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My Newsletter Story

I just want to back up a little bit and tell you my email story. So in two thousand five, I started a blawg called wall she naps, I'd read about blog's in the new york times on dh thought, oh, that's cool, I wonder if there's blocks for people who make things, so I went online and giggled, you know, kraft logs and found a few there were not a lot maybe like, forty I mean, there was, like not a lot at that time, I started reading a few and I went out for date night with my husband one night, and we're sitting in a starbucks attached to a barnes and noble and was pouring rain, and I was like, I think I can start one I think it could start a block and I think it will be about the things I'm making while our daughter, who was at that time nine months old and is now eleven is napping, I'll just be, you know, be a chronicle of things I'm making while she's nothing, so I thought, I'll call it while she's napping and I wrote it out and looked like while she's snapping so like now can't it felt...

just call it while she naps. No, no intention at all that this is going to become anything more than just fun. I had been on middle school social studies teacher and I was on maternity leave and then decided to stay, become a stay at home mom with this plug. Ok, so that was the very beginning. It was on type pad. I had it for many, many years, and then I had no news letter. So in the beginning, I was sewing, but I was also decorating cakes and planting a garden and doing all kinds of different crafts is making work on me. And I was just doing everything but quickly. It sort of started to be more about sewing, um, and more about sewing stuffed animals and dolls, and he started in july of that year, and I set up a nazi shop when, as he was still in bait on very beginning when it was all still free on bond. So I've had man to shop for ten years, um, and quickly started selling things, so it became a business within I mean, a business. It was a hobby business, but, you know, I started making some little money from it right away on and I was selling stuff, finished stuffed animals and then kind of merge into making south sculpture. So is making these soft sculpture birds like all kinds there were like little ones and tall ends and every kind of sets sculpture bird and I was having shows and I would you know go to the opening of the show and people would come by and either by something or not and they would say to me I had meet your mailing list right I wantto your mailing list they give me their card and be like yeah put me on their mailing list and I'd be like like I know mailing list I would just take the card and I would just like throw away like I didn't have anywhere to put their name so you know I was my attitude was I have a blawg I have a book so if you want to know what I'm doing go to my bog but in two thousand five and two thousand six two thousand seven especially people have no idea what that wass I mean really it was a very small group of people understood what a blogged wass or knew how to keep up with a blogger and all that stuff so um and even now you know there are people who are sort of like I get it but I don't really get it but I figured that that was enough ok then I migrated my website from wordpress from type head toward pressing got serious about my business I started filling sewing patterns I wrote three books and things progress on dh when I started feeling sewing patterns, I started actually making a profit I saw pdf sewing powder into their digital passive income profit. Okay, I was like, you know, I think I've been reading all these articles about business, and I think I probably should haven't email us and a riel mailing list. So in, um, new years of two thousand fourteen, I made a hole before two thousand fourteen started so new york's of two thousand thirteen, I made a whole list of business goals for the year on one of them was to start an email list and get serious, so I migrated my arse a female over and set up male chimp. Um, and I spent the first six months just experimenting, just doing all kinds of different things that I would send it sometimes every week, sometimes every three weeks, sometimes every month, and I mean, it was just I put all kinds of stuff in it every time it looked different, I was like, playing with it, and I couldn't figure out what to put in there still felt really guilty every time I cento um, it was just a lot of sort of playing around, and then when my list got to be over two thousand and I started paying for male champ, I was like, all right we'll figure this out you know I'm not paying for this I don't have that much money am I paying for this? I don't figure this out so what I did wass market research and this is something that we're going to do together here in a little while and I really recommend market research when it comes to an email newsletter is subscribing to a lot of email newsletters just get out there and describe so when you're on an artist's or makers website someone you like you know you always buy you know baby gifts for from this one particular person or whatever if they have a but a little box to put in your name put your name in and just hit subscribe and start subscribing subscribed to five subscribe to ten because what you're doing now is really getting serious about figuring out your own email marketing strategies so you need to see what people are doing so I did that it did a lot of market research and I arrived at a recipe for my own email marketing strategy my own each of my own newsletters that I thought was goingto be ok and was going to work and I started sending it out regularly on a weekly basis at the same time on the same day with the same recipe every time and I can't even explain to you how incredibly uh important the results have been for my business it's just phenomenal like it's really unbelievable. So many show you just a little bit so I send it out on wednesdays and not always goes out at ten a m eastern. So this is my block traffic um and you know, my block traffic hovers typically between two thousand three thousand hits on and dad on the day that I send the email wait it's between a thousand five hundred, two thousand hits mohr so because I'm sending it directly to these people who are interested they will click and that's the day I get all the blood comments so I might write a really interesting post on a friday don't just sit there, no comments