Positive Yarn

Everyone (and that includes, me, too!) has been telling you to get a Twitter account, a Facebook page and a LinkedIn presence — plus a Ravelry account if you’re in the yarn arena. So you did, and now you’re stuck thinking “Now what?”

I’ve written about social marketing before, of course, but it’s a topic worth examining again — especially if you’re new to the process or if you haven’t given your accounts attention in a while.

Here are five ways to jumpstart your efforts:

1. Spread the word. The first thing to do is make sure you’ve incorporated your new online presence(s) into your regular marketing. Put a “Follow us on these sites!” blurb on every page of your Web site, with links to your accounts. Also put it on your enewsletter (you do have one, right?) and your blog page (ditto). It should also be a part of every direct-mail piece, even if it’s just in small print at the bottom of your announcement. Post signage all around your shop. Add it to your business card info and product labels when it’s time to replenish your supply (or perhaps sooner).

2. Use it to announce updates. For Twitter in particular, this is a no-brainer use to announce trunk shows, new designs, sales, events, etc. Try to turn them into a call to action whenever you can. Just remodeled the front of the shop? Make sure you also add “Stop by and tell us what you think!”

By the way, March is National Craft Month. That’s a post in itself!

3. Optimize your time. Make sure you take advantage of the “widgets” (applications) that allow you to post efficiently. For example, LinkedIn has a widget that pulls in your latest tweets and blog posts, so your profile is updated there whenever you update either of those accounts. Facebook can show a screen shot and link to your blog, as well as a blog or two that you want to highlight.

In addition, free online software like TweetDeck allows you to post to Twitter and Facebook simultaneously (with the option to choose only one if the occasion calls for it). It also allows you to organize who you follow on Twitter into categories (clients, friends, family, etc.). If your phone allows you to post from it, by all means enable that application. That way, you don’t have to be in front of your computer to keep things going. You can also do a simple update while waiting in the dentist office, hotel lobby, etc.

4. Make it a habit. The experts are advising that you make it part of your routine to get online and monitor how things are going. This week, I’m attending a free Webinar from Hubspot titled “How to monitor your social media presence in 10 minutes a day.” Hubspot has a great article here, taken from its popular seminar, that breaks down five easy ways to accomplish just that.

5. Get help if you need it. Social media can be fun and rewarding, but it can also be a major drag on your time. Remember, you don’t have to do it alone. If one of your employees would like to join in and be your ghostwriter, by all means let him or her try it. If that’s not an option, you can meet a personal quota of a “tweet a week,” for example, without reinventing the wheel. Just try retweeting something insightful said by someone you’re following, or link to a story of interest to you that you think your readers may also find worth reading. Of course, there are professionals (like me, for example!) who can also help you accomplish your goals.

I promised I’d post all the cool exhibitor stuff I saw at the 6th Annual Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Show that took place over Valentine’s Day weekend, so here goes!

Check out the slideshow.

Disclaimer: All photos copyright 2010, Heather Gooch. Please credit accordingly if you link to them!

I spent Valentine’s Day weekend with my husband and kids, but I did so at a very special place: The Sixth Annual Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival. While I frolicked among the fibers all day Saturday, my family checked out fun stuff to do in Mars, PA, a Pittsburgh suburb that hosted the Festival at the Four Points Sheraton.

The weather leading up to the weekend was concerning for many, but by Thursday the snow had tapered off and I for one can attest to a trouble-free, two-hour drive to the event. Besides, you know that a little snow isn’t going to deter yarn fanatics! They attended in full force, and from what I could tell, enjoyed every minute of it.

I actually took more than 100 photos while I was there, and I promise to include exhibitor photos and details in my next post. For now, below are just a few photos I snapped of the sights and sounds of the Festival.

And last but not least, for those of you who live in the vicinity of Western PA, mark your calendars for the 2011 Festival: Feb. 11-13! Learn more at PghKnitAndCrochet.com.

Please note: All photos copyright 2010, Heather Gooch. Please credit accordingly if you link to them!

This trio of friendly faces greeted attendees at the registration desk all weekend.

Once you registered, you could leave your coat in the capable hands of the Hog Heaven Rescue Farm volunteers. The $1 fee helps the farm continue to rescue, rehabilitate and foster hoofed animals that have been neglected and abused.

