I have known Steph Thornton from Perran Yarns for a number of years now, in fact we used to be competitors, back when I had my own yarn business. Whilst we were in the same industry, our relationship never felt competitive and Steph was always the smiling face greeting me each morning, as we worked a few of the same trade shows.
That made it a very easy decision to start working with Steph, when she approached me, back in January 2021.
How this savvy business owner cut her workload and increased results
Perran Yarns has been growing consistently over the years and Steph was really finding herself at breaking point; working four days a week at her ‘day job’ and the remaining three days for her own business. This included a lot of early starts and very late nights, with no time for sleep, let alone family. As hard as she worked, she was struggling to find time for her marketing ideas and content creation, because she was constantly playing catch up on production.
An example of how I use Steph’s product photos to create content for her Social Media
Since January I have been responsible for the creation and delivery of her online marketing, from; blog posts and social media to email marketing. My aim was to bring everything together with a real flavour of Perran Yarns branding: Steph’s aesthetic, voice and sense of luxury.
As a result, we have seen real growth in engagement on social media and a string of new newsletter sign ups, which will pave the way for work on the future ecommerce arm to Steph’s main website, which would work alongside her Etsy shop, increasing her prospective annual turnover.
To give you an idea of what I have achieved so far; Steph’s newsletter subscriber numbers grew by 23.5% between January and May, with open rates remaining around 50-55% each month and click rates as much as 11-12%, depending on the campaign. This came from the simple introduction of an automated opt-in and it’s marketing. Remember an average open rate for this industry is just 26.27% and click rates are 2.95% according to Mailchimp, so we are thrilled to see these numbers!
We have also seen growth in our social media, with Instagram followers increasing by 7.3% since January and still continuing to grow.
Blogging is one of my favourite ways to help business owners connect with their audience and tap into Google, as a lucrative feed for prospective clients. Using keyword rich content, I aim to bring in a steady stream of new traffic each month, ready for when the new webshop is open. Here’s an example of one of the blog posts I have created for Perran Yarns. The concept is simple; use the brand voice to engage our audience in a way that educates and inspires.
“I’m really happy with how things are going, with all aspects really - social media, blog and mailing list.
I feel way more relaxed knowing that you have the schedule of social media and blog posts lined up, rather than me constantly feeling like I’m on the back foot, trying to think of what to post about next and worrying that there’s been too long a gap since the last post!
The mailing list work with the free pattern sign-up options are also a relief to have set up now - something I’d wanted to do for a long time but never got around to.
Your knowledge in this field is excellent, and you are always happy to advise and discuss options, explaining where necessary. You adapt and respond very quickly when required; you’re super-organised and have great planning skills - perfect for this kind of work.”
Giving Steph back her time has been crucial.
It is hard when you are extremely busy to manage and keep up with freelancers and I think this is why I see many business owners sinking, when they should be thriving. Here’s the thing, I honestly believe that you shouldn't have to manage a freelancer at all, we instead, should be there for you, using our skills to make your working life easier and ultimately better. Part of the remit of outsourcing to a freelancer, is to hire the skills you don’t have in order to accomplish higher results, and the other part of that remit is to save yourself time, so you can confidently concentrate on where your skills are needed in your business.
With 10 hours a month, I work on the following for Steph;
One keyword rich, but consumer-led blog post
One newsletter, using Mailchimp
Week day social media content for; Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, using Later, Recurpost and Facebook Business Suite as scheduler options.
We occasionally have enough time left for planning and creating content for marketing funnels, such as newsletter opt-ins.
If you need a copywriter to create compelling copy, someone who understands the customer journey, fill in the project brief form below!
