I want to tell you about a really cool marketing tool. It’s called email. Maybe you’ve heard of it?

I know, I know. Who uses email any more, right? Especially when there are blogs and social networks and Pinterest to promote your crafts and Etsy goods on.

Why Should I Bother With Email?

You’ve made some sales on Etsy. That’s great! But how do you jump from someone making their first purchase from you to making them a life-long customer?

The secret is regular communication with them after the sale. Lots of crafters turn to blogs and social networks for this, but email is your silver bullet because it’s actually more effective.

Blogs rely on readers bookmarking them and remembering to come back. Pins, tweets and Facebook posts can get buried in people’s feeds. But an email puts you front and center in their inbox where they’re sure to see you.

What Can Email Do For My Shop?

An email newsletter helps your shop in three ways:

1) It reminds people who you are and why they like you.

Seeing your name and products in their inbox jogs your customers’ memories. Sending fun stories about you and your crafts strengthens the bond between you and your customers.

2) It makes your customers feel valued.

Email lets you extend your customer service – send exclusive coupon codes just for your email readers, hold secret sales, send them tips for their own craft projects. Insider info makes everyone feel good.

3) It’s an easy way to announce new products.

Send a quick email to your customers when you add new items to your shop. They’ll want to keep coming back to see your new stuff!

Email makes you memorable – both by brand name and great service you provide.

So I Can Start Emailing Past Customers Now?

Not quite. Just because you have someone’s email address from an Etsy transaction doesn’t mean you can use it for marketing. You need to get permission first, otherwise you’re spamming (and that turns people away).

Most people invite others to their mailing list with a sign up form on their blog or website. You can do this too, and link to your sign up in your Etsy shop and transactional messages.

Even better – there’s an Etsy/email app that automatically sends an invitation to join your list when a customer makes a purchase from your shop. See? It’s simple to start building a list.

And It’s Easy?

With the right tools, you can put an email together in just a few minutes. Using an email marketing service will help, and many of them have features that save you tons of time – from scheduling emails in advance to apps that pull articles straight from your blog and plop them in a newsletter for you.

And remember that Etsy/email app? It offers pre-designed templates and pulls items and their descriptions directly from your shop, so you can put together a newsletter with just a few clicks.

Attracting repeat business doesn’t have to be complicated, especially with tools that make it quick and easy to reach your customers.

Rebekah Henson — AWeber

Rebekah Henson blogs about building an online following through email marketing at AWeber, the leading email service provider for small-to-medium businesses. You can find more tips on marketing with email at the AWeber blog, or see how you can grow your handmade business with the Etsy email app.