November 21, 2019 • 64 mins
Want to start a crochet or knitting blog but not sure where to start?
There are a lot of things to consider when starting a blog and it can be really overwhelming when you think of all the things that must go into it. Powering through the overwhelm and finding answers to the most important questions is the first test for blogging success.
In this episode of The BHooked Podcast you'll hear from, Brittany Lynch, who shares her best strategies for starting a crafting blog in 2019, growing an audience and maintaining a balance to keep you on the right track with your goals.
About The BHooked Podcast
Brittany's primary goal is to inspire you and help you grow in your craft with The BHooked Podcast. Through her own stories and the stories of each special guest, you'll discover tips and tricks to improve your crochet and knitting skills and find inspiration to achieve your hobby goals. When you want to kick back and learn from yarn industry experts, grab some yarn and turn on The BHooked Podcast. There's never a shortage of all things crochet, knitting or yarn.
Support the Show on Patreon | You decide what the show is worth to you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brittany (00:00):
You're listening to The Beyooked Podcast, episode
143, with Brittany.
Hey there, welcome to episode143 of the Be Oaked podcast.
(00:35):
I'm your host, Brittany, and asalways, thank you so much for
joining me today.
I know that you could be doingso many other things and you
chose to listen to this podcastand that makes me super
grateful.
Well, perhaps you saw the titleof this podcast and that's what
piqued your interest.
You know that we typically liketo break things up a little bit
(00:56):
around here where we balancemaker businesses and just the
overall passion of yarn andcrochet and knitting and
everything Every now and thenthose two will sort of overlap.
Now I've been blogging for along time and I absolutely do
(01:33):
not consider myself an expertwhen it comes to blogging and
building a blog.
For me, it's all an experiment.
It's constantly changing.
And so today I wanted to bringon somebody who I know is an
expert in having a blog,maintaining a blog, building a
blog, having all of the thingsthat make a blog successful, So
(01:58):
that you can turn that blog intowhatever you want it to be.
Whether it be a way for you tocommunicate with others or an
outlet for you to share yourdesigns or your ideas and your
thoughts.
Whether that be something alittle more like perhaps trying
to pay for your hobby or pay fora vacation or...
(02:18):
Better yet, have a sidebusiness.
So I'm joined today by anotherBrittany who is the expert, the
go-to person when it comes toblogging and building an email
list.
And those are the two thingsthat we'll focus in on today.
And we mentioned quite a fewresources.
I will have all of that in theshow notes for this episode.
(02:41):
BeHooked.com slash 143.
I'll have everything on thatpage.
Just scroll down just a tinybit until you see the links in
the resources section.
And you might also want to graba pen and a piece of paper for
this one because Brittany justgives it to us.
She has so much wisdom and shedoesn't hold back.
(03:02):
So let's get to it.
Here is my chat with Brittanyfrom Ideal Me.
Brittany, welcome to the BeHooked podcast.
Thank you so much for joiningme today.
Brittany L (03:12):
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm so excited
Brittany (03:18):
to be on my very first podcast.
got to do this for sure nowtypically here we talk a lot
(03:48):
about crochet and a lot aboutknitting and yarn and just
things of that nature but Thankyou so much.
wisdom when it comes to both ofthose areas.
(04:26):
But before we do, I want togive people a chance to get to
know you and learn just a littlebit of your story.
So how did you get into crochetand blogging and crafting and
all the things you're doingright now?
Brittany L (04:40):
Yeah, well, you know, what's funny is I actually
started with knitting.
So when I was growing up inToronto, my mom was actually a
knitting instructor at a localyarn shop in the city.
And so I remember going intothe shop one day and just seeing
all of this beautiful yarn andI fell in love with an alpaca
yarn and I saw a sweater on amannequin in the shop and I told
(05:03):
my mom that I need to learn howto make that and so you know
over the coming months we kindof worked through creating this
beautiful knit cardigan and itwas just such a nice experience
and so relaxing and justsatisfying being able to you
know make something with yourhands and then it was nice I
just have fond memories of goinginto the and you know watching
(05:24):
my mom teach teach how to knitand and to give instruction that
way and then I went away touniversity and you know I kind
of just fell away from knittingand it wasn't until I had
started my business that I had ablog totally not in the craft
space and I was just quitestressed and it was one of the
(05:46):
girls on on my team that I wasworking with that said you know
you should try crochet and so Istarted trying crochet and
initially I felt a little bitlike a traitor that I was trying
crochet and not knitting but Ijust fell in love with the
simplicity of it and just Itfelt a little easier to me than
knitting did or more forgivingperhaps is a better way to put
(06:06):
it.
And it just allowed me to kindof reconnect with the craft side
of who I am and the maker sideof who I am.
And I've always loved makingthings.
And then that kind oforganically grew into
occasionally releasing blogposts on crochet.
And then from there, I noticedthat my audience was just really
(06:27):
engaged in crochet.
And so that kind of set me on apath where I almost exclusively
focused on crochet and startedreally building my blog and my
audience in the crochet space.
And through that, it's been anamazing experience because I've
been able to combine two of mypassions, which is business with
crochet and been able to meetall sorts of amazing other
(06:49):
crochet entrepreneurs likeyourself and others that were
featured in our handmadebusiness summit.
So that's a little bit of thebackground of how I got into it.
And it's a little bitroundabout, but it's been a fun
journey and I'm just happy to bewhere I am today as a result
Brittany (07:04):
it's a really cool story Did I hear you right and
say that your first knit projectwas a cardigan?
Yeah.
That is serious.
I need to take a minute just torespect that because wow.
Brittany L (07:16):
You know what?
I am totally the type of personwho gets something in my head
and that's it.
I'm sure my mom probably said,you know, maybe you should start
with a scarf or something.
And I just was like, nope,we're making this cardigan.
We're going to add pockets.
I'm going to change the colorand buttonholes, like the whole
shebang.
Brittany (07:35):
Oh my goodness.
Well, it's good that you had agood helper, I'm sure, to help
you through some of that.
That was my big hang up withknitting.
And you were saying thatcrochet is a little more
forgiving.
I totally agree.
I always struggled with fixingmistakes and really just
recognizing that there was amistake other than it just looks
(07:55):
weird.
Brittany L (07:56):
Yeah, exactly.
And having your count off.
And yeah, my mom probably gotfrustrated with me on numerous
occasions throughout thatcardigan, but it was a good
experience.
And maybe that's why when Icame across crochet, I was so
much more fond of it.
I think my first project was ablanket that was just double
crochet.
(08:17):
So I mean, it's vastlydifferent in terms of difficult
level.
Brittany (08:21):
Yeah.
Did you find that, well, Imean, you said it was pretty
easy for you to pick up.
I think it's really interestingthat's something that I have
recognized with talking to a lotof people who do both when they
start out with one they alwaysit's always a lot more
challenging but when they pickup that second hobby whether it
be crochet or knitting whicheverone they started with first
(08:44):
it's always it's easier thesecond time around and I feel
like one really helps the othereven though they're so different
it still is rooted in the samekind of concept
Brittany L (08:55):
yeah absolutely I definitely think that helped and
you know the other thing thatwas really helpful for me and I
think a little bit unique as faras other bloggers out there in
the crochet spaces I reallylearned with my audience and so
I picked up crocheting and Ikind of shared the process with
with my audience that I alreadyalready had which is a general
(09:16):
craft kind of audience ideal mewas my original blog and we
talked about all sorts of thingsfrom crafts to business and
personal finance just all sortsof different topics and when I
shared a crochet related post Ijust noticed that my audience
was so engaged in that and so Iactually it was my second or
third project I asked myaudience if they would be
(09:38):
interested in doing a crochetalong and so and the answer was
just like a massive yes and so Iactually hired a local crochet
instructor here and we filmed uhhad that instructor create a
pattern for us and a projectagain it was a very simple
blanket that first project and Ireleased it to my audience and
(09:59):
I shared it with them and thatbecame the first of now I
believe we have 55 crochet andknit alongs that we've held um
over the last three two or threeyears and so um it was a
learning and sharing thatprocess with my audiences as I
grew in my own crochet journeyand in return they also all grew
(10:23):
and involved their skills andand in that way it was a
different because I was workingwith you know someone who had
crocheted uh for 30 plus yearsand so kind of got the best had
the privilege of learning um youknow what mistakes not to make
early on
Brittany (10:40):
Yeah, that's a super interesting approach because a
lot of people think that theyhave to know it all or they have
to have a lot of knowledgebefore they can start a blog.
And I think it's great to hearyour story in that you started
with pretty much the sameprinciples that a brand new
crocheter has and you created ajourney and it still worked for
(11:05):
you.
I mean, look where
Brittany L (11:06):
you are today.
Yeah.
So I think that in some ways itis, It's relatable to people
who are listening on this callright now who, you know, might
have those doubts.
Am I good enough?
And I know we all have thesedoubts.
Are my projects good enough?
Do I have enough skills to growa blog or grow a business or
(11:26):
earn from my hobby?
And I mean, I think that myjourney is really testament to
the fact that it really doesn'tmatter what you believe your
skill level is.
It's just that, you know, beyourself and share that journey
with your audience and kind ofbe willing to kind of grow into
whatever it becomes and be opento whatever it becomes.
Brittany (11:47):
Exactly.
Now, I'm interested to get yourperspective on the type of
Yeah.
Or it could mean a crochetalong or a podcast episode.
(12:21):
It can mean so many differentthings with so many options.
Do you have any advice forsomebody who's trying to figure
out exactly what it is that theyshould put in their blog?
Brittany L (12:32):
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a really goodquestion.
And I think you're absolutelyright.
There's just so many forms thata blog can take nowadays.
And I think that because ofthat, it gives us so many
options.
And so when I started my blog,I believe the first blog post I
ever had related to crochet was,I believe it was 18 or 16 years
(12:54):
old.
easy crochet stitches to masterand so it wasn't it was what I
call a content curation postother people call them blog
roundups or pattern roundups andwhat I did was I found the 16
best stitch tutorials that wereonline from other crochet
experts and I linked to them inthis blog post and that blog
(13:18):
post I listed it on my blog andthen I just put a link on
Pinterest and it blew up and AndI think, you know, almost
overnight, it was getting a fewthousand page views a day to
that one post.
And so on that one post, I hadan email newsletter capture.
And without getting tooadvanced, because I know we'll
(13:41):
talk about this in a bit, whatthat meant was people could
enter their email to get updatesfor when I release a new post.
And that's kind of where I grewmy initial crochet audience.
And then down the line was ableto say, hey, would you like to
do a crochet along so it wasn'tagain it wasn't traditional
right a lot of crochet bloggersor knit bloggers start by
(14:02):
releasing patterns and theproblem well you know if you can
do that fantastic but theproblem with that is there's a
lot more listeners on this callI would I would bet that want to
start a blog or want to earnfrom their hobby but aren't
necessarily pattern designersand so I just want you to know
that if you are a patterndesigner great release a pattern
(14:23):
on your blog and that's a greatway to create content content
for your audience but that's notthe only way that you can
create content and that's nothow I got started.
I got started by sharing otherpeople's content and of course
giving those people credit,you're linking back to their
website and that for me was agreat way to approach it because
I wasn't a crochet expert andon top of that I was able to
(14:47):
actually start to formrelationships with other crochet
bloggers because I was sharingtheir information.
So a a little bit differentthan how, again, a lot of
crochet or knit people starttheir blogs.
Brittany (15:01):
Yeah, it sounds like maybe that strategy stemmed from
knowing your audience reallywell, knowing that they were
probably interested in crochetbecause you sort of tested it
out before, but but also knowingthat they were likely not
crochet experts themselves andthey just wanted a little bit
(15:22):
more information.
So how does somebody get toknow their audience that well?
It's, it seems like such a hardthing to do.
Yeah.
Brittany L (15:32):
Yeah.
You know, it's, you know, Ithink the reason why it feels
hard is because when you're onthe internet, you're kind of,
it's, it's, in a lot of ways,it's not intimate.
You're just, you stare at yourcomputer screen and you're,
you're by yourself.
And there's just, there seemsto be so many questions.
Who's reading this post?
What are they interested in?
And I think the fact that thereare so many possible questions,
(15:55):
you know, about, about youraudience that it feels
overwhelming.
And so in my experience, thebest way to get to know your
audience is to simply just askand, and to remember that your
audience, the people who mightcome across your blog or might
who might read your emails aremade up of individuals and not
just a number.
