5 Ways To Expand Your Vinyl Business
If you’re at a point where you’re making sales, but you could be doing more, then I have 5 ideas for you to help grow your vinyl decal business! Watch below…
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Before you try and expand, I would advise that you make sure all of your basics are right first, like branding, packaging and making sure you’re getting a good profit. So if you need some help with that, please check out my courses to help with all of that (they are free for 2 weeks for all new skillshare members!)
But if you’re all set, take a look at the ideas below…
1. Focus on one social media platform
So if you don’t already do this, pick ONE social media platform to learn and get really good at. Just focus on one, rather than trying to post everywhere and then not having time to master any of them.
I am highly biased towards Tiktok as I love it… I haven’t mastered it by any means, and I do use it for vinyl decal school rather than my actual vinyl business, but I’ve managed to gain 17k followers and get really good engagement in a fairly short timeframe.
Maybe you found me from tiktok, drop me a comment and say hello if so! But ideally you want to use the platform where your customers hang out… that could be twitter, it could be pinterest or facebook or instagram, although the last two are getting harder for small businesses to succeed without spending money on ads. But there definitely is a way to get at least some growth organically from all of them.
Once you’ve chosen one, go to that social media account and look for tips from experts, people with huge followings and your competitors who have good engagement and make a note of what they’re doing. Obviously don’t just copy, have a think about how you can make it your own and make it relevant to what you’re selling. We’re just getting inspiration after all!
2. Add Another Platform
So I sold on Etsy for 3 years and then decided to open my own Shopify store (watch my first thoughts on Shopify video here). I still have my Etsy shop and get most of my sales from there as they bring me lots of traffic, but I’m slowly building up the traffic to my Shopify so just on the off chance anything happens with Etsy then I have that as a back up. But also it’s a second place for people to find me, a second place to make sales, and it’s lower fees than Etsy so that’s also a plus.
But you don’t necessarily need to have a website… you could just consider opening an Amazon handmade store as well as an Etsy shop.
Or selling locally as well as via an online marketplace. Or expanding your facebook business page into an ebay shop as well. If you have the capacity, then it makes sense to give your customers more ways to find you.
Obviously just try and keep consistency with your prices so that they can’t buy something off you in one place and then complain that they could have had it cheaper elsewhere.
If you don’t already have an Etsy shop, you can start one for free and get your first 40 listings on me, using the link below…
3. Word of mouth/social proof
This is one of the best ways to grow with the smallest amount of effort. To do it effectively though you need to be making sure you are asking for reviews and tags on social media from your existing customers… so this could be making thank you cards to add to every order or adding stickers to every envelope to ask for a review. It could be sending your customers follow up messages, or offering a referral discount if they recommend you to a friend and it’s feasible for you.
Just remember to put your branding on everything so that people don’t forget who and where they bought your item!
4. Expand on your current designs or audience
So you can either expand on your current designs so that you can upsell them to your existing customers (think complimentary designs or larger versions). OR if you have already done that then look to see if you can sell to another type of audience.
So for example, if you usually sell to people organising their homes, then perhaps you could also look to target small businesses who need decals to organise their offices or something along those lines.
Photo by Bench Accounting on Unsplash
Just try not to target a complete opposite audience as that might end up diluting your original audience.
5. Outsource
And then the last one is probably the only way you can truly expand… hire people to help you, if you don’t already!
There’s a limit to how much you can do on your own without hitting a wall and burning out. If you’re like me and work from home then it is a bit daunting to hire someone to come and work with you to make orders, and you might not be quite ready to expand into a workshop yet, so maybe you could try and see if there is anyone you know who is interested first. Even if it is just to help you out one day a week.
But it doesn’t necessarily need to be someone to help you with making orders or in person anyway… you could hire a VA to help with customer service, or social media, or outsource your bookkeeping, or any of the other parts of your business that you find yourself spending a lot of time on and that someone else could do.
For places to find online help, check out the following…
Just be sure to check reviews and be clear about what you need!
I think it’s probably one of the most important skills you can learn as a small business owner actually… how and when to delegate!
Of course these are only 5 and I’m sure there are tonnes of others. Let me know if you have any questions, or any other ideas for building on your existing vinyl business in the comments!