy.

It wasn't about selling it shows or any other number of

topics that make up a solid growing business.

Nope. What you're overwhelmingly asking for is help with social media

posting. You've been telling me that you're putting in the time

you're posting frequently and you're discouraged because you aren't seeing any

of this move the needle for your sales message received,

putting in more and more time posting in the same way.

Isn't going to magically bring you in the sales.

You need to change the way you're posting and what you're

posting. You don't need to put in more work.

You need to put in the right work.

And that's when you'll see things change.

And I've created your guide to do just that.

It's called a content for makers and it's specially designed for

handmade product makers.

Like you content for makers will help you understand why your

current social media activities aren't converting into sales.

It will also show you how to put in less time

and start seeing activity through social that will lead to increased

sales. Just imagine knowing exactly what to post and getting it

done in just minutes.

Each day,

that frees up space for you to interact with potential clients,

deepen relationships with those you already know.

And all of this continues to build upon itself naturally.

Yes, this really is possible.

Content for makers will accomplish this for you to see all

the details,

jump over to gift biz,

unwrapped.com forward slash content for makers.

But honestly at only $27,

it's a no brainer.

Plus you only have to pay for it once for use

year after year.

Why carry on posting as you've been doing all along expecting

different results,

sign up for content for makers now and see the transformation

of your posting experience change right before your very eyes,

gift biz,

unwrapped.com forward slash content for makers it's ready and waiting for

your immediate access right now.

Okay. So now with content for makers,

you'll have your social all button down.

Let's move on to another point of friction in your business.

How to get people over to your website,

because if they don't make it to where your products are

displayed complete with description and a buy button,

there's no chance for a sale.

You can run ads,

of course,

but that comes with lots of time learning,

creating testing,

and the financial investment.

Why not try free methods first?

I mean,

not just know about them,

but actually do them today.

You're going to hear a case study from Carrie.

Who's been where you are.

If this is a current challenge of yours,

you'll hear about her product and the challenging situation she encountered

with her website and then how she identified three ways that

she has seen traffic increase all organically.

Carrie saw great results and they can be yours too.

So as we go through this,

I want you to be thinking which one of these three

will you implement first?

Ready Today?

We're going to be talking with Carrie Fitzgerald,

founder of Carrie Fitzgerald,

LLC. This is an e-commerce and product business consulting and educational

agency. As a digital marketing expert,

Carrie helps e-commerce businesses create wildly in demand brands that their

customers are obsessed with.

Her unique framework is based in organic marketing that brings in

consistent sales and traffic without focusing a dime on ads.

You heard that right after starting her first high-end pet e-commerce

she grew that business to a multi six figure in revenue

business in two years without funding,

staff or support.

but during that time she was featured on Buzzfeed Forbes and

Mariah Carey's Christmas.

Cary is a proud boy and dog mom,

hot sauce and coffee lover and east coast transplant currently living

in Seattle and the host of the six figure product business

podcast, Carrie,

welcome to the gift biz unwrapped podcast.

Thank you so much,

Sue. That was a lovely introduction.

And I'm so happy to be here with you.

Well, you have so many fun things to talk about just

through that intro.

I'm thinking everyone who's listening is like,

okay, okay,

let's get going.

Let's get to it.

I want to hear all about it.

I love it.

Well, I'm excited.

I love chatting all things,

product, business,

marketing traffic.

So I'm excited.

All right,

well, we're going to see where this lands.

I have a few questions for you,

but we're just going to see where it goes.

But first I have a traditional question that it kind of

guides us into our conversation and really resonates with all of

us here because we're makers.

So it's a creative way for you to share a little

bit more about yourself.

And that would be,

if you were to create a motivational candle that would really

speak to you,

what would your candle look like by color?

And if you have a quote or a saying,

what would you put on that candle?

Sure. I think this is such a unique part about your

podcast. I've never heard of anyone that does something like this.

So I just wanted to point that out that I think

it's a really,

really fun and unique thing.

So for my candle,

it would definitely be like an orange color.

And maybe it's just like the outside of the candles and

orange color.

Cause I don't know if I've ever seen an inside that's

orange, but orange,

because it is a color of energy.

And I'm someone who is definitely like energetic,

passionate, and like spicy.

If you will,

basically, I eat hot sauce with everything.

I love like chili peppers,

literally. Like I can eat a chili pepper right now,

but just in general,

like my personality is definitely like a spicy and like passionate.

So for me,

orange is the color.

And then in terms of a quote,

I would love to share two things.

One is something that when I was thinking about this,

like what kind of quote I would say,

I posted this on my Instagram recently.

And like,

I got so much good feedback from it and I love

it. It's keep it simple.

Get fancy later.

I don't know where I heard this before,

but this quote has sort of just been in my head

since day one of having my business and it resonates really

well with people.

Keep it simple,

like get started,

do it better later.

The second thing is this is something that I literally have

my six-year-old son say out loud almost every day,

I'm strong,

I'm able I can do anything.

And the reason it's really important for me is that as

entrepreneurs, as makers,

we have to deal with so much hard stuff every single

day. Like how do I ship my product,

dealing with customer service,

like figuring all this stuff out.

And it can be really,

really challenging both mentally and physically.

And it's just a reminder to people that you can deal

with the hard times.

And you can do anything that you want to.

So for me,

those are two quotes that I literally live by every single

day, but I also think they're important for people to just

remind themselves every day because of the nature of our business.

Like it is hard to have a product based business.

And I think when it comes to like comparing yourself on

social media and looking at this person's business and saying,

oh, well she has 200,000

Tik TOK followers.

And I only have five.

Like, what am I doing wrong?

Why does no one like my business?

So it's just a reminder that you can persevere and get

through those hard times.

Yeah. And you know,

the one thing I've learned over the course of time is

we have those types of things that we say to ourselves,

no matter how far along you are,

when you're first starting,

even when you're well-advanced and have what others would say is

a super successful business.