he made a couple people share it. Whatever come wednesday I when it goes out in the email all the people come on and are like comments discussion, it gets shared so it'll just sit until that day comes and then on wednesdays gets all the interaction and engagement so the block traffic increases and if you have a blawg and you want traffic, this is the way to go for sure. Yes, where can people sign up your news letter? I have people that are already saying that they went and just signed up for yours and how amazing it is thank you I just signed up for well, since I'm not a computer but just go teo while sheen ask dot com right while she naps that come well let's see how many new subscribers we could get for you today you can always try and see if you're you know if you like it you can over the subscribe that's the thing no hard feelings we're going to talk about unsubscribe on how to handle that later but they're one other question yes it is the nature on with reflection design dot com and my question is what is the best day in time to pose such a good question and we're going to talk all about frequency and consistency and centimes the quick answer is the best day in time to do it is the one that's best for you in the long run I got the quick answer love that yeah but we will look more into it later yes that's such a good question I think a lot of people wonder about that ok this is the sales spike so this is august fifth that was a wednesday you can see what happens when I send out the newsletter so if you have justin etc shop you'll see the spike but especially if you don't just have a nazi shop or that she's not your thing and you just have your own standalone site okay on your on your own site you have you're responsible for driving traffic there because without at sea behind you it is just you and it's hard to drive traffic to a standalone e commerce site if anyone has done it you know it could just sit there and you just feel like nobody is ever clicking on this thing. How do we get people to click here? That's the answer you send them an email and tell them to come over and take a look so that's you know that's the number of sales on the day I found the email um and this was I had released the new pattern for a patchwork elefant uh I had released it on a friday. Not maybe the best way to release something. All right, fine. By releasing on a friday it was done that day so I put it up and I made like a couple sails. Uh but then on the wednesday that's when it all comes in wednesday's my day so I want to show you a little bit about that uh all right. Not only does it bring traffic right sales double hooray, but also it brings in responses and that's I think triple hooray! So I get all these e mails so I reserve all of wednesday so goes out of ten I reserve the whole rest today to respond to email because that's part of my business is is helping creative entrepreneurs with their own businesses and so for me that back and forth is part of what I dio on. It might not be part of yours, and you may not want to get a ton of email. But that's how? I do want a ton of email and I do enjoy getting them. So last week I had one hundred twenty four e mails, right? We're came back from my send and I spend the rest of the day responding to them. And what do I get? I get so much from that so much. I get ideas. I get tips. People see things in the home sewing industry they think are interesting or wrong, or need the light shined on them and they tell may what we look into this. What is this? Um, I get so much grade fodder for stories for block post. Great ideas. I get praised. I get critique. A lot of people like to send critique. One thing I will tell you the more you put out in the world, the more there is for people to criticize and that is going to happen. I sent out an email newsletter last here. I had misspelled the well. I had misused the word pedal. Ok, it has spelled it as peddling a bike when I met as like selling things pedal okay? All right, it was a mistake I admit it I got email back from a woman who told me that um it was a sign of a consummate professional to spell things correctly and she was really disappointed on, you know, great she's I always respond with grace I think it's very important to always respond with grace to say thank you and you know, you will try harder and that's what I did, but my point being is that you know you're you're inviting a certain amount of cred take your things or too expensive of, you know all of that, right? You're a business and that's customer service so you right back with grace or you ignore it that's your choice but uh it's not to go sometimes that's the best choice but anyway get praising fatigue I get questions which are awesome for me because it helps me to think about what are people worrying about andi I also get new work. So, uh it reminds people that I'm available for hire. So like I wrote a piece not long ago about how my career has shifted a little bit into becoming a freelance writer and so I talked about some of the recent freelance pieces I have written for some magazines and what I learned about that and a lot of people who are publishers subscribe to my email newsletter publishers in the craft industry and a woman from a mag major magazine who I've never written for email me and said oh we would love to have you submit a piece for our next issue so I get email from like a new projects that way it reminds people that I'm there and available toe work um new collaborations with small so it's super useful that way not just for like that direct purchase but for long term bill dang and long term thinking yeah are you going to talk about how to get people it's not just giving your mom and yeah yeah me and my mom and my sister on the list yes yes well we're going to do a whole lot of this building great that's a lot of people are asking that you know that's a huge question but a quick question I liked what you said about you getting questions from people back in response so do you utilize the questions that you're getting as content for future her e mails that were yours I use it is content sometimes for future emails I also use it it's content for future blawg posts because I write a lot deeper longer articles for me go up on the blog's that they're in a more public forum where everybody can respond and I drive traffic to the block were also my products live s o from the news ladder but definitely gives me tons of ideas for future poet yes is the answer