Real life: 3 creatives share how they use email marketing

Did you know that email marketing is ten times more effective for driving sales than social media? We know that email marketing can be your most powerful marketing tool but … we also know so many creative businesses who aren’t using email marketing in an effective or creative way.

We invited three creatives to share how they use email marketing for their business to inspire other creatives to embrace email marketing too and see how it can help you to get more sales too.

Ruby Taylor of Native Hands

Native Hands is the teaching platform for artist Ruby Taylor. Courses are held in Sussex woodland, making basketry and wild pottery from materials foraged directly from the land. These courses have evolved out of a love of making things in the natural world using natural materials, alongside a deep interest in ancient crafts and technologies. Connecting with the living world, with ancestral knowledge and keeping traditional skills alive, are core aspects.

Ruby’s own practice as a maker is concerned with being immersed in the whole cycle of production: harvesting in a sustainable way, processing the raw materials, creating functional and sculptural pieces. 

Do you enjoy writing your emails to subscribers or is it more of a ‘have to’ chore?

‘I find it a bit of an onerous task to be honest, mainly because it takes a long time, a good half a day to set up.

But once I’m doing it, I enjoy it. I like writing and putting an email together feels creative. I approach it with the attitude that I’m sending a letter to friends, one that I think they’ll find interesting. I try not to make it overly chummy though, that feels presumptuous and creepy.

I avoid hard sell, but I aim to be clear about what I’m offering in terms of courses and sales. I don’t like receiving emails that are waffly, that are hard sell, or that are very frequent. My inbox/brain are already full enough.

So, I make my emails the kind that I would like to receive myself. I use images a lot, and I try to include a video.

It’s a bit like putting a dinner together – tasty morsels with a variety of flavours, which also looks beautiful. I aim to be generous, to have integrity and to be relaxed.

I collect links to things that are of interest to me, and I share a few of these in each email: inspirations, information etc. And I also include a seasonal recipe.

I work on the principle that people on my list are interested in the same/similar things as I am, things which are connected to the essence of my work.’

When did you start emailing your customers regularly?

‘The email thing has been a slow burn as I’ve gradually found my voice and way of connecting to my audience.

I started emails early on in my business, probably a good 8 years ago, sending them more or less once a month since then. Usually, I get a handful of people emailing me back in response, often a few words of thanks or an enquiry about courses. Plus, a flurry of bookings.

I keep an eye on the email campaign reports; I sent out an email once that brought the most unsubscribes in one go that I’ve ever had, so that was an interesting learning.

I keep a clean list: I delete contacts if they unsubscribe or haven’t opened an email for a couple of years. I’ve learned to not take the unsubscribes personally, I just think- oh well that makes my list cleaner.’

How do you get more subscribers to your email list?

‘I try not to use the word ‘newsletter’ it sounds so dry- but I also try to be straight with people about signing up to receive my emails.

I don’t have a pop-up box on my website because personally I hate them (and I always tell them to eff off as I’m closing them on a website I’m visiting).

But I do have it highlighted on all the important pages of my website for people to keep in touch with what’s happening and send people a link to it when they make any initial enquiry.’

You can sign up to Ruby’s email list here.

What made you acknowledge that email marketing was beneficial to your business?

‘I really experienced the value of my email list during the pandemic when I wasn’t able to teach courses (my main income stream). I had time in my studio instead, so I made a body of work and offered it for sale, using my email list as the main sales portal. I had a tremendous response, everything sold, it was incredibly supportive and affirming; it showed me that the connections I’d nurtured were real and meaningful.

Although I also promoted the sale of that work thoroughly on social, I had only one or two sales from there.

During that same time, I continued to email monthly, with supportive info, posts, poems etc and I had many direct responses from people appreciating these. It felt important to keep in touch with people in a humane way and not in a selling way. Anne-Marie Shepherd from The Design Trust once said about posting on socials, that a good aim is to ‘spread the love’. That really stayed with me and is always in my mind when I post/email etc’

My email list feels more solid and real as a means of connecting customers to my business than social media does.  Social is great, but it doesn’t seem to bring in the bookings or sales. Lots of my social followers are other makers, not necessarily customers/potential students.’