(16:15):
And, you know, sometimes whenyou're in business, you get in
the habit of saying, oh, I got2000 page views yesterday.
And it just, it moves away fromthe human feel of what you're
actually doing.
Because what that actuallymeans is 2000 different humans,
2000 different people passionateabout crochet and knit saw your
post.
And so I think thinking,bringing it back to a human
(16:38):
level is really important.
And so again, we're when Ithought about creating my
crochet along, I had no idea ifmy audience would be interested
in that.
And again, many of the peopleon my audience were not even, I
didn't even know if they werecrocheters or not.
I knew some of them were, but Ididn't know if all of them
were.
And so I really did just sendan email to my list and I said
(17:02):
something like, hey, I'mthinking about hiring a crochet
instructor to film a video forme on this project.
Would you be interested I don'teven know if I knew the word
crochet along at the time.
Would you be interested indoing this with me?
You know, if so, hit reply andwe can kind of split the costs
and let me know.
And I just, I had so manypeople hit reply.
(17:25):
And when they hit reply, someof the emails were just yes.
And others were, you know, longstories.
Yes, my name is Mary and I livein, you know, wherever I've
been doing this this long.
And you just start to learnagain, you start to bring almost
faces or names to the, youknow, the unknowns that you
weren't sure of before by justactually reaching out and just
(17:49):
striving to really form arelationship on an ongoing basis
with those people.
So I know that was a tangent.
I don't know if that answeredyour question, but hopefully
that was a good start.
Brittany (18:00):
It was.
It was a great start.
There's a lot of informationthere.
I think it's a great idea toask your audience for things.
I know from experience,sometimes it's not as cut and
dry as yes or no.
Sometimes it's split.
Maybe it's split right down themiddle.
How do you make a decisionbased on that?
Brittany L (18:22):
So, I mean, at the end of the day, so when you,
when you start a blog or you'redoing any sort of endeavor
online, you kind of have to haveyour creative mind and your
business mind on at the sametime.
And so, you know, I was askinga creative question, but what I
get back is, is data.
And that's, you know, that'swhere I have to put my business
(18:44):
mind on.
And so just for simplicitysake, let's just say I got a
hundred email responses.
I start to look at the numbers,you know, How many people said
yes?
How many people said no?
How many people didn't sayeither and just gave me more
context?
And so maybe some of thosepeople who didn't say yes or no
said, oh, Brittany, do you meana crochet along?
(19:06):
And then at that point I waslike, oh my God, what's a
crochet along?
And then I go Google it andthen I refine my messaging the
next time I send an email to myaudience and I learn with the
process.
And so it's kind of, you'rekind of having to be open-minded
and creative while still beingcareful not to put your opinion
and your judgment for theoutcome on the end result by
(19:30):
looking at the data of what youraudience says.
Because at the end of the day,there is definitive information
in that and you just have tokind of try to use your business
mind or maybe let's not evencall it business mind because I
know that can be an intimidatingword.
A lot of us don't associateourselves as business people,
but just objectively look at theresponse and even open up a
(19:51):
Google spreadsheet and try tolike tally up the information,
like look for patterns of whatthings people are telling you.
Brittany (19:59):
Yeah, I think that's great advice there too.
And the other question thatcomes to mind, and I'm sure
others are thinking it as well,is did you reply to all of those
people?
Were you able to?
Brittany L (20:09):
Yes.
So yeah, so I always, wheneverI ask a question to my audience,
which isn't infrequently, I dotry to respond.
And so certainly in that firstquestion, I did try to respond
to, I've believe I responded toevery single one now back back
(20:33):
then it was a much smalleramount of people you know
obviously as I've grown with mybusiness we have much larger
audience and so for myself toindividually respond to every
message would be almostimpossible to do now sometimes
it could be thousands ofmessages but it's really
important and my team knows thatwhen someone responds in we
(20:55):
want to send them a response andlet them know that we've heard
them and that their opinion isimportant.
And I think that especiallyearly days when you're getting
started online and with the ideaof growing an audience, maybe
you don't want to use the wordbusiness, but growing an
audience, that it is importantto try to respond because you're
(21:16):
still in learning phase, right?
And so you're still trying tounderstand what are the needs
and desires of your audience.
And so by responding andcreating that dialogue, you're
going to learn so much faster.
Is it a lot of work?
Yeah, it is.
But you're kind of startingthis endeavor knowing that
that's something you'repassionate Yeah, absolutely.
Brittany (22:05):
Yeah.
Brittany L (22:14):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I think it's importantto use this strategy of
connecting with your audienceall of the time, because let's
say that, you know, you'reyou've carved out your concept
for what you stand for online.
You know, when we were talkingabout this before the interview,
you still always have ideas.
Right.
And you still always havequestions in your business and
(22:35):
for your audience about, youknow, would this be an
interesting project to pursue orwould this be an interesting
project to pursue?
And so as you as you grow, youget more opportunity.
And with opportunity comeschoice.
You have to prioritize yourtime.
And part of prioritizing yourtime is you want to make sure
that what you're doing is goingto have an impact with your
audience.
And so we're just really in thehabit of connecting with our
(22:58):
audience.
As an example, we have anonline membership for our
crochet and knit alongs.
And so that's grown over thethree years.
We've made a lot of changes.
And all of our businessdecisions and all of our pivots
or improvements have been adirect result of our asking our
audience, what would they liketo see more of?
(23:18):
What would they like to seeless of?
And what you'll find is themore that you're satisfying your
audience, the more that you aregetting closer to what it is
that they're looking for, themore likely that they're going
to share it with their friendsand family and businesses that
have Um, you know, withoutgetting too technical, you can
run what's called a net promoterscore survey.
(23:41):
Um, and that's basically,you've probably seen it, you
know, websites ask from zero to10, how likely are you recommend
this company?
And you're essentially able tounderstand a sense of how
satisfied is your audience.
So long story short, the higherthat score is, the more
satisfied your audience is, themore likely you are to have, uh,
more success, more traffic andmore revenue.
(24:03):
And that's just a proven fact.
And so by continuing to get inthe habit of just checking in
with your audience, no matterwhether you've, you're just
getting started or you have aclear sense of what you stand
for and what direction you'regoing in, asking is so important
because there's always going tobe questions in the direction
you want to take.
And, and as I mentioned, wetalked about this before the
(24:25):
call, you know, there's alwaysgoing to be opportunity and
choices for us to make as wegrow with our audience and
getting in the habit of checkingin with them on an ongoing
basis to make sure you're stillon the pulse of what that is it
thinks important
Brittany (24:38):
yeah so it sounds like the root of all of this goes
back to conversations justsimple conversations would you
say that email is the best wayto facilitate these
conversations or are you doingstuff on social or somewhere
else
Brittany L (24:57):
You know, it's, it's a really good question.
And in some ways, I feel reallyahead of the curve in how I
approach my business.
And in other ways, I feelreally behind the curve.
And, and so when I got started,email was the without it was
before social media, email iswithout a doubt the best way to
(25:18):
communicate with your audience,because it was direct people
check their email, and it was intheir inbox, and it was a
little bit more intimate.
Now, obviously, Obviously,we've got social media growing
and that's Instagram andFacebook primarily and podcasts,
what we're on right now.
So there's all sorts of mediumsfor you to connect with your
audience.
(25:38):
And I think what's mostimportant is playing to your
strengths.
So for me, I know that I couldnever have the discipline that
you have, or I shouldn't say Icould never have the discipline.
I just, for me, it wouldn't fitinto what I want out of my life
to be able to release a newpodcast each week.
I think that's terrible.
Tremendous that you're able todo that.
(25:59):
And I'm envious of that, but Ijust wouldn't work for me.
And same for video, um, onInstagram, there's just all
these incredible, like Tony, um,uh, from TL is TL.
Brittany (26:12):
Yeah.
Brittany L (26:13):
Yarn crafts.
She's just the most personableperson.
I'm just so envious of herability to connect on video.
Uh, but I would be tooself-conscious to, to get on
there and do that regularly.
And yet she just thrives inthat.
So, um, I think you kind ofneed to, again, you need to play
your strengths and know thatthere's something, there's a
medium out there that's going towork so well for your
(26:35):
personality to communicate withyour audience.
But to answer your specificquestion, yes, for me, that's
email.
Because You know, I can send anemail.
It's just strictly tech space.
It's more conversational forme.
It's something that I enjoy.
And with all of what I justsaid, I still believe that the
(26:55):
best way to get results in yourbusiness and will classify
results as the ability to growyour audience and send that
audience to content that they'reinterested in and to grow your
traffic is through email.
So that's really been myprimary focus.
We're, you know, in both Butwith email, that's something
(27:17):
that we've really just made ourprimary focus.
It's so ingrained in our mindsthat email is a big, big deal.
(27:38):
I know for me personally, I wasway behind the game getting an
email list and being justshowing up on a regular basis
for those people who are on mylist.
And the big holdup for me wasfeeling like I didn't have a
strategy.
Brittany (27:58):
But also worrying that I was bothering people because
I don't love checking email.
Just to be quite honest, I amvery choosy at who I give my
email address to because I findit tedious to go in my inbox
every day and delete a bunch ofemails.
And I don't want to be one ofthose emails people.
(28:20):
to somebody else.
I don't wanna inconveniencesomebody.
So I've really had to check inwith myself and say, well, this
person offered me their emailaddress and asked for me to send
them something.
So there's a little bit of thatgoing on in my mind.
I'm sure I'm not the only onethough.
Do you have any tips for that?
(28:42):
Yeah, you know, I think that'swhat you touched on is probably
one of the bigger reasons peopleare intimidated by email is the
fear of intrusion or the fearof not knowing what to say.
But let's let's start with thefear of, you know, sending an
email.
And what if people won't likeit or don't want to hear from
(29:03):
me?
And, you know, that's The plainand simple truth is twofold.
One, in order for them to be onyour email list, they would
have had to have given you theiremail.
And so what that means is atsome point, they were very
excited about hearing from you.
And so it's almost a disservicefor you not to be emailing them
(29:24):
because you set thisexpectation up that by giving me
your email address, I'm goingto be sharing things with you.
They want that.
That's the reason they didthat.
And often it's because theyhave some passion and you have
some passion expertise that youcan share for them.
Now, the second side of that islet's say they've changed their
(29:44):
mind.
And I've decided I'm no longerinterested in crochet or I don't
like what this person issharing with me.
It's not relevant or I just orI just don't want to check my
email anymore.
There is an unsubscribe button.
And so every email listprovider provides that in an
email.
You have to have that and theycan simply click that button and
decide, hey, this is no longerfor me.
(30:06):
And so I think it's importantto and this is hard and it's
something that, you know,develops over time.
And I still struggle.
sometimes I think I'm toosensitive to be a business owner
because my feelings get hurtquickly.
And, and, you know, you, insome ways you have to kind of
grow a little, not necessarily atough skin, but you just, and
(30:27):
that grows over time.
But, you know, I take itpersonally when someone has a
bad experience or unsubscribesand all this, but you really
have to push yourself to focuson what you're gaining and what
you're providing and not whatyou're losing and the people who
don't like you.
Because for every person whodoesn't like you, there's going
going to be a person out therewho really resonates with you
and really resonates with yourpersonality and is so excited to
(30:51):
hear from you.
And that person does want tohear from you.
And so I think it's kind of oneof those things that helps you
grow and helps you connect andunderstand what does your
audience want to hear from andform connections with the people
who are like you and whoresonate with you.
Yes.
Well, that is certainly amessage I needed to hear.
(31:11):
I'm sure I'm not alone in that.
I think if somebody is on thefence about starting an email
list, I think this is a great,well, that excuse we can just
throw out the window and I'mright there with you on that
one.
So let's get into the otherthing that's probably holding
somebody back and that's thetechnical side of it.
(31:33):
Actually, there's probablythree things that could be
holding them back.
The other one might be thestrategy of actually
communicating.
So maybe we can dive into thatone real quick too.
But for this technical How easyis it to start an email list?
Brittany L (31:50):
So, you know, in this day and age, it's actually
quite easy.
I mean, when I got started withmy first website, it was very
difficult.
But now it's very easy.
So in order to have an emaillist, you're going to need
what's called an autoresponder.
So an autoresponder, some ofthe more popular ones are
MailChimp.
I believe they have a freeplan.
(32:12):
And, you know, there'sConvertKit, which is popular
with bloggers.
And these are services that youcan sign up with.
And And when you sign up,they'll basically enable you the
ability to send emails to yourcustomers.