Led by Hog Heaven co-owner Regina Martin (far right), the coat check team pulled double duty as yarn winders for attendees. Cash donations were appreciated as the ladies made unruly fiber ready for your next project — while you waited (or shopped)!

Five-time Super Bowl Champ Randy Grossman (who happens to be the super husband of Festival Organizer Barbara Grossman) was on hand in the Cascade Yarns’ booth to sign Steelers hat patterns. Shannon Dunbabin kept the autograph line flowing smoothly — not only for Randy, but later in the day for Melissa Leapman’s book signing event.

The Mesa Creative Arts Center’s Brad and Kate Silberberg were on hand to help attendees with a fun make-and-take, the Necklace of Many Colors.

Constance Bailey, left, and her cousin Veronica Snyder take in the fiber fun at the Festival on Sunday morning. Many attendees made sure to wear their creations at the show… and while Constance’s shrug is truly beautiful, my only regret is that I didn’t get a shot of the purple jacket she wore on Saturday!

Sponsored by Pat Catan’s Craft Centers, the Warm Up America! lounge at the Festival was a great place to relax, catch up and stitch a while for a wonderful cause.

Festival Organizer Barbara Grossman gave a special “goody bag” to the Saturday Luncheon guest whose birthday was the most recent. Lucky gal!

Speaking at the Luncheon was Nora Bellows, whose 100+ bags on display as a Trunk Show was truly a treat … as was her witty, down-to-earth presentation on how she became a respected designer in the fiber industry. Here, she shows the audience her very first felted handbag.

These ladies were on hand to raise awareness (and donations) for Team Knitsburgh, part of the Stride & Ride program for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. They told me about the Victory Lap taking place May 15 at the Pittsburgh Zoo, which sounds like a lot of fun!

At the Butler County Spinners & Weavers Guild booth, Christine Williamson was one of the members who demonstrated spinning techniques.

Jay van Wagenen spread the word to attendees not only about the Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh, but about its sister organization, Fiberart International, which is hosting an exhibition in town April 16-Aug. 22.

I recently accompanied a friend to a bridal show, and I was struck by how many of today’s weddings are incorporating personalization into the process. Photographers are offering wedding albums that look like yearbooks. Dresses are being touted as customizable with color ribbons and bows. Florists are adding all sorts of options that I just don’t think were available back when I was counting down to Sept. 14, 1996. (Or maybe I just was too busy looking at my ring!)

A local bead shop was also there — tantalizing brides with the prospect of having a great evening with their bridesmaids, creating their own jewelry for when they walk down the aisle. They can also add their own twist to their wedding cake server set or champagne glasses. A girls’ night out, with something besides a hangover to bring home (hopefully, that’s optional)?

This 99-cent knit garter is available as a free pattern at JulianneSmith.wordpress.com.

As a great coincidence, I was recently invited by Kelley Wade of the Wedding Professionals Networking Group to join her group on that wonderful resource, LinkedIn. I have a couple clients who are interested in the wedding market, so I asked Wade what she thought about what today’s brides might like to see in needlework. “Tie it into something that the brides can use when they walk down the aisle,” she said, offering these examples:

• a trendy keepsake hankerchief
• a personalized garter (pictured; check out “Garter Girl” Julianne Smith’s free knit pattern here)
• something blue
• a keepsake for a family member
• “his and hers” cross stitch project (piece of fabric with a line down the middle, one side for her special message, the other side with his special message.

Check out how a vintage wedding dress transformed into keepsake pillows at TheArtfulCrafter.com.

Building on Wade’s ideas, is there room in your shop for an engagement endcap? Show how the art of lacemaking can make a beautiful gift. Try the kitschy route of matching aprons and potholders. Make sure you include something old (vintage pattern book!), something new (latest magazine issue!), something borrowed (spinning wheel: not for sale!), something blue (teal, royal, powder … the “sky’s” the limit). Give moms, sisters, future sister-in-laws, best friends and others excited about the wedding both modern and traditional ideas about something they can give the happy couple as a personal gift that will be used and appreciated.

Hold a class for your clients whose own wedding dresses are yellowing in the closet the chance to turn them into unique keepsakes. At www.theartfulcrafter.com/pillows.html, Shaaron Chambers explains how a friend used crazy patch and embroidery techniques to make five pillows out of her circa-1959 dress.

