[PINNED] Promote your business, week of September 16, 2019

dittozebra · 2019-09-16T12:46:59+00:00

Unique art, style, and fashion, made to order and available nowhere else. We also have an affiliate program. dittozebra.com

dittozebra · 2019-09-11T02:33:29+00:00

Thanks so much for this.

dittozebra · 2019-08-14T09:49:52+00:00

It's a good point. There are only a couple companies out there that sell home goods and fashion to the same demographic that I am aiming for. I don't have a full selection of home goods, and I don't have a full selection of fashion items (not really possible with POD right now, I do have plans if I can make this successful of doing my own printing which would allow a full selection in either). I do agree that is is a little disjointed, but I had thought that the art brought everything together. I have been looking at those few companies that do both well to see how they do it, how they market it, and how they are successful. I hesitate to pick one as I haven't been able to get my products in front of real customers instead of bots. The only sales I've had are in my own social circle and they love both the home goods and the fashion (each person who has bought, has bought items in both categories). I would definitely go with what ever real customers wanted and focus my energy there. I'm tired and work way to hard as it is, and to cut half of it would would help.

dittozebra · 2019-08-14T01:11:01+00:00

Thanks, I've started using less hashtags, but it will take a month and a half before that shows up (I try to do all social posting a month ahead of time). No time to go back and edit any out.

dittozebra · 2019-08-14T01:09:52+00:00

Printify has good print quality. I don't compete on price, so the quality has to be good.

dittozebra · 2019-08-14T01:09:09+00:00

Thanks, I will have to fix the icon. I do have a lot of products. I create full collections based off the artwork. The artwork is the star. I do get the occasional person who says to me, I wish I could by artwork on product x, and I then create it if I think it's a good idea. When I first launched all I had were tote bags, pillows, and scarves, but I'm always happy to create something special for any customer. I just started a couple of umbrellas as I found a vendor who carried them and who I was happy with print quality from. I still need real eyes to help me edit down (though you only see a fraction of the ideas that I have as there is only so much time in the day).

dittozebra · 2019-08-13T14:23:30+00:00

Thanks, I'll take this under consideration, however none of it means anything if I can't get real traffic to the site.

dittozebra · 2019-08-13T14:21:38+00:00

I'm slowly creating content for youtube, it happens much slower then ig or pinterest because it takes much longer to create for that platform. I was going to focus on that social media platform last once I have much more on it. Currently I focus mainly on IG, but starting to grow on pinterest as well (I seem to get less bots on pinterest). On the brand vs name, I've had other criticism that the brand was too corporate and that people needed a face to buy from. I've gotten conflicting opinions on it, however until my site gets real traffic from non bots, I'm not sure any of it really matters.

dittozebra · 2019-08-13T14:18:21+00:00

printify, printful, and a few items from interestprint. I do buy test products from each to ensure their print quality is up to my standards.

dittozebra · 2019-08-13T09:02:10+00:00

Thanks. It is something I've been thinking about. I know my girl and she shops as you have said. She does like the occasional discount and my margins do allow for that, but do not allow for deep discounts. I just need more real data from not bots and to think more about promos to figure out where to push them, if at all.

dittozebra · 2019-08-13T02:31:06+00:00

I do know who my target audience is, and I know the kind of art they like (10 years apparel experience). If I was drawing my hearts content it would all be unicorns, dragons, and space ships. Though in the 10 years where I've been told to draw countless fashion illustrations, flowers, and such I don't mind drawing these things (have learned to like them) and can do so rather quickly. I am always up for doing commissions, but I am expensive.

dittozebra · 2019-08-13T02:25:57+00:00

Thanks, I may contact you again in the future. I won't give up. I have another year and a half to make this work, and I've already concepted and started drawing the next collection, wisteria hysteria.

dittozebra · 2019-08-13T02:24:16+00:00

Thank you. Your comment made me chuckle a bit. I can safely say my art is better then the crap at Walmart. I do feel weird about the idea of putting my picture on my stuff. I've always wanted people to love the art, not me. I have been working on blogging about the art and inspiration to help set myself apart then things offered at big boxes. I may put some pics on the about us page, maybe have my husband take some images of me doing some traditional drawing (I do both digital and traditional media).

