If you're selling on Etsy,
but you keep hearing that you should build an email list,
except you have no idea how to get started and what you're actually allowed to
do on Etsy - this video is for you.
Hi, I'm Deb. I'm the founder of Tizzit.co,
a membership community for makers and handmade shop owners.
The reason I wanted to do this video for you today is that many Etsy sellers
feel quite challenged when it comes to building an email list because it's
simply not a feature that Etsy offers you as a seller.
You can't just set up a nice little sign up form to get people to join your
newsletter list.
So how are you meant to actually build an email list if Etsy doesn't really help
you do it and also because Etsy has a set of policies that you need to follow?
So to build an email list - let's go back to basics - you need to have what is
called an email service provider.
These are companies like MailChimp or MailerLite that provide you with tools so
that you can bulk email your email list.
You should never use hotmail or Gmail or anything like that to do that.
You really need a separate account with an email service provider.
And what they do is that they allow you to create a page on the Internet with a
signup form and you can then send people to this form and people can join your
email list using that form.
Once you set that up - and I do have other resources to help you do that if you
need more help, which I'll link to below this video - but once you do that,
you will get a URL that you can then share with people to encourage them to go
and sign up for your list.
The question then is how can you share this URL on Etsy?
Can you email your old customers and invite them to sign up?
What about using Etsy conversations for it?
So let's really take a look at what Etsy allows you versus forbids you to do.
Before we dive any deeper,
I want to do a little disclaimer here that I am not a part of the legal team at
Etsy and that you should always do some research to make sure that you have up
to date information. I'll link to the Etsy policies below this video,
please take a look at them because Etsy can update their policies at any moment.
Let's start with the "can do" - and here is exactly what Etsy says about it.
"You may receive a buyer's email address or other information as a result of
entering into transaction with that buyer.
This information may only be used for Etsy related communications or for Etsy
facilitated transactions.
You may not use this information for unsolicited commercial messages or
unauthorized transactions.
Without the buyer's consent and subject to other applicable Etsy policies and
laws
you may not add any Etsy member to your email or physical mailing list,
use that buyer's identity for marketing or obtain or retain any payment
information." So this was a lot of legal talk.
But really the most important part of this extract of the policies is consent
and Etsy related communication. So what does that mean for you as a seller?
It means that the most important thing - that's what "consent" means - is that
you need to invite people to sign up for your list.
You can't ask them straight away cause that's spammy and you definitely can't
just add them to your email list without asking.
So you need to invite them to sign up for updates or a coupon code,
and then they get to decide whether they want to join your list or not.
So how can you actually invite those shop visitors to sign up for your list?
Well there's a few things you can do here. You can use that link,
that URL I was mentioning at the beginning of this video that your email service
provider is going to give you.
That's a link to your form to sign up to your list and you can use that and
share it on your shop's about page, in your shop's announcements,
on your profile page, in your message to buyers - so that thank you message,
in your product listings - both in the picture and in the copy...
And what I mean by "in the picture" is that you can design a little graphic that
you include as if it was a product picture so that when people browse your
listing and they look at all the pictures,
they will look at the picture of your product of course,
but then they will see a graphic saying, hey,
to get 10% off or to get updates or sign up for a newsletter or whatever it is
that you want to write on it.
And that works really well because people look at the pictures before they even
read the product description. So you have options,
but remember that you need to invite, not ask.
So what is it exactly that you can't do? Let's have a look at that now.
These are things that you really shouldn't be doing using the Etsy platform if
you don't want to get kicked out of it.
So the first thing is to not just automatically add customers to your email list
without their permission, without their consent. That's really,
really important.
So you definitely don't want to just grab their email address and add that to
your list. Instead you want to have either an explicit request from them saying,
"hey,
please use my email and add me to your email list" (in written form) or you want
to - and that's the best way,
honestly - you want to send them to that URL that we mentioned a few times in
this video now where your form for signing up is so that they volunteer this
information to you themselves.
You also don't want to be using Etsy conversations to ask them to join your list
because that is spammy.
And the last thing - and I see a lot of people doing that and don't do that,
that's really bad - don't email old customers.
I know that if you are just getting started with your email list you may
thinking,
"well I have 200 customers that I've worked with and shipped products to in the
past, I'm just going to email them and tell them all about my list".
Don't do that because that transaction with those past customers is over and
this is not respecting the term that we've read before and this is not an Etsy
related communication so it will be considered as spam.
So that's why it's important that you start that email list right now so that
you don't feel like, "oh, I could have done that 200 customers ago!".
I hope this video was helpful for you.
I'll put all the links I've mentioned below this video.
I also have a free email guide that I really recommend you download.
It's all just for sellers and will help you get started with your email
marketing strategy. When you unlock that guide,
you actually also access to the rest of my free resource library for makers and
handmade shop owners so make sure that you get that free link just below this
video.
If you would like more videos like this in the future,
and if you enjoyed this one,
please make sure to subscribe to my channel and I will see you next Tuesday.