“A list? Me? Build a list? Ugh no, who wants to hear anything I have to say?”
Your customers do. They stopped at your booth. They followed you on your social media. They bookmarked your online shop. They did that on purpose. Nobody accidentally likes handmade work.
While you may think your work isn’t special, or you are boring, your customers are not you and they think you are worth following. The mug you threw, the sweater you knitted, the painting you watercoloured, to you this is just something you do. To your customer this is magic. They are following you because they ARE curious and want to know more. This is your job, tell them more.
When you collect email addresses for your newsletter you are building a list of people who are interested in your work. This isn’t a list. It’s “my group of fans”.
People sign up for many reasons. Perhaps they love your work but just had a massive car repair bill. Maybe they don’t need your thing, but know it would be a great gift when they next need a gift. Maybe they love your art but don’t currently have a space for it. Keeping yourself in their vision means that when they are ready to buy you are right there.
A lot of really well paid consultants can tell you all about frequency and recency, here’s what that actually means. People don’t buy the very first time they see something, they need to see it many times over an extended period of time.
You need to get your work in front of your people over and over and over again. Without paying for ads you can do this by sending a newsletter. They can see your work, remember who you are, and when they are ready, there you are, right in their inbox. You are building trust.
“I don’t need a newsletter, I use social media.” Oh so wrong.
Social media and newsletters are both important pieces of marketing. In my opinion, the newsletter is more important.
Social media is a quick snapshot of something you want to show or tell your customers. Ah, your customers. Are they on the social media platform you are putting your message on? Maybe, maybe not. If they go onto the platform will the algorithm gods show them your post? Maybe, maybe not. Will you spend hours, weeks, months building a social media presence only to have the algorithm change and not show your posts to anyone? Maybe, maybe not. Will the social media gods decide one day to freeze your account, shadow ban you, or worse, delete your account? Maybe, maybe not.
That’s the thing with social media. You are merely a tenant using someone else’s real estate. You are borrowing their audience. It may be “free”, but you have no control over who sees it or what happens to it. With a newsletter you are the owner. You own that list. You can change platforms and take your list with you. Every single name on your list is someone who has put their hand up and said, “why yes, I would like to see what you’re up to”. These are people who genuinely want to hear from you.
People go through their email inbox undistracted by rage bait and cat videos. They are in a better headspace to pay attention to what you have to say or show. Meanwhile half your social followers are doom scrolling at midnight, barely registering anything. You will put a lot of effort into your newsletter as well as your social posts, which level of attention do you want?
When you send your email out it is you reaching into someone’s inbox. Putting a post up on social media is you sticking a poster on a telephone pole and hoping your customer walks by and sees it. Not everyone will look at social media every day, but almost everyone will look at their email.
And this right here, is the reason a newsletter is important. A newsletter is you reaching out to a customer. A social media post is you putting something out into the world and hoping they come to you and see it.
It’s not the customer’s job to find you and look at your work. It’s your job to reach out to them.
If you know you want to start a newsletter but you really don’t know what to say, find some makers you admire, some in your space and some in a different space and sign up for their newsletters. Pay attention to what they send as well as when. Decide what you like and what you don’t like and what you would change if this were your email.
Then start. With whatever you have. Your first newsletter doesn’t have to be good. It has to exist.
You own your email list. Nobody can take it from you, change the algorithm on you, or delete your account. That’s worth more than any follower count.
Reply to this email and tell me — what is the one thing stopping you from sending a newsletter?
PS. Want me to cover something specific? Reply to this email. I read every one.
— Catherine
The Business of Handmade