Sometimes secretly,

sometimes we vocalize it,

but we all have those little jabs that come at us

like someone's further along or someone's doing it better.

You know,

all of that.

So I've learned myself,

just, I've got to accept that.

To some extent I shield myself from it because if it

makes me feel bad,

I'm not going to perform as well as I can.

And you know,

you just work through it,

but you can't ever make it go away.

You just have to learn how to live with that.

I think,

Yes. I totally agree with you.

I think,

especially when it comes to like comparing yourself to other businesses,

even if you grow your business,

then you're looking at other people that are making this much

more money than you.

And you're like,

oh gosh,

I mean,

I've done this far,

but now I'm still feeling really behind and you're right.

Like, no matter where we are,

we still have those feelings.

So I agree with you.

Yeah. There are always people ahead of you and there's also

always people who are aspiring to be where you are.

And if we can just remind ourselves of that one and

get into that cycle,

you know,

that mental cycle and that kind of leads to what you

were talking about at first.

Keep it simple.

Get fancy later.

I think I heard this first from Amy Porterfield.

Oh, maybe that's where I heard it.

I don't know.

I heard it somewhere.

I don't know if she started it or is repeating it,

moving it forward,

but I think it was an excellent one to bring up.

Oh, I love it.

And that kind of goes with comparing yourself with others too,

because if you try to have everything in place that you

see someone who's further along than you,

to the point about the getting fancy later,

that inhibits so many of us makers to even start because

we feel like,

oh my gosh,

we'll never get to that point.

So starting more simple.

And then you can add on and add on and get

more sophisticated as you go.

And specially Carrie,

I mean,

I'm not sure exactly what we're going to talk about yet,

but I think that might be able to apply to our

conversation here today too.

Yeah. We might talk about some beginning things or some advanced

things, but I want everybody to think about if you haven't

done any of this yet,

just start one little thing because then it builds on itself

and it doesn't feel so overwhelming then.

Hmm. Yeah,

I totally agree.

And I was doing something recently where I sort of questioning

like, oh,

because I'm launching this new program.

And I was like,

I don't know.

Like, I feel like I need to wait until I can

get this better.

And then I was like,

wait a minute.

You're not taking your own advice that you teach your students

and clients every day,

which is like,

get started now,

make it better later,

get feedback from your customers,

figure out what they like.

And then you can make small tweaks.

And I was like,

you know what?

Okay. Yes.

And I'm going to launch this in two weeks.

I even need reminders of like keeping it simple.

Well, and I think that's also good for product makers,

because if you just keep perfecting your product without having gotten

any feedback,

you don't know if you are really making a product that

people want more,

you need to have that feedback.

And luckily,

since you're not making,

you know,

as handmade creators,

you're not making millions at a time through a factory,

you know,

you're able to make those tweaks along the way.

So getting customer input is so important.

So don't wait until you think you have it nailed down.

Just get it out there and then you can perfect from

there. Yes.

I love it.

So I am a huge dog lover Carey,

and right now never in 37 years,

have I been dogless but I am right now for a

few months,

we're going to get a dog at the end of the

summer. So I am super excited just to talk things about

a dog.

So will you share with us a little summary of your

whole experience in terms of creating and working through your dapper

dog box?

Yes, but first I have to obviously ask you,

what kind of dog are you going to get at the

end of the summer,

We're going to get a mutt.

My husband and I have come together knowing that probably a

mix of what we've had before.

Like Bernie's shepherd lab,

you know,

you never know what you're going to get,

but like a middle to big dog that he can run

with, but we are not getting a watchdog anymore.

The kids are out.

Like, I want just a fun dog that I don't have

to worry about that I can take anywhere.

Maybe even a little mix of doodle.

Although my kids aren't so fond of that,

but we'll see,

we'll see what comes out.

You just never know.

Well, I'm excited to hear what kind of dog you end

up getting,

but it's a fun time to get a new dog.

So I'm excited for you.

Yeah, for sure.

And you have a dog,

you have one son and one dog,

right? Yes.

I have two dogs.

I have my 10 year old black lab mix.

She was actually the inspiration behind my first business,

which we'll talk about in a sec,

she's a lab shepherd,

blah, blah,

blah mix.

So she's a rescue and she's 10 years old and she's

like the little love of my life.

I am just disgustingly obsessed with her.

And then I also have a golden doodle who is four

and he's just like this goofy,

fun laid back.

I always say if he was a human,

he would be a California beach bum.

He is like such a laid back like chill,

calm dog.

He's awesome.

All right.

So I may have to talk with you separately for doodle

advice. We'll see,

we'll see where this goes.

Feel free to add.

All right.

Let's talk about what I'm sure all of our listeners have

keyed in to hear about today.

So, but okay.

So the dog box,

tell me more So how it sort of started.

So just like a short back story of like what I

did before that my background is in marketing and sales,

but mainly in the education and travel space.

So before I started my first business,

I worked for a few different companies where I got to

travel overseas and market and sell study in the U S

programs to international students.

So I did that for quite a while and I had

a baby and was like,

okay, I need to change directions here because I was traveling

internationally for my job.

My husband was traveling domestically for his job and we both

like, couldn't keep doing what we're doing with a new baby,

as you can imagine.

So I left my job and had some like postpartum issues,

which I won't get into too much.

It's not very happy conversation,

but it kind of led me to where I am today.

So I feel like we all go through hard things and

it leads us to some good things.

But I was going through this hard time after having a

baby and like was trying to figure out what my next

steps were.

I had been doing marketing for a long time and I

love marketing and I love dogs.

And I went to the gym one day.

This was about six and a half years ago or almost

seven years ago actually.

And was at the gym on a strength training machine.

And the idea popped into my head and I was like,

I'm going to start a business.

And I was like,

okay, cool.

But I was like,

thinking about it literally at the gym one day randomly.

I had never,

once in my entire life thought about having a business before

and I said,

okay, I'm going to do a subscription box business and I'm

going to sell pet products individually online.

So I kind of thought about it.

