Today, I’m thrilled to share with you an interview with Sharon from Your Style Your Story online boutique in Ireland.

She is an accountant and a mom to two young boys in addition to running her boutique and is incredibly inspiring.

If you’re looking for some motivation to get your boutique started, you’ll definitely want to read and watch my interview with Sharon below.

1) What is the name of your boutique?

Your Style Your Story

2) What type of boutique do you own and where can we find you?

My boutique sells women’s clothing, jewellery and handbags.
Our clothing collections are handpicked to help women find something a little different to wear to work.

I chose quality brands as I strongly believe in “buy better , buy less” and I want my boutique to have a positive effect on the environment.  Some of our ranges include knits that are created from seawool and each knit is made from 15 recycled plastic bottles that are pulled out of the ocean.  The jumper is so luxurious and soft but has a positive impact on the environment with each purchase.

Our handbags are from the Shona Easton collection and I chose that brand as all of the handbags are handmade in an ethical rural farm in India.  The handbags directly support the income of 200 women there in this rural village who otherwise would have to leave their families and children to work in the big cities.

My boutique is only online www.yourstyleyourstory.com It is based in Ireland but we deliver globally.

Facebook : www.facebook.com/yourstyleyourstoryonline
Instagram : www.instagram.com/yourstyleyourstory
Twitter : www.twitter.com/ysysboutique

3) What inspired you to start your own boutique?

I am actually an accountant and as a working mum with two young children I find it impossible to go to physical boutiques to purchase my clothes for work and weekend smart casual wear.  My job involves a lot of presentations and I am always at my most confident when I am wearing the right clothes for me.  Mornings can be hectic with organising the school run but once I dress into the right work wear I immediately feel back in control and the chaos of family life is eased.  I am free to just get on with delivering my work.

A lot of online shops have a huge product range and it is difficult to quickly pick just what you need.

I was inspired to set up a boutique style webshop online with beautiful collections but with only a limited product range so customers can quickly see online and pick what they need.  Orders are despatched that day and in Ireland most of our customers our wearing their purchase the very next day.

Being a working mum can be tough sometimes and we always put our needs to the bottom of the list.  So I decided to wrap all orders in beautiful gold wrapping and deliver in a box so each purchase feels like a little to gift to our customers for everything they juggle in life.

4) What resources have been most helpful to you as a new boutique owner?

I am a member of an online network of women – Women’s Inspire Network which has been a fantastic support.  We sponsored and showcased recently at one of their events. I have sourced social media experts and my photographer also from this group.  Plus they actively cheer other members on and consistently share and retweet each other’s’ posts.

All of the models on my boutique are my friends.  I asked them to be my models as they are beautiful and all different shapes and sizes and I wanted women to be able to relate to my models and see how our clothes will really fit.  These friends have been such a support as the photoshoots were a brand new experience for me to have to co-ordinate and get right and it was great to be able to do it in such a supportive environment with all my friends around me.

5) How did you feel when you made your first sale? What did you do to celebrate?

Well my website was due to go live on the Monday.  However I set it live over the weekend just to be sure that the payment facilities had plenty of time to set up.  When I woke on the Saturday before there was a message on my phone saying congratulations on my first sale.  I called my children in to show them and we jumped up and down on the bed for about 20 minutes screaming with excitement!

The feeling was amazing as it was just so unexpected and gave me the confidence to announce to everyone that day that my boutique was now live.

6) What was the final push to follow your dreams and start a boutique? What was the “aha” moment for you?

The final push was the day I met with another female colleague for a business lunch and we were both wearing the same shirt. The shirt was patterned and so it was very clearly the same and we looked like we had dressed ourselves in matching clothes in the restaurant.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened to me and I decided that Ireland needed to have some new clothing ranges online to give a bit more options to us women.

7) Tell us what a “day in the life” looks like for you now that you’re running your own boutique business!

