You’ve been consistently posting on social media, you make sure you’re engaging, and finally your following is growing…

So how do you turn your social following into customers? What’s the next step? 

I’ve got you covered Handmade Hero! I’m going to teach you my non-negotiable step in growing your online craft business. 

You ABSOLUTELY cannot skip this. 

The Next Step 

Drumroll please…the next step you need to take is getting your social following onto your email list. From there, you can then email them regularly, serving them with your content that leads to sales. 

Don’t have an email list yet?

It’s time to start growing your email list now, and here’s why…

You don’t own your followers. You have no control over Facebook or Instagram (and Etsy at that but I’ll save that talk for another day). Both these platforms are constantly changing and could be gone at any moment. 

If your social media was gone tomorrow, so would be your potential customer list. 

That’s exactly why you need to get them onto your email list. You have more control over your email list and don’t have to worry about the ever changing algorithms. 

If you aren’t convinced yet, keep reading. 

On social media, the algorithm only shows your content to 1 to 4% of your followers…Yupp, that’s it. 

With an engaged email list, your open rates on average can be 30-50%. That is a HUGE difference. 

With an email list, you can reach more of your customers and increase your sales. 

So now that you’re ready to grow your email list, what do you need to do to get people on that list?

Create an irresistible offer. 

People won’t just hand over their email address. You must offer them something in exchange for it. 

This something goes by many names and could be called a freebie, opt-in, or lead magnet. Regardless of the name, you need to be offering your audience something JUICY they want in exchange for their email address.

When you know who your ideal customer is, then you’ll be aware of what problems they have. If you don’t know, just ask them!

With your irresistible offer, you will solve ONE problem with a quick and actionable solution for free. When it comes to freebies don’t make it too complicated.

The easiest thing you can offer when selling handmade products is a coupon code or free shipping.

Other successful freebies are: 

• Printables
• Videos
• Tutorials
• Cheatsheets

People will then hand over their email address in exchange for the offer to be emailed directly to them. Volia! You have a new subscriber! 

Where to put your freebie

If you have your own website, there are two places your offer needs to be: at the top of the homepage (so that’s the first thing people see when they land on your site) and as a pop-up.

Sometimes from my students I hear push back about having a pop-up because they’re annoying, but you need to remember that people who are coming to your website are already interested in what you’re selling. 

You’re doing them a service by offering them something of value. 

And let’s be real, it’s 2020, when people go to a business page, they expect a pop-up now. 

If you use Shopify, there’s an app called Privy that I highly recommend for creating a pop-up. 

Now if you don’t have a website yet and maybe you sell on Etsy or Facebook, you can still grow your email list. 

A great way to get people onto your list is to create a video craft tutorial. You can easily share your video into different Facebook groups and on your own socials. 

To compliment the video, you can create a list of supplies (you can create it for free in Canva) that you used in the tutorial and then people can give you their email to obtain it. 

Automate It

If you’re going to be growing your email list, you want to be doing it the easiest way possible so you MUST automate it!

Most email marketing services and landing page builders now offer the ability to create an opt-in form where the subscriber’s email is automatically added to your email list and the freebie is sent via email to your new subscriber.

If you are just starting out, Mailchimp offers all these services for free! You can house all your email addresses there (up to 2000) and also create your opt-in form.

In the video above, I do a full demonstration of how to do it so check that out!

The Final Step

To turn your social followers into customers, you need to commit to sending them emails regularly. 

A nurtured list leads to higher open rates and more sales!

My recommendation is to send out an email once a week and no less than every 10 days.

When you’re emailing your audience, it’s not always about getting a sale. Just like on social media, you want to serve your audience. Share your life with them and don’t just hide behind your products!

Remember, people like to buy from people and you can use your weekly email to grow a relationship with your audience. 

Want more tips to make more profit in your handmade business?

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