And literally a week later,

I'm at Starbucks getting my logo designs,

like working with someone on fiber,

getting a $20 logo,

ordering stickers,

and sort of like coming up with my business ideas.

So many people here can relate to that.

And our,

or probably in that phase right now,

It's always a funny story because I had never thought about

having a business before,

but my background in marketing and it just,

like, I always say that the universe like gave me that

little gift.

It sounds super Rui,

but it's true because I had never thought about it before.

And then that business idea changed my entire life.

And it led me to what I'm doing today,

which is truly what,

like, I feel like I've meant to do is help people

grow their own product based business.

But yeah,

that was sort of the beginning of the business.

So I came up with the idea in either March or

scrappy. I had no funding.

I self did most of everything.

Yeah. Launch the business,

got my first customers learned what my customers liked.

I learned how to market a business.

Like I figured out how to get my customers involved with

my brand and kind of like took it from there.

I would say.

And I can like elaborate on anything that you want me

to kind of dive deeper into,

but that's kind of like the quick and dirty backstory of

how that business started.

It's not like,

I feel like most of us who start businesses,

they have similar like random stories,

like, oh,

I woke up one day and I just got the idea.

Or like I was making candles for my friend.

And I decided,

well, I might as well start my own business.

Or a friend says,

oh my gosh,

these are so beautiful.

You should start a business.

It's so fun to hear how people's ideas start.

Some people have no idea.

They just know they want to start a business and they

don't know what.

And then they're feeling like the best answer has to come.

And sometimes there are multiple answers and you need to try

out which one is going to work because you have the

idea doesn't mean you have customers who will buy,

right. Oh my God.

Yes, It's okay.

If you're not at the gym and your idea doesn't come

to you right away.

Just, I think this is my advice for listeners.

Carrie, you tell me what you would say is just be

open to whatever ideas come into your head and feel them

out for yourself.

Like you get one idea and maybe the next day go

back to that idea and say,

do I really like it?

Would I really be passionate about it or not?

And what other ideas come up?

Because if you're open,

you will find the thing.

What would you say carry?

Oh my gosh.

I totally agree with you.

I mean,

in my story is like a Testament of exactly what you

just said.

Like I had no inkling to really start a business.

I remember I did have a conversation with one of my

friends who it was like my friend from,

so I'm from Boston and it was a friend from Boston

and she was telling me about how her sister's friend just

sold her.

It was like a baby subscription box business.

And I remember thinking like,

oh, that's so interesting.

Like how fun actually.

No, that was after I came up with my idea.

Sorry. So she was telling me about her sister's friend's subscription

box business,

but yeah,

like that day at the gym and the idea came into

my head.

I had never thought of that before.

I had never been like,

Ooh, I want to start an online store.

Cause that sounds super fun with a new six month old

baby. Like that makes no sense,

but it came into my head and literally it was one

of those things where I knew in my gut,

like this is the right idea,

which is funny.

I mean,

it is kind of funny where you could just think of

something and then that one moment your entire life has changed.

Absolutely. And I did come up with the idea and then

at first I was like,

well, maybe I'll do a baby product because my kid was

like six months old at that point.

And I thought about it and I was like,

no, I'm not really,

it doesn't feel right to me.

And then that's when I came up with the pet angle,

I was like,

well, I have this dog.

I love her.

I love talking about dog things.

I feel like I know a lot about having a dog.

So I understand like the customer who would be buying from

me and then I sort of like took that and refined

it. And I said,

okay, well here's my idea.

And then what kind of dog subscription box would I do?

And then I kind of like dove deep from there and

I did market research and I looked up and I don't

even know how I knew to do this because at that

I didn't know of any people who had done this kind

of business before.

I couldn't find any blog posts.

And so I kind of just winged it,

to be honest with you.

And I did like competitor research and I made it like

a list on a spreadsheet of all my competitors.

And I said,

okay, who do I think these people are marketing their product

to? And I said,

okay. And like,

what is everyone doing?

That's different from each other?

And I said,

okay, well,

let me go in and read reviews on all these websites

and I'll figure out what is missing from all these subscription

boxes that people are buying from.

And I ended up like thinking about my own experience,

getting a BarkBox,

which is like the biggest dog subscription box for dogs.

I got that for my dog when she was a puppy

and I didn't like it.

And I didn't like it for a few different reasons.

And that is what I sort of took from into my

idea when I was coming up with my idea.

I said,

okay, well,

no one does treats that catered to like dogs that are

on grain-free diets,

which my dog was on a grain-free diet.

And no one did accessories like bandanas or bow ties.

And I,

okay, that's going to be my unique differentiator.

So my best advice for people is like,

you have an idea,

but you want to figure out how you can be different

from everyone else.

You don't have to come up with an idea from scratch,

but like you want to do something that's a little bit

different. And so that was my differentiator was my bandanas and

bow ties and the boxes.

And that ended up being why my business grew was because

that's what people liked about the box that I had.

And it was like my unique thing that no one else

was doing.

So again,

just like a little bit of like backstory on how I

ended up doing like the high end subscription box for like

the pampered dog that they liked accessories.

Like it was pretty specific,

but it works and it's very saturated space.

And I see even today it's even more saturated,

which is a little bit scary,

True. And I think a lot of our industries are like

that, but there's two things in particular.

I want to underline about what you talked about.

I don't know if everyone caught this,

but right.

When Carrie first started talking,

she did not go out and look for loans or anything

like that.

She let the company grow as it could,

right? No loans,

no extra money.

You built it in that manner.

So that's the first thing that is doable.

The other thing I really like is what you were talking

about at the very last part,

which is because our industries are so saturated,

there are so many people making pretty much everything that you

all are making right now,

but you don't need to make something better.

You need to make something different.

So you have something,

you can talk about a twist in what you're doing,

which is what you did.

Carrie, you did some research,

you figured out,

you know,

what was already out there.

How could you be different that you really liked?

Like the thing that you wanted and overlaying your own experiences.

So good too.