It is great!!! I am so motivated each morning now.  Before I would hit the snooze button about five times.  Now I’m excited and do some yoga online (very simple movements) before getting my boys ready for school.

Every morning I try write out 3 aims I would like to achieve in the day to build my brand.  Depending on these I could be discussing radio or podcast interviews, meeting with my photographer or attending and showcasing at a network event.

I spend at least an hour of every day discussing with our social media team to plan our next posts, what is working, what do our customers want to know about and what is currently topical?

My afternoon is spent co-ordinating orders, talking to customers and researching for our next blog topics.

Depending on the time of year I could be meeting with the brands we stock and choosing our collections for the next season.  It is always so exciting to see what styles they have coming for our customers.

The end of the day is family time spent with my boys.  Followed by some more research in the evenings and then I wind down watching Working Moms on Netflix.

8) What has been your biggest challenge as a boutique owner and how did you overcome it?

My biggest challenge has been controlling my perfectionism.  My need to have my branding perfect, my packaging perfect, my website perfect, my collections chosen exactly right and so on and so on…

Then I realised I needed to look at what really mattered.  What did my customers really want and focus all my efforts into delivering that instead.  If I waited until everything was perfect would I ever really launch?  What if I missed something along the way? How would I have the ability to handle that unless I allowed for the fact that yes not everything would be perfect but I would adapt and fix and learn continuously along this journey.

Once the motivation for everything I was doing came from the right place then customers would forgive if my branding had a slight colour difference on social media platforms or if I missed a full stop somewhere on my descriptions.

Stopping aiming towards perfection has been liberating and helped me make decisions and move forward with my boutique so much more quicker.

9) How do you stay inspired and motivated to run your boutique?

The early days after the launch are hard.  You think if you build it everyone will come.  Some days there are no sales and it is disheartening.

Every day I wake with a positive attitude and remind myself this is a journey and not a destination and then you see the comments people are making on your social media posts about how they loved the products they bought, how your blog helped them and came just at the right time and it gives you that hug inside to know you are doing the right things and creating something that is positive in the world.

I have had customers send me messages to say that my boutique is just the distraction they need from their hectic life and is a great escape for them to just browse through or have a read on our blogs.

10) What’s the best part about being your own boss?

Being able to make a change to people’s lives.  Seeing how things can be improved, brainstorming ideas and then getting to see the positive contributions I can make to people’s lives – be it one customer or one hundred customers.

11) What’s your go-to favorite podcasts or blogs that you’d recommend to other girl boutique bosses?

Kirstendebouter.com.  I love her podcasts – The every year itch.  It’s about living life differently and she has interviewed some fantastic people who are showing how to live life outside the normal rules.  She recently interviewed me for her podcast which was very exciting.

12) What is your number one piece of advice for aspiring boutique owners?

Find a women’s in business community – online or offline and embrace all the support they can give you to promote your business, give advice or just be a friendly listening hear as we are all going through the same trials and uncertainties.

Questions about Sharon’s boutique? Comment below!

Making sales is tough in your online boutique, am I right?

You put in all of this hard work to finally get your website up and running… and then nothing.

The reality of the situation is that you have to actively be advertising and marketing in an ever-changing online world, which makes things tough – I know!

Just when you think you have something figured out that’s working, an algorithm changes and there goes your winning ad – so what gives?

Today, we’ll focus on making online boutique sales from Pinterest. With a few tweaks to your profile, you will see an increase of traffic to your website.

And I’m not talking about Pinterest ads. These are all strategies that you can implement that are completely free and can significantly increase your traffic and in turn get you crazy sales in your online boutique.

1) Pinterest Profile

First and foremost, your Pinterest profile needs to be on point. You need to be able to attract your customer and make them want to click your beautiful pins and buy your product!

To do this, you’ll need a Pinterest Business account. You can switch to a business account by visiting business.pinterest.com.

This way you will have access to Pinterest analytics where you will have access to all types of important information about your pins like which ones are getting the most views and impressions.

