Bear with me...
You may have been following NoBooksWereHarmed.co.uk on instagram, facebook, twatter or elsewhere for some time. Or you may have just somehow found this page in a Google search. If so, my apologies, pretty sure it isn't what you were looking for.
I began this #NoBooksBlog because social media is getting incredibly shite at even showing my active followers any posts from me. Of course I'll never have the traffic to here that I will on any of my social media platforms, but at least here, my rambles are all in one place and wont disappear into cyberspace in quite the same, slightly sad way.
NoBooksWereHarmed.co.uk has been online since 2014 (omg, I'm going to talk a bit more about its online evolution in tomorrow's blog! Yay! Great idea Jo, well done!), and whilst it was a perfectly fine site, it was pretty outdated. So earlier this year, I finally found the time and brainspace to move to a new host. And when I did, I was amazed at all the inbuilt features (including this blogging capability!). It also has, inbuilt, an email marketing feature. I have an email list, you're maybe even on it? But I hadn't actually used it since a few newsletters in 2015. So, I fired off a couple of email 'campaigns', fully expecting 50% of subscribers not to open them, and 50% to open and click unsubscribe. That was not the case! In fact, it was the opposite! Previous customers who had vaguely forgotten NoBooksWereHarmed.co.uk even existed, were emailing me to say hello, and there was an influx of orders & commissions from names I hadn't seen in many years. How nice is that??!
So having dipped my toe in to your inboxes, I realised that not only should I email you more often, but I actually felt bad that I'd NOT emailed you more often. Isn't that bizarre? I don't do guilt, but I was close to feeling guilty for neglecting you - total flip side from thinking no one would want to hear from me!!
As with NoBooksOnTour.com, the mobile pop up shop of NoBooksWereHarmed.co.uk, I aint not there to SELL to you, I'm there purely to showcase to you, to introduce myself and my pretties to you, to promote what I do. I simply do it to plant the seed, so that I come to mind in the following weeks, when you realise you need to buy a really cool gift, and *ping* they books were pretty cool. That's it. Never about on the day sales, always about long term being at the back of your mind. And that's all I want for my email marketing too. The sales will come, they always do, but they have to be in YOUR own time, not mine.
So, I did a bit of googling, to read up on email marketing. Gads. Too much, too big, too scary. All I needed to know was the practicalities of, like, how to get started. I figured I'd suss it out myself, my own way, just like I have every single other aspect of this vocation of mine. But how often should I email? Is it OK to email if I'm not actively trying to flog you something? Should I only/ever/never send actual promo emails? Or should I only/ever/never send chatty emails? How do I not piss people off? I don't want to scare folk away ffs!
And that's when I found Lorna Scully on instagram, and it was just a few days before she was delivering a 5 day email marketing course. Covering the basics in 5 days, benefits of different email marketing providers, best practice for emailing subscribers, handy tips and hints, just a real basic but amazing springboard for getting going. No fluff, no faff, and a few F bombs. I fucking love the f bomb.
I would highly recommend this 5 day challenge, if it's still available when you read this. I'm pretty sure I'll be hiring Lorna's services in the near future too, I just need to decide exactly what to focus on with her. If she'll have me!
Anyhoo, the challenge fired me right up, seeing other business owners at the beginning of their email dalliance also, I didn't feel quite so clueless, and the course became a bit of a rudder, steering me into making a proper go of using my email list.
And it's been FAB.
And I'm so flipping excited by it all! My emails now feel like my social media, I'm checking the feed every day, see who's up to what, who's liking which emails, who's clicking which links, who's sent me a reply. Even the occasional unsubscribe isn't wounding me like it did at the start haha Just inspires me to keep learning from what I'm sending, and keep tweaking what I send to who, and learn my email audience just like I learned my different social media audience.
But what I DO regret, is spending all these years not actively growing my subscriber list :( Just never seemed that important, because I always thought of email marketing as pushy sales marketing, and I always knew that's not a road I'll ever go down. If only I'd found Lorna on day 1, she could have told me that my subscriber list would be more precious than all my social media platforms put together, and MAN, just think how well I could have been serving you all this time, right there in your very own inbox :'(
Well, we can't go back to the start, but we can start right now!
I began this #NoBooksBlog because social media is getting incredibly shite at even showing my active followers any posts from me. Of course I'll never have the traffic to here that I will on any of my social media platforms, but at least here, my rambles are all in one place and wont disappear into cyberspace in quite the same, slightly sad way.
