How To Get a Free Critique of Your Etsy Shop Banner

Your shop banner is a huge part of your etsy shop and it is important to make sure it is conveying the message you want your readers to hear.  But sometimes it's hard to get objective feedback on these sorts of things.  You are probably too personally invested in your logo to meaningfully analyze it and it's rare to find friends who are going to tell you the whole truth without trying to sugar coat it just a little.  Wouldn't it be cool if you could show it to absolute strangers and get their first impressions about what your logo says about you?  You can!

Check out the Usability Hub.  It's a place where you can go to upload your logos to get some honest FREE feedback.  How does it work?  You upload your design and then prepare a series of questions to ask the people who view it.  Your random testers will look at your design for five seconds, then answer the questions.  How is it free?  You earn points by giving feedback on other people's designs and you can use these points to test your own designs.  If you'd like to control who is taking your test a bit more, you can get a link and just give it to who you want to give feedback.

So, I put my logo for one of my etsy shops to the test.  In my shop, Creative Counsel Blog Design, one of the main aspects of my business is providing tech support, so I was interested to know if my business looks like someone who provided that.  I also often need people to give me their passwords to their accounts, so I wanted to make extra sure that my logo made me look professional and trustworthy.

I'm going to share some of my feedback with you.  It helps to have a thick skin because the feedback wasn't as glowing as I wanted it to be, but I think in the end it was really helpful.  I always thought my logo was just fine, but now I think I'm going to make some modifications to it based on what I heard from the testers at Usability Hub.

Here is my shop banner:

Here are the questions I asked and some of the feedback I received:

What service do you think this company provides?

• blog consulting
• blogging capabilities
• graphic design for blogs
• blog design (6)
• copy writing

I was happy that most people nailed what I did.  (Though, this was was sort of a gimme because the word "blog design" is right there in my logo).  However, some of the feedback was interesting.  I don't really think of myself as a graphic designer, yet, one person guessed that I what I primarily did (maybe because the word "design" is in there).  I do think of myself as more of a consultant because I do full blog makeovers as well as tech support, so I was happy to see someone suggested that.  I don't really want to change the name of my company, but I may add a second line saying in something like blog consulting or blog tech support so more people immediately associate me with that service.

Does this company look trustworthy?

• not really
• yes (x6)
• not sure - logo as it stands is a little amateurish but could easily upgrade to professional
• don't know (x2)

Yikes.  Someone said I don't look trustworthy?  That hurts.  I think the third comment I shared gives a little more feedback - it is a bit amateurish, but could easily be upgraded to be more professional.  I think a really simple way to do this would be to change the "blog design" text out of a handwriting font.  I never considered that before, but that does make me look a bit amateurish.  Maybe if the logo looks more professional, I will look more trustworthy.

Does this company seem professional?

• no
• yes (x6)
• maybe
• sort of, but the sketch design tells me its trying to look amateur.
• getting there but not there yet

Six people said I look professional with two people on the fence, so that is promising!  I think I'm going to disregard the fourth comment I shared because I like the sketch design.  I chose it because I think all designs start with a sketch.  And I think it makes me look more technically-minded.  I guess you can't please everyone! The last comment is encouraging.  Again, I think replacing the handwriting font will help.

Would you trust this company to provide quality tech support as well as design services?

• yes (x3)
• no (x4)
• not sure (x3)

Uh oh.  This is a big problem.  Not only is tech support a huge part of my business, it is also my favorite part of my business!  I think maybe the things I've already noted above would help: adding a second line to my logo indicating that I do tech support, and changing the handwriting font to something a bit more modern.  And, as I already said, I think the sketch font makes me look more technical... but maybe I'm wrong?

What do you think?  Are you brave enough to put your logo to the test??

How To Market Your Etsy Shop With Instagram

I came across a great archived article on the etsy blog recently about how to market your etsy shop with instagram.  The article suggests six great tips to get started using instagram to market your shop, based on the experience of successful Etsyier Martha Porter of Buried Diamond.

I hadn't really thought much about using instagram to promote my shop, but it could be a good option for me.  The reason I never considered using it before is because I don't release unique new products very often, so if I just used instagram to post pics of my products, it would get old really fast as you see the same seven sets of buttons repeated over and over.  But, I never considered that I could use my instagram feed much like I use my Pinterest account, to show images related to the creative hobbies I promote with my buttons.  Except, with my instagram feed, I could show aspects of my personal creative life.  I think I may give it a try.

Have you used instagram to market your creative business?  Was it worth the effort?