There’s also the trade show angle. If your budget doesn’t allow a booth, look into the relatively economical cost of slipping a coupon in to the “goody bag” so many shows give out to every bride. Remind the brides (grooms, families, friends) that needlework is a great stress reliever, and you just might have them lined up at the door! Don’t forget to apply the same logic to expectant moms and the many “Baby Expos” popping up in nearly every market.

As always, if you have ideas you’d like to share, please do! Comment below or drop me a line at positiveyarn@goochandgooch.com.

As I drove around my piece of heaven this morning — and somehow managed to keep my car from sliding on the undersalted back roads that received yet more snowfall this week — I couldn’t help but notice how many folks still have their Christmas lights and decorations on display. Granted, it’s been mighty cold since Dec. 25, and the few days that could have been tolerable for de-decorating outdoors were soaked with rain instead.

Handmade is always good — especially when it's made with love from your preschooler!

But the issue seems mainly limited to residential areas. Retailers are definitely over the holidays and looking ahead to all things Valentine. In fact, just a quick search on BusinessWire.com turned up some interesting trends:

• Less lavishness. According to PayPal’s fourth annual “Can’t Buy Me Love” survey, nearly half of shoppers plan to spend less than $50 this Valentine’s Day, compared to 2008, when 75 percent of shoppers planned to spend more than $50 on gifts. Forty-two percent of couples surveyed say their partner spends too much money year-round. (Whoops — I bet you’ve helped a few of them on their binges, too, haven’t you?). You can learn more about their survey from this release here. What can this mean for you? Educate your customers’ sweethearts on how you bring value to the table, whether it’s via a shop gift certificate that will automatically make their cherished ones happy or the practical side of what their significant other does at your shop (“Look at this warm sweater she made you! She’s one in a million!”).

• Social media plays a part. PayPal also announced it’s hosting a virtual scavenger hunt on Twitter: You “follow” them and get updated clues to get in on some giveaways. Macy’s is also using the social medium, for better or worse: “The ’sweetest tweets’ will be showered with diamonds daily between Feb. 1-14.” So if you can squeeze a profound declaration of love into 140 characters or less, read Macy’s release here for details. If Facebook is more your thing, Cost Plus World Market is running a “Sweetheart Sweepstakes” for fans of their Facebook page, with a trip for two to Greece as the prize, according to their release. What can this mean for you? It’s doubtful that European trips or diamond ring giveaways are in your budget, but you could do something fun like a “secret word” promotion, where only those who are following you on Twitter are privvy to the Word of the Day that you post like clockwork at 9 a.m. During shop hours, any customer who plays along and tells you the word gets a 5% discount on her total purchase. Twitter is free, and it’s giving you a more-or-less captive audience — why not take advantage of it?

• It’s better to give than to receive. All right, this one is not a retailer — but it can still translate to your shop. Dr. Scott Shamblott, a Minnesota dentist, is throwing a “Dentistry from the Heart” event where his office does free fillings and extractions for those in need. The release is here. What can this mean for you? People everywhere are feeling the economic pinch, but it does their heart good to see those who may be even less fortunate get helped by others. (Hopefully, there’s the “pay it forward” effect at play, too.) Maybe Feb. 14 is the right day to host a stitch-in at the shop, where everything that is worked on — be it a prayer shawl, a preemie’s hat, a bookmark for literacy, a quilt for the homeless — is meant to spread the love and donate to others. One event that serves as a great example is the Sixth Annual Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival, coordinated by Barb Grossman and held over Valentine’s Day weekend. It includes several charitable endeavors, including a Warm Up America! lounge sponsored by Pat Catan’s Craft Centers; coat check with donations going to Hog Heaven Rescue Farm; fabric donations being accepted by the local Salvation Army chapter; and I’m certain I’m forgetting others!

So will February bring more than just red paper hearts around the shop and an excuse to eat more candy? Will it mean a re-energizing to your market plan? Remember, this month also celebrates Black History and Go Red for Women Day (Feb. 5), as well as Groundhog’s Day and the birthdays of Charles Dickens, Thomas Edison, Abe Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony and George Washington (Feb. 7, 11, 12, 15 and 22, respectively). Throw in the Super Bowl on Feb. 7 and Mardi Gras on Feb. 16, and you should be busy all month long.