NoBooksWereHarmed.co.uk has been online since 2014 (omg, I'm going to talk a bit more about its online evolution in tomorrow's blog! Yay! Great idea Jo, well done!), and whilst it was a perfectly fine site, it was pretty outdated. So earlier this year, I finally found the time and brainspace to move to a new host. And when I did, I was amazed at all the inbuilt features (including this blogging capability!). It also has, inbuilt, an email marketing feature. I have an email list, you're maybe even on it? But I hadn't actually used it since a few newsletters in 2015. So, I fired off a couple of email 'campaigns', fully expecting 50% of subscribers not to open them, and 50% to open and click unsubscribe. That was not the case! In fact, it was the opposite! Previous customers who had vaguely forgotten NoBooksWereHarmed.co.uk even existed, were emailing me to say hello, and there was an influx of orders & commissions from names I hadn't seen in many years. How nice is that??!
So having dipped my toe in to your inboxes, I realised that not only should I email you more often, but I actually felt bad that I'd NOT emailed you more often. Isn't that bizarre? I don't do guilt, but I was close to feeling guilty for neglecting you - total flip side from thinking no one would want to hear from me!!
As with NoBooksOnTour.com, the mobile pop up shop of NoBooksWereHarmed.co.uk, I aint not there to SELL to you, I'm there purely to showcase to you, to introduce myself and my pretties to you, to promote what I do. I simply do it to plant the seed, so that I come to mind in the following weeks, when you realise you need to buy a really cool gift, and *ping* they books were pretty cool. That's it. Never about on the day sales, always about long term being at the back of your mind. And that's all I want for my email marketing too. The sales will come, they always do, but they have to be in YOUR own time, not mine.
So, I did a bit of googling, to read up on email marketing. Gads. Too much, too big, too scary. All I needed to know was the practicalities of, like, how to get started. I figured I'd suss it out myself, my own way, just like I have every single other aspect of this vocation of mine. But how often should I email? Is it OK to email if I'm not actively trying to flog you something? Should I only/ever/never send actual promo emails? Or should I only/ever/never send chatty emails? How do I not piss people off? I don't want to scare folk away ffs!
And that's when I found Lorna Scully on instagram, and it was just a few days before she was delivering a 5 day email marketing course. Covering the basics in 5 days, benefits of different email marketing providers, best practice for emailing subscribers, handy tips and hints, just a real basic but amazing springboard for getting going. No fluff, no faff, and a few F bombs. I fucking love the f bomb.
I would highly recommend this 5 day challenge, if it's still available when you read this. I'm pretty sure I'll be hiring Lorna's services in the near future too, I just need to decide exactly what to focus on with her. If she'll have me!
Anyhoo, the challenge fired me right up, seeing other business owners at the beginning of their email dalliance also, I didn't feel quite so clueless, and the course became a bit of a rudder, steering me into making a proper go of using my email list.
And it's been FAB.
And I'm so flipping excited by it all! My emails now feel like my social media, I'm checking the feed every day, see who's up to what, who's liking which emails, who's clicking which links, who's sent me a reply. Even the occasional unsubscribe isn't wounding me like it did at the start haha Just inspires me to keep learning from what I'm sending, and keep tweaking what I send to who, and learn my email audience just like I learned my different social media audience.
But what I DO regret, is spending all these years not actively growing my subscriber list :( Just never seemed that important, because I always thought of email marketing as pushy sales marketing, and I always knew that's not a road I'll ever go down. If only I'd found Lorna on day 1, she could have told me that my subscriber list would be more precious than all my social media platforms put together, and MAN, just think how well I could have been serving you all this time, right there in your very own inbox :'(
Well, we can't go back to the start, but we can start right now!
If you want sterile sales messages, no personal connection, perfectly formed images and corporate language, definitely don't sign up below. But if you like knowing that a truly independent designer/maker will be sending you emails about her latest creations, sometimes asking for your input on future design development, letting you know about occasional subscriber only offers, first refusals on one of a kind books, random chatter and whatever else may come to mind - OH and sometimes even a BUY NOW email, then stick your deets in the box below, and welcome on board!
~ Jo
~ Jo
P.S. "Bear with me" is something Lorna Scully says a lot on her lives, and it always reminds me of the sitcom Miranda, and makes me smile!