Spark Your Business with Email Marketing

briberrie on etsy

We've discussed email signatures and using this free marketing tool to your advantage but how many of you have an email list? (You know, a way to keep up with your audience if your Blogger or Wordpress account goes wonky and you are freaking out and want to let everyone know you are still around and are having an incredible sale.)

An email list is not when you cut and paste from people that have purchased from you and begin sending them emails. That is spam and you don't do that because it is wrong. And unprofessional. But an email list is one in which you let folks sign up and you deliver content to their inbox once a day, once a week, once a month, or what ever time frame you think reasonable. But what do you send?

*Customize your Newsletters. Not everyone that reads your blog necessarily cares for all of your content so customizing newsletters allows you to send out something special for their needs. I have done this before and found it useful. Someone interested in my workshops or journals might not have any interests in my tutorials or recipes.

*Choose the Content Wisely. I made the choice to focus my newsletters on inspirational, get-your-rear-in-gear content because it was what people asked for and is something I am passionate about. I also choose to not send only links to my products (in fact, I hardly ever link to something in one of my shops).
Think about what you would want to see in your inbox.

*Have a Plan. Knowing what you want to accomplish with your email list helps with your strategy. Set up goals and map out the strategy of how you will reach those goals. I need to improve this with my list.


*Be Crystal Clear and Upfront. On my sign-up I mention what you are getting, how often, and why they want it in the first place.

Be mindful that it is not all about the numbers. Some people think they have to have a 1,000 followers on their blog and 10,000 email subscribers to be successful. If only five people buy from you or leave comments then that is not what I think of as success. If you only have 50 people on your list but those are 50 valuable customers then that is priceless.

QUESTION: Do you have an email opt-in?

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Today's guest blogger is Erika. She is the creator of Artful Rising where she encourages you to get-your-rear-in-gear to Create. Inspire. Change the World. Join the conversation today via the weekly Artful Rising Newsletter and receive your own ebook on following your dreams.

Using Hootsuite to Grow Your Audience

Today we are going to be talking about a very helpful social media tool, Hootsuite.  Hootsuite allows you to group your social media accounts and to organize and schedule your posts.  It's pretty awesome.  Let's get started.

The first thing you need to do is create an account.  It's free and easy.  Just go to the site and create a new account.

Next you will need to set up your social media accounts.  On the side of your screen, find settings and select social networks.

Once there, you can click add social network.  From there, you can enter in your different accounts (I have twitter and facebook set up).

The next thing I recommend is linking it with your blog feed.  To do this, click on RSS feed on the side of the settings window.  You can then click on add new feed.  Enter in your feed and whatever settings you want.  I have mine set to post every day and to start with the text "New Blog Post."  I chose to post to both my twitter and facebook.

Okay.  Now that you have everything set up, let's post something.  On the top of your screen you will see a little window that says "Compose message."  That's where you enter in your text or links.  Next to that, you will see a little icon to select which accounts you are posting to (only twitter, only facebook, or both).  You can also click on the calendar to schedule.

 

Scheduling posts is awesome because you can plan out your whole week and then not get bogged down by constant social media.  I like to share fun links throughout the week and will try to spend an hour setting them up for the rest of the week.  You can see the list of your scheduled posts on the side.

You can also schedule posts with the publisher tool on the side.  There you can see an entire list of your scheduled posts.

Those are the basics.  I hope that helps.  I've found the program to be pretty user-friendly but feel free to ask any questions you have.

QUESTION: What do you use to help you keep in touch with your audience?
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Today's post is written by:

Jenny studied biology in school but is now following her dream of being an artist.  She is the owner/artist of A Bird in the Hand Art where she focuses on colorful jewelry and home decor pieces.
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Be sure to read the rest of our Audience series:
1.) Determine Your Target Audience
2). Be FANatical in Your Search for a Solution
3). Using Hootsuite to Grow Your Audience

Reach Potential Customers with your Email Signature and a Winner

by Arosha Taglia

Do you have an email signature set up to automatically share your business name, tagline, and appropriate links? If you don't then you are missing a valuable (and free) opportunity to tell others what you do and how to find you.

A free marketing tool, email signatures that get my attention tend to have a call to action:
*Shop our holiday gift guide (add your link)
*Stay on top of specials. Join my email list (add your link here)
*LindaB142 has a great email signature in that she shares her different social marketing profiles:

Or email signatures have a memorable tagline:
*BeadedTail, Making Tails Wag One Bead at a Time

I tweak my email signature from time to time to see what gets the most response. Currently my shop email signature has both a tagline and a call to action.