You’ll also be able to get more insight on your audience. For example, what country they’re from, ages, and what other interests they have.

All of this information will be useful to you in marketing and advertising for your online boutique.

Next, you’ll want to apply for Rich Pins. Rich Pins provides more information from your website to Pinterest.

Rich Pins will also make your product pins shoppable. That means that a potential customer can shop your boutique right from Pinterest!

How to apply for Rich Pins will vary from site to site depending on who you host your website through. The best thing to do is to check to see if your website host has a tutorial on applying for Rich Pins.

Also, it may seem obvious, but I would add your logo as your profile picture and add a catchy bio to your profile. You want to make sure people know as soon as they come to your Pinterest page, what your brand is all about.

2) Pinterest Boards and Descriptions

Think of your Pinterest boards as categories. You’ll be creating boards to not only pin your content, but other people’s content as well that is relevant to your brand.

For example, with our organic baby clothing online boutique, I might create the following boards – Gender Neutral Baby Clothing, Organic Cotton Onesies, Boho Baby, etc. Don’t be afraid to be specific, but keep the names of your boards clear and to the point. You want them to be searchable, so think of what someone might type into Pinterest if they were looking for organic baby clothes.

I recommend adding between 15-20 boards. For each of your boards you will add a description. You want your description to include keywords related to your online boutique, but you want to do it in a way that isn’t just listing a bunch of keywords.

Pinterest could actually penalize you for that and you may not get as many views as you would if you wrote a compelling description for your board.

Display your best and most relevant boards as your featured boards so new visitors see these boards immediately when they visit your profile.

3) Building Your Brand

Building a cohesive brand is so important to your online boutique.

From colors, to fonts, to graphics and logos, you want your brand to stick out and people to be able to recognize your brand from these elements.

Using your brand colors and fonts over and over again, will help people recognize your brand and pins and know that these pins are coming from your online boutique.

Also, when creating pin images, you’ll want to create vertical images no bigger than 800 x 1200 pixels.

Not only do I recommend pinning your products, but I also recommend having a blog on your website and pinning related articles and blog posts as well. (All of your blog posts should be related to your online boutique with the intention of driving traffic and customers to your online boutique.)

Blog posts can really help drive traffic to your website and there’s no better way to promote them than to pin them on Pinterest.

When you pin your products or blog posts, make sure to pin from your actual website. This will help ensure that all the information like descriptions are transferred over correctly to Pinterest.

You can also use a few hashtags in your pin descriptions that help potential customers find you on Pinterest.

It’s so important to have multiple advertising and marketing channels for your online boutique and to constantly drive traffic to your website and convert viewers into buyers.

By implementing these few strategies on Pinterest, you should start to see an increase in not only traffic to your online boutique, but also an increase in sales.

Do you use Pinterest for your online boutique? How is Pinterest working for your business?

Let’s be real, starting an online boutique can be great, but nothing’s worse than launching your boutique and getting zero sales. And for many new boutique owners the biggest fear is hearing crickets in our bank account on opening day.

Since starting my first boutique (both online and brick and mortar), I have tried just about everything to generate sales. I’ve done radio ads, FB and Instagram ads, magazine ads, etc. You name it, I’ve probably tried it!

Using blog posts to generate online boutique sales is one of the best (and one of my favorite) ways to get traffic and long-term sales. You put the work in up front and it’s there forever to generate traffic to your online boutique and turn those readers into customers.

Writing blog posts related to your online boutique is also one of the most cost-effective marketing tools to use. To add a blog to your already existing online boutique, all you have to do is add a link in the navigation menu to the page where your blog will live.

With carefully written and thought out blog posts, you’ll be raking in the sales before you know it!

Here are 4 steps to creating awesome blog content that will generate traffic and turn your readers into customers.

1) Planning out your blog posts

You’ll want to spend some time planning out your blog posts. A big mistake would be to just throw up a bunch of words onto the screen and hope someone reads it.