Maybe things will thaw out soon and all those holiday lights will finally go into storage. Thank goodness it’s not leap year: We’re one day closer to spring!

Maybe you can't turn every reporter into a fiber enthusiast, but it never hurts to try!

You’ve been putting your shop’s name out there for years, and it all comes down to this moment: The local newspaper’s business reporter wants to stop in for an interview. Is it a dream come true, or the start of your worst nightmare?

It’s all in the preparation. While you absolutely want to be yourself, not overly rehearsed, it’s important to keep in mind the key points you want to get across to the interviewer each time you open your mouth. It’s equally important to know when to not “overshare,” as it were — an off-the-cuff remark that could send your conversation hurtling in a direction in which you’d rather not take it.

What follow are five basic tips I’ve culled from my professional experience of picking business professionals’ brains for print, as well as from other media masters.

1. Learn all you can about their intentions beforehand. Is this article going to be about your business specifically or the industry at large? Is it an overall profile, or are they focusing in on just one thing — your upcoming charity event, for example? Just about any coverage is good coverage, of course, but it will help you decide whether you need to grab your scrapbook to remember things like whether you were founded in 2002 or 2003, or if you need to take a gander at some industry association Web sites to bone up on such factoids like, according to the Craft Yarn Council of America, an estimated 38 million consumers enjoy knitting and crocheting. In addition, find out when they plan to run the piece so that you can be prepared for a little extra attention from new and existing customers alike when it hits the streets (ah, the power of the press!). Of course, also be prepared to be bumped from the 11 p.m. newscast because they had to make room for wall-to-wall coverage of the unexpected snowstorm headed our way.

2. Dress for success. Will the interview include a photo session? Or are you going to be seen as you speak, on TV or online? Even if it’s for a no-frills radio interview, clothes can make the man — and woman. As this helpful article on Media-Training.info thoroughly explains, your best bets include:

• Solid pastels or bright colors: White washes everyone out; navy or black loses detail; patterns are a no-no.
• Clothes that fit: You’ll be nervous enough as it is. There’s no need to add discomfort to the equation.
• No shiny jewelry: The article recommends keeping your glasses off, too, but professional photographers and videographers can usually work around that with their lighting choices.
• A good night’s sleep beforehand: “Mommy, does knitting really make your eyes get all puffy like that lady on TV?”

3. Assume everything is on the record. I could write a book simply based on the secrets that have been shared with me during the course of interviews over the years. But boy, would I be in trouble. While I try to get my sources back on the record as quickly as possible, so as not to have any gray areas about what is and is not fair game, I can’t say that’s the reaction of every reporter. If you have a good rapport with the local media (and by all means I strongly suggest you develop one, so that you never find yourself on the wrong end of a reporter’s notepad), that’s great. But no matter how buddy-buddy you are with them, pay attention to what you’re sharing during the course of your conversation. A casual mention of your ex-husband, for example, might be the peg on which the reporter hangs the crux of the story: “Fueled by the independence her divorce gave her, Smith opened her shop in 2003.” (“But that had nothing to do with why I opened the shop! And it was in 2002! Arrgh!”)

4. Never say “no comment.” This is especially true in crisis management situations, when a microphone is shoved in your face after your best employee was just charged with embezzlement, your business just burned to the ground or some other horrible event has just occurred. You can say “I’ll have to look into that and get back to you” or “I’m still trying to collect some more information myself before I am able to comment” or something similar that will buy you some time, but simply sticking to the terse, two-word phrase is going to do your public image no favors. Consultant Karen Friedman has a great article that discusses this particular subject in more detail, and in fact has a wealth of great media relations advice for entrepreneurs at her own site, KarenFriedman.com.

5. Remember, you’re the expert! One trick reporters often use is to ask a leading question and then pause, assuming that you’ll say something, anything to fill the dead air. (Yes, I use it, too. Don’t judge.) Don’t be intimidated. If there’s a point to make, make it, but don’t ramble. You have your key points you want to make, you have the expertise to elaborate on them — so go for it. The reporter is there to find out information that you have and he or she needs to both interest and enlighten the readers. Seize this opportunity to get some great publicity and share your knowledge about something you love: your business!