Yeah, that's exactly it.

Like I wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel,

but like one thing that I noticed and I worked with

a lot of different people in my different programs and stuff.

And so I hear the same thing over and over.

And oftentimes people jump,

it's like a race to the bottom.

They're like,

oh, well,

all my competitors are charging $20 for their candles.

So I'm going to charge $19 for my candle.

Instead of being like,

maybe I could charge more money,

but have a more high quality or have like a higher

end brand or something.

And that's what I did.

I literally said,

okay, screw it.

Like everyone's like having these $20,

a dog subscription boxes with junk.

And I started the most expensive subscription box for dogs and

it was,

everything was high-end and I focused on quality.

And that was like such a huge part of my brand

from day one.

But I think a lot of people just race to like,

I have to be cheaper.

I have to more affordable and people will always pay for

high quality.

Like there's a reason luxury brands still exist in like the

brick and mortar scene.

You know what I mean?

Yeah. We will invest in certain things and dogs is one

of them.

For sure.

I always say competing on price is like racing to the

bottom because it's just so easy.

Then you can play back and forth,

lower, lower,

lower, lower,

and all of a sudden you might as well just give

your product away.

All right.

So we could continue talking about the dapper dog box.

I could take this interview just down that angle,

but I think the best thing we should do right now

is really talk about what always is such an issue,

Carrie, with our people.

And I know you know that because that's why you built

your business around it,

but e-commerce and how to get sales and traffic online.

And of course we all our ears perked up without a

dime on advertising.

So let's start going down that route a little bit and

talk through that,

but to do that best.

And I'm just taking what I've been seeing in my Facebook

group and questions that people are having at the point where

they're first considering an e-commerce site,

how do you decide what platform to start with?

So let's say we've got our product going.

Maybe this is someone who has been doing craft shows and

face to face.

So they know their product can sell,

but they're looking for another avenue of revenue coming in and

they knew that they would have to get online and e-commerce

at some point.

Okay. So how do you decide what to start with?

Cause we just said we don't want all that overwhelm we'll

get fancy later.

How do you decide what to start with?

You'll hear Carrie's response to this right after a short break

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I mean,

I think especially if it's like a handmade or maker type

product, I mean,

Etsy is always probably the easiest place to start.

It's definitely not my favorite platform,

but I sell digital products on Etsy.

So I really do like Etsy.

And obviously a lot of my clients and students are on

Etsy and I do think they make it super easy to

get started.

You can literally sign up on,

headsy put out a couple of product photos,

put your descriptions and you can start making money.

So Etsy is a great,

great, great place for anything.

That's handmade.

My platform of choice.

And the one that I always recommend to people is definitely

Shopify. And that is because when it comes to selling stuff

online, you want to have a balance between platforms where you

control things and platforms that just make it easy for you

like a marketplace.

So for example,

Etsy is a marketplace.

Amazon handmade is also a marketplace because they have their own

audiences, people list products on there.

And then the best part about listing on a marketplace is

that people will just find you based on what they're searching

for. So someone goes to Etsy and they search for let's

see, I know you have like a lot of your audience

are people that have hand maker and makers and things like

that. So again,

we'll kind of use the candle example.

I think a candle is a great product and I know

a lot of people have candle company.

So people go to Etsy and they search for Balsam for

candle or like soy natural candle or something.

And then a bunch of stuff shows up.

So that's the benefit of a marketplace like an Etsy or

Amazon handmade is because it's easy for people to discover you.

However, you also want to be in platforms that you control

the experience and you control everything.

That's going to be a platform like Shopify.

Shopify is definitely the platform.

I a hundred percent recommend.

I love I'm like team Shopify.

I always say I should be like a Shopify marketer because

I literally just market them all the time.

I'm so with you,

I love it.

If people who've been listening for a while,

they will definitely be like,

okay, another check in the Shopify column.

But honestly,

both of these platforms and let's just talk about at T

and Shopify.

I think that's a good combination to talk about here for

a second.

They attract different audiences.

So, you know,

yes, you start with one.

And I liked that idea,

Carrie, as we say about starting easier,

you can start and get acquainted with the online field through

Etsy, easy,

easy. And it doesn't mean you have to put up all

of your products,

either put up a few things.

I mean,

you want a shop that looks full and like you're in

business, et cetera,

but getting the feel of orders coming in online,

packing up and shipping out products,

which has been different from if you were just doing shows

where you're handing over the product,

right. So it's not a bad place to start at all.

And I would say like,

to your point,

Carrie, like Etsy is more people searching by product.

And then when you get to a Shopify site,

which then next we'll talk about why Shopify would be the

thing to do,

but, but then they're looking for your business.

So I would say that's a differentiator.

Do you agree?

Yeah, definitely.

Like I know that we're going to probably talk about like

how to drive traffic and all that.

Yep. That's the most important part of this whole thing.

Yeah. Like when it comes to driving traffic,

there's a lot of different ways that people can find you.

And we'll talk about that,

but in,

we'll kind of like,

I can definitely break it down a little bit more,

but when it comes to like Etsy vers,

you know,

your own website,

you have to drive that traffic.

Like you have to create a brand and we can talk

about that as well and drive traffic to your store where

Etsy, or like an Amazon handmade people discover you because of

the platform.

So it's stuffy a very different way of driving traffic.

But I totally think that Etsy is a really good place

to start if you're doing handmade things,

because it's just easy.

Like I said,

I don't sell physical products on Etsy.

I sell digital and I was able to sign up and

figure out quite quickly,

how to do the product listings and all that.

It's just easy.

And so I definitely think a good place to start is

Etsy because it does get you,

like you said,

it gets you acquainted into this whole,

like how do I sell products online?

Because it's very different than if you have a brick and

mortar store or you're doing shows or markets and things like

that. It's totally different.

You have to take that experience of selling a t-shirt at

a trade show or like at a farmer's market and take

that experience and put it online and get people to see

the value of your product,

where in person you have all the senses,

you can touch the shirt or the candle,

you can smell it,

you can hold it.

