Publicity for Free Craft Downloads

"Can't give the stuff away" I think is the phrase people use.

Don't get me wrong, the members of Free Craft Downloads which we have are all very nice (not met a bad one yet!) and for a site which doesn't have an advertising budget we don't do too bad. According to Stat Counter we have an average of just over 1,200 unique visitors a day over the last 30 days, but in reality that must be a pin prick compared to the number of Crafters who would use our site if they knoew about it surely. All the crafters who do use it seem to love it and appreciate it but how do I get more to look at the free papers?

What I've done so far:

1. Increased the range of free downloads to include Free Cross Stitch Patterns, free glass painting designs, free digi stamps, scrap booking layouts as well as the normal backing papers inserts, decoupage and tags.
2. Opened a Facebook Group
3. Joined various Craft Top 50, 100 lists
4. Joined some Craft Banner exchange schemes
5. Joined loads of "Craft Links" sites
6. Spent a bit of money (not a lot because I don't have it) on google adwords and Facebook ads
7. Swapped links with various Craft Related sites.
8. Worked to ensure we are at the top or near the top in search engines for popular phrases like Free Decoupage Sheets and Free Craft Downloads.
9. Appealed to members to invite their friends.

To be honest I'm running out of ideas... I have over 40,000 sheets to give away, add to them weekly, we have forum, a projects section a useful information section and much more... all I need is more people.......
Bob
www,freecraftdownloads.co.uk

Craft Questions

Craft Questions is a new sited where Crafters can help each other by answering questions, or get help by asking questiions. A simple idea but hopefully one which people will find useful.

Craft Questions

Craft Calendar

For those of you who have been wondering what I've been up to for the last couple of months (not many I know) I can now tell you that the answer is Craft Calendar

As the name suggests this is an Events" type site listing Craft Fairs, Craft Material Shows, Craft workshops and other craft related Events in the UK.

The site itself has a great interactive map which makes it really easy to find events in your area. You can also search within a date range, by City or by Region.

Events are being added on weekly bases so there is always new events to find on there.

CRAFT CALENDAR

GlassPainting.co.uk

Well I've completelyrevamped the glasspainting.co.uk website, new layout, new mailing list, new forum and even some new content.

The new content includes 3 new videos, a basic painting one, a new blending one and a glass painted portrait.

Not too sure about the last one. The videos a bit boring, just me glass painting speeded up! I'm not too sure about the result either. It's the first time I've tried this type of glass painting (without outliner) and I think I'll have to give it a few more tries. Next time I'll ensure all the colours are completely different as the dark brown I used was far too close too the balck. The blue I used should also have beeen a lot greyer!

Well if you don't try these things you never learn anything new! Would be interested to hear if anyone else gives this style of glass painting a go!

Free Christmas Decoupage

Last week I produced a free booklet of Christmas Decoupage, Pyramid and reverse pyramid papers. Its seems to have been very popular with over 600 downloads so far. If you'd like a copy just right click on THIS LINK as select "Save TArget As...." or "Save Link As...."

Free Cross Stitch Charts

Well I have now added a new section to http://www.freecraftdownloads.co.uk/ .... Free Cross Stitch charts. It's taken a little bit of learning on my part as I didn't really know much about Cross Stitch when I decided to do this.

I'm producing charts in a range of sizes and counts. To start with I just used anchor colours but I have added keys for DMC colours now as well following requests for users.

I did start letting people know about the charts in the Free Craft Downloads Email Newsletter but have just launched a seperate email newletter specifically for the Cross Stitch. I've realised that, although there is a small cross over between Stichers and Paper Crafters not all Paer CRafters want to be reading news about Cross Stitch Charts and visa versa.

Anyway why not visit the new Cross Stitch section, any comments about what I have done would be most welcome as I still obviously have a lot to learn.

This Years Crafts Show

Personally I think there's something strange going on this year... despite my gloomy forcasts I have done two shows this year, both with Living Heritage and both turned out to be a success.

I don't really understand why, I thought people wouldn't be spending this year and would be staying at home! It could down to a reduction in the number of craft shows being put on this year oir it could be down to the hard work put in by Kiving Heritage to ensure they get the people through the gate. Whatever the reason I'm glad to say this year is turning out far better then last (so far).

I will keep you posted....