Cheryl Geschke has been the successful proprietor of Soft N Sassy in Broadview Heights, OH, for nearly six years. It is nestled in a warren of rooms of an old house, and is known throughout Northeast Ohio as a destination for fiber fans of all stripes. When the lease came up on her location this spring, Geschke considered her options — but ultimately decided to stay put. After all, her clients seemed to like the ability to meander through the rooms, examining the yarns and accessories at their own pace. They also like taking classes (or just stopping to knit and chat awhile) in such a homey atmosphere.

And while Geschke likes it, too, she’s not afraid to step out of the box now and then, as her retail-focused Web site can attest. But she really took things to the next level the week before Thanksgiving: She opened the Soft N Sassy kiosk in the Westfield SouthPark Shopping Center mall in nearby Strongsville, OH, and leased a storefront at Parmatown Mall, in Parma, OH.

All three spaces are within about 20 minutes’ driving distance of one another. The kiosk, which only ran from mid-November until Dec. 31, was set up mainly to attract passers-by looking to buy a ready-made, handknit shawl or sweater, or perhaps a set of knitting needles or other yarn accessory. It also strongly marketed the message of “Don’t forget to check out our store in Broadview Heights!”

The Parmatown store, however, has a completely different name — Creatively Yours — and vibe than its siblings. Geschke sees it as an opportunity to bring lessons on all sorts of crafts, not only the fiber arts, to the masses. That includes jewelry-making, glass etching, bead-making and even a cartooning class, in addition to such pursuits as knit, crochet and pin-weaving. It also gives her the room to hold space-eating classes like felting.

Because Parma is an older suburb of Cleveland, and the mall is near the public transportation lines, she finds that Creatively Yours is attracting a lot of seniors who otherwise might not have had a way to get to the Soft N Sassy shop. She’s also getting a lot of families, whose frequent mall-crawling means they are hungering for a different alternative to the food court and say, the Build-A-Bear Workshop. (Believe me!)

“We have jewelry classes geared for kids, and I’d like to get a birthday party concept off the ground soon,” she says, noting that the bigger space means she has room for such events. In addition, Geschke says, “I’ve partnered with the JCPenney portrait studio where we present kids with a certificate for a free sitting — bring the project you have made with you and get your photo taken with it. They’re also handing out information about our store at their studio.”

As if jumping into the fray of the holiday season with two new retail outlets wasn’t stressful enough, it certainly didn’t help matters that Geschke’s mom, Vera — a beloved fixture at the Broadview Heights store — had quadruple bypass surgery in December. The situation forced Geschke to not be as hands-on with the endeavors as she would have liked to be, although she reports that her mother has since come through with flying colors.

Setting up shop at the malls did take some adjustments. Both sites required Geschke to stay open during mall hours, which during the holiday season meant some workdays were 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. She compensated by hiring two college students over their winter break to help out her existing staff.

The Creatively Yours space was stark at the onset, and as Geschke points out, it’s “hard to get a homey feel to a rectangle.” Eventually, she filled the space to her liking and found she enjoyed the flexibility: “I can move merchandising units anywhere, anytime I want to emphasize certain sale items.”

Inventory overlaps for both stores, but Geschke can take special orders at either location. Creatively Yours is situated between the food court and a major department store, so a lot of traffic passes in front of the shop. As she did with the kiosk, she is spotlighting a few consignment artists to put already-finished baby blankets, purses, hats, and other items for sale.

“We show them off a bit, because this location lends itself better to that,” she explains, adding with a chuckle, “Let’s be honest: Men shopping for a Christmas or Valentine’s Day present for their wives are more likely to stop by a shop in the mall than drive all the way out to a store called ‘Soft N Sassy.’”

The fact that most of her inventory is American-made and -distributed seems to be yet another big attraction for today’s consumers, she says. “I want them to realize that little companies make great things, too, and that we can build on American companies. People don’t need to purchase things made overseas from a big box store.”

Geschke is glad she took the plunge, and is still processing the experience in the new year. “I’ve learned a lot, and I’m still learning,” she says. “And if the stars continue to align, I’ll keep it up!”