And, you know, a lot of theseproviders actually have what's
called a form builder on thereand you can create a form and
(32:34):
then it will give you a link andyou can use that link to share
with maybe just your friends andfamily initially, or maybe in
Facebook, a Facebook group, ifsomeone asks, or a forum in your
signature, there's places to dothat.
And, you know, there's a wholeother large to talk about
traffic, which maybe that's aseparate call we'll have.
(32:55):
But for now, that's kind ofwhat you need is the technology
aspect.
Now, beyond that, how I do itis I actually have a WordPress
blog.
And on WordPress, we use aplug-in.
called SumoMe.
And this actually allows us toreally easily embed forms on our
(33:16):
blog to build our email list.
And it's a little bit moreelegant than just using the form
builder from MailChimp orsomething like that.
So again, without getting tootechnical, I believe you
mentioned we can provide linksto resources.
You can kind of chase up onthis information a little bit.
But I really think the best wayto manage a blog is with
(33:36):
WordPress.
It's very, very easy to use.
It's free to use.
And then there's a plugin.
They have a free plan and apaid plan.
You can start with just thefree plan, which makes it really
easy to add newsletter forms orwhat's called an opt-in box
onto your blog in order to startbuilding your email newsletter
(33:56):
list.
Brittany (33:57):
Yes, yes.
And you mentioned MailChimp.
I do have some experience withthem.
Their free plan is up to 1,000subscribers.
So it's kind of clunky if we'rebeing totally honest.
I don't love it.
I'm still using it today.
However, it's really great forbeginners because it is pretty
user-friendly.
(34:17):
It's super easy to go in andit's intuitive and there's a lot
of help documents that you canfigure out what you need to do.
And like I said, it's totallyfree up to a thousand.
And when you get ready to makethat shift, I've also been a
user of ConvertKit as well.
I personally love thatplatform.
It's a little expensive andthat's why I am not using it
(34:40):
today.
However, I'm sure it's going tomove in that direction because
I know it's incredibly easy toadd these forms to your
WordPress website and that sortof thing.
What about the trying to thinkof what else you might need to
know in terms of starting anemail list and putting it on
(35:01):
your blog?
I mean, it really is prettystraightforward.
Like you need the form, youneed the list.
And from there, it's juststaying in touch.
with that person.
So I guess that kind of bringsus into the strategy behind it.
Brittany L (35:14):
Yeah.
So there's, there's a fewthings.
So, uh, Absolutely.
That would be kind of the nextprogression.
There are ways to get morepeople to sign up to your
newsletter.
And I'll touch on that reallyquickly before we move to
content, because, you know, whatgood is having an email form if
no one enters their email intoit, right?
(35:35):
You want to actually build yourlist as they call it.
And so one of the best ways toget people to actually enter
their email onto your newsletterlist is to incentivize them to
do so.
And this might be called a leadgeneration report or something
along those lines.
And it essentially is anincentive for them to opt into
(35:56):
your newsletter.
And so in the crochet and knitspace, one of the best ways that
I found to do this is either byoffering them a free pattern
that I've designed or byoffering, if you don't have a
pattern, you could do a littlegiveaway.
So maybe giveaway, you know,enter to win five balls of yarn
(36:16):
and the draw date is that monthor some piece of content.
Maybe it's not even somethingthat you've created.
Maybe it's a link to your sevenfavorite free patterns online
by other designers.
So it's just you want to givethem some reason to hear from
you, some reason they're givingyou their email address.
(36:37):
And that's always going to bemore effective than if you just
have a call to action that says,you know, subscribe to my
newsletter list because in theirhead, they're asking why, like,
why should I just subscribe toyour email newsletter list?
So the, uh, conversion ratesthe number of people out of 100
who opt into a newsletter listthat says subscribe to my
(36:59):
newsletter versus you know getseven great patterns crochet
patterns is going to be muchhigher because that's more along
what they want and that thatkind of brings us to the content
side of things too Brittanywould you like me to um just
dive right in or do you haveanything you want to comment on
(37:20):
regarding what we just said
Brittany (37:21):
oh no absolutely I'm loving where this conversation
is going
Brittany L (37:25):
okay all right so as far as the content side goes
again i think that people getvery intimidated about that and
a lot of us have maybeperfection mindset it has to be
perfect but um just getting itto 80 is honestly the biggest
part and often we do we are ourown tough critic right and so
(37:47):
often we're doing a much betterjob than um than we think and
And so, I think it's importantto Starting out, you might only
(38:25):
have one blog post.
You might not have any blogposts.
So what do you share?
And this was something that Ikind of struggled with for a
long while.
And then I reminded myself,what is my job?
My job is to serve my audienceand to make sure that my
audience is satisfied with whatI'm providing them.
And then I asked, okay, well,what is it that they're
(38:45):
interested in?
Well, they're interested incrochet.
What do crocheters want to knowmore about?
Well, they love yarn.
They love quirky news stories.
They like patterns.
And so when I took it away frommyself and made it more about
my audience, about how can Iprovide value to them so that
they're excited to read myemails, it kind of opened up the
(39:05):
doors.
Because now I'm not justsharing my own content, although
I try to prioritize that.
on days where I don't have myown content to share I'll go
look at my favorite crochet orknit designers and see what blog
posts do they have that arefantastic and I'll send an email
about their content becauseagain my audience is going to
(39:25):
still have warm um warm feelingstowards me sharing other
people's content because I'm theone who brought it to them and
so I'm still building a greatrelationship so I think it's
about having that abundancemindset about um you know
sometimes when people startbusinesses they're like well
that's a competitor or this andthat.
But no, it's about providingvalue to the people who who
(39:46):
follow you.
And so I just try to have thatabundant mindset that I'm
sending traffic to someoneelse's blog, but I'm serving my
audience and doing that.
And that will come back to mein another way.
Or I go on Google News and Isearch for fun stories on
crochet or knit.
And I link to a great articleor funny article on, you know,
whatever.
I remember when the Olympicscame out, there was an article
(40:09):
on the Norwegian snowboardingteam and they all were knitting
and they did it for stressrelief and so that enabled me to
share that news article andthen it gave me a great idea for
another email about you knowthe question of stress and
mental health and crochet andknit and so when you start
thinking about it again like asan abundant mindset of what are
(40:33):
these people interested in whatare their passions and interests
and how can I just give themmore of that you're able to just
be a little bit more creativewith sharing content with your
audience.
Brittany (40:44):
Yeah and I think one of the things that we really
look at as the person who'shitting send on that email is
how many people actually lookedat that and when you have that
mindset that you just describedyou're training that person to
expect All of these wonderfulthings from you.
(41:05):
So the next time you pop up intheir inbox, they'll be more
likely to look at that thing.
And I know that obviously anemail list is part of a business
typically, whether you call ita business or not.
It's there to serve a couple ofdifferent purposes.
One of those being...
(41:25):
How many people actually lookedat that?
How many people were actuallyinterested in that?
Now, are those metricssomething that you think are
really important for somebody tokeep track of, especially maybe
early in the game?
Or do you just recommend justdoing your thing, just having
that abundance mindset and justtrying to connect with everyone
(41:47):
on that list?
Brittany L (41:48):
Yeah, I mean, so one of the things that you're
talking about are the metricsthat are available in your
autoresponder, like your emailopen rate.
So what percent of the listactually opened your email?
And then your other importantmetric is your email
click-through rate.
What percent of the peopleopened your email and clicked
through to that link, if you hadone?
(42:09):
So those are important metrics,and there's certainly a lot of
strategies for increasing yourown email open rate and your
email click-through rate.
But I'm not going to get intothem today because Because I
think, again, coming back toperfect is the enemy of done.
And I think we have to becareful of that because, you
know, it's going to be a massivemilestone for you to even
(42:32):
create a newsletter, right?
Once you've created your emailnewsletter, you can slowly start
adding layers once you get intoconsistent habits, right?
Maybe you've gotten aconsistent habit of sending
emails a few times a week,which, by the way, I do
recommend.
And once you're consistently inthat habit, you can say, okay,
my email open rate is 17% onaverage.
(42:53):
How could I increase it?
And you could start lookinginto strategies for doing that.
But by and large, the best wayto increase your open rate,
increase your click-throughrate, and yes, ultimately your
revenue, which we haven't reallytalked on too much, but maybe
we can, is to deliver value toyour customer.
And so if you're unsure andyou're getting started, you
(43:14):
might want to just include asentence at the end of each
email that says did you likethis did you like this email if
so hit reply and let me know letme know if you did and again so
that way early on I wouldn'tlike nowadays I don't do that in
every email because it wouldjust be too much too much
response and I wouldn't be ableto I wouldn't have a process for
(43:34):
for taking that feedback.
But when you're getting startedand you just have a few people
on your email list, again,encouraging that conversation is
always a good thing and it'sjust always gonna help you
refine and get ideas, providemore value to your audience.
Brittany (43:50):
Yeah, very true.
Now you mentioned just realbriefly about the frequency of
it.
How does somebody figure outwhat is the right frequency?
How many emails to send out?
Is it once a week, twice aweek, every time you have
something new, maybe it's notsuper consistent or is there any
advice that you have there?
Brittany L (44:10):
Yes.
So this is going to be aroundabout answer because I
think before I even answer that,I think it's really important
to ask yourself what is theright frequency?
what does success look like toyou?
Why are you doing what you'redoing?
Why do you want to grow anemail newsletter list?
Is it because you want to shareyour ideas?
Is it because you want to earnsome money?
(44:31):
Is it because you want to growa full-time business?
Or is it because it's justsomething that's fun to you?
So I think anytime you thinkabout starting a business or
taking on an endeavor like this,it's important to kind of start
with a definition of what thatsuccess looks like to you.
And it's okay if that changesdown the line, but you want to
start with some sort of target.
(44:52):
Because maybe you're justgetting started because this is
something that you're passionateabout and you think it's going
to be fun.
And if that's the case,probably sending an email every
day is going to take the fun outof it and turn it into
something that's a bitstressful.
And so asking yourself, youknow, what is something that I
could commit to that is stillgoing to be enjoyable to me is
(45:13):
going to be really helpful.
And I think that's a goodquestion for most people.
You know, maybe it's justsaying I'm going to send a new
email every Tuesday at 9 a.m.
and you get consistent in that.
And that consistency is goingto be key because you want to
train your audience when toexpect emails from you.
So if you're just gettingstarted in each email, you might
say, hey, every Tuesday Irelease new emails.
(45:36):
So keep an eye on your inbox.
And, you know, you can alwaysadd more than you can say.
every Tuesday and Thursday.
Now, if you're looking to dothis because it's your passion
and you want to earn money,then, you know, the more often
you communicate with youraudience, the faster that's
going to translate into revenuefor you or an income for you.
(45:58):
And, you know, there's justsometimes people get nervous
about talking about money andearning money or it feels wrong.
But at the end of the day, Iknow I couldn't do the things
that I was doing unless mybusiness was earning money
because I couldn't afford to runthe business.
And so earning money iscertainly not a bad thing and
it's okay to talk about, butthat might not be your goal.
(46:21):
So you have to start by askingyourself, what is your goal?
What does success look like?
based on that help inform whatyour content schedule is going
to look like because this issomething else you and I have
talked about a lot which iswork-life balance and thinking
about where does this fall intowhat I want out of the rest of
my life and make sure that theywork together and not against
(46:44):
each other and that's somethingyou kind of have to constantly
check in on so the short answeris come up with a decision that
works for you right now andmaybe that's once a week maybe
it's once a month and get in thehabit of committing to that.
And once you've committed tothat, you know, for some length
(47:04):
of time, you can check in withyourself and ask, you know, can
I increase the amount of timesthat I do this each week or each
month?
Is that going to fit into mylife?
Is that going to help me reachmy goals faster?
And if the answer is yes, youcan add to that.
But it's always better to startlower so that you can be
consistent because consistencyis key rather than, you know
(47:27):
giving yourself a crazy goal andthen not meeting that goal
which is just going to make youfeel bad and create a disconnect
with your audience
Brittany (47:35):
yes yes and you mentioned work-life balance and
that's something that like yousaid you and I have chatted
about I am always looking for away to simplify a process and to
make things work really welland so it's always so
interesting to get otherpeople's perspective on that I
do like to share some of thosetips here with my audience and I
(47:57):
would love to know becauseblogging and having an email
marketing strategy, those aretwo pretty big undertakings and
they can really consume a lot ofyour time.
There has to be some type ofbalance and I know it's usually
rooted in what your goals are.
