Let’s start and grow our newsletter lists this year.
Follow along with me as I begin this journey for my new business.
Welcome!
This year I’m finally doing the thing I’ve been dreaming about for years, and talking about for at least a year.
I’m starting a second business. This business is about guiding, teaching, sharing my experience, skills, and passion about running your own creative business.
My Petalplum business started almost as an accident, and has grown organically over the years. I’m using that understanding, skill, learned experience (and the mistakes that came along with being self-taught in many aspects) to share with you.
The first step I want to share is starting your own newsletter list.
I will admit that I do have an online audience through Petalplum, but that is very much hobby based crafters.
So, I feel like I’m only starting this business -business a couple of steps ahead in terms of actual audience.
If you haven’t yet downloaded the ‘how to get your first (or next) 100 subscribers’ PDF then please download it here.
This space is for you to watch along while I grow my newsletter list from 0 - 500 in the next 2-months.
I’ll be showing you week-by-week what I’m doing, so you can get inspiration for how to continue with your list.
Please don’t think that you need to get 500 yourself. Start slow, don’t compare yourself to someone else, and to their business, product, service, audience.
Tracking your own growth, your own results is the best (and only) way moving forward.
I will be updating this document weekly, as I work on newsletter list.
I have another business (Petalplum) as well as my family life, and creative work. Which means I am not working on this full time. This shows that you can do this during your own time. If you have a 9-5 and this is a side-dream, please know that just a few hours a week can make a difference.
* please DO NOT share this page or the document with anyone else. Please respect my work. If they’re interested please do direct them to purchase here.
Tools and resources for your newsletter
FloDesk
For my newsletters I find FD to be so easy to use, with beautiful templates and one price (regardless of how many subscribers you have).
Free to gather email addresses, before you’re ready to start sending.
Use this link for 50% off your first year*.
BioSites
Great to create link-in-bio for your socials. It’s free to use and customise.
It is owned by SquareSpace, but you don’t have to have a website or separate account with them to use it.
Canva
Want to make graphics for social media, your courses or ebooks? In fact, want to make ebooks, downloads, logos and more? Canva is the easy answer.
I’ll be sharing tutorials for how to use Canva on my blog soon, and will update here when they’re available.
SubStack
Start a free publication on SubStack. Grow your list and become part a community.
You can easily publish posts for free, send them directly to your subscriber’s inboxes.
Also has a community aspect so you can share other writers and they can share your page. As well as the bonus of turning it into a paid publication if you want.
MailChimp
Offers a free plan for up to 500 subscribers. With limitations to what you can do - no automations or custom templates.
This is a great way to start as they have some good analytics available to get to know your audience (opens, clicks, etc).
But once you upgrade the costs rise dramatically. So keep this in mind.
I do have solutions for moving to a lower-priced option when you’re ready for that next step.
Your own email system.
I have a lot of clients who use their own regular email to send newsletters to their clients, customers and lists.
This is more manual work, but if you’re starting out and don’t want to join any platform this is a great option.
I’ll share a how-to on my blog soon.