You can see what it looks like up close and online.

It's a different,

you have to create that online,

which is not always super easy.

So definitely a different experience,

Definitely, but a good place to start just to get a

feel. And once you have perfected that,

feel comfortable with that,

and you get to the point where you're ready to do

our Shopify site.

That doesn't mean you shut down your Etsy store.

You just open up your Shopify site and I'm going to

let you take over Carrie and talk about all of that.

But it's just a companion that you can have two different

sources online.

E-commerce doesn't have to be a singular location.

Yeah, it definitely doesn't end.

Like I have a lot of people that I work with

where they have Etsy stores,

they also sell on Shopify.

They also sell on Amazon and you don't have to do

this when you first start a store.

But like you want to get to the point where you

have multiple,

I would call them like channels of customer acquisition or multiple

sales channels.

So if you do in person markets,

awesome, that's one channel.

You have Etsy,

okay. Now we have two channels.

And then you have your own website where you can drive

traffic. Now you have three channels.

And so these are three different ways of making money in

your business.

And you're not putting all of your eggs into one basket.

So if you can have like an Etsy store,

cause obviously Etsy is only for the things that are,

you can't like buy spreadsheets from China and then resell them.

Well, I guess you could actually,

I don't think so.

I don't know.

I feel like with Etsy,

like you have to make the product,

right? Yeah.

I mean,

I think a few have slipped in which I know has

been frustrated to some people,

but the other thing is you're attracting different audiences in different

places and you're marketing differently in different places too.

It's a whole different strategy and let's,

we'll merge off of Etsy.

I've got a number of podcasts already where we talk about

Etsy, but I am dying to go into Shopify and I'm

going to start with one and this isn't where you have

to start,

but I want you to put it in somewhere here or

focus on it is I have a lot of people who

are like,

okay, my Shopify site is up.

I'm not getting any sales,

that's it.

That's all they say.

Yep. So somewhere that may not be where you want to

start, but that is what I hear.

So Yeah,

no, I cared the same thing from,

and I kind of laughed chuckled when you said that.

And I don't mean that in a rude way.

It's just,

I hear the same thing every single day we have a

website and we're like,

okay. And there's some famous quote.

I think it's like,

if you build it,

they will come.

I don't know who said that.

I feel like someone famous,

but it's true with your website.

Like you build a website and you're just like,

oh, okay,

well it's here.

Why aren't you coming?

And I want anyone who's feeling that way and listening to

take comfort that we hear it often,

you know,

you're not alone.

It's not a mistake you're making,

you're going to learn here today.

So don't worry if that's where you're at.

We literally like every single person here who has launched an

online store,

unless there's two like exceptions to this one is that you've

already had some sort of a business,

probably like an online store or like a coaching business or

a service business.

And you already really,

really, really have a good understanding of how to get people

to your website or you are an influencer or you have

like a really big audience of people that are already ready

to buy from you.

So if you're not one of those two people,

you have to work hard to build that foundation of traffic.

And I agree with what Sue said.

Like, I hear this from every single person that I work

with or student in my program,

you don't start off knowing what to do.

Like when I launched my business,

I literally had no idea what I was doing.

And I'm definitely very transparent about my journey.

And I'm an open book in terms of like,

it wasn't all roses and sunshine with my business.

And I had to learn how to drive traffic.

And it's not something that we know how to do.

And I know a lot of people,

I hear this all the time.

They're like,

I'm a maker,

I'm not a marketer.

So often from people,

they have a really hard time.

They love making the product,

but they have a really hard time like selling it and

marketing it and all that kind of stuff.

So I totally understand that.

It's not an easy thing to do and it can be

really, really frustrating,

but hopefully I can give you some good takeaways.

Okay. So I think the biggest thing is,

and this is sort of like the framework that I teach,

because this is what I did for my business.

And I can just give you like a quick backstory.

the depre dog box.

I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

My background was in marketing,

but my background was in in-person marketing.

I would travel overseas to trade shows and meet with students

and parents and give them like the pamphlets for my school

and talk about all that.

So we didn't do a lot of stuff online actually.

So even though I'm a marketer for a long time,

I had to learn how to market a product online,

which is very different than in person.

So I had no idea what I was doing,

but I was like,

oh my background's in marketing.

And I love dogs.

Like this should be so easy.

Of course,

like, no,

it's not easy.

Well it's Sometimes it's better not to know.

Right? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean,

you have to,

like I said,

I talk about this all the time.

It is a journey having a product business,

the more you learn and the more you're willing to try

new things,

like you'll figure it out,

but it is a learning curve.

And if it was so easy,

everybody would be doing this type of business.

But guess what?

They're not because it's hard.

And so you're already doing so many good things because you

have your business.

So I just want to say that too.

But like the first year of my business,

what I did was I focused on one platform.

I didn't start my business and say,

okay, I have to be on Pinterest and Instagram and Facebook

and do all these different things.

I chose one.

And the one that I chose was Instagram.

Instagram today is very different and it's,

that's like a different conversation,

but it's a different platform.

It was a little bit easier than,

and it was,

I would say more simple.

You had photos,

you had your captions,

you had hashtags and Instagram just kind of worked well.

So I focus on Instagram.

That's where my customer was.

And so another really important thing to ask yourself is not

what platform do I like being on it is what platform

are my customers on?

Where do my customers go to find things that they want?

And that's the platform that you want to focus on.

So for me,

the first one was Instagram.

My product was very visually appealing.

Like I had beautiful packaging.

I spent a lot of my time focusing on products that

photographed with it really well together.

And so my product looked really well on Instagram,

but that's where my audience hung out.

So I doubled down on Instagram.

The first,

I would say nine,

10 months.

I got customers.

I learned the platform.

I figured out how to kind of use the platform.

I talked to my customers.

That's like the best part of Instagram today still is that

you can actually,

literally your customer can tag you in a photo or a

video and you can literally reach out and say,

Hey, thank you so much for buying for me.