~Create. Inspire. Change Your World.~
Artful Rising


AFRAID TO FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS? See how other creative entrepreneurs did it in a FREE ebook when you sign up for my Artful Rising newsletter. Receive weekly tips, creative inspiration, weekly challenges, and a free ebook.  Click HERE to subscribe or go to http://artfulrising.com to sign up there.

My tagline is followed by my site name and then I have my call to action. I have words linked and even offer my website URL spelled out for those of us that prefer to cut and paste. When I send out my customer emails I find that many times my call to action (sign up for my newsletter) is responded to and I get a new subscriber. Or, I get an email asking for more information about what I do which is also great.

And in this current market where every cent matters, shouldn't you do something that is easy and free? Get that email signature created!

QUESTION: What do you include in your email signature?

And I want to let you know that the winner for the first BBA hosted giveaway of personalized wine glasses by Memories for Life is.....

Which was the lovely

 Congratulations! Please be sure to check back for more team hosted giveaways!

Promotional Ideas - Twitter

I started writing this post to talk about the Twitter idea I had (tweeting one another's listings).  But I thought we should first look at all the neat ways we've thought up to promote our shops.  Here's a summary from our  "Promotional Ideas and Activities" thread:

1) linking themes from team blog to individual blogs
2) team blog series: "Past Post Party"; using Artful Rising "It's a Wrap" method of highlighting individual posts from our blogs
3) donations for team advertising
4) team blog polling involving teammates artwork (non-members in the future)
5) pinning on Pinterest
6) group and individual (holiday) giveaways
7) team treasuries
8) Etsy grant writing
9) team sale and/or using team coupon codes
10) BNR (Buy and Replace) Treasury
11) Twitter one another's listings
12) photos on Facebook

Some of the things we're already doing: 

#5) pinning on Pinterest (if you have a Pinterest URL, please list it in the comments below).

#7) team treasuries - they're really taking off !

#12) team Facebook page  

(https://www.facebook.com/pages/Blogging-Business-Artisans/214199898646857).  

We now have over 20 Likes!  Enough to shorten our URL!
(update:  we are now https://www.facebook.com/BloggingBusinessArtisans.  Thanks Rose!) 

So now, I'll talk about Twitter.  My idea was that if everyone tweet about one item from each other's shops, it will bring our artwork into the Twitter world, where people might not know us.   I know when I tweet about new items in my own shop, my hits increase.  So if you are so inclined, visit your teammates pages.  Pick a favorite item, a new listing, or a whole shop!  And tweet about it.  The possibilities are endless.  And it's so easy.

shop view

listing view

On every Etsy listing, there are clickable boxes.  I have three: Tweet, Like (to my Facebook page), and Send (an email).  On everyone's front shop page (where your announcements are), there are more clickable boxes.  Click one (or two, etc) and let's be recognized!

Etsy's Relevancy Search

A while back, on my blog, I wrote a post about Etsy's default search feature changing to Relevancy instead of Recency. You can read the original post HERE. I have found out some new things about relevancy and I thought I'd share what has been working for me.

First, I'll start with a short recap:
*Think like a buyer - use keywords that you think buyers would use when searching for your items
*Use these words in both your title and tags
*The first three words of your title are the most important - Skip the cutesy titles and tell the buyers exactly what they're buying

One new thing I've learned is that Etsy now allows multi-word tags. You don't want to stuff your tags with unrelated words like "red green blue". But you can use words like "lime green".
Take this listing for example:
I have used the multi-word tags of: wine bottle stopper, bottle stopper and laser engraved. If someone is searching for "wine bottle stopper" they will find my item easier if I have this all in one tag as opposed to three separate tags.

That being said, I have also learned that it can be beneficial to repeat tags/words in different ways. Take this listing for example: I have repeated several keywords here...I have used both "champagne flutes" together and "flute" by itself. I also used "etched glass" together and "etched" by itself. This gives you more options to be seen when people search different ways. This is like covering yourself from all directions.

I hope this helps you understand Relevancy a little better :)
Have you learned anything about relevancy search? Let us know in the comments!

Edi is the creative mind behind Memories for Life Srapbooks (and Laser Engraving). She has been paper crafting for over 15 years and recently purchased a laser engraver that is keeping her creativity at an all time high!