(48:17):
Can you share a little bitabout that?
how you find work-life balancei know it'll be different for
everybody but perhaps there'ssomebody out there who's similar
to you who maybe findsthemselves in a similar
situation and and could use theadvice on how you can balance
something as big as like yourblog plus all of the people on
(48:41):
your email list we're not thereyet but we will get there
Brittany L (48:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a, you know what, I'll behonest with you.
It is something that I reallystruggle with.
And I, I remember when Iinterviewed you for the handmade
business summit, your, yourtopic was on, on productivity
and work-life balance.
And I remember just thinking,wow, you, you've really got it
worked out.
And so, you know, I'vestruggled with it because my my
(49:08):
big passion is business.
And I just, I love, I lovebusiness.
I love growing an audience.
I love forming a relationshipwith my, with my readers and
with my, the people who arefollowing me online.
Like that is just so fun to me.
And I love that connection.
And so that You know, to me,people always ask, what's my
(49:29):
hobby?
And I almost hate that questionbecause my hobby is what I do
right now.
It's crochet and it's knit andit's, you know, serving my
community.
And so when you feel thatpassionate about the work that
you do for an income as well, itcan be dangerous because where
do you draw the line betweenhome life and work life?
(49:52):
And that's something that Ihave to say has negatively
interfered me a lot in my lifebecause I'm the type of person,
and I mentioned this before, I'mthe type of person who just
goes all in.
Like I saw that crochetcardigan or that knit cardigan.
I was like, yep, we're makingthis.
That's a crazy idea.
You should not make a knitcardigan for your first project.
(50:12):
And I have that kind ofapproach in a lot of areas of my
life of, if I'm going to do it,I want to do it right.
And it kind of totally consumesme.
And so I've had to be very,very deliberate about trying to
take separation.
And so one of the things that Ijust did three months ago was I
actually got an office and thatwas a tough decision for me
(50:36):
because I thought, you know,spending money on an office I
have a home I could work fromhome that's the dream you want
to work from home but theproblem is is if you're always
at home you have to be verydisciplined in your home life to
create a special work area sothat you're not working in your
bedroom or you're not working inareas that you associate with
(50:58):
relaxation becausesubconsciously if you're working
in your bedroom and somethingstressful happens you don't want
your subconscious to associatesleep with with things that
aren't relaxing.
And so I kind of just evolvedover time of trying to set
myself some rules of certainlyif I'm working from home, don't
ever work in bed as tempting asit is because you want your
(51:21):
sleep to be your sanctuary andbe able to just associate good
things with that.
Try to set up a dedicated areaat home.
And that's what I did for along time.
And every day it would betempting to not just be like,
well, I'll just go sit on thecouch.
I'll be more comfortable thanworking at this desk.
And it would be morecomfortable, but there's
negative repercussions fromthat.
(51:42):
And, and I was starting to feelvery anxious all of the time.
And, and I really, I was justseverely anxious every single
day.
And I think that that'ssomething that happens to people
who, who have a highexpectation for whatever it is
they're after, whether that'syour job or your crochet or, you
(52:05):
know, your whatever it is.
And so I had put so muchexpectation on myself, I was
really suffering badly fromanxiety.
And it's still something that Ihave to check in with myself on
a regular basis.
And so I know this is a longanswer.
But my the way my path went isI ended up deciding to get an
(52:25):
office and really trying to putmyself in that environment and
do work there every day from,from nine to five, or whatever
the hours are.
And, and then when I'm home, Ican relax because having your
own business or whatever or sideproject or whatever you want to
call it, there's so manyamazing perks to it.
(52:47):
But there you also have to.
It's a slippery slope of havinga blur into your other areas of
your life and you don't everwant it to totally dominate you.
And really and truly, that issomething that I can say has had
my business over the last 10years.
But, you know, certainly thefirst six years of that.
(53:07):
dominated my life and itnegatively impacted my
relationships, uh, personally.
And it, um, hurt my mentalhealth because I wasn't being
more mindful and careful ofcreating that separation.
And so, you know, the reasonwhy I say all this is not to
scary one, but just to, to knowthat those are some of the
(53:28):
things that depending on yourpersonality, you, you may, you
may deal with as you start, asyou start a project or as you
get more involved.
And the more you can try toencourage yourself to have that
separation whether it's in thehome of a separate a dedicated
desk or specific hours you'regoing to work on it and the more
that I did that the better itgot for me and I am like I think
(53:51):
we're probably the opposite inthis way like when I got started
having a calendar like therewas no worse thing for me than
having a calendar that's not whyI started a business I started
a business because I wantedfreedom but what I came to
realize is setting up thoseconstraints for myself gave me
more freedom and I didn't see itthat way initially and so now
(54:11):
just doing those things tocreate that separation I think
has been really helpful so thatwas that was a long answer and
hopefully it didn't give tooshed too much negative light on
things but I just want to beopen about my own experience in
case other people can relate tothat
Brittany (54:28):
for sure I appreciate that so much because that is
something like you said you maynot realize or you may not even
think about when you're strivingfor this dream of having your
own business, maybe having theopportunity to work from home,
there's nothing worse thanfeeling disappointment when you
(54:48):
finally reach your goal.
And it's not that you'redisappointed in the whole idea
of it, but you're disappointedin aspects of it because it
turned out to be something alittle different than what you
wanted.
And at that point, it'stempting to question yourself,
question whether or not you hadthe right goal in the first
(55:10):
place.
And I think the better, moreproductive question that you
should be asking yourself is howcan you make it better?
Because I've learned to neverdoubt my dream or doubt what I
want.
You feel it in your gut.
You either know you wantsomething or you don't.
And that's a gut feeling thatyou have.
Just don't make up.
(55:31):
So rather than question yourgut instinct of creating
whatever it is that you're superexcited about right now,
question how you can make itbetter.
Brittany L (55:42):
Yeah, exactly.
And the other thing thatreminded me of is something my
dad always tells me because, youknow, I really had a tough
time.
Even last year, my business wasgrowing so much and you would
think, wow, that's so awesome.
But with it comes moreexpectations, more pressure,
more responsibility.
(56:03):
And I was just honestly, I wasin my personal life very unhappy
because I felt out of control.
I didn't feel like I had anycontrol.
on where my life was going,which is odd because that's not
why I started the business.
And so one of the things hetold me was that you need to
take care of yourself.
If you're not taking care ofyourself, you can't take care of
(56:26):
anyone else and you're doing adisservice to everyone who is
involved in your business andthat means your audience, right?
And so sometimes, well, all thetime in my opinion, you just
really have to check inconsistently throughout this
process of building a businessof, is this opportunity still
right for me?
And it might not be 100% yes or100% no, you might have to
(56:49):
drill in and look at littlethings and say, okay, well, this
part of it is taking up so muchof my time and not yielding me
the results that I expected.
And so, you know, I know I hadan expectation to myself and to
my audience to do this, but Ineed to change that expectation
because it's just, for me, itwas slowly killing me.
(57:12):
I mean, it just didn't serve meanymore.
And so I wasn't able to servemy audience anymore in that way.
And so just continuing to checkin yourself and make sure that
you know as you arrive upon yourgoals that you set out to
achieve make sure that they arestill things that you want and
more often than not it's it'sprobably some part of what you
want but there's areas thataren't making you happy that you
(57:35):
can maybe move away from oradjust and every time I've ever
done that every time I've takena pause in my business or a
pause to check in with myself tomake sure that I'm still in
line with with taking care ofmyself and therefore taking care
of my audience it's It's beenscary because it's different and
I didn't expect to be there,but it always has resulted in me
(57:57):
feeling happier and as a resultbeing able to better serve my
audience.
Brittany (58:01):
For sure.
And knowing that it's okay tochange an expectation.
I mean, that's certainlysomething I need to hear almost
on a regular basis.
It's okay to change your mindalmost to change the focus.
It's not going to be the end ofyour business or the end of
your blog.
It will probably be the startof something completely new.
(58:24):
And I know that's something wechatted about a little bit
before pressing start.
It's a message that I needed tohear.
And I'm so glad that you sharedthat here as well because like
I said I know there are so manymakers in the audience who are
really really who really have agreat message to share who
really have a talent and they'refeeling discouraged because
(58:47):
they there's there's so much tolearn and so much to do when you
have a blog it's almost likemind-boggling once you sit down
and you write down all the stepsthat you need to take and then,
oh, by the way, you need tostart an email list and all of
this stuff.
I think the bottom line is it'snot a finish line, right?
It's not a race.
(59:09):
You're not racing to the finishline.
For a business, I don't knowthat there ever really is a
finish line.
It's always just forwardmomentum.
Brittany L (59:19):
Yeah, absolutely.
And And I guarantee that whenyou start out or wherever you
are now, everyone kind of has afinish line in their mind.
And often it's associated withwhat you think is going to make
you happy.
When you get to that finishline, you know, it's kind of
human nature to re-up yourfinish line.
(59:40):
You get there and you're like,well, what's my new finish line?
And so you're always kind ofpushing yourself.
And so you just have to beconscious of that, that, you
know, it's okay that it changesand you're growing with this
process.
this as well
Brittany (59:53):
definitely well Brittany this has been an
amazing conversation I am sothrilled that we were able to
chat about this and that I couldlearn so much from you that I
can share that with my audienceI know somebody will definitely
want to check in with you afterhearing today's episode so where
is the place where you wouldlike somebody to go to connect
(01:00:16):
with you
Brittany L (01:00:17):
Sure.
So we have a few blogs, Dabblesand Babbles and IdealMe.com are
one of them.
And then my main focus thoughis MyYarnClub.com.
And My Yarn Club is where thehome of those crochet and knit
alongs that I talked aboutearlier that I started several
years ago are located.
But we're essentially a yarnclub where we focus on providing
(01:00:40):
name brand yarn at wholesaleprices to our members.
So if you're interested instaying connected with me,
there's a place you can mynewsletter on that website or
you can go take a look or reachout and there's our email
address listed on there too soI'd love to hear from you and
I'm excited for those who arelistening who are thinking about
(01:01:00):
maybe starting a business inthe crochet or knit space I just
want to tell you that it's100,000% possible and to just
take it step by step and I hopethat some of this information
has been helpful to you
Brittany (01:01:15):
for sure and it's totally worth it
Brittany L (01:01:17):
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
100%.
Even on the hard days, it'sworth it.
There's always going to be harddays.
You may as well have the harddays doing what you love.
Brittany (01:01:25):
Definitely.
Well, Brittany, thank you somuch.
I will have all that linked inthe show notes so you can have
quick and easy access to that.
Now, a lot of us here love tohang out on Instagram.
Do you have a handle there thatyou would recommend someone
check out?
Brittany L (01:01:41):
Yes, I do.
It's idealme.dot.com and I'llprovide the information to you
and you can provide it in theshow notes.
But as I mentioned earlier,Instagram is something I feel so
behind the times on and reallymy main form of communication is
through our email list.
But by all means, follow me onInstagram.
Maybe this year will be theyear that I really dive and
(01:02:04):
tackle that head on.
Brittany (01:02:06):
Yes, yes.
It's certainly a completelydifferent beast, but I love how
you're sticking true to, likeyou said, your strengths.
So you know that email is yourjam and the proof is in the
pudding.
Brittany L (01:02:18):
Exactly.
Exactly.
Well, thank you again forhaving me.
It's been so fun to have youinterview me.
And it's been a really great atfirst podcast experience and
hopefully one of many more.
Brittany (01:02:32):
Absolutely.
Well, I would love to have youback.
I'm sure I'm not the only onescreaming that right now.
So for sure, we'll have youback on.
All right.
That was Brittany from IdealMe.
And I'm pretty sure that wasamazing, right?
I enjoyed that conversation somuch.
I'm going to go back and listento it again.
And I hope you enjoyed it asmuch as I did.
(01:02:55):
So Brittany did mention a fewresources throughout today's
episode.
And I want to remind you thatyou can find all of that
information over on the shownotes page.
That's behooked.com slash 143.
I'll have it spelled out there.
It's about the middle of thepage.
Just scroll down until you seethe links and resources
mentioned in this episode.
You'll find it all there so youcan get a little bit more
(01:03:17):
detail on some of the thingsthat she talked about and see if
it's right for you and yourblog.
And definitely check outBrittany and some of her blogs
and see what she has going on.
She's doing a lot of reallygreat things for our industry
and in our community.
And I will have those websitesshe mentioned in the show notes
as well.
