3 Simple Steps to Make $1,500 From One Product With Zero Followers

You don’t need a huge following to make money

If you’ve been creating content for a while, you know how difficult it is to build audiences and sell a product for profit.

But some platforms can help you make money even if you have no social following.

Etsy is one of them.

I started selling my digital product on Etsy 5 months ago.

I don’t have any social following, and no one knows who I am, but one of my products made over $1,500.

Here is how.

Choose a Niche you can add value on

I’m a big advocate of having a niche.

I don’t care if you have 10 other interests; if you want to succeed on Etsy, you need to have a niche.

And a niche where you can add value on.

Otherwise, you will be drowning in the big wild ocean with 5.9 million sellers and never to be found.

But just choosing a niche isn’t enough. You need to choose a sub-niche to which you can add value.

For example, if you want to sell planners, there are currently 1,468,731 planners on Etsy.

But if you niche down to creating planners for ADHD, the number of products goes down to 28,379.

You have a much higher chance to succeed.

Then you will look at how you can add value to this niche.

There are a few easy ways to add value:

• Better listing photos
• More products and varieties
• Answer customer questions

I did that with my listing.

I knew my niche because I was a customer on Etsy and had been struggling to find what I needed. And the listings weren’t that attractive.

So when I decided on this niche, I:

• Made my image larger and used BOLD and CLEAR fonts (instead of cursive fonts. Cursive fonts are pretty but harder to read).
• Use real-life photos instead of illustrations, so it’s easier for my customer to imagine what it looks like if they were to use the template.
• I used up all my 9 photos and 1 video space to highlight the benefits of my product, including FAQ on my listing. People know exactly what they are buying and if the product is right for them.

Keyword search and testing

*Yawn.* It’s the boring stuff.

It is, but in case no one has told you before, some part of your business is going to be boring.

Bookkeeping isn’t exciting, and going through emails isn’t fun, but spending hours creating products that no one wants is even worse.

You might as well get the boring stuff out of the way and create something irresistible. When your product starts bringing you sales every single day, you will start loving keyword research.

It feels magical.

Sometimes during research, I discovered keywords I’d never thought of.

Honestly, I didn’t think of planners for ADHD.

But when I researched and looked at different planners, I saw ADHD.

I also tested different keywords.

Just because strong keywords are usually competitive.

For example, Halloween is a strong keyword.

But if you just put Halloween as a keyword for your product, your shop will not be found easily.

You need to test which keywords are the most effective for you. Meaning: high search volume but low competition.

If I only put Halloween, I may not stand out.

But if I put Halloween Celebration, suddenly, your listing will come up if anyone puts in this keyword.

There are many ways to do keyword research. I mainly use Google Trends, Ubersuggest and *Everbee, which is specifically targeting Etsy.

I use ads

Many sellers despise Etsy ads.

Even if you can pay only $1 a day, some people are reluctant to do that. As if placing an ad is a sin.

I have no problem with Etsy ads as long as I make more than I invested.

Yes, advertising on $1 or $2 a day probably won’t get you a lot of views.

So you need to test it to find your sweet spot.

There are also other ways to determine whether your Etsy ad strategy is working, including looking at its ROAS (Return On Investment Spend), but this is a topic for another day as I didn’t look at my ROAS at the moment.

I was keen to get data, so even though I was losing some money initially, I was testing how much was the most effective. And I can see which listing performs the best.

Then I adjusted from there.

Sometimes, increasing your ad spend isn’t the most effective.

It could just be advertising more listings and getting more traffic to your store.

I couldn’t justify ad-spend on my low-priced items.

So after a few weeks, when I noticed one of my advertised items made less money than I spent, I stopped.

Instead, I increased ad spend on two of my higher-priced items and I made a much better profit.

Final Thoughts

That’s my simple way to make $1,500 out of one product without any social followings.

I can increase my earnings if I promote on social media, and create more listings to drive traffic to my store.

But if you have millions of things to do and want to take a break from creating content to drive traffic, Etsy is a good place to start.

I’ll be honest. I spent less than 15 minutes in my store the last few weeks as I’ve been away and busy catching up with work after my trip. Yet, I still get sales almost every day.

But it takes a few months to set up a good foundation.

I know my progress is slowing down, so I need to start spending more time working on my Etsy store, especially since the busy season is coming.

If you want to make money online, it’s the best time to start now. You don’t need any social media followers, just get started and make some money.

If you love what you read, you can support me and other talented writers on this platform by joining as a member. It costs $5/month, and you get a lifetime transformation. Pretty good deal?

• contains an affiliate link. If you end up making a purchase, I will get a small commission at no extra cost to you.