Building on your own land
Oh, you know where I am going… Email marketing! Building your email list is the BEST way to do marketing because you have direct access to your subscribers and customers and no one can get in the way and tell you “oh sorry from tomorrow you won’t be able to email your list there’s been a global Internet algorithm change”. That’s not a thing that exists. Once you have an email list with people on it you can decide when to mail them. The only way you can lose that line of communication is when a subscriber unsubscribes from your list (and that’s fine, let them go!). Other than that, your email list is your most important asset and should be your absolute priority when you are thinking about your marketing.
Now, I want to be clear here:
- Am I using my Facebook page and trying to grow the number of people who like my page? Yes.
- Do I have a Facebook group? Yes.
- Do I use Pinterest to share my free resources? Yes!
- Do I use Instagram? Sure do!
The thing is, all of these things are ALWAYS secondary to growing my list. Because of that, I didn’t really care when the Facebook changes were announced because I have at least 10x more people on my email list than people who like my page. So it didn’t feel like it was going to be so damaging, I still had a direct line to my subscribers.
Don’t get me wrong: platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Etsy etc. are great for your business. Should you leverage them? Yes! But don’t just rent a space for your handmade business, OWN IT! Email marketing is the best way to do that and I highly encourage you to put it on your to-do list if it isn’t there already.
I hope it was helpful. Let me know if you are building your email list and if you have any questions.