Now you may have heard at theend of that episode, I told
(01:03:41):
Brittany that she mentionedsomething that I really needed
to hear.
And I'm not ready to shareexactly what that is yet, but it
is coming soon.
So I want to just let you knowabout that.
When I have all of the details,you will be the first to know.
All right, that'll wrap up thisweek's episode of the Be Hooked
(01:04:01):
podcast.
Thank you again for joining me.
Thank you again for yourreviews.
And I I'll see you next week.
Bye-bye.
You're listening to The Beyooked Podcast, episode
143, with Brittany.
Hey there, welcome to episode143 of the Be Oaked podcast.
(00:35):
I'm your host, Brittany, and asalways, thank you so much for
joining me today.
I know that you could be doingso many other things and you
chose to listen to this podcastand that makes me super
grateful.
Well, perhaps you saw the titleof this podcast and that's what
piqued your interest.
You know that we typically liketo break things up a little bit
(00:56):
around here where we balancemaker businesses and just the
overall passion of yarn andcrochet and knitting and
everything Every now and thenthose two will sort of overlap.
Now I've been blogging for along time and I absolutely do
(01:33):
not consider myself an expertwhen it comes to blogging and
building a blog.
For me, it's all an experiment.
It's constantly changing.
And so today I wanted to bringon somebody who I know is an
expert in having a blog,maintaining a blog, building a
blog, having all of the thingsthat make a blog successful, So
(01:58):
that you can turn that blog intowhatever you want it to be.
Whether it be a way for you tocommunicate with others or an
outlet for you to share yourdesigns or your ideas and your
thoughts.
Whether that be something alittle more like perhaps trying
to pay for your hobby or pay fora vacation or...
(02:18):
Better yet, have a sidebusiness.
So I'm joined today by anotherBrittany who is the expert, the
go-to person when it comes toblogging and building an email
list.
And those are the two thingsthat we'll focus in on today.
And we mentioned quite a fewresources.
I will have all of that in theshow notes for this episode.
(02:41):
BeHooked.com slash 143.
I'll have everything on thatpage.
Just scroll down just a tinybit until you see the links in
the resources section.
And you might also want to graba pen and a piece of paper for
this one because Brittany justgives it to us.
She has so much wisdom and shedoesn't hold back.
(03:02):
So let's get to it.
Here is my chat with Brittanyfrom Ideal Me.
Brittany, welcome to the BeHooked podcast.
Thank you so much for joiningme today.
Brittany L (03:12):
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm so excited
Brittany (03:18):
to be on my very first podcast.
got to do this for sure nowtypically here we talk a lot
(03:48):
about crochet and a lot aboutknitting and yarn and just
things of that nature but Thankyou so much.
wisdom when it comes to both ofthose areas.
(04:26):
But before we do, I want togive people a chance to get to
know you and learn just a littlebit of your story.
So how did you get into crochetand blogging and crafting and
all the things you're doingright now?
Brittany L (04:40):
Yeah, well, you know, what's funny is I actually
started with knitting.
So when I was growing up inToronto, my mom was actually a
knitting instructor at a localyarn shop in the city.
And so I remember going intothe shop one day and just seeing
all of this beautiful yarn andI fell in love with an alpaca
yarn and I saw a sweater on amannequin in the shop and I told
(05:03):
my mom that I need to learn howto make that and so you know
over the coming months we kindof worked through creating this
beautiful knit cardigan and itwas just such a nice experience
and so relaxing and justsatisfying being able to you
know make something with yourhands and then it was nice I
just have fond memories of goinginto the and you know watching
(05:24):
my mom teach teach how to knitand and to give instruction that
way and then I went away touniversity and you know I kind
of just fell away from knittingand it wasn't until I had
started my business that I had ablog totally not in the craft
space and I was just quitestressed and it was one of the
(05:46):
girls on on my team that I wasworking with that said you know
you should try crochet and so Istarted trying crochet and
initially I felt a little bitlike a traitor that I was trying
crochet and not knitting but Ijust fell in love with the
simplicity of it and just Itfelt a little easier to me than
knitting did or more forgivingperhaps is a better way to put
(06:06):
it.
And it just allowed me to kindof reconnect with the craft side
of who I am and the maker sideof who I am.
And I've always loved makingthings.
And then that kind oforganically grew into
occasionally releasing blogposts on crochet.
And then from there, I noticedthat my audience was just really
(06:27):
engaged in crochet.
And so that kind of set me on apath where I almost exclusively
focused on crochet and startedreally building my blog and my
audience in the crochet space.
And through that, it's been anamazing experience because I've
been able to combine two of mypassions, which is business with
crochet and been able to meetall sorts of amazing other
(06:49):
crochet entrepreneurs likeyourself and others that were
featured in our handmadebusiness summit.
So that's a little bit of thebackground of how I got into it.
And it's a little bitroundabout, but it's been a fun
journey and I'm just happy to bewhere I am today as a result
Brittany (07:04):
it's a really cool story Did I hear you right and
say that your first knit projectwas a cardigan?
Yeah.
That is serious.
I need to take a minute just torespect that because wow.
Brittany L (07:16):
You know what?
I am totally the type of personwho gets something in my head
and that's it.
I'm sure my mom probably said,you know, maybe you should start
with a scarf or something.
And I just was like, nope,we're making this cardigan.
We're going to add pockets.
I'm going to change the colorand buttonholes, like the whole
shebang.
Brittany (07:35):
Oh my goodness.
Well, it's good that you had agood helper, I'm sure, to help
you through some of that.
That was my big hang up withknitting.
And you were saying thatcrochet is a little more
forgiving.
I totally agree.
I always struggled with fixingmistakes and really just
recognizing that there was amistake other than it just looks
(07:55):
weird.
Brittany L (07:56):
Yeah, exactly.
And having your count off.
And yeah, my mom probably gotfrustrated with me on numerous
occasions throughout thatcardigan, but it was a good
experience.
And maybe that's why when Icame across crochet, I was so
much more fond of it.
I think my first project was ablanket that was just double
crochet.
(08:17):
So I mean, it's vastlydifferent in terms of difficult
level.
Brittany (08:21):
Yeah.
Did you find that, well, Imean, you said it was pretty
easy for you to pick up.
I think it's really interestingthat's something that I have
recognized with talking to a lotof people who do both when they
start out with one they alwaysit's always a lot more
challenging but when they pickup that second hobby whether it
be crochet or knitting whicheverone they started with first
(08:44):
it's always it's easier thesecond time around and I feel
like one really helps the othereven though they're so different
it still is rooted in the samekind of concept
Brittany L (08:55):
yeah absolutely I definitely think that helped and
you know the other thing thatwas really helpful for me and I
think a little bit unique as faras other bloggers out there in
the crochet spaces I reallylearned with my audience and so
I picked up crocheting and Ikind of shared the process with
with my audience that I alreadyalready had which is a general
(09:16):
craft kind of audience ideal mewas my original blog and we
talked about all sorts of thingsfrom crafts to business and
personal finance just all sortsof different topics and when I
shared a crochet related post Ijust noticed that my audience
was so engaged in that and so Iactually it was my second or
third project I asked myaudience if they would be
(09:38):
interested in doing a crochetalong and so and the answer was
just like a massive yes and so Iactually hired a local crochet
instructor here and we filmed uhhad that instructor create a
pattern for us and a projectagain it was a very simple
blanket that first project and Ireleased it to my audience and
(09:59):
I shared it with them and thatbecame the first of now I
believe we have 55 crochet andknit alongs that we've held um
over the last three two or threeyears and so um it was a
learning and sharing thatprocess with my audiences as I
grew in my own crochet journeyand in return they also all grew
(10:23):
and involved their skills andand in that way it was a
different because I was workingwith you know someone who had
crocheted uh for 30 plus yearsand so kind of got the best had
the privilege of learning um youknow what mistakes not to make
early on
Brittany (10:40):
Yeah, that's a super interesting approach because a
lot of people think that theyhave to know it all or they have
to have a lot of knowledgebefore they can start a blog.
And I think it's great to hearyour story in that you started
with pretty much the sameprinciples that a brand new
crocheter has and you created ajourney and it still worked for
(11:05):
you.
I mean, look where
Brittany L (11:06):
you are today.
Yeah.
So I think that in some ways itis, It's relatable to people
who are listening on this callright now who, you know, might
have those doubts.
Am I good enough?
And I know we all have thesedoubts.
Are my projects good enough?
Do I have enough skills to growa blog or grow a business or
(11:26):
earn from my hobby?
And I mean, I think that myjourney is really testament to
the fact that it really doesn'tmatter what you believe your
skill level is.
It's just that, you know, beyourself and share that journey
with your audience and kind ofbe willing to kind of grow into
whatever it becomes and be opento whatever it becomes.
Brittany (11:47):
Exactly.
Now, I'm interested to get yourperspective on the type of
Yeah.
Or it could mean a crochetalong or a podcast episode.
(12:21):
It can mean so many differentthings with so many options.
Do you have any advice forsomebody who's trying to figure
out exactly what it is that theyshould put in their blog?
Brittany L (12:32):
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a really goodquestion.
And I think you're absolutelyright.
There's just so many forms thata blog can take nowadays.
And I think that because ofthat, it gives us so many
options.
And so when I started my blog,I believe the first blog post I
ever had related to crochet was,I believe it was 18 or 16 years
(12:54):
old.
easy crochet stitches to masterand so it wasn't it was what I
call a content curation postother people call them blog
roundups or pattern roundups andwhat I did was I found the 16
best stitch tutorials that wereonline from other crochet
experts and I linked to them inthis blog post and that blog
(13:18):
post I listed it on my blog andthen I just put a link on
Pinterest and it blew up and AndI think, you know, almost
overnight, it was getting a fewthousand page views a day to
that one post.
And so on that one post, I hadan email newsletter capture.
And without getting tooadvanced, because I know we'll
(13:41):
talk about this in a bit, whatthat meant was people could
enter their email to get updatesfor when I release a new post.
And that's kind of where I grewmy initial crochet audience.
And then down the line was ableto say, hey, would you like to
do a crochet along so it wasn'tagain it wasn't traditional
right a lot of crochet bloggersor knit bloggers start by
(14:02):
releasing patterns and theproblem well you know if you can
do that fantastic but theproblem with that is there's a
lot more listeners on this callI would I would bet that want to
start a blog or want to earnfrom their hobby but aren't
necessarily pattern designersand so I just want you to know
that if you are a patterndesigner great release a pattern
(14:23):
on your blog and that's a greatway to create content content
for your audience but that's notthe only way that you can
create content and that's nothow I got started.
I got started by sharing otherpeople's content and of course
giving those people credit,you're linking back to their
website and that for me was agreat way to approach it because
I wasn't a crochet expert andon top of that I was able to
(14:47):
actually start to formrelationships with other crochet
bloggers because I was sharingtheir information.
So a a little bit differentthan how, again, a lot of
crochet or knit people starttheir blogs.
Brittany (15:01):
Yeah, it sounds like maybe that strategy stemmed from
knowing your audience reallywell, knowing that they were
probably interested in crochetbecause you sort of tested it
out before, but but also knowingthat they were likely not
crochet experts themselves andthey just wanted a little bit
(15:22):
more information.
So how does somebody get toknow their audience that well?
It's, it seems like such a hardthing to do.
Yeah.
Brittany L (15:32):
Yeah.
You know, it's, you know, Ithink the reason why it feels
hard is because when you're onthe internet, you're kind of,
it's, it's, in a lot of ways,it's not intimate.
You're just, you stare at yourcomputer screen and you're,
you're by yourself.
And there's just, there seemsto be so many questions.
Who's reading this post?
What are they interested in?
And I think the fact that thereare so many possible questions,
(15:55):
you know, about, about youraudience that it feels
overwhelming.
And so in my experience, thebest way to get to know your
audience is to simply just askand, and to remember that your
audience, the people who mightcome across your blog or might
who might read your emails aremade up of individuals and not
just a number.
(16:15):
And, you know, sometimes whenyou're in business, you get in
the habit of saying, oh, I got2000 page views yesterday.
And it just, it moves away fromthe human feel of what you're
actually doing.
Because what that actuallymeans is 2000 different humans,
2000 different people passionateabout crochet and knit saw your
post.
And so I think thinking,bringing it back to a human
(16:38):
level is really important.
And so again, we're when Ithought about creating my
crochet along, I had no idea ifmy audience would be interested
in that.
And again, many of the peopleon my audience were not even, I
didn't even know if they werecrocheters or not.