If one of your goals for 2010 is to bring in more customers through classes, here are five tips to help you meet it:

1. Make it a party. If it costs $15 for the class individually, make sure that your prospective student knows that if she rounds up four of her friends, there’s a discount for groups of five or more. Also let her know that discount doesn’t come into play until after the class, so she knows all five students have to come through. Position this as a great way to celebrate someone’s birthday or as an after-work alternative to the bar.

2. Feed them. It’s true that cheese curls and Merino wool make a bad combination, and no one wants overdyed thread courtesy of a spilled can of soda. That said, there’s no reason why you can’t have a “wine, stitch and groan” night at the shop to celebrate the end of another great class session (although your local alcohol laws may mandate that the wine be of the sparkling grape juice variety). Just make it clear that the eating and drinking stays in the designated area — preferably a corner that gives them a full view of your latest inventory, so they can discuss among themselves what they want to buy as soon as they finish just one more egg roll. To keep it easy on your budget, make it a potluck: Let loyal customers who want to show off their latest recipes vie for a chance to win a small door prize, for example, by having everyone at the party write down their favorite dish. Or, if it’s pretty obvious that your local Julia Child is going to win every time, just draw one of the participants’ names from a hat.

3. Leave the shop. Offer to teach a class at the local senior center, the library, the coffee shop. Everyone who shows up receives a coupon to your shop and a schedule of classes there. The same goes for the numerous sewing guilds, garden clubs, women in business meetings (position needlework as a stress reliever!), etc. Think outside the box a little: Swap teaching a felted bead class at the local bead shop for them coming to show your regulars how to do Viking knitting, for example, or teach some crazy patch techniques at a quilt shop in return for them sending someone over to show your students how to piece together their redwork efforts.

4. Delegate. If you’re just too overburdened with other responsibilities to try to set aside time for a class, and if your employees aren’t quite ready for teaching, look to bringing in outside teachers. The cache of having the designer stopping in not only for a trunk show, but a class, can bring in new faces to the shop if you spread the word to local guilds and clubs. Plus, there are teachers for-hire like Julie Turner, Fiber Trades, who get the designer’s permission to go to shops specifically to teach a pattern. These strategies can expand your class schedule by offering techniques that perhaps you weren’t well-versed enough in to teach before.

5. Celebrate. Whether it’s a fashion show to display their finished pieces at the end of a multi-week class, or a new twist on an anniversary celebration (“We started in March, so we’re making a project in our ‘birthstone,’ aquamarine”), give your classes a personality unto their own. Make 2010 the Year of Education, where you reach out to young and old and equip them with skills to enjoy the art of needlework. They’ll come back to your shop again and again for knowledge, fellowship — and supplies.

I received this question regarding my recent column, Have yourself a merry little email:

Heather-

I’m working on a monthly targeted email and was wondering what other dates are best, not just the ones around Christmas. I find that I get turned off by businesses that send me emails more frequently. I was thinking monthly is a good timeframe. But is there a better time during each month to send? Fridays? Day before holidays?

Thanks. I enjoy your column.

Linda Listing

UrsulasAlcove.com

Linda, thanks for a great question (and a topic for today’s column)!

While you could likely find people to support any certain day and time as “the best,” the general consensus — and my personal experience — is to send it Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. The prevailing wisdom is that sending it on a Monday runs the risk of it getting lost among all the clutter sent over the weekend, and Friday — well, too many people are thinking about their weekend plans to be bothered with a call to action from their inbox.

Based on my experience, mornings seem to do better than afternoons, although don’t make it so early that it’s trumped by the flurry of 9 a.m. work emails. Some people target 10 a.m., but it’s truly a case-by-case on what works best for your audience. Personal experience tells me that sending at 7:30 a.m. EST works well for my audience because the business owners I’m reaching tend to open their email while still at home, or perhaps check it on their phones on their way to work. (Let’s hope this latter category is during a bus, train or shared ride!) My message provider shows me the times the email is opened, and there are always a lot before 10 a.m.

Of course, if your main call to action is to get them to a holiday weekend sale, for example, perhaps a mid-Friday email is appropriate. I still think a Thursday would be better, just to give them time to think about who they want to invite along on their excursion.

I agree that monthly seems to be the gold standard — quarterly risks giving them time to forget about your message in the ensuing months; weekly can be intrusive, unless you truly have something new to tell them about week in and week out. Every two months is an acceptable alternative if you’re concerned about perhaps not having enough news to bring to their attention, or if your budget isn’t comfortably stretching to make the monthly commitment.