Grace Alexander of Grace Alexander Flowers

Grace Alexander is a consultant clinical psychologist, a writer, a flower grower and a seed merchant. Her business, Grace Alexander Flowers is based on the ‘Slow Flower’ movement, emerging out of a love for her garden, her countryside and her ground.

Grace recently published a book Grow and Gather, which follows the annual cycle of growing cut flowers, from sowing in spring to seed-collecting in autumn.

Do you enjoy writing your emails to subscribers or is it more of a ‘have to’ chore?

‘My newsletter is completely different to any other bit of my business. The rest of it is chaotic and organic and evolving and changing.  My newsletter is a touchstone. A fixed point. A repeating beat in my business week.

I came across an article in a pile of very old magazines that I was attempting to throw away (everyone flicks through them first, don’t they?) on William Cresswell, a gardener at Audley End in 1874. He wrote just a few lines every day on his planting and sowing tasks, the weather, what was flowering. A few words but reading it as a whole was so evocative and wonderful.

I’d been niggling for years about writing a newsletter and I’d signed up to webinars and read eBooks and was feeling completely overwhelmed and confused about how to take the step into people’s inboxes. In the end it was a few lines in handwritten script that showed me the way. I write in my journal every day and it is combined with gorgeous images and sent out on a Sunday night for my readers to have with their end of weekend relax.‘ 

How do you keep it creative and fun for you and your readers?

‘The structure I have put around my email marketing makes all the difference. I think creativity can easily get completely overwhelmed by too much freedom and too many options. The journal format is a boundary that I can be creative within. And of course, the seasons and the flower field are always changing and growing, so the journal is never the same.

Occasionally, I wonder if my readers have got bored with it and I should shake it up a bit but I get such uproar if I ever suggest it that I daren’t!‘

When did you start emailing your customers regularly? 

‘This practice started in June 2019 because it was a particularly good week for roses. I think that’s 130 or so‘. 

What made you acknowledge that email marketing was beneficial to your business?

‘Fear of missing out really. Everyone talks about email marketing especially with how vulnerable we all are relying on means of connecting that are out of our control. However, I knew I was never going to use it as a means of selling anything unless I really invested in giving as well so I see it as a practice of writing for my own development as much as I do a marketing tool.’

How often do you send an email to your mailing list?

‘Every single Sunday night at 8pm. Sometimes quarter past if I’m a bit slow.

I have missed two in two years. The first when I went to Derriford on a Sunday to coordinate the build of the intensive care garden as COVID first hit in March 2020 and I was just completely exhausted and overwhelmed. The other was when Christmas fell over a weekend, and I’d had one too many glasses of champagne and I lost track of days…’

How do you prepare content for your emails? Do you have any advice for other businesses? 

‘Find a structure and stick to it would be my biggest piece of advice.

It not only helps you, but people also know what to expect.

The structure of my newsletter is now a brand identifier for me.

People love it and recommend it to other people and the consistency of it is a huge part of that.’

What reactions do you get from your emails?

‘People love it, but I do think that I have got so much from writing it too. I’ve developed my voice and my style through the practice of it and I have no doubt that was crucial in me publishing my book, Grow and Gather. I managed to sneak some journal entries in there too! 

I get emails from my readers every week though. Sometimes reacting and responding to something I’ve said. Sometimes telling me how their garden is doing. Sometime just telling me they love reading it.’ 

Emails I have received :

• ‘Many thanks for your newsletters. Life has been a bit shit the last couple of weeks. To get up and be greeted with your emails, a real tonic. Have a lovely day. Mine will be taming my overgrown allotment, all day! Bliss!!’
• ‘Your Sunday night newsletters have become something of a weekly touchstone for me, a source of comfort and inspiration in a world turned upside-down. I relish being part of what you so generously share—of planting, place and pack. Of course, I take away hints and tips, although I am always hungry for more. But never underestimate the power of giving us permission to simply be, to simply ‘allow the beauty.’
• ‘Thank you from the bottom of my heart, your newsletter is always so treasured, this week I don’t really know why, I needed a cashmere blanket, and the comfort your writing always brings.’

