How to Make More Money When You've Hit a Slow Season in Your Handmade Business

 

2023 is proving to be just as wonky as the last three, am I right?  One of the most common questions handmade business owners face in growing, scaling and surviving is how to make more money when they are in a slow season. The holiday season has come and gone, and now you're left with a lot of handmade inventory that needs to be sold but not much demand for it. Most businesses have ebbs and flows and slow seasons. I'm going to help you make more money during your slow season by focusing on different strategies that could work for you.

 

1) Increase Your Online Presence

During a slow period, it's the perfect time to focus on building your visibility, growing your brand, and doing all of the marketing strategies that you didn't have time for during your busy season. Creating content, showing up more, and focusing on building a base of loyal fans for your business, will continue to help you in the long term.

What have you been wanting to do but been putting off because you were too busy? Time to create a plan and focus on those future revenue-generating activities now while you have the time.

 

2) Run a Sale or Promotion

The easiest way to get rid of extra inventory? Run a sale or promotion. It doesn't have to be a huge sale, just one that will generate interest with your audience. Post about it on social media, in your email newsletters, and talk about it all of the time. Get your audience excited about it!

You could even create urgency by doing a flash sale in a pop-up Facebook group.  My personal favorite is to do a giveaway with a Facebook Lead Promotion where you collect all of the names in Facebook (so it doesn't break their TOS) and it grows my email list at the same time.  Win, win.

 

3) Find New Markets

Have you been putting off selling on Amazon Handmade? Or maybe you haven't build your own website yet? Now is the perfect time to do this and start getting sales from other channels coming in!  Whatever channel has been on your To-Do list in the past, its time to tackle it now.

Getting in front of new audiences is the key to growing your handmade business.

 

4) Create an Affiliate Program or Referral Program

Reward your loyal fans or some influencers with access to an affiliate program or referral program. You would create custom coupons for them to use and promote to their audience, and they would then receive a percentage of the sale they referred as their affiliate commission.

Think about who has an audience that would be a perfect fit for your products and ideal audience, then pitch them or reach out for a collaboration!

Collaborations can be really beneficial for both parties involved and open you up to new opportunities, relationships, and audiences.  My favorite app in Shopify to do this with is called Smile (because its free and took about five minutes to setup!).

 

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Do you have any other money-making activities or ideas you've tried that have worked for your handmade business? Let me know in the comments!