Are you wondering what a dream 100 is? How can it help your Etsy Shop grow?
Let's start off by breaking it down.
What Every Etsy Shop Needs
When we look at what our end goal is for our shop, it's to generate more sales.
So let's start here and work backward.
More sales means more visitors. More visitors means more traffic. More traffic means we need more eyeballs.
The most popular way to get more eyeballs is Etsy SEO (which we talk a lot about throughout this blog)
The easiest way to get more eyeballs is to pay for them (Etsy promotion, social media marketing, etc)
The best long term way is content value (blogs, pins, etc)
However, there is a little hidden gem that can help grow all these traffic sources for you without breaking the bank.
Insert here - Dream 100
What is Dream 100
Dream 100 is a list of people, products, brands, etc that you want to work with. The dream 100 list is what you will use to create mutual partnerships between you and others.
Let's look at an example:
If I sell baby blankets, would it be helpful if Target posted my blankets on their Instagram?
YES! That would be huge! We know that a large target demographic for Target is young moms, so a link to your shop would be amazing!
But.. (here is the kicker)
Why would Target ever do that for you? They don’t have a reason to. So most likely it would be a waste of your time to ever send a cold email to Target asking for this.
Let's break this down
How to write your dream 100 so that it is REAL
How to actually target, Target. (so that you have a dream)
How The Dream Works
So before I just popped your balloon there, I want to actually show you some techniques that can work.
When making your dream 100 - do the first 40ish people who have similar popularity and following as you, but not a direct competition.
Here is an example: If you sell baby blankets, and you have 50 followers on Instagram, you can find a brand that sells baby bows that has around 50 followers as well. You can write this person and offer to do a giveaway with each other. Or you can find a way to bundle your products on each other's stores. You send her 20 blankets, she sends you 20 bows and you bundle up the two together and sell them.
As she grows her brand, you are getting more free exposure to your blankets.
2. The next 40 should be those who are one step above you. Let's say you have 500 followers, so now you are targeting people between 1k-4k.
Let me share this bit of advice with you. If you are involved in the “influencer” world and want to go that route, don't let me stop. I actually used and paid for influencers in my own growth.
But.. it was my least favorite part of the job. Influencers are NOT the easiest people to work with and are trained to see their value as WAY more than it actually is.
Again, this is not to stop you or offend anyone, this is my own opinion.
What I would target are people who SELL products with a similar demographic.
Now, someone who has worked hard for their 4k following isnt going to be excited about your 500. So the same pitch as giveaways doesn't work as well here.
Here is what I recommend.
You can either pay them (which I don't love this type of relationship) or offer your product for them to post as a shout out and ANYTHING they sell from their profile you will give them the sale.
Yes, 100% of it.
This means you will not make any money for that effort.
But you aren't doing this to make money, you are doing this to get eyeballs, remember?
When someone is promised the revenue of the sale, they will usually post more than once. This means that your product gets exposure multiple times and you only pay for the sale (Not for all the eyeballs).
If you can get that going two times a month you will see a growth to your channels that would have taken FOREVER to get organically.
3. The last 20 of the list is where the “dream” comes in. Here you want to target the big dogs. The ones that would be HUGE if you guys worked together. We are talking 400k and up followers.
So let's jump back to Target. None of the techniques we talked about would actually work for Target. In fact, just getting your voice heard would be impossible. So when you are doing your dream 100 efforts, you are not wanting to target “Target” but instead target someone who makes decisions at Target.
Ta Da-
https://www.linkedin.com/company/target/people/
With a simple google search I have found a list of people who buy for Target. (keep in mind, if you are brand new or just starting to grow, really focus on the first 80. That doesn't mean you cant get started with these techniques, you just want to make sure you are always getting momentum).
So what you want to do is follow THIS person on Instagram. Comment on their pictures, be supportive of her in life and be someone they appreciate. Find anything they have their hands in and be a HUGE fan for it.
Let me share a success story with you.
When I worked at an ad agency, we had a dream 100 and there was a VERY large client on our list. We sent them packages, followed them with everything they did, and was just VERY involved in their story.
In our marketing efforts, we found out that she had just gotten a new dog. We sent a package to her with all the stuff a new dog would need from our marketing agency.
Months later, as we continued our support, we got an email from this client thanking us for all that we did. She had mentioned that they just let go of their last agency and were looking for a new one.
And we signed her.
Not in a million years would this client of even known about us, but because of our efforts with dream 100 we not only were seen, but able to work together!
Get It!
Your dream 100 is what keeps you motivated throughout a week. A great way to use “free time” as “marketing time” is to add your dream 100 to your business Instagram so that you ONLY follow them. This means every time you log in, your feed is PUMPED full of people you want to work with. You can start liking, commenting, and learning more about these people so that you can create messaging and opportunities to work together based on their personal lives!
Have more questions about this? Listen to part two of the podcast here:
If you're ready to take your shop to the next level, click HERE to join my Growth Report waitlist.
This Grow Report includes a call with me and a detailed Growth Plan for your shop, totally customized and tailored to your specific needs. I do the research so you can Grow!
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