How do you get more subscribers to your email list?

 ‘Ah. You have me there!

I am not good at this step, and I am trying hard to improve this. At a very basic level, posting on Instagram that a newsletter has gone out and pointing people towards signing up, making it really clear and simple for them to do so.

I’ve also been very mindful when I am in other spaces (interviews, podcasts, talks etc) that I will always mention the newsletter and my website rather than directing people to my Instagram.’ 

You can sign up to Grace’s weekly newsletter here!

Have you got any email marketing tips for other creative businesses?

1. ‘You will be absolutely petrified the first time you press send to a list. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.
2. Don’t wait until you have something to sell before you send a newsletter.
3. If you feel overwhelmed, make it smaller until you have something you can commit to as a regular practice.
4. Don’t commit to sending it on a Sunday night,.It’ll wreck what is meant to be the most relaxing part of *your* week…’

Lorna Brown of Blessed Unrest

Lorna Brown is a textile designer and screen print artist with an established print brand, Blessed Unrest. Since graduating from Edinburgh College of Art, Lorna has worked as a freelance designer and educator for over two and a half decades.

Under her business name, Blessed Unrest, she hand screenprints fabric collections, textile artworks and makes/manufactures more functional products for interiors and fashion, exhibiting and selling throughout the UK at design fairs, galleries and lifestyle retailers and works to private commission

When did you start emailing your customers regularly?

‘To be honest I didn’t do this or have a mailing list until The Design Trust course last year and Patricia’s stats about email being the most effective way to communicate, more than social media, so that’s been my inspiration.’

We often hear from businesses that they don’t know what to write. How do you prepare content for your emails?

I never think mine are that good and am still finding MailChimp new and a bit unfamiliar….t itook me days to navigate at first…but I’m getting there, I think.

It always helps when you have interesting things happening, so I often wait till I’ve a nice amount of topics to share and don’t always post monthly or exactly on time at the start of each month.

I never post on a Friday. Usually at the start of the week and either pre-9am or just before lunch so anyone browsing at lunchtime will find it.

My main topics are: new collections I’m working on, inspiring collaborations I’m working on as a teaser or a reveal if it’s finished, products and very occasional discounts, events/exhibitions I want to share or invite my followers to in a more personalised way and my workshops and courses.

I have really noticed a big influence a direct mail out has on my classes. There was a big uptake in the spring mail out which linked the new dates and course content directly to my web page, which was evidence to me that it was successful.’

How do you get more subscribers to your email list?

‘I have a little pop up on my website to encourage visitors to sign up.

I ask people if they’re on my mailing list or would like to hear about news from me and have also created a couple of social media posts over the past year to remind folk that they can join up if they want to hear from me.’

You can sign up to Lorna’s email list here. (The popup will appear!)

How do you keep your emails creative and fun for you and your readers?

‘I really enjoy looking at other mail outs, that are visually interesting first then written content is more likely to be read in my opinion, so I select particular images that I think catch the eye or instantly capture the theme/topic I want to promote.

I mainly try to focus on authenticity and try to get across that it’s me actually talking to you directly as if we were together. I sometimes picture a group of followers sitting in the room and think about my tone, vocabulary and energy…..a kind of marketing meditation if you like…’

Have you got any email marketing tips for other creative businesses?

‘A good place to start is by joining a few mailing lists that interest you by other creatives, craft / design organisations, editorials and makers that have a similar discipline. How do they present their mail outs, what’s their content and how do they link info + visuals or get you to take some action like buying, signing up, visiting etc?  

Be inspired by the parts that you love but always create and develop your own authentic voice and ways of communicating.

I found it a pressure to start with and yet another thing to do in an already over stretched task list, but it does start to get easier the more you are familiar with the tools and templates of direct emailing. I now feel more inspired to promote, sell, invite, and share via direct email and have experienced the direct benefits through sales, commissions, new students, and new connections.“

Are you inspired by Ruby, Grace and Lorna to start or improve your email marketing? Let us know in the comments what actions in email marketing you will take as a result of this blog post.