We’re all familiar with signing up to a companies email list so that we can receive discounts and special offers. Most companies have one and regularly send us newsletters. But do newsletters benefit small setups like ours who can’t afford to offer regular discounts, sales and coupons? Do you really need an email list to sell your crochet?
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The Benefits Of An Email List
An email list has a huge number of benefits, not least the guarantee that your subscriber will see your email in their inbox. Whether they choose to open that email is a whole different story – but they will see it and have the choice to open it. Compare this to social media where only a fraction of your followers will see your posts in their feed, email is a much more reliable form of communication.
Statistics say that every newsletter subscriber is worth $1 per email. That’s the average amount that is made in sales every time you send out a newsletter with a sales link inside. But to gain that value you have to consistently send out emails and put in the work to grow your list.
Your email list is also an insurance policy. Most crocheters don’t own the platforms they sell their crochet on, we just rent the space. We don’t own our Facebook pages, we don’t own our Etsy shops, we don’t own our YouTube channels – they are just rented space that could get shut down in an instant if we accidentally violate a rule. If that happens – and I sincerely hope it never does – how are you going to get back in contact with your followers to tell them where they can find you? YOUR EMAIL LIST!
There are so many benefits to having a list that it’s something I recommend that you set up from day 1. If you are selling your crochet or profiting from your crochet in any way, you should be encouraging people to subscribe to your newsletter.
How Do I Get People To Subscribe?
The easiest way to get people to subscribe to your newsletter list is to just ask. Post the link to the signup page on your social media and ask your audience to subscribe to be the first to know about new offers, peek behind the scenes and upcoming products.
You can also offer a discount code for anyone who subscribes. This doesn’t have to be a big discount, a 10% off offer can be more than enough to tempt people to hand over their email address.
But if you don’t advertise your email signup link or form, then no one is going to know HOW to signup or even that you have a list to join. So you need to remind your audience regularly that you have a list that they can subscribe to. So add advertising your newsletter into your regular social media posts and include it in the links in your bio so it can be easily found.
You Have It So Use It!
So many small businesses make the mistake of building their email list (because they know they should), but then never send out any newsletters. I’ve been guilty of this in the past, but I now make it a weekly task to send out an email.
Your emails don’t have to be long – in fact if you’re writing essays each time this could be very off putting and stop your subscribers opening your messages – short, sweet and to the point is usually best. Every email should have a call to action, something you want your subscribers to do such as buy your latest offer, watch a YouTube video or follow your social media channels.
You can simply send out an email to show them something from behind the scenes, tell them the story of your first every crochet product or just simply say hi, how are you doing?
What Do I Use To Send Newsletters Out?
There are many different platform that you can choose from – MailChimp, MailerLite, HubSpot, Flodesk are just a few that exist. But not all newsletter sending platforms are made equal.
Some are best for larger more complicated businesses, some are just unnecessarily complicated, and others are built for small businesses like ours.
I recommend MailerLite, it’s the platform I use and have done for several years after trying out several others which just didn’t fit the bill for me. It’s fairly simple to use and is based on a drag and drop system which is the most user friendly interface possible.
MailerLite enables you to create templates for your emails so you can send out branded messages every time. You can set up automations so new subscribers automatically get sent a welcome email when they join your list. You can separate your subscribers into different groups depending on what their preferences are, and MailerLite has lots of tutorials and guides to help you through setting up and learning about all the different features.
Is It Expensive To Have An Email List?
The first expense you will have is to purchase a domain name. The law now requires you to have a registered domain in order to send marketing emails. These are fairly cheap and cost around $21 per year and you can use the same domain for a website – so it’s like reserving your future website name.
To start your newsletter list you can actually get started for free. MailerLite won’t charge you for your first 1000 subscribers and you get access to a good selection of features – enough that you can get your welcome sequence setup, create templates and send links out in your newsletters. To get access to ALL the features you would have to start a paid subscription which start at $7.
After 1000 subscribers plans start at $22.50 per month, which to be honest if you are sending regular newsletters out with offers, you should make that cost back no problem with over 1000 people on your list. So at this point paying for a subscription should be a no brainer decision as it will be paying for itself.
Building an email list is a business essential even for crochet sellers. A well managed and used list will pay for itself and be your number one marketing tool.
So get list building now and start setting up that newsletter account.
For more tips on how to start and grow your crochet business, check out my Free Resources here. Grab whatever takes your interest to create your ideal crochet business. You can also follow my free Substack here for more crochet building tips.