I knew some of them were, but Ididn't know if all of them
were.
And so I really did just sendan email to my list and I said
(17:02):
something like, hey, I'mthinking about hiring a crochet
instructor to film a video forme on this project.
Would you be interested I don'teven know if I knew the word
crochet along at the time.
Would you be interested indoing this with me?
You know, if so, hit reply andwe can kind of split the costs
and let me know.
And I just, I had so manypeople hit reply.
(17:25):
And when they hit reply, someof the emails were just yes.
And others were, you know, longstories.
Yes, my name is Mary and I livein, you know, wherever I've
been doing this this long.
And you just start to learnagain, you start to bring almost
faces or names to the, youknow, the unknowns that you
weren't sure of before by justactually reaching out and just
(17:49):
striving to really form arelationship on an ongoing basis
with those people.
So I know that was a tangent.
I don't know if that answeredyour question, but hopefully
that was a good start.
Brittany (18:00):
It was.
It was a great start.
There's a lot of informationthere.
I think it's a great idea toask your audience for things.
I know from experience,sometimes it's not as cut and
dry as yes or no.
Sometimes it's split.
Maybe it's split right down themiddle.
How do you make a decisionbased on that?
Brittany L (18:22):
So, I mean, at the end of the day, so when you,
when you start a blog or you'redoing any sort of endeavor
online, you kind of have to haveyour creative mind and your
business mind on at the sametime.
And so, you know, I was askinga creative question, but what I
get back is, is data.
And that's, you know, that'swhere I have to put my business
(18:44):
mind on.
And so just for simplicitysake, let's just say I got a
hundred email responses.
I start to look at the numbers,you know, How many people said
yes?
How many people said no?
How many people didn't sayeither and just gave me more
context?
And so maybe some of thosepeople who didn't say yes or no
said, oh, Brittany, do you meana crochet along?
(19:06):
And then at that point I waslike, oh my God, what's a
crochet along?
And then I go Google it andthen I refine my messaging the
next time I send an email to myaudience and I learn with the
process.
And so it's kind of, you'rekind of having to be open-minded
and creative while still beingcareful not to put your opinion
and your judgment for theoutcome on the end result by
(19:30):
looking at the data of what youraudience says.
Because at the end of the day,there is definitive information
in that and you just have tokind of try to use your business
mind or maybe let's not evencall it business mind because I
know that can be an intimidatingword.
A lot of us don't associateourselves as business people,
but just objectively look at theresponse and even open up a
(19:51):
Google spreadsheet and try tolike tally up the information,
like look for patterns of whatthings people are telling you.
Brittany (19:59):
Yeah, I think that's great advice there too.
And the other question thatcomes to mind, and I'm sure
others are thinking it as well,is did you reply to all of those
people?
Were you able to?
Brittany L (20:09):
Yes.
So yeah, so I always, wheneverI ask a question to my audience,
which isn't infrequently, I dotry to respond.
And so certainly in that firstquestion, I did try to respond
to, I've believe I responded toevery single one now back back
(20:33):
then it was a much smalleramount of people you know
obviously as I've grown with mybusiness we have much larger
audience and so for myself toindividually respond to every
message would be almostimpossible to do now sometimes
it could be thousands ofmessages but it's really
important and my team knows thatwhen someone responds in we
(20:55):
want to send them a response andlet them know that we've heard
them and that their opinion isimportant.
And I think that especiallyearly days when you're getting
started online and with the ideaof growing an audience, maybe
you don't want to use the wordbusiness, but growing an
audience, that it is importantto try to respond because you're
(21:16):
still in learning phase, right?
And so you're still trying tounderstand what are the needs
and desires of your audience.
And so by responding andcreating that dialogue, you're
going to learn so much faster.
Is it a lot of work?
Yeah, it is.
But you're kind of startingthis endeavor knowing that
that's something you'repassionate Yeah, absolutely.
Brittany (22:05):
Yeah.
Brittany L (22:14):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I think it's importantto use this strategy of
connecting with your audienceall of the time, because let's
say that, you know, you'reyou've carved out your concept
for what you stand for online.
You know, when we were talkingabout this before the interview,
you still always have ideas.
Right.
And you still always havequestions in your business and
(22:35):
for your audience about, youknow, would this be an
interesting project to pursue orwould this be an interesting
project to pursue?
And so as you as you grow, youget more opportunity.
And with opportunity comeschoice.
You have to prioritize yourtime.
And part of prioritizing yourtime is you want to make sure
that what you're doing is goingto have an impact with your
audience.
And so we're just really in thehabit of connecting with our
(22:58):
audience.
As an example, we have anonline membership for our
crochet and knit alongs.
And so that's grown over thethree years.
We've made a lot of changes.
And all of our businessdecisions and all of our pivots
or improvements have been adirect result of our asking our
audience, what would they liketo see more of?
(23:18):
What would they like to seeless of?
And what you'll find is themore that you're satisfying your
audience, the more that you aregetting closer to what it is
that they're looking for, themore likely that they're going
to share it with their friendsand family and businesses that
have Um, you know, withoutgetting too technical, you can
run what's called a net promoterscore survey.
(23:41):
Um, and that's basically,you've probably seen it, you
know, websites ask from zero to10, how likely are you recommend
this company?
And you're essentially able tounderstand a sense of how
satisfied is your audience.
So long story short, the higherthat score is, the more
satisfied your audience is, themore likely you are to have, uh,
more success, more traffic andmore revenue.
(24:03):
And that's just a proven fact.
And so by continuing to get inthe habit of just checking in
with your audience, no matterwhether you've, you're just
getting started or you have aclear sense of what you stand
for and what direction you'regoing in, asking is so important
because there's always going tobe questions in the direction
you want to take.
And, and as I mentioned, wetalked about this before the
(24:25):
call, you know, there's alwaysgoing to be opportunity and
choices for us to make as wegrow with our audience and
getting in the habit of checkingin with them on an ongoing
basis to make sure you're stillon the pulse of what that is it
thinks important
Brittany (24:38):
yeah so it sounds like the root of all of this goes
back to conversations justsimple conversations would you
say that email is the best wayto facilitate these
conversations or are you doingstuff on social or somewhere
else
Brittany L (24:57):
You know, it's, it's a really good question.
And in some ways, I feel reallyahead of the curve in how I
approach my business.
And in other ways, I feelreally behind the curve.
And, and so when I got started,email was the without it was
before social media, email iswithout a doubt the best way to
(25:18):
communicate with your audience,because it was direct people
check their email, and it was intheir inbox, and it was a
little bit more intimate.
Now, obviously, Obviously,we've got social media growing
and that's Instagram andFacebook primarily and podcasts,
what we're on right now.
So there's all sorts of mediumsfor you to connect with your
audience.
(25:38):
And I think what's mostimportant is playing to your
strengths.
So for me, I know that I couldnever have the discipline that
you have, or I shouldn't say Icould never have the discipline.
I just, for me, it wouldn't fitinto what I want out of my life
to be able to release a newpodcast each week.
I think that's terrible.
Tremendous that you're able todo that.
(25:59):
And I'm envious of that, but Ijust wouldn't work for me.
And same for video, um, onInstagram, there's just all
these incredible, like Tony, um,uh, from TL is TL.
Brittany (26:12):
Yeah.
Brittany L (26:13):
Yarn crafts.
She's just the most personableperson.
I'm just so envious of herability to connect on video.
Uh, but I would be tooself-conscious to, to get on
there and do that regularly.
And yet she just thrives inthat.
So, um, I think you kind ofneed to, again, you need to play
your strengths and know thatthere's something, there's a
medium out there that's going towork so well for your
(26:35):
personality to communicate withyour audience.
But to answer your specificquestion, yes, for me, that's
email.
Because You know, I can send anemail.
It's just strictly tech space.
It's more conversational forme.
It's something that I enjoy.
And with all of what I justsaid, I still believe that the
(26:55):
best way to get results in yourbusiness and will classify
results as the ability to growyour audience and send that
audience to content that they'reinterested in and to grow your
traffic is through email.
So that's really been myprimary focus.
We're, you know, in both Butwith email, that's something
(27:17):
that we've really just made ourprimary focus.
It's so ingrained in our mindsthat email is a big, big deal.
(27:38):
I know for me personally, I wasway behind the game getting an
email list and being justshowing up on a regular basis
for those people who are on mylist.
And the big holdup for me wasfeeling like I didn't have a
strategy.
Brittany (27:58):
But also worrying that I was bothering people because
I don't love checking email.
Just to be quite honest, I amvery choosy at who I give my
email address to because I findit tedious to go in my inbox
every day and delete a bunch ofemails.
And I don't want to be one ofthose emails people.
(28:20):
to somebody else.
I don't wanna inconveniencesomebody.
So I've really had to check inwith myself and say, well, this
person offered me their emailaddress and asked for me to send
them something.
So there's a little bit of thatgoing on in my mind.
I'm sure I'm not the only onethough.
Do you have any tips for that?
(28:42):
Yeah, you know, I think that'swhat you touched on is probably
one of the bigger reasons peopleare intimidated by email is the
fear of intrusion or the fearof not knowing what to say.
But let's let's start with thefear of, you know, sending an
email.
And what if people won't likeit or don't want to hear from
(29:03):
me?
And, you know, that's The plainand simple truth is twofold.
One, in order for them to be onyour email list, they would
have had to have given you theiremail.
And so what that means is atsome point, they were very
excited about hearing from you.
And so it's almost a disservicefor you not to be emailing them
(29:24):
because you set thisexpectation up that by giving me
your email address, I'm goingto be sharing things with you.
They want that.
That's the reason they didthat.
And often it's because theyhave some passion and you have
some passion expertise that youcan share for them.
Now, the second side of that islet's say they've changed their
(29:44):
mind.
And I've decided I'm no longerinterested in crochet or I don't
like what this person issharing with me.
It's not relevant or I just orI just don't want to check my
email anymore.
There is an unsubscribe button.
And so every email listprovider provides that in an
email.
You have to have that and theycan simply click that button and
decide, hey, this is no longerfor me.
(30:06):
And so I think it's importantto and this is hard and it's
something that, you know,develops over time.
And I still struggle.
sometimes I think I'm toosensitive to be a business owner
because my feelings get hurtquickly.
And, and, you know, you, insome ways you have to kind of
grow a little, not necessarily atough skin, but you just, and
(30:27):
that grows over time.
But, you know, I take itpersonally when someone has a
bad experience or unsubscribesand all this, but you really
have to push yourself to focuson what you're gaining and what
you're providing and not whatyou're losing and the people who
don't like you.
Because for every person whodoesn't like you, there's going
going to be a person out therewho really resonates with you
and really resonates with yourpersonality and is so excited to
(30:51):
hear from you.
And that person does want tohear from you.
And so I think it's kind of oneof those things that helps you
grow and helps you connect andunderstand what does your
audience want to hear from andform connections with the people
who are like you and whoresonate with you.
Yes.
Well, that is certainly amessage I needed to hear.
(31:11):
I'm sure I'm not alone in that.
I think if somebody is on thefence about starting an email
list, I think this is a great,well, that excuse we can just
throw out the window and I'mright there with you on that
one.
So let's get into the otherthing that's probably holding
somebody back and that's thetechnical side of it.
(31:33):
Actually, there's probablythree things that could be
holding them back.
The other one might be thestrategy of actually
communicating.
So maybe we can dive into thatone real quick too.
But for this technical How easyis it to start an email list?
Brittany L (31:50):
So, you know, in this day and age, it's actually
quite easy.
I mean, when I got started withmy first website, it was very
difficult.
But now it's very easy.
So in order to have an emaillist, you're going to need
what's called an autoresponder.
So an autoresponder, some ofthe more popular ones are
MailChimp.
I believe they have a freeplan.
(32:12):
And, you know, there'sConvertKit, which is popular
with bloggers.
And these are services that youcan sign up with.
And And when you sign up,they'll basically enable you the
ability to send emails to yourcustomers.
And, you know, a lot of theseproviders actually have what's
called a form builder on thereand you can create a form and
(32:34):
then it will give you a link andyou can use that link to share
with maybe just your friends andfamily initially, or maybe in
Facebook, a Facebook group, ifsomeone asks, or a forum in your
signature, there's places to dothat.
And, you know, there's a wholeother large to talk about
traffic, which maybe that's aseparate call we'll have.
(32:55):
But for now, that's kind ofwhat you need is the technology
aspect.
