Shop Front :: Making a shop badge

You can find more Folksy badges over in the Folksy Blog Badge Gallery – if you have any problems adding them to your blog please get in touch or ask in the Folksy forums (there are a lot of very helpful Folksy members over there!)

We thought you might be also be interested in learning how to create your own shop advert – not just bloggers but everyone looking for a little more exposure for your Folksy shop. We asked Bonnita (aka Momoaby) from Folksy shop ‘It’s all about the Graphics’, if she could help us explain why it is important to have a small advert (also known as a badge, button or banner) made up for your Folksy shop. Bonnita not only sells banners, avatars and logo design via Folksy but she recently completed a dissertation on the subject so we felt she was the right lady for the job! She has also kindly offered to write up a tutorial for Folksy on how to create your own basic Folksy shop advert which we will be publishing next week!

Here’s what Bonnita had to say about why you should consider making up a shop advert…

Even if you don’t have any plans to advertise it is important to have 1 or 2 adverts ready to go sat in a file, if you get approached by someone for free advertising or offered a blog swap it is so much easier to have a well thought out advert to send them rather than a rushed last minute attempt. Under pressure you generally clutch at straws and get in anything you can. Having something prepared will make you look more professional.

Bonnita outlined the key goals of your Folksy shop advert – gaining more exposure and attracting new views in order to convert these to sales.

No one will know you’re there unless it’s by word of mouth or advertising. How can you make sales if no one knows who you are or what you are about. Exposure through advertising enables people to discover you and your shop.

People generally trust an established brand over a new one, this can change though of course if it is well advertised and professional looking. Good advertising goes a long way to aiding this, even if you have never had sales before if you advertise well enough and your shop reflects your professionalism then people will buy from you.

Bonnita explained the importance of creating a professional looking advert in order to engender trust and professionalism, whilst also capturing the shops uniqueness.

If you went onto a blog and there were a row of shop adverts for jewellery and some had bad photo’s, blurred writing, others had clear writing and clear photo’s, which would you choose to click on first (be honest with yourself here!).

Bonnita took us through a few examples of good adverts and why they work.

• Clear to read, nice and simple and ties in with their shop. The image helps you to gain an idea of what the shop is about.

• I chose this one because you don’t have to have the standard shape advert, go a little crazy and it will help with being unique. There is an abundance of jewellery sellers out there and we know it’s a hard market to compete in, so you have to stand out!  A well built advert can do this.

• I think this one speaks for itself, again very clear, easy to read and has a bit of interest with the graphic they have used.

If you already have an advert or badge take a second look – does it really reflect your shop style and brand and does it stand out? Is the text legible or would it be better to stick with just your logo or maybe a great image of one of your shop items.

I hope that you are inspired by Bonnita’s tips to think about pro-actively advertising your shop and having a go at creating your own shop advert for use on websites and blogs. Next week we have Bonnita’s excellent tutorial for creating a simple blog advert using both photoshop and the programme ‘Gimp’ (a free alternative to photoshop).