The important goal to set, however, is to make it consistent. “Train” your audience to expect to see something from you on the first Tuesday of the month, for example, even if it’s little more than “Big announcement coming up — details in two weeks!” (As an exception to rather than the rule of monthly mails, of course.) I realize this is a huge task, one that even I’m guilty of shirking at times, but to formally set an editorial calendar for your newsletters will make the process become more integrated into your routine.

Now’s the perfect time to set aside a few minutes and sketch out what you want to cover in the next 12 months. Do you have to adhere to it exclusively? Heck no. But I can attest to the fact that it feels a lot better to see something planned for a given issue rather than having to start from scratch every 30 days. Here’s an example of single-themed newsletter topics, month by month:

• January: Fond farewell to retired patterns
• February: Valentine’s sale (be your own sweetie and buy something you love!)
• March: Come see me at these spring events
• April: New pattern is here! Order now
• May: Spring cleaning: Clearance sale
• June: What’s new from Market
• July: Mid-Summer Night’s sale
• August: Curl up with a book (all of which are on sale)
• September: Come see me at my booth this fall
• October: Shorter days, longer yars
• November: Last chance to buy at 2010 prices
• December: Thank you for your patronage this year

Another little tidbit I’ve learned carries over from my newspaper editing days: The email’s subject headline should have a hook whenever possible. Much of your “trained” audience might be pleased to see that “News from XYZ” is in their in-box, but you’ll definitely increase their likelihood of opening it if in the next issue they see “Free, exclusive pattern for XYZ News readers enclosed!” You don’t have to give away the store every issue, but a little treat now and then to reward their loyalty for not unsubscribing — even an occasional coupon at the bottom of the newsletter, for example — can help bolster readership.

Last but oh so not least, I strongly recommend using an email provider who adheres to best practices regarding spam, so that your offerings are never associated with junk email. Companies like iContact (which I use, and recommend), Constant Contact and others can give you a comprehensive tracked listing so that over time, you can see what is and isn’t resonating with your audience. If the majority of your customers are opening your Thursday emails Sunday night after 6 p.m. in your time zone, for example, maybe it’s smarter to give yourself the weekend to put it together and mail late Sunday afternoon!

In addition to wishing happy holidays to everyone in this last column of 2009, I also wish the best of luck to Linda and to other entrepreneurs who are venturing into the digital marketing fray in the new year. A new Ad-ology study finds that about one out of every four small businesses plans to increase the digital side of their marketing in 2010. I notice that the public is responding favorably to the online video, social media and other efforts by voting with their … PayPal accounts. Are you ready?

Online handcrafted retail giant Etsy.com was a focus of an article today in the New York Times ("Hobbyists Use Etsy to Trade Day Job for Hard Work"). As someone who quit an office job for the trifecta of being home for the kids/being my own boss/setting my own hours, I can sympathize with many of those interviewed for the story — the sometimes 18-hour days, the challenge of work/life balance. I can also see the critics’ point that the whole quitting-a-day-job-and-livin’-the-dream scenario is more fantasy than fact for the majority of crafters on the site, and to promise them anything that gets their hopes up without arming them with some major small business knowledge is simply cruel.

I am curious, however, about what my readers think of Etsy (and similar sites like Indiepublic and American Craft Guide Community, all three of which I actually belong to, but am not very active in). Is it something that your customers love to discuss, or even buy or sell from? Is it something that you use yourself, to unload old inventory, to buy great deals on supplies, to sell your own creative offerings or just to peruse to get ideas and inspiration? Is it passe at this point, or even something that has never really touched you or your customers? Please let me know by dropping me a line in the comments below or email positiveyarn@goochandgooch.com.

And in case you haven’t seen it yet, check out Regretsy.com, the site that cheekily rounds up the somewhat eccentric (and let me warn you, often mature content) items available on Etsy. It is quick to point out that art is subjective, and that it’s just having a good time poking fun at some of the more offbeat offerings (and perhaps justifiably so, copyright infringement!). There is even a page that shows items that people have purchased from the respective shop owners as a result, lending credence to the old adage there is no such thing as bad publicity. Unless, of course, you’re a respected sports figure…