How To Build An Email List And Grow Your Craft Business

When selling crafts as a Craftpreneur, one of the most important things you can do to grow your business is to build an email list. Here is everything you need to know about why email list building matters and how to do it.

Hey, y’all! When you’re starting your Craftpreneur business, you need to be able to get the word out about what you do so you can find those buyers, right? If people don’t know about you or what you make, you aren’t likely to sell anything.

So how do you find those potential customers (and, better yet, turn them into loyal customers)?

Most people immediately think of social media. Yes, it’s true that you can start finding customers through those avenues. Unfortunately, Facebook, Pinterest, TikTok, and the like will only take you so far.

To really make your business thrive, you need to build an email list.

If you’re trying to grow your business and are looking for more inspiration, check out How To Be Authentic In Business, Tips on Building Your Business, and Scale Your Business With Assistants.

Here are all the ins and outs about how to build an email list to help you grow your crafting business.

The Importance of Building an Email List

What Is An Email List?

First of all, what the heck is an email list? An email list is exactly what it sounds like: a list of names and email addresses!

However, you can’t just start writing down the contact info for people you know. People will need to “opt-in” which is a fancy way of saying they will need to give you permission to contact them with updates or offers from your business.

How do people give permission to join your email list?

There are many ways to do this. Some give away free things in exchange for joining the email list. Or they may join your list if they purchase one of your products or take one of your courses.

There are many ways to entice people to sign up for your email list, but the exact way you go about it depends on your business.

What Do You Do With An Email List?

Basically, an email list is using email to promote your business and your products. Businesses use email marketing to nurture relationships with potential customers, keep current customers informed and updated on your brand and products, offer coupons to encourage customer loyalty, and more!

Email marketing is a direct form of marketing, similar to sending ads through the postal service, but more economical and better for the environment since it’s totally paperless!

Some people think of email marketing as a “has been”, but they couldn’t be more wrong. Email marketing began shortly after the creation of the internet and has evolved since then. Learning how to build an email list is vital to your business.

In fact, many successful entrepreneurs say that email marketing is more important now than ever before. It must be effective, because retailers everywhere use it, if my own inbox provides an accurate indication. 😉

The Importance Of Building An Email List

Email marketing can be used to build trust with potential customers over time and turn them into repeat customers.

It is also an effective way to keep your customers informed about new sales or promotions you are running. People want to stay informed about your products, and email marketing is one of the best ways to stay engaged with your audience.

Wondering whether you should start one of your own? I’ll save you from wondering…the answer is YES. Here are a few reasons why you will absolutely want to start building an email list if you are at all serious about your business.

1. You Own It

Social media connects you to your audience and allows you to reach a greater number of people (potential customers) than your blog will reach. I think social media is essential to growing a profitable and engaged business and driving traffic to your site.

But it does have one major flaw: it isn’t yours. You can’t control it.

You don’t own your Facebook audience or your Pinterest or Instagram followers. If you have an Etsy shop, you don’t even own your customers there.

Social media platforms come and go. We now have Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as popular platforms. However, we used to have MySpace and Google Buzz and others, that are now completely gone or irrelevant (anybody else still mourning MySpace, y’all?).

Any social media platform could decide to close down at any time, taking all your followers right along with it. So while you don’t control or own your social media followers, you DO control your email list. It’s all yours.

I’m not saying that social media isn’t important. As you all know, we use Facebook and other social media platforms frequently to grow our business and interact with our audience.

However, if Facebook or Instagram changes their algorithm, we’ll still have an email list full of dedicated followers. That’s pretty cool!

2. It’s Easy To Stay In Touch

In today’s day and age, an email is the easiest way to share announcements and stay in touch. You may not have many followers who check your Facebook page or blog each day, but they probably WILL check their email each day.

If you have something important to share with your audience, an email list is a go-to way to keep in touch.

3. Email Builds Connection And Trust

In an email, you generally share things on a more personal or relatable level with your readers. It’s not as public as a social media post might be. Rather than hundreds or thousands of people having access to view a post, only a select few will get to read your email.

Think of it as your inner circle, or VIPs.

As you share more with them, you build trust. As they see you show up and maintain a high level of customer interaction, you build trust.

Also, with email readers can ask you questions directly, and you can have back and forth one-on-one conversations. This further helps to build a connection with your audience, which grows into trust over time.

Readers who trust you are much more likely to buy from you, which leads us to #4.

4. Email Subscribers Are More Likely To Purchase

People are much more likely to follow brands on social media and less willing to subscribe to a brand’s email list. If they join your email list, they are essentially saying they want to know what you have to say and what your business is currently offering.

Those people who subscribe to your email list are not just casual followers on some social media account. They’re engaged. They might just be interested in whatever you are making and selling. Because they trust you (as mentioned above), they are more likely to buy from you.

This is why it’s incredibly important to take care of your email subscribers. They will be your most loyal and engaged audience members and customers.

Why Building an Email List Matters (And How to Do It)

How To Build An Email List

Now that you know why you need an email list, I want to very briefly cover how you can practically start building your email list.

Three Things You Need

A website or blog
An email service provider – this is the service you use to compose and send out your emails to the people on your list (it’s like Gmail for business owners). Examples include MailChimp, Convertkit, ActiveCampaign, and MailerLite.
High-converting opt-in forms – these are the offers you make that get people to join your email list. A freebie or a coupon for your products are good examples of things that often entice people to join your list.

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Email List

Ok, so you’ve got the three things I mentioned above. Now what?

Email your list! If you just collect a whole bunch of emails and don’t do anything with them, you’ll get no benefit from the time and effort you spent to get people to join your list.

Remember that these people are potential customers and woo them a little. Email them regularly so that they know who you are when they see your email pop into your box.

Give them occasional freebies or discounts to show them that they’re special to you.

Treat them right and they’ll become loyal (interpret that as REPEAT) customers!

FAQs

Here are a few questions I frequently receive from readers. If you don’t see your question answered below, be sure to leave it in the comments so I can answer it for you!

How do I build an email list without a website?

Well, first, let me just say that I highly recommend you have a website. It’s a useful tool for getting eyes on your products, building brand recognition, AND building an email list.

But, if you don’t have a website (yet), you can build an email list through landing pages, social media, podcast appearances, ads, referrals, guest blog posts, and more! Offer a discount to your product to entice them to give you and your product a try.

Do email service providers cost money?

Yes. There are a few, like MailChimp and Convertkit, that offer free plans for a small number of subscribers. Those plans are perfect for beginner Craftpreneurs until you create an established email list.

We all like to save money where we can, right?

Build An Email List – Get Started Today!

As a Craftpreneur who wants to grow your loyal customer base, you need to get potential customers on your email list.

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I hope today’s post helped you understand why building an email list is important and helped point you in the direction to get started.

As always, feel free to leave us a comment or question below or share this post with a friend. We appreciate getting your feedback and can’t way to provide y’all with more amazing content!

If you need any help with centerpiece-making, bow-making, wreath-making, or crafting in general, be sure to check out more of our tutorials on How to Make Wreaths.

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