Now, beyond that, how I do itis I actually have a WordPress
blog.
And on WordPress, we use aplug-in.
called SumoMe.
And this actually allows us toreally easily embed forms on our
(33:16):
blog to build our email list.
And it's a little bit moreelegant than just using the form
builder from MailChimp orsomething like that.
So again, without getting tootechnical, I believe you
mentioned we can provide linksto resources.
You can kind of chase up onthis information a little bit.
But I really think the best wayto manage a blog is with
(33:36):
WordPress.
It's very, very easy to use.
It's free to use.
And then there's a plugin.
They have a free plan and apaid plan.
You can start with just thefree plan, which makes it really
easy to add newsletter forms orwhat's called an opt-in box
onto your blog in order to startbuilding your email newsletter
(33:56):
list.
Brittany (33:57):
Yes, yes.
And you mentioned MailChimp.
I do have some experience withthem.
Their free plan is up to 1,000subscribers.
So it's kind of clunky if we'rebeing totally honest.
I don't love it.
I'm still using it today.
However, it's really great forbeginners because it is pretty
user-friendly.
(34:17):
It's super easy to go in andit's intuitive and there's a lot
of help documents that you canfigure out what you need to do.
And like I said, it's totallyfree up to a thousand.
And when you get ready to makethat shift, I've also been a
user of ConvertKit as well.
I personally love thatplatform.
It's a little expensive andthat's why I am not using it
(34:40):
today.
However, I'm sure it's going tomove in that direction because
I know it's incredibly easy toadd these forms to your
WordPress website and that sortof thing.
What about the trying to thinkof what else you might need to
know in terms of starting anemail list and putting it on
(35:01):
your blog?
I mean, it really is prettystraightforward.
Like you need the form, youneed the list.
And from there, it's juststaying in touch.
with that person.
So I guess that kind of bringsus into the strategy behind it.
Brittany L (35:14):
Yeah.
So there's, there's a fewthings.
So, uh, Absolutely.
That would be kind of the nextprogression.
There are ways to get morepeople to sign up to your
newsletter.
And I'll touch on that reallyquickly before we move to
content, because, you know, whatgood is having an email form if
no one enters their email intoit, right?
(35:35):
You want to actually build yourlist as they call it.
And so one of the best ways toget people to actually enter
their email onto your newsletterlist is to incentivize them to
do so.
And this might be called a leadgeneration report or something
along those lines.
And it essentially is anincentive for them to opt into
(35:56):
your newsletter.
And so in the crochet and knitspace, one of the best ways that
I found to do this is either byoffering them a free pattern
that I've designed or byoffering, if you don't have a
pattern, you could do a littlegiveaway.
So maybe giveaway, you know,enter to win five balls of yarn
(36:16):
and the draw date is that monthor some piece of content.
Maybe it's not even somethingthat you've created.
Maybe it's a link to your sevenfavorite free patterns online
by other designers.
So it's just you want to givethem some reason to hear from
you, some reason they're givingyou their email address.
(36:37):
And that's always going to bemore effective than if you just
have a call to action that says,you know, subscribe to my
newsletter list because in theirhead, they're asking why, like,
why should I just subscribe toyour email newsletter list?
So the, uh, conversion ratesthe number of people out of 100
who opt into a newsletter listthat says subscribe to my
(36:59):
newsletter versus you know getseven great patterns crochet
patterns is going to be muchhigher because that's more along
what they want and that thatkind of brings us to the content
side of things too Brittanywould you like me to um just
dive right in or do you haveanything you want to comment on
(37:20):
regarding what we just said
Brittany (37:21):
oh no absolutely I'm loving where this conversation
is going
Brittany L (37:25):
okay all right so as far as the content side goes
again i think that people getvery intimidated about that and
a lot of us have maybeperfection mindset it has to be
perfect but um just getting itto 80 is honestly the biggest
part and often we do we are ourown tough critic right and so
(37:47):
often we're doing a much betterjob than um than we think and
And so, I think it's importantto Starting out, you might only
(38:25):
have one blog post.
You might not have any blogposts.
So what do you share?
And this was something that Ikind of struggled with for a
long while.
And then I reminded myself,what is my job?
My job is to serve my audienceand to make sure that my
audience is satisfied with whatI'm providing them.
And then I asked, okay, well,what is it that they're
(38:45):
interested in?
Well, they're interested incrochet.
What do crocheters want to knowmore about?
Well, they love yarn.
They love quirky news stories.
They like patterns.
And so when I took it away frommyself and made it more about
my audience, about how can Iprovide value to them so that
they're excited to read myemails, it kind of opened up the
(39:05):
doors.
Because now I'm not justsharing my own content, although
I try to prioritize that.
on days where I don't have myown content to share I'll go
look at my favorite crochet orknit designers and see what blog
posts do they have that arefantastic and I'll send an email
about their content becauseagain my audience is going to
(39:25):
still have warm um warm feelingstowards me sharing other
people's content because I'm theone who brought it to them and
so I'm still building a greatrelationship so I think it's
about having that abundancemindset about um you know
sometimes when people startbusinesses they're like well
that's a competitor or this andthat.
But no, it's about providingvalue to the people who who
(39:46):
follow you.
And so I just try to have thatabundant mindset that I'm
sending traffic to someoneelse's blog, but I'm serving my
audience and doing that.
And that will come back to mein another way.
Or I go on Google News and Isearch for fun stories on
crochet or knit.
And I link to a great articleor funny article on, you know,
whatever.
I remember when the Olympicscame out, there was an article
(40:09):
on the Norwegian snowboardingteam and they all were knitting
and they did it for stressrelief and so that enabled me to
share that news article andthen it gave me a great idea for
another email about you knowthe question of stress and
mental health and crochet andknit and so when you start
thinking about it again like asan abundant mindset of what are
(40:33):
these people interested in whatare their passions and interests
and how can I just give themmore of that you're able to just
be a little bit more creativewith sharing content with your
audience.
Brittany (40:44):
Yeah and I think one of the things that we really
look at as the person who'shitting send on that email is
how many people actually lookedat that and when you have that
mindset that you just describedyou're training that person to
expect All of these wonderfulthings from you.
(41:05):
So the next time you pop up intheir inbox, they'll be more
likely to look at that thing.
And I know that obviously anemail list is part of a business
typically, whether you call ita business or not.
It's there to serve a couple ofdifferent purposes.
One of those being...
(41:25):
How many people actually lookedat that?
How many people were actuallyinterested in that?
Now, are those metricssomething that you think are
really important for somebody tokeep track of, especially maybe
early in the game?
Or do you just recommend justdoing your thing, just having
that abundance mindset and justtrying to connect with everyone
(41:47):
on that list?
Brittany L (41:48):
Yeah, I mean, so one of the things that you're
talking about are the metricsthat are available in your
autoresponder, like your emailopen rate.
So what percent of the listactually opened your email?
And then your other importantmetric is your email
click-through rate.
What percent of the peopleopened your email and clicked
through to that link, if you hadone?
(42:09):
So those are important metrics,and there's certainly a lot of
strategies for increasing yourown email open rate and your
email click-through rate.
But I'm not going to get intothem today because Because I
think, again, coming back toperfect is the enemy of done.
And I think we have to becareful of that because, you
know, it's going to be a massivemilestone for you to even
(42:32):
create a newsletter, right?
Once you've created your emailnewsletter, you can slowly start
adding layers once you get intoconsistent habits, right?
Maybe you've gotten aconsistent habit of sending
emails a few times a week,which, by the way, I do
recommend.
And once you're consistently inthat habit, you can say, okay,
my email open rate is 17% onaverage.
(42:53):
How could I increase it?
And you could start lookinginto strategies for doing that.
But by and large, the best wayto increase your open rate,
increase your click-throughrate, and yes, ultimately your
revenue, which we haven't reallytalked on too much, but maybe
we can, is to deliver value toyour customer.
And so if you're unsure andyou're getting started, you
(43:14):
might want to just include asentence at the end of each
email that says did you likethis did you like this email if
so hit reply and let me know letme know if you did and again so
that way early on I wouldn'tlike nowadays I don't do that in
every email because it wouldjust be too much too much
response and I wouldn't be ableto I wouldn't have a process for
(43:34):
for taking that feedback.
But when you're getting startedand you just have a few people
on your email list, again,encouraging that conversation is
always a good thing and it'sjust always gonna help you
refine and get ideas, providemore value to your audience.
Brittany (43:50):
Yeah, very true.
Now you mentioned just realbriefly about the frequency of
it.
How does somebody figure outwhat is the right frequency?
How many emails to send out?
Is it once a week, twice aweek, every time you have
something new, maybe it's notsuper consistent or is there any
advice that you have there?
Brittany L (44:10):
Yes.
So this is going to be aroundabout answer because I
think before I even answer that,I think it's really important
to ask yourself what is theright frequency?
what does success look like toyou?
Why are you doing what you'redoing?
Why do you want to grow anemail newsletter list?
Is it because you want to shareyour ideas?
Is it because you want to earnsome money?
(44:31):
Is it because you want to growa full-time business?
Or is it because it's justsomething that's fun to you?
So I think anytime you thinkabout starting a business or
taking on an endeavor like this,it's important to kind of start
with a definition of what thatsuccess looks like to you.
And it's okay if that changesdown the line, but you want to
start with some sort of target.
(44:52):
Because maybe you're justgetting started because this is
something that you're passionateabout and you think it's going
to be fun.
And if that's the case,probably sending an email every
day is going to take the fun outof it and turn it into
something that's a bitstressful.
And so asking yourself, youknow, what is something that I
could commit to that is stillgoing to be enjoyable to me is
(45:13):
going to be really helpful.
And I think that's a goodquestion for most people.
You know, maybe it's justsaying I'm going to send a new
email every Tuesday at 9 a.m.
and you get consistent in that.
And that consistency is goingto be key because you want to
train your audience when toexpect emails from you.
So if you're just gettingstarted in each email, you might
say, hey, every Tuesday Irelease new emails.
(45:36):
So keep an eye on your inbox.
And, you know, you can alwaysadd more than you can say.
every Tuesday and Thursday.
Now, if you're looking to dothis because it's your passion
and you want to earn money,then, you know, the more often
you communicate with youraudience, the faster that's
going to translate into revenuefor you or an income for you.
(45:58):
And, you know, there's justsometimes people get nervous
about talking about money andearning money or it feels wrong.
But at the end of the day, Iknow I couldn't do the things
that I was doing unless mybusiness was earning money
because I couldn't afford to runthe business.
And so earning money iscertainly not a bad thing and
it's okay to talk about, butthat might not be your goal.
(46:21):
So you have to start by askingyourself, what is your goal?
What does success look like?
based on that help inform whatyour content schedule is going
to look like because this issomething else you and I have
talked about a lot which iswork-life balance and thinking
about where does this fall intowhat I want out of the rest of
my life and make sure that theywork together and not against
(46:44):
each other and that's somethingyou kind of have to constantly
check in on so the short answeris come up with a decision that
works for you right now andmaybe that's once a week maybe
it's once a month and get in thehabit of committing to that.
And once you've committed tothat, you know, for some length
(47:04):
of time, you can check in withyourself and ask, you know, can
I increase the amount of timesthat I do this each week or each
month?
Is that going to fit into mylife?
Is that going to help me reachmy goals faster?
And if the answer is yes, youcan add to that.
But it's always better to startlower so that you can be
consistent because consistencyis key rather than, you know
(47:27):
giving yourself a crazy goal andthen not meeting that goal
which is just going to make youfeel bad and create a disconnect
with your audience
Brittany (47:35):
yes yes and you mentioned work-life balance and
that's something that like yousaid you and I have chatted
about I am always looking for away to simplify a process and to
make things work really welland so it's always so
interesting to get otherpeople's perspective on that I
do like to share some of thosetips here with my audience and I
(47:57):
would love to know becauseblogging and having an email
marketing strategy, those aretwo pretty big undertakings and
they can really consume a lot ofyour time.
There has to be some type ofbalance and I know it's usually
rooted in what your goals are.
(48:17):
Can you share a little bitabout that?
how you find work-life balancei know it'll be different for
everybody but perhaps there'ssomebody out there who's similar
to you who maybe findsthemselves in a similar
situation and and could use theadvice on how you can balance
something as big as like yourblog plus all of the people on
(48:41):
your email list we're not thereyet but we will get there
Brittany L (48:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a, you know what, I'll behonest with you.
It is something that I reallystruggle with.
