How to Grow Etsy Email Subscribers with Pinterest

If you have an Etsy shop, stick around for today’s episode because we are talking about how to grow Etsy email subscribers with Pinterest.

The unique part about this episode is that my guest (Lauren from Creative Mom Boss) is not only an Etsy seller herself, but also a coach for other Etsy sellers. She markets two different types of businesses on Pinterest.

Throughout the episode, Lauren will share tips for growing your email list for both Etsy sellers and those who are teaching Etsy sellers. This episode piggy backs on the one we published a few weeks ago on creating a general Pinterest strategy for Etsy (Etsy shop owners — I’ve heard you loud and clear!)

For those of you listening who are you totally new to Pinterest, we have a newsletter series that is just for you. Our Start series will help you build a solid foundation on Pinterest to help you grow effectively. Join that newsletter series and we’ll get you up and running on Pinterest fast so that you can move on to our next level of DIY training, the Grow newsletter series.

Turning a Side Gig Into a Business

Lauren started selling on Etsy in 2012. Initially, she sold monogrammed baby items, such as burp cloths and bibs. About a year and a half ago, she branched off into the Business to Business side, where she coaches Etsy sellers on how to scale their shops.

A lot of Etsy shop owners get stuck and aren’t able to grow their business beyond a hobby or side hustle. It’s hard for their businesses to really take off when they aren’t treating their shop like a business. Lauren helps shop owners improve their sales so that they can create consistent income and elevate it to a real business.

The Rollercoaster Ride

It was a rollercoaster ride when Lauren first started selling on Etsy. During that time, she had a one year-old, was six months pregnant, and her husband was getting ready to deploy to Afghanistan. In the years after she started, she was inconsistent when it came to managing the Etsy shop.

It wasn’t until 2015 that she really started to focus on building her business and make it into more than just a side hustle. In 2016, she started really diving into marketing and learning how to earn a more consistent income. This is the point when she started using Pinterest to market her Etsy products.

The First Success Milestone for Lauren’s Etsy Shop

Her husband left the military and he took a job in North Carolina. Their plan was to move from Portland, Oregon to the east coast and her husband was anticipating a pay cut.

Since it would take them a little while to get established in their new location and with a smaller income, Lauren knew that she either had to stop investing in Etsy altogether or she had to go all in and figure out a way to make a consistent income with her shop.

The year before the job switch, Lauren worked every weekend. With the money she made from the shop, they were able to save up for a downpayment on a house. Achieving this business milestone enabled Lauren and her husband to see all the opportunity that was available with the Etsy shop (AND it would enable her to have the flexible schedule that she needed).

A Necessary Mindset Shift

One of the keys to Lauren’s success was the mindset shift she made from viewing her Etsy products as a creative outlet to focusing on the profitability of products she chose to make. There were items that she really enjoyed making, but those products didn’t make sense to sell in the shop because they took a long time to create.

She had to focus on items that were going to sell well, would generate a healthy profit, and what would take the least amount of time to make.

Using Pinterest to Drive Traffic to Etsy

When Lauren first started using Pinterest for marketing, she experienced success fairly quickly. It was important for her to know exactly who her customer was in order to know what they would be interested in and looking for.

Lauren was mostly pinning individual listings from her Etsy shop. Etsy’s analytics allowed her to see what types of results she was getting from Pinterest.

Pinterest is the first marketing platform that Lauren recommends to Etsy sellers outside after they optimize their listings for the Etsy search engine. In her view, Pinterest marketing is the easiest way to drive traffic and the easiest marketing platform to automate.

Growing Etsy Email Subscribers With Pinterest

Lauren started trying to grow an email list from Pinterest to her shop. She had heard that you shouldn’t just offer someone a coupon to your shop, so she searched for alternative incentives. Finally, she hired a graphic designer to create a set of nursery printables that went along with the baby gifts she was selling.

Despite their cuteness, those nursery printables didn’t generate a single email sign-up. Lots of people were buying her monogrammed baby gifts for nurseries that were already decorated, so Lauren assumes they didn’t need the printables.

She transitioned to offering a 10% off coupon whenever someone signed up for her email list (after all, this is the incentive that all of the major retailers use to entice you to subscribe to their mailing lists!). The coupon has worked like a charm!

The Opportunity and Flexibility of Etsy Store Ownership

Lauren thinks it’s really important that she keeps selling on Etsy so that it can cultivate her expertise as she works with students to scale their Etsy shops. Once friends and acquaintances discovered her success on Etsy, she found herself constantly fielding questions about how to get started on Etsy.

