You've finally released your business to the world, yay! But now it's time for the work to begin. It can be easy to start feeling overwhelmed as you fight for the first sale - getting started on social media, ranking on Google through SEO, and making enough money to reach your goals and grow your business.

There are four things you should do right after launching:

Set up your Pinterest business account
Run a flash sale across your entire shop
Optimize your listings for SEO
Set up an Instagram business or creator account

Don't feel overwhelmed! I don't want you to burn out right after starting your business, so treat this blog post as a guide to help you every step of the way as you set your business up for success. View this blog as your mini seller handbook to increase sales and replace your previous income in just three months like me!

Pinterest for Digital Planning Businesses

One of my favorite marketing tools as a digital planner creator and designer is Pinterest. It allows me to market my business in a simple and long-lasting way. Pinterest isn't necessarily another social media platform, it's a search engine with 478 million active monthly users that people flock to when it's time to make a purchase.

Read the full blog post on how I use Pinterest for my digital planning business.

How do I use Pinterest for Business?

Create a Pinterest Business account so that you can have access to the tools you need to monitor analytics, increase website traffic, and get sales from the platform.
Create boards that attract your ideal client and allow you to promote your products. Add in SEO-friendly board titles and descriptions so that your boards rank in Pinterest search results.
Post Pins that both attract and convert your target audience through images, alt descriptions, pin titles, and pin descriptions. Also, make sure your URLs are optimized and reflect the content you're directing people to from your pins!

Use Tailwind to see the ultimate results and schedule pins ahead of time. Click here to try it out for free!

Run a Shop - Wide Flash Sale

What better way to kick things off and get your business going than with a sale? People love discounts and will flock to your shop! If you've been promoting the launch of your business on social media and through email marketing, this is a great incentive to get warm leads in your audience to buy from you.

You don't have to run a large sale - a simple discount will do the trick! And since you're probably feeling a bit tired from launching your Etsy shop, it doesn't have to run for very long. A short flash sale will motivate people to buy from you before time runs out. You can also tell people that there will be a sale when you launch your shop and to keep their eyes out. One of my favorite ways to do this is through a flash sale email sequence of about 5 emails that I send my subscribers before and during the sale.

To make it easy for you to create an email sequence for your flash sales, I've put together an email sequence template of the exact five emails I use with fill-in-the-blank sections so you can totally customize it to your business. You can snag this template for yourself in the Digital Planner Academy program here!

A flash sale creates FOMO or fear of missing out. This means that as time runs out and you continue to promote your sale, people will continue to purchase the items in your shop!

Pro tip: If this flash sale leads to some of your first sales, kindly ask people to leave a review or write a testimonial to build credibility around your brand.

Optimize Your Listings for SEO

Search engine optimization is crucial on Etsy if you want your product listings to show up in the right search results for potential customers browsing through listings. Writing a product description with intentions can be the difference between a potential customer choosing to purchase your product or a competitor's!

SEO can seem like a guessing game filled with trial and error, but using Marmalead can make things quite a bit easier! Marmalead is a tool for shop owners to increase their sales with keywords that will help you show up at the top of Etsy search results. There are over 110,000 users who trust Marmalead to get their products in front of potential buyers with ease. While it is a monthly subscription, they also have a free blog filled with helpful resources for those who don't have a large business budget.

How to improve your Etsy SEO

Optimize your shop title - Inform people of what you sell and who you sell it to so that the first impression you give to potential customers after they hit enter in the search bar forms a personal connection and increases the chances of them purchasing your product!
Choose your keywords - Specific keywords will help you rank much better than broad keywords that generate thousands of search results. So instead of using "planner", try "digital planner" or "digital planner for moms". There's a fine line here between too large and too small keywords; you want keywords that are large enough for you to get your product in front of potential buyers but not so large that your listing gets lost between competitors. Use these keywords in both product titles and product descriptions.
Use all 13 tag opportunities - If Etsy gives you a chance to niche down with your product, take it! When you're listing a new product, you have the optional choice of using tags. Take full advantage of the tools Etsy has given you to extend the reach of your online business.

Using Instagram for Your Online Shop

The last thing you can do to promote your business and increase sales is to set up an Instagram business or creator account. With both of these account types, you have access to analytics and insights into your audience so you can see what kinds of posts are resonating with your ideal client. Here are three quick tips to set yourself up for success on Instagram...

Use all 30 hashtags - Just like I recommend using all thirteen tag opportunities on your Etsy shop listings, I recommend using the features Instagram has provided users with to reach a wider audience and get your digital products in front of potential customers.
Use Reels - One of Instagram's latest features is Reels, which is basically their version of TikTok videos. People love video content, and it's the primary piece of content that Instagram is pushing to both your existing and future followers. When creating Reels, use trending sounds to see an increased reach!
Use high-quality product photos - whether you're posting mockups, testimonials, or pictures of how customers are using their own digital planners, it's important to have premium imagery. This helps you appear more professional, increase credibility, and help users visualize what their lives would look like with your products by their side. I love to use Moyo Studio for mockups and other images, you can check them out here! You can also invest in custom product photography to create your own mockups!

Read the full blog post on how I use Instagram for my digital planning business.

BONUS TIP - Create Product Collections

Why stop at just digital planners?! The sky is the limit when it comes to the types of digital products you can create. After you've picked a niche, see what gaps there are in the market that you can fill with your digital products. For example, if you choose to target mothers, you can create other products like a finance tracker, homeschool curriculum planner or notebook, and more ideas that appeal specifically to your target audience.

When you create a collection of products, you can bundle and sell them together to increase your revenue over selling individual products while also providing a discount for your customers. It's a win-win! It can be intimidating to focus on one niche and ignore all the others while still finding the time to create a collection for your customers. To help you, I've created the Digital Planner Kits, which allow you to create a collection of various digital products in just a weekend!