Does an illustrator need a lot of audience growth before they make an Esty store ?
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Does an illustrator need a lot of audience growth either on insta or twitter before they decide to make an Esty store with stickers small post cards and prints ?
I've been wanting to make a etsy store or store in general for a while now selling small stickers and postcards , but I've been finding it hard to get eyes on my main pictures I put out there. At times when there is a small interest in the work I put out I write little notes on my page like would anyone be interested in seeing a post card or sticker pack of these characters and I hear nothing back.
So I'm wondering should I just go for it and just make my little post cards and stickers without anyone being interested or should I hold off and wait for that growth to show in ?
I should know by know having a lot of followers don't main a lot of success but with me posting work and putting up sketches I've been in a real funk trying to figure out if there's a trend I'm not following or what ? maybe my hashtags just aren't reaching enough people so maybe I need to promote myself even more I'm not really not sure.
Thanks for listening sorry to make this so long.
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Hi Corlette! I understand your dilemma, it's hard to know if you should invest money into prints, postcards and stickers if you are not sure they will sell. One route you can go is to add your art to one (or a few) of the print on demand sites out there such as: Redbubble, Society 6, etc. You can sell postcards, stickers and prints on all those sites without having to make an investment (other than the time it takes to set up your shop). This might be a good way to test the waters and be able to offer something to your followers. Another advantage is you won't have to do the fulfillment, so you just add the art and they handle the rest, giving you more time to make art ;).
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@Corlette-Douglas Not necessarily. The important part is finding where your ideal customer is for your product and go there to offer them your product. The target audience of your art instagram isn't necessarily the same as the target audience for your store. For instance I have an Etsy shop for digital planners and digital planner stickers. This has almost nothing to do with my main art account, so my audience there is irrelevant and couldn't help me at all. So when I opened my shop, I knew I couldn't count on that and what I did instead was create a freebie and go offer it in Facebook groups related to digital planning, in exchange for signing up for my mailing list. With this tactic I was able to get a few hundred leads on my mailing list in the weeks before I opened my shop.
So the answer would be yes it's important to have an audience to launch to, but no it doesn't have to be your instagram art account audience. In fact, it's best if it's an audience you know for a fact is interested in buying the kind of products you make.