The key is to create blog posts your customers actually want to read and keep them coming back for more.

Here are some tips to planning and creating a successful online boutique blog post.

1a) Choose your keyword and what your post will about.

Let’s say you have an organic baby clothing online boutique.

You can find a lot of keyword and blog post ideas from Pinterest. So, next search “organic baby clothing” on Pinterest and see what other words come up.

So, from these other keywords at the top, I can see what is most popular on Pinterest and what other people are searching for related to organic baby clothing. So, I might come up with a blog post titled “The Top 5 Trending Organic Baby Clothing Brands” or “10 Must Have Organic Baby Boy Outfits this Winter”.

Really, the ideas and inspiration is sometimes endless on Pinterest!

1b) Write list posts.

Everyone loves a good list post. List blog posts tend to do better than non-list posts. Some ideas for list posts are…

How to …

# Ideas to …

# Ways to …

(I also used list post ideas in my above examples. Here they are again – “The Top 5 Trending Organic Baby Clothing Brands” or “10 Must Have Organic Baby Boy Outfits this Winter”.)

1c) Batch your blog post writing days and schedule out in advance.

Blog posts always sound like a great idea until you sit down to write and end up with writer’s block! I can’t say how many times this has happened to me.

That’s why now I like to batch my days. For example, I’ll set aside an entire day just to write blog posts for the entire month. That way, my brain doesn’t have to switch between tasks and I can get my online boutique blog posts done much faster.

Then, I’ll schedule everything to be posted automatically throughout the month and I’m done! I can’t recommend enough working this way (and for just about anything business related!)

2) SEO

Now that you have some post ideas, you need people to find them and read them. That’s where SEO (search engine optimization) comes in.

I know SEO can sound intimidating to some without a background internet marketing, but really you just need to know a few basics to get your articles and posts in the best position to be seen.

2a) Choosing keywords

There are many places to do keyword research, including Google itself.

I recommend using Google Keyword Planner which is a free tool you can use to come up with keywords.

I suggest using keywords that have medium to low level of competition. If the competition is too high, you probably won’t get seen on Google searches.

I would also use longtail keywords, meaning keywords that are 2+ words in length. Being more specific with your keywords will help you rank higher in search engines.

2b) After the keywords for your post is clear, you’ll want to make sure they are in a few places on your post.

Add your chosen keywords to:

1. Post title
2. Post URL (separate each keyword with a hyphen)
3. At least 4 times within the content of your post.
4. Image file names
5. Meta Description
6. Create a Pinterest friendly image (size 800 x 1200 pixels)
7. Add Inbound and Outbound Links

2c) Post Length

On average your blog posts length should be about 1000 + words, 1500-2000 words is even better.

2d) Headings and Subheadings

Breaking your post up with headings and subheadings helps your reader to follow along and also makes obvious the points you are trying to make.

3) Readability

Readability is the “quality of being easy or enjoyable to read”. It’s important to write in a way that your readers can understand and enjoy reading your posts or else the obvious happens and they won’t keep reading!

Here are a few ways to make your posts easy and enjoyable to read:

– Add important phrases in bold.
-Use italics for words and phrases you want to emphasize.
-Use no more than 5 lines per paragraph.

4) Create a customer email list.

I mention creating a customer email list here because it is SO important to your business. Your email list will always be that – YOURS. You own it.

You don’t own Facebook or Instagram and if your followers disappeared tomorrow because that’s what Facebook decided to do, you would have no say in the matter and there go all of your customers!

On your online boutique website, you’ll want a few places where people can sign up with their email. Offering a discount for signing up is one of the best ways to do this.

You will also need to choose an email provider. I personally use Aweber, but there are many others you can use as well.

Here is my post on “How to Create an Email List for Your Boutique”.

Have you started writing blog posts for your online boutique? What are some of your favorite topics?