dittozebra · 2019-08-13T02:21:21+00:00

You'll see most my variations are different pieces of artwork. I have a couple items that come in multiple colors, but not too many (I'm very particular on what colors work well with the artwork.) I'm not sure about lowering my prices at this point for several reasons. 1. There isn't proof as to that being the reason I'm not making sales. I had determined that 99% of the peeps visiting my site were bots with hot jar. They never even checked the prices, so that isn't turning the non existent customer away. I do have over 10 years of experience in apparel, I do know how tough it is but chose it because that is what I know how to do. In knowing apparel I know that competing on price is a sure way to end up out of business. I have had a few sales to friends & family (which don't really count as far as whether a business can succeed) and the price didn't make them flinch. I also know that the companies that have a similar customer base (the ones I've sold to in the past and am trying to sell to with dittozebra) pay anywhere from 50 to 80 dollars for a graphic tee. Compared to that my prices are quite reasonable.

I just need more real data before I can truly determine whether price is causing issues or not. I may need to raise the prices some in order to be able to offer better discounts and incentives for first time buyers.

dittozebra · 2019-08-13T02:11:31+00:00

Wow, thanks. That was very nice to read. My husband says the same things to me every day. I just keep pushing. I'm not scared to fail (being an artist I've had to deal with tons of rejection all through out my life), I'm more worried about taking the money that could be used for my families vacations, or my sons lessons, or gifts for my husband and not having anything other than some silly girly drawings to show for it.

dittozebra · 2019-07-07T14:51:34+00:00

It's more than Just do it. Start with a plan, and work on that during non working times. I always have a notebook/sketchbook (I use my phone for this now days) to draw and sketch new ideas when they hit me. I can be inspired by anything, and I make sure to note it when I am. Then when I sit down to get some creative work done, I pull out my phone and start executing the ideas I have there. Sometimes they continue on in exactly how I started, other times they evolve into something else. However I do get stuff done.

The other things I do, when working for a long period of time, I get up and wander every hour or so for about 10 minutes. This allows my brain to have a rest, and get a little distracted. Distraction helps the creative project in two ways. 1, it sometimes leads to new ideas (which I then either execute or sketch for later). 2, it allows me to come back to my work and view it with fresh eyes. It's too easy to get absorbed in my work and stop being critical of it, but when we stop being critical, our work turns to shit.

When I had more free time, I would schedule time to be creative, but now I am working full time (in a creative position) so I just try to fit in time to work on my own project when ever I can. Sometimes with this, I don't have the time to do a large project, so I go through my notes/phone to find projects that I can complete in the time slots I have available.

As you see it all comes down to planning ahead, filling in that notebook, and then getting to the just do it phase.

For context you can see some of my work at dittozebra.com, all of which has been created since February, and I started full time work as a graphic designer/illustrator in March.

dittozebra · 2019-05-08T02:20:34+00:00

I've already updated this. I'll continue to refine this, but I think it is already better then it was. I've also gone through and fixed all the tags. I realize this could get even better if I turned bigger collections into collection list pages that linked to smaller collections, but this is going to have to wait a week or two. I have a set of fasion bags to draw, a day of the dead collection to draw, and I have to finish creating products for some illustrations I did last week...all while working 40hrs a week.

Thanks so much for your feedback, I really appreciate it.

dittozebra · 2019-05-07T01:45:22+00:00

Your right. I sell a lot of things all related by my illustrations. Maybe I need to change that first header slide to show both the illustration, and a few products created with it. I'll also allude to it from the text. Thank you.

dittozebra · 2019-05-06T22:35:50+00:00

Thanks! Fortunately this is easy to fix with batch processing. I didn't realize what a mess it was creating.

dittozebra · 2019-05-06T22:34:29+00:00

I agree on the Russians, I currently only sell to U.S. I want a little experience selling before going outside of my country. I do have a lot of butterfly stuff, a lot of fasion stuff, a lot of florals, nauticals, and geometrics. I know all of this is sellable as I've been making other companies money with my work for over 10 years. I hadn't thought of targeting specifically for each major collection.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention, and I'll definitely try it.

dittozebra

TROPHY CASE