I really appreciate you.

Here's a coupon for a future purchase.

Or like,

Hey, I was just curious,

like, I really appreciate you buying from me.

Do you mind sharing a little bit of,

I'm trying to understand how to improve,

like the experience for my customers.

Could you tell me like,

why you chose me and not a competitor or something like

you have the opportunity to talk to people and there is

no other platform that allows you to actually have conversations with

your customers.

Like in quick,

real time,

that feels very personalized.

And so that's what I did.

I literally would like message people and say,

oh my gosh,

like, thank you for buying for me.

How did you hear about me?

Like, oh,

you found me on Facebook.

Cool. Like,

was there a Facebook group?

Or they would say,

oh, I found you from this gift guide that you were

featured in.

So I would literally like reach out to customers and ask

them, how did you find me?

And I had a list.

So I had like a proper notebook where I would write

down all the different places that people were telling me that

they would find me.

And I get it.

Now I know more information on,

well, okay.

If I'm getting all these customers from like a Facebook group

or something,

well now I'm going to do more in Facebook groups just

as an example.

So that was like my first nine,

10 months of my business was I focused on one channel

and I really made that channel work really well for me.

I didn't distract myself with feeling like I needed to be

doing like a hundred different things,

which I think is oftentimes what we do in the first

half of our business is like,

well, I have to be on 25 different places.

And then you end up getting overwhelmed or burnt out and

then you don't do anything effectively.

I agree.

So, yeah.

And what are you doing here?

You're building your business.

So you don't have to throw everything up at one time,

but just like you were saying,

Carrie, like get good at that,

get where it has traction.

And then you'll go further.

I wanted to understand a little bit better.

What types of things you were posting?

Was it all just product photos or what did your content

look like?

And to be honest with you,

like when I first started my business,

I had not used Instagram before I had used Instagram in

my personal life,

like minimally and to be audited,

like, this is kind of funny now,

now that it's 20,

22, but in my head,

like Instagram was like this kind of like photo editing app.

And I don't know if you used to use it like

back in the day where you could make those filters on

the photos.

Oh yeah.

I didn't really use social media in my personal life at

all. So I had to also learn social media.

But anyway,

so when I first launched Instagram,

I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

So I started posting like sneak peaks and the businesses launching

and I would post like,

oh, this dog treat company is going to be in our

first box and kind of like,

it would be what today is like meet the makers kind

of thing.

And then so as I started experimenting and trying new things

and all that,

the content that I started to post a lot of that

first was more product.

Like here's the box buy the subscription box.

It was very much like buy my product,

buy my product.

And I learned quickly that does not work.

So I started making it more fun for people to kind

of follow me.

And that was like my strategy after a few months,

like, okay,

people aren't resonating with like my,

like I would post a picture of like the subscription box,

like with a background,

like some kind of a background.

And I would just talk about it.

Those posts would get like,

no traction,

no likes,

no comments,

nothing. But then if I posted like a picture of my

dog and I told like a story like,

oh, you know,

my dog as a puppy,

she had allergies.

So we had to start getting grain-free treats.

And like,

I really love these brands.

And that's what,

one of the benefits of the dapper dog boxes is that

we have all natural grain-free treats.

My dog Asha is the test taster.

And I put that in all of my signatures for the

first, like one or two years of the business,

the emails would always come from Asha,

who is my dog,

my black lab.

And those posts,

I noticed like people would comment and they would be like,

oh, like my dog has an allergy to,

so the point here that I'm making with this piece of

information is content that starts conversations is your best friend.

If you're just posting stuff,

like buy my product,

buy the box,

buy this,

no one wants to be sold to 24 7.

But when you can use storytelling and kind of like weave

personal things in with your product,

but that starts a conversation with people.

That's the kind of stuff that really,

really, really will get you some traction.

And I discover that pretty early on with Instagram was like,

when I'm posting stories and things like that,

people are commenting.

I'm getting like people to DM me.

You want to start like,

and I know a lot of you are like,

well, I don't really want to talk to people.

You have to think of it as like it's all market

research. You're trying to figure out,

you're trying to hop into the brain of your ideal customer

and understand what is going to get them to buy.

And that's your job with social media is like,

well, really it's your job with your whole business.

But yeah.

So I started doing,

do you ask me about content?

I was hoping that you would make the point here that

it's not just product image after product dimension.

And so I think we've got that and let's move on.

Cause I want to make sure that we get everything in

here with our time together.

So. All right,

perfect. So we started with focusing on one social media platform

only. Yup.

And so again,

for me,

that was Instagram,

my recommendations are Instagram or TechTalk because those are,

I mean,

tech talk in particular is just the fastest growing pot forum,

but you have to do videos.

So it just depends where you're at.

But for me,

I did Instagram.

And then what I started to do next was I started

to get into SEO.

So SEO is something that a lot of people are very

scared of.

So SEO stands for search engine optimization.

And so the real simplified way of explaining this is how

do you get your business,

your product,

your brand,

your website,

to show up on Google.

So when someone types goes to Google and they type in

gluten-free pizza recipe,

or like gluten-free pizza,

you get a list of things that will pop up.

Generally, it's going to be YouTube videos.

It's going to be blog posts.

It's going to be websites.

So your job is to get your business to show up

on Google search.

And so that comes from doing a bunch of different things,

which I can talk about a little bit more in detail,

but the overall like overarching of this is it's called SEO.

So you want to do things that get your business on

Google. And so it was a right about a year into

my business.

When I discovered SEO,

I had no idea what the heck SEO was.

And quite frankly,

I was very confused by it.

And now I love SEO and I love talking about it.

And I know my students,

when I start talking about SEO,

like their eyes kind of glaze over,

they're like,

oh, I don't want to do it.

But again,

do one thing like just get started.

Yeah. So like my husband's friend actually had a marketing agency

and he specialized in SEO.

So I basically had like one or two calls with him.

Oh, you got some inside skinny direction and all lucky you,

okay. Yeah.

