When we’re selling crafts online we’d all like to think that every visitor to our website will be a customer. It’s not true of course, no more than every visitor to a high street store buys something. However, just because our customer is leaving empty-handed it doesn’t mean we can’t get some value out of them!

Selling crafts online isn’t a “one-hit or miss” situation. We want to build a relationship with our customer. We want the opportunity to put our proposition in front of them again and again. So how can we do this? If they’re leaving, we can’t exactly stop them by the door and wring their details out of them.

Or can we?

What if we offer them something in return for their information? Maybe you have a sample of something it would be worth giving away in return for their contact details? Doesn’t need to be something expensive, in fact perhaps it could be something that costs you nothing.

Let’s say you sell hand-made soaps online. You could give away small soap samples but that might be a bit expensive. For just a few hours of your time you could put together a “Guide To Hand-Made Soaps”, a short booklet, delivered digitally (hence at no cost) giving people the benefits of using hand-made soaps. It’s easy to set up a contact form on your website that automatically provides the download in exchange for the visitor’s email address.

So now you have the opportunity to follow up on that visitor. Don’t bombard them with junk but keep them up to date with special offers, new products, etc. You don’t just let them wander off to another part of the internet, you give them something of value in return for the chance to sell something to them at some time in the future.

Is it worth it? You bet. Everyone who is successful at selling crafts online does this in some way or another.

Now not everyone will take you up on your offer. Never mind, we can still try and get some value out of our visitor before they leave.

Lots of sites have links pages - and they’re popular with visitors because they usually lead to other, related sites. The trouble is, all you’re doing is giving your visitor an easy route to the exit. Click and they’re gone. Now there’s nothing we can do about the fact they are leaving, but we can try to get some value out of it. Here’s how.

A link out of your site does virtually nothing for you. Links to your site, on the other hand, are very valuable (as long as they are from relevant websites). So when you’re planning your links page, think about what we call “reciprocal linking”. Don’t just link to Jane Doe’s Jewelery-dot-com (or whoever), because you like the site, check out the site and see if it has a links page. If it does, drop Jane a polite email suggesting an exchange - you link to her site if she links to yours.

If she doesn’t have a links page, or wish to reciprocate, ask yourself if there is any real benefit to linking to her?

Are we being a bit strict - that’s for you to decide, but my advice isn’t intended to make friends, it’s intended to help you selling crafts online. If I’m a bit mercenary sometimes it’s with your best interests in mind!

The other way to get value out of your visitor as they leave your site is using affiliate programs and I’ll be covering that in another article soon.

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