And I, I remember when Iinterviewed you for the handmade
business summit, your, yourtopic was on, on productivity
and work-life balance.
And I remember just thinking,wow, you, you've really got it
worked out.
And so, you know, I'vestruggled with it because my my
(49:08):
big passion is business.
And I just, I love, I lovebusiness.
I love growing an audience.
I love forming a relationshipwith my, with my readers and
with my, the people who arefollowing me online.
Like that is just so fun to me.
And I love that connection.
And so that You know, to me,people always ask, what's my
(49:29):
hobby?
And I almost hate that questionbecause my hobby is what I do
right now.
It's crochet and it's knit andit's, you know, serving my
community.
And so when you feel thatpassionate about the work that
you do for an income as well, itcan be dangerous because where
do you draw the line betweenhome life and work life?
(49:52):
And that's something that Ihave to say has negatively
interfered me a lot in my lifebecause I'm the type of person,
and I mentioned this before, I'mthe type of person who just
goes all in.
Like I saw that crochetcardigan or that knit cardigan.
I was like, yep, we're makingthis.
That's a crazy idea.
You should not make a knitcardigan for your first project.
(50:12):
And I have that kind ofapproach in a lot of areas of my
life of, if I'm going to do it,I want to do it right.
And it kind of totally consumesme.
And so I've had to be very,very deliberate about trying to
take separation.
And so one of the things that Ijust did three months ago was I
actually got an office and thatwas a tough decision for me
(50:36):
because I thought, you know,spending money on an office I
have a home I could work fromhome that's the dream you want
to work from home but theproblem is is if you're always
at home you have to be verydisciplined in your home life to
create a special work area sothat you're not working in your
bedroom or you're not working inareas that you associate with
(50:58):
relaxation becausesubconsciously if you're working
in your bedroom and somethingstressful happens you don't want
your subconscious to associatesleep with with things that
aren't relaxing.
And so I kind of just evolvedover time of trying to set
myself some rules of certainlyif I'm working from home, don't
ever work in bed as tempting asit is because you want your
(51:21):
sleep to be your sanctuary andbe able to just associate good
things with that.
Try to set up a dedicated areaat home.
And that's what I did for along time.
And every day it would betempting to not just be like,
well, I'll just go sit on thecouch.
I'll be more comfortable thanworking at this desk.
And it would be morecomfortable, but there's
negative repercussions fromthat.
(51:42):
And, and I was starting to feelvery anxious all of the time.
And, and I really, I was justseverely anxious every single
day.
And I think that that'ssomething that happens to people
who, who have a highexpectation for whatever it is
they're after, whether that'syour job or your crochet or, you
(52:05):
know, your whatever it is.
And so I had put so muchexpectation on myself, I was
really suffering badly fromanxiety.
And it's still something that Ihave to check in with myself on
a regular basis.
And so I know this is a longanswer.
But my the way my path went isI ended up deciding to get an
(52:25):
office and really trying to putmyself in that environment and
do work there every day from,from nine to five, or whatever
the hours are.
And, and then when I'm home, Ican relax because having your
own business or whatever or sideproject or whatever you want to
call it, there's so manyamazing perks to it.
(52:47):
But there you also have to.
It's a slippery slope of havinga blur into your other areas of
your life and you don't everwant it to totally dominate you.
And really and truly, that issomething that I can say has had
my business over the last 10years.
But, you know, certainly thefirst six years of that.
(53:07):
dominated my life and itnegatively impacted my
relationships, uh, personally.
And it, um, hurt my mentalhealth because I wasn't being
more mindful and careful ofcreating that separation.
And so, you know, the reasonwhy I say all this is not to
scary one, but just to, to knowthat those are some of the
(53:28):
things that depending on yourpersonality, you, you may, you
may deal with as you start, asyou start a project or as you
get more involved.
And the more you can try toencourage yourself to have that
separation whether it's in thehome of a separate a dedicated
desk or specific hours you'regoing to work on it and the more
that I did that the better itgot for me and I am like I think
(53:51):
we're probably the opposite inthis way like when I got started
having a calendar like therewas no worse thing for me than
having a calendar that's not whyI started a business I started
a business because I wantedfreedom but what I came to
realize is setting up thoseconstraints for myself gave me
more freedom and I didn't see itthat way initially and so now
(54:11):
just doing those things tocreate that separation I think
has been really helpful so thatwas that was a long answer and
hopefully it didn't give tooshed too much negative light on
things but I just want to beopen about my own experience in
case other people can relate tothat
Brittany (54:28):
for sure I appreciate that so much because that is
something like you said you maynot realize or you may not even
think about when you're strivingfor this dream of having your
own business, maybe having theopportunity to work from home,
there's nothing worse thanfeeling disappointment when you
(54:48):
finally reach your goal.
And it's not that you'redisappointed in the whole idea
of it, but you're disappointedin aspects of it because it
turned out to be something alittle different than what you
wanted.
And at that point, it'stempting to question yourself,
question whether or not you hadthe right goal in the first
(55:10):
place.
And I think the better, moreproductive question that you
should be asking yourself is howcan you make it better?
Because I've learned to neverdoubt my dream or doubt what I
want.
You feel it in your gut.
You either know you wantsomething or you don't.
And that's a gut feeling thatyou have.
Just don't make up.
(55:31):
So rather than question yourgut instinct of creating
whatever it is that you're superexcited about right now,
question how you can make itbetter.
Brittany L (55:42):
Yeah, exactly.
And the other thing thatreminded me of is something my
dad always tells me because, youknow, I really had a tough
time.
Even last year, my business wasgrowing so much and you would
think, wow, that's so awesome.
But with it comes moreexpectations, more pressure,
more responsibility.
(56:03):
And I was just honestly, I wasin my personal life very unhappy
because I felt out of control.
I didn't feel like I had anycontrol.
on where my life was going,which is odd because that's not
why I started the business.
And so one of the things hetold me was that you need to
take care of yourself.
If you're not taking care ofyourself, you can't take care of
(56:26):
anyone else and you're doing adisservice to everyone who is
involved in your business andthat means your audience, right?
And so sometimes, well, all thetime in my opinion, you just
really have to check inconsistently throughout this
process of building a businessof, is this opportunity still
right for me?
And it might not be 100% yes or100% no, you might have to
(56:49):
drill in and look at littlethings and say, okay, well, this
part of it is taking up so muchof my time and not yielding me
the results that I expected.
And so, you know, I know I hadan expectation to myself and to
my audience to do this, but Ineed to change that expectation
because it's just, for me, itwas slowly killing me.
(57:12):
I mean, it just didn't serve meanymore.
And so I wasn't able to servemy audience anymore in that way.
And so just continuing to checkin yourself and make sure that
you know as you arrive upon yourgoals that you set out to
achieve make sure that they arestill things that you want and
more often than not it's it'sprobably some part of what you
want but there's areas thataren't making you happy that you
(57:35):
can maybe move away from oradjust and every time I've ever
done that every time I've takena pause in my business or a
pause to check in with myself tomake sure that I'm still in
line with with taking care ofmyself and therefore taking care
of my audience it's It's beenscary because it's different and
I didn't expect to be there,but it always has resulted in me
(57:57):
feeling happier and as a resultbeing able to better serve my
audience.
Brittany (58:01):
For sure.
And knowing that it's okay tochange an expectation.
I mean, that's certainlysomething I need to hear almost
on a regular basis.
It's okay to change your mindalmost to change the focus.
It's not going to be the end ofyour business or the end of
your blog.
It will probably be the startof something completely new.
(58:24):
And I know that's something wechatted about a little bit
before pressing start.
It's a message that I needed tohear.
And I'm so glad that you sharedthat here as well because like
I said I know there are so manymakers in the audience who are
really really who really have agreat message to share who
really have a talent and they'refeeling discouraged because
(58:47):
they there's there's so much tolearn and so much to do when you
have a blog it's almost likemind-boggling once you sit down
and you write down all the stepsthat you need to take and then,
oh, by the way, you need tostart an email list and all of
this stuff.
I think the bottom line is it'snot a finish line, right?
It's not a race.
(59:09):
You're not racing to the finishline.
For a business, I don't knowthat there ever really is a
finish line.
It's always just forwardmomentum.
Brittany L (59:19):
Yeah, absolutely.
And And I guarantee that whenyou start out or wherever you
are now, everyone kind of has afinish line in their mind.
And often it's associated withwhat you think is going to make
you happy.
When you get to that finishline, you know, it's kind of
human nature to re-up yourfinish line.
(59:40):
You get there and you're like,well, what's my new finish line?
And so you're always kind ofpushing yourself.
And so you just have to beconscious of that, that, you
know, it's okay that it changesand you're growing with this
process.
this as well
Brittany (59:53):
definitely well Brittany this has been an
amazing conversation I am sothrilled that we were able to
chat about this and that I couldlearn so much from you that I
can share that with my audienceI know somebody will definitely
want to check in with you afterhearing today's episode so where
is the place where you wouldlike somebody to go to connect
(01:00:16):
with you
Brittany L (01:00:17):
Sure.
So we have a few blogs, Dabblesand Babbles and IdealMe.com are
one of them.
And then my main focus thoughis MyYarnClub.com.
And My Yarn Club is where thehome of those crochet and knit
alongs that I talked aboutearlier that I started several
years ago are located.
But we're essentially a yarnclub where we focus on providing
(01:00:40):
name brand yarn at wholesaleprices to our members.
So if you're interested instaying connected with me,
there's a place you can mynewsletter on that website or
you can go take a look or reachout and there's our email
address listed on there too soI'd love to hear from you and
I'm excited for those who arelistening who are thinking about
(01:01:00):
maybe starting a business inthe crochet or knit space I just
want to tell you that it's100,000% possible and to just
take it step by step and I hopethat some of this information
has been helpful to you
Brittany (01:01:15):
for sure and it's totally worth it
Brittany L (01:01:17):
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
100%.
Even on the hard days, it'sworth it.
There's always going to be harddays.
You may as well have the harddays doing what you love.
Brittany (01:01:25):
Definitely.
Well, Brittany, thank you somuch.
I will have all that linked inthe show notes so you can have
quick and easy access to that.
Now, a lot of us here love tohang out on Instagram.
Do you have a handle there thatyou would recommend someone
check out?
Brittany L (01:01:41):
Yes, I do.
It's idealme.dot.com and I'llprovide the information to you
and you can provide it in theshow notes.
But as I mentioned earlier,Instagram is something I feel so
behind the times on and reallymy main form of communication is
through our email list.
But by all means, follow me onInstagram.
Maybe this year will be theyear that I really dive and
(01:02:04):
tackle that head on.
Brittany (01:02:06):
Yes, yes.
It's certainly a completelydifferent beast, but I love how
you're sticking true to, likeyou said, your strengths.
So you know that email is yourjam and the proof is in the
pudding.
Brittany L (01:02:18):
Exactly.
Exactly.
Well, thank you again forhaving me.
It's been so fun to have youinterview me.
And it's been a really great atfirst podcast experience and
hopefully one of many more.
Brittany (01:02:32):
Absolutely.
Well, I would love to have youback.
I'm sure I'm not the only onescreaming that right now.
So for sure, we'll have youback on.
All right.
That was Brittany from IdealMe.
And I'm pretty sure that wasamazing, right?
I enjoyed that conversation somuch.
I'm going to go back and listento it again.
And I hope you enjoyed it asmuch as I did.
(01:02:55):
So Brittany did mention a fewresources throughout today's
episode.
And I want to remind you thatyou can find all of that
information over on the shownotes page.
That's behooked.com slash 143.
I'll have it spelled out there.
It's about the middle of thepage.
Just scroll down until you seethe links and resources
mentioned in this episode.
You'll find it all there so youcan get a little bit more
(01:03:17):
detail on some of the thingsthat she talked about and see if
it's right for you and yourblog.
And definitely check outBrittany and some of her blogs
and see what she has going on.
She's doing a lot of reallygreat things for our industry
and in our community.
And I will have those websitesshe mentioned in the show notes
as well.
Now you may have heard at theend of that episode, I told
(01:03:41):
Brittany that she mentionedsomething that I really needed
to hear.
And I'm not ready to shareexactly what that is yet, but it
is coming soon.
So I want to just let you knowabout that.
When I have all of the details,you will be the first to know.
All right, that'll wrap up thisweek's episode of the Be Hooked
(01:04:01):
podcast.
Thank you again for joining me.
Thank you again for yourreviews.
And I I'll see you next week.
Bye-bye.
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