So this one's like an,

I didn't get that in my business at all.

This was like literally the one time in my three years

where someone knew this like really awesome thing and they shared

some advice with me.

And so that was this moment.

I didn't have any mentors or coaches,

which was a big mistake by the way.

But this guy,

he was like my little saving grace and yeah,

he was like,

you gotta start,

you gotta learn about SEO.

You gotta learn about keywords and you have to learn about

how to create blog content so people can find you on

Google. And I was like,

oh, that's so cool.

Okay. Awesome.

And I did a little keyword.

So with SEO,

like the most important thing,

and I want to make sure I keep it like kind

of simple because I know SEO is really complicated.

It's all about keywords.

So understanding what your audience would be searching for to kind

of find or discover your brand.

So for me,

I sold dogs,

subscription boxes.

And so for me,

the first things that I was doing would be to use

a couple tools and understand what people were typing into Google

to find dogs,

subscription boxes,

what kind of questions were they asking?

And so I started doing a little bit of like keyword

research at the time I was using S E M or

rush, but honestly like Uber suggest www.ubersuggest.com

is way better.

And it's very,

very, very cheap and affordable.

And it's like magical for research and anything SEO related.

And I did some keyword research and then I was like,

okay, cool.

Now I'm going to start creating blog content.

And so with blogging,

like the biggest thing,

and a lot of people are like,

oh, blogging is very outdated.

It's archaic,

but it's really not blogging.

It is one of the most powerful ways to drive traffic.

So I know that we're going to talk about this episode

is very much catered to how to drive traffic to your

website or your online store.

Logging is your best friend.

And we've been talking blogging here.

So regular listeners are going to be aware of this too

already. Yes.

And blogging is like,

it is king for driving traffic.

So that's what I started doing for my business.

I started with my business.

One of my ideal customers was a golden doodle dog owner.

And so I started creating blog content around that topic.

And soon enough,

I had one blog post that ranked number one on Google.

And I talked about this on my own podcasts,

like probably a hundred times.

And I love talking about it,

but it was the best dog toys for golden doodles or

like the five best dog toys for golden doodles.

I wrote that blog post.

And then within a few months I was ranked number one

on Google.

And so what happens when you're ranked number one in Google,

as you probably talk about it in your podcast is you

drive crazy traffic.

And that's what that did for my business is I started

to get a ton of traffic from blogging.

Okay. And how far into your business where you at this

point? So this was maybe like a little over a year,

so some of the new,

Okay. So only a year in you write an article that

hits the right keywords to get visibility and you end up

driving a ton of traffic to your website where miraculously,

all your products appear.

Yes. So my first year of that blog post,

and I know that you like specific stories.

My first year of that blog post,

it drove 20,000

website visitors,

20,000. That's like a stadium full of people.

Yes. It is like,

that's why I tell people all the time.

Like, I think people just assume blogging doesn't quite work,

but it really does because you want to be visible on

Google. It is the most important thing because one blog post

or one YouTube video,

it continues to drive traffic years down the line,

unlike an Instagram post,

which basically dies after a week.

And so that's a huge part of my framework that I

really teach people is how do you build your business or

set your business up today for future success.

And that's going to be through like your SEO activity.

So creating blog content or YouTube,

or just even like optimizing your website with those keywords.

So if you're doing Shopify,

you know,

at the bottom of every Shopify page,

there's like a,

literally a little section called,

like, I forgot exactly what the word is,

but it's something like search engine or something and you title

your pages.

And if you put like high-end dog toys,

handmade, soy Kindles made in Nebraska,

like you put those keywords in there and that's how Google

knows you're selling basically.

So it's like,

Google's kind of like the matchmaker between a product and what

people are searching for.

So when someone goes to Google to find something,

they say,

oh, like,

Sue makes soy candles in Nebraska or what I'm using a

silly example,

but, and they match you with the brand.

So that is the power of like the Google stuff,

which is going to be blog content or YouTube.

So I'm such a huge advocate of choosing one of those

platforms. And again,

like doubling down your content.

Perfect. And then another easy way.

So now we talked about social media,

we talked about blogging for SEO,

and then another thing that your audience can completely do,

which is what I did was I got really like,

my customers love my brand.

I put a ton of time and energy into creating an

awesome customer experience for them.

So when they got the product in the mail,

they had a beautiful unboxing experience.

Everything was great.

They got great emails from me.

And so I would get customers that like,

just love the brand.

They would email me,

they would post on social media.

They would tag me and stuff and they would literally be

like, we just love this so much.

Like, or if there was a customer service issue that I

resolved, which I put a very high premium on customer service,

they would say,

oh my gosh,

like, thank you so much.

I would turn like these angry customers into happy people.

And so I started realizing like,

okay, you're getting a lot of people that they really like

your brand.

And it's not just a product that you buy an Amazon.

They like you,

they like your brand.

And they,

like, they knew me by name,

you know,

like I was the owner of the company and I would

do all the customer service,

emails and everything.

So I started to say,

okay, how can I leverage what's happening here?

My customers really like the brand.

And, you know,

as, you know,

dog people,

they tell their friends about products that they like.

And so I said,

okay, I need to start like a customer referral program.

And so super,

super scrappy.

As I mentioned before,

I just,

every time I would get one of those happy people,

whether it was a customer that I served a customer service

issue for them,

or with someone on social media who would tag me in

a product photo or something,

I would reach out to them.

And I would basically say,

Hey, did you know that we have a customer referral program?

If you refer a friend or family or whoever,

we'll send you a free box,

if you want,

like, if you're interested,

I can make a coupon code for you that you can

share. Let me know if you're interested.

And like 95% of people would write back or message back.

And they would say,

oh my gosh,

yes, we would love a code.

Could you make mine called?

And they would usually do it like with their dog's name,

but that's how my customer referral program started.

It was very scrappy.

It was not like a $200 a month app or anything.

It was just literally like,

I can make you a coupon code if people use it,

I'll give you a free item.