So she decided to start a blog about the topic. She started a Facebook group as well, and this past May, she started a podcast all about Etsy.

She still talks to people who think that her Etsy shop is just something she does to “keep busy.” She laughs it off, knowing that she’s working 15 hours a week and making a full-time income.

Lauren loves talking about the opportunity that comes along with owning an Etsy shop. It was impossible for her to keep a traditional job while her husband was in the Army, since they moved so often. The Etsy shop provided her the opportunity to make an income with the flexibility of moving her business with her.

Separate Pinterest Accounts?

Lauren created separate Pinterest business accounts for her Etsy business and her coaching business. These two audiences are not closely related. When people visit her shop to purchase a blanket, they’re typically not interested in learning about running an Etsy shop. They just want their blanket!

She has a lot of customers who are buying gifts or just shopping for their kids, so she felt like creating two Pinterest accounts made the most sense for both businesses.

Lauren has two different types of customers looking for two different types of things. This is why knowing your audience is so vital. You want your people to be searching for exactly what you’re selling.

The Ultimate Etsy Starter Kit

Lauren grew her email list by 5,400 subscribers in 12 months by using Pinterest at the beginning of her coaching business.

She focused on creating catchy pin titles and answering common questions that were being asked. She made sure all of her content was marketing on the Pinterest platform. Over time, she learned about driving people to an email sign up landing page.

She created the “Ultimate Etsy Starter Kit” a free email opt-in incentive. The Starter Kit has a Etsy myth-busting component, a list of Lauren’s favorite tools for getting started, and a basic guide to Etsy SEO. She links to the Starter Kit throughout her blog and also directly from Pinterest to the sign-up landing page.

Lauren set a goal to have consistent sign-ups instead of a specific number of email subscribers. It took a while to get there. On some days, she would have no one sign-up and zero comments on her blog posts. Then there would be days where she would have tons of sign-ups and people reaching out to her about her posts.

Lauren’s Legacy Pins

Lauren has never had a viral pin but she has had a few pins that get repinned all the time. Her pin on Etsy fees breaks down what sellers can expect from Etsy fees on the products they plan to sell. In addition, Lauren’s p in on how she made over $150,000 in sales in 12 months has been consistently popular over time.

These legacy pins really generate a Pinterest marketing snowball effect for Lauren; they help to attract fresh eyes on her content. Lauren makes new pinnable images for these blog posts twice a year.

These pins weren’t posts that Lauren expected to be popular. It showed her that even though these concepts seem self-explanatory, her posts helped others in a way that exploring information on the Etsy platform itself could not.

Business to Consumer Vs. Business to Business

Lauren has experience in Pinterest marketing from a business to consumer perspective and also business to business perspective. Most people can’t speak to both of these perspectives.

Lauren has found that it’s harder in the business to consumer realm because you’re trying to convince the customer why they should care enough to buy from you.

Her coaching students listen to her and buy products from her because they trust her experience and expertise. They have more investment in her. Whereas, consumers are less interested in the personal aspect of the relationship. They just want to buy their product and move on. It’s harder to capture their attention and form a long-term relationship.

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Stay Consistent and Be Patient

Lauren is a big fan of batching her work. She uses two separate Tailwind accounts for her two separate Pinterest accounts. About twice a month, she’ll sit down for an hour and work on loading her pins to Tailwind. This allows her to stay organized and keep her content planned out.

Lauren’s advice for Pinterest marketing is to really understand who your ideal client is. This helps you know how to appeal to them in your Pinterest marketing. You need to know what is drawing them to your business.

Her final word of advise — be consistent and patient. This applies across the board in business. If Lauren had stopped pinning two weeks into her business, she would not have seen the growth and success she’s experienced.

Learn more about Lauren by heading to her Etsy shop , or Creative Mom Boss.

For Further Listening/Reading

Time Stamp:
Intro
4:03 – The Rollercoaster Ride
5:22 – The First Success Milestone
7:04 – Shifting Mindset
10:06 – Using Pinterest to Drive Traffic
13:58 – Grow Etsy Email Subscribers with Pinterest
19:48 – The Opportunity and Flexibility of Etsy
21:58 – Separate Pinterest Accounts
24:18 – The Ultimate Etsy Starter Kit
27:50 – Lauren’s Legacy Pins
32:12 – Business to Consumer Vs. Business to Business
36:25 – Stay Consistent and Be Patient

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