a cosy studio chat 💌 the struggle of generating your own shop traffic & little joys from the week

[00:00:00]So, we're trying something new today.

[00:00:01]Welcome to the first ever Millie Studio Chat.

[00:00:09][music] These little studio chats are going to be very chill. Just me, you, cup of tea, coffee. I've got an Earl Grey tea. We're going to have three sections in these Millie studio chats. The first one is I'm going to let you know what's going on in the studio right now, what I've been up to either today or this week so far. The second section is going to be where I take a comment or message from someone in the Millie Studio community and I chat about it, answer it, give my input and you guys can add your input in the comments as well. We can get a little discussion going. So, that'll be like a main topic of discussion for each of these studio chats. And then we're going to have a little joy section where I share a little joy for the day or that week. So, it's going to be really cozy, really chill. Grab yourself a drink and let's start with telling you what's been going on in the studio today. So, it's Friday the 12th of June as I'm recording this. I've come into the studio this morning and I always start my day with checking my email inbox and replying to any emails that I've got just so that that's out of the way and I can then get on with whatever I want to get on with doing. And my first job of the day today is to film this studio chat video. So, that is the first thing that I'll be able to tick off my list. And then the rest of the day today is going to be ebook, ebook, ebook. Because if you saw my last video that I posted, I went through the whole process of how I plan, write, and put my ebooks together in Canva. So, if you want to watch that, I'll leave it linked on the screen and in the description as well. I'm a good, I'd say 60% through the ebook now, which is really good. I've been working on it all week, and I'm going to be working on it today for the rest of the day. The ebook is all about YouTube for small business owners, but again, I go into it in a lot more detail in my previous video, so definitely go and check that one out if you're interested. But yeah, I need to get as much done as I can today because I'm really busy this weekend. Tomorrow I'm going to see Choir of Man in Nottingham because it's on tour with my sisters. That's going to be really nice. We're having the day in Nottingham. Going to have food out. And then on Sunday, to be fair, I will be able to work a little bit on Sunday. But in the evening, we're then going to see McFly. Me, Louis, and my sister Sophie are going to Lincoln to see McFly at the castle. So that's going to be really fun as well. It's a very funpacked weekend.

[00:02:17]And then hopefully, fingers crossed, I'm planning on launching the ebook later next week between the 18th and the 20th of June. But I will of course keep you updated on that on my Instagram and through Millie Secret Studio as well, which is my newsletter. If you want to sign up to that, the link is in the description. So yeah, hopefully we will have the ebook launching next week, which is super exciting. This morning as well, I have received this PR package from Omnisend, and I've just unboxed it on my Instagram story, but they've sent me two sweatshirts. So, we've got this pine green one which says, "I hold the secret to great email design." And it's this lovely like pine green color. And then on the back, it's got the anatomy of an email and it's embroidered. The quality as well feels amazing. So, that's that one. And then they also sent me this oatmealy colored one which has the Omnis logo on the front and it has this full color design on the back that says deliverability. They also included a lovely little handwritten note that says, "Millie, good partners are hard to find. Great ones even harder. Lucky for us, we've got you. Thank you for everything. And here's to what's still to come. With love, the Omnisend team.

[00:03:21]That was a lovely little thing to open this morning. Thank you so much, Omnisend. But now, let's move on to the letter box section. And we'll see what letter I've received from you guys for this Millie Studio chat. So, in the letter box this week, we have one from Penelopey. They have said, "My big one is how to get your website out there. I don't know if it makes a difference. I know some people do the same as me and don't do launches, so I don't want to generalize. I always feel it is because I don't do launches. I now have to put in effort with social media. I suppose I find that aspect of it a little bit overwhelming. I don't want to get rid of a website because I keep doing that and then I feel like a failure. LOL. This one is really tricky and I think a lot of us will relate to this, especially if you've sold on Etsy before and now you've moved to your own website or perhaps you have both. Etsy are really good at bringing in traffic for you and bringing in that custom. So then when you're in control of that solely for your own website, it can be really daunting and it is really hard. But there are a few things that I want to share with you and hopefully they will help you out a little bit. The first one is that people don't just want to see the final product all the time. They don't want to click on your Instagram page, let's say, and just see product photos of what you sell. Of course, you can share some product photos, but ultimately when people click onto your shop through your Instagram bio, your best product photos are already going to be there on the product listing. So, you don't necessarily need to show those on your Instagram feed because people can already see them. People love to see the process, the personality, so the person behind the brand as well. They want to see the love that goes into your products. You need to build trust with your audience. I think for me, talking from personal experience, the way I bring traffic through to my shop and how I generate my sales is massively down to community and the community that I've built. I think it's so important and you need to build that trust with people in order for them to feel comfortable placing an order on your shop. And as small business owners, we have a huge advantage compared to the bigger brands that we are just one person and everything we make is made with so much love and care. An amazing example of this is the lovely L from our Forever Utopia. Her business is aird dry clay items. So she does lots of vasees, other home decor pieces, magnets, frames.

[00:05:40]Everything she makes is so colorful, so much fun, so groovy. I just love everything she makes. I've actually got a vase arriving from her today. I think I had a Royal Male email come through and I think that's the only thing that I'm waiting on to get delivered. I ordered her pink and white stripey blueberry vase which I'm so excited to get. I wish it was here now so I could show you but