And I got a ton of business from that one little

strategy. So it was almost like you provided them an affiliate

link, but it was really a referral that went back to

them. I'm not even that.

I mean,

it was even less intricate as that.

It was literally like,

if you give your friend like my website and you use

your individual coupon code,

like SU you get 10% off,

I would just go into my store.

And like,

literally, and again,

this is,

if you're doing scrappy things,

You're starting,

I would just check the codes like,

oh, okay.

The code Sue was used three times.

Okay, awesome.

Now I'm going to go into her account and I'm just

going to add,

I had some other coupon that I would add in,

and it would give you a free box.

So it would almost like reduce your charge for the next

one, but you can do it as simple as that without

even having an affiliate program or giving people custom links,

it's literally just like,

here's a coupon code.

If people use it,

you get a reward or an incentive.

And for me,

that was wildly,

like one of my best ways of getting customers was through

customer referrals.

And I think anything to do with like handmade companies or

things like that,

it works really well because people will tell their friends if

they buy a product from you,

when they really like it,

they will share it on social media.

They will tell their friends and they will buy it as

gifts for other people,

which is another like,

huge way to get customers.

Absolutely. Totally agree with you.

Okay. These have been three absolutely fabulous ways of driving traffic.

And then obviously a portion of that traffic converts over to

sales. We've talked about them,

but I'm going to summarize them again real quick here,

focusing on one social media platform at a time until you

get really proficient and see results to do things on the

SEO end,

such as keywords,

which lead to how to determine how you could blog YouTube

videos, that type of thing.

Because then on Google,

you're going to be SPE seen by people who you would

never even know how to reach anywhere else.

And then three what's the experience your customers having when they

buy your product.

And that could have started way at the top with the

first point that you were DM-ing them in social.

When you've started to develop a relationship,

and now they feel like they're your friend,

and then they buy something from you and then OMG,

they get your unboxing.

And it's so beautiful.

And so such a wonderful experience,

which by the way,

allows you to charge more,

especially if you're an upscale product,

that whole experience that you give justifies a higher price,

your on the higher end.

So you would expect that the experience would be such,

they fall in love with your brand and carry this referral

program is brilliant.

When you're talking about how easy it can be to get

it implemented,

it can be manual.

At first,

you can fancy it up later,

but right in the beginning,

just getting it started,

you know,

w let's face it.

We all want to know what's in it for us.

Sometimes it's just the feel good.

But when you have the feel good,

and then you get something tangible,

like a free box in return,

that's even better,

even better,

right? Yeah.

I mean,

I noticed so quickly that customer referral thing that I had,

it worked so well because people like your brand and like,

just like you just said,

people want something for themselves,

which there's no shame in that.

But the second I said,

like, you can get something for free.

It was like,

oh my gosh.

Okay, cool.

And like,

people jumped at that.

Yeah. They're in fabulous.

Well, listen,

we have covered three points pretty well.

So you're going to walk away with these and these are

things based on what you already have in place or not.

You can start implementing today.

And if you go over and listen to Carrie's podcast,

again, it's the six figure product business podcast.

I'm sure you're going to be able to pick up more

tips along this line.

So definitely go and do that.

And Carrie,

where else can people find you?

Thank you so much.

So people can find me on Instagram.

My handle is K E R R I E.

Dot a dot Fitzgerald and go to my website,

Carrie fitzgerald.com

or definitely a good place to find me is definitely my

podcast as well.

So like Sue just said the six-figure product business podcast.

And I have,

most of my episodes are very much marketing focused cause I

love marketing.

Yeah. If anyone has any questions or is curious,

but anything that I talked about on this episode definitely reach

out to me.

I am an open book.

I share everything and I want all my product is equal

to be making lots of money and getting a lot of

traffic. So I'm definitely here to help.

Absolutely. I love that.

Well, I feel like we have compatible podcasts.

It's like we have to listen to both of them and

you're going to get great stuff if you need each place.

So yeah.

Wonderful. Carrie,

thank you so much for coming on today and sharing with

us, your tips and secrets for how we can drive more

visibility to our business.

So, so important.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much for having me.

Okay. Which one is it?

Which of the three ways of driving traffic to your website?

Are you going to run with,

do me a favor?

Don't do each one just a little bit.

Your results will then be random at best.

Pick one,

get it going strong with consistency and then go for another.

And if you want to chat about it,

as you get things in place,

a great way to ask questions is in the Facebook group

gift biz breeze.

You'll hear more about that at the very end here before

you move on to your next activity today,

make sure to get your name on the list for at

least one gift biz bash.

You can see the dates and times for upcoming sessions and

get signed up over at gift biz,

unwrapped.com forward slash bash.

And if you're enjoying the podcast and would like to show

support a rating and review would be wonderful.

It helps spread the word about the show too.

So it's a great way to pay it forward.

There's also another way to get something tangible in exchange for

your support.

Visit my merch shop for a wide variety of inspirational items

like mugs,

journals, water bottles,

and more featuring logos images and quotes to inspire you throughout

your day makes a great gift to,

and we've just added some new products for the season,

which is my favorite design right now.

It's a toss up with that gorgeous lemonade image and a

quote about refreshing and the beautiful butterfly design.

What yours turnaround is quick and the quality is top notch,

nothing but the best for you.

Take a look at all the options at gift biz,

unwrapped.com forward slash shop.

All proceeds from these purchases helps me offset the costs of

producing this podcast and now be safe and well.

And I'll see you again.

Next time on the gift biz unwrapped podcast.

I want to make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook

group called gift biz breeze.

It's a place where we all gather and our community to

support each other.

Got a really fun post in there.

That's my favorite of the week.

I have to say where I invite all of you to

share what you're doing to show pictures of your product,

to show what you're working on for the week to get

reaction from other people and just for fun,

because we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody

in the community is making my favorite post every single week,

without doubt.

Wait, what,

aren't you part of the group already,

if not make sure to jump over to Facebook and search

for the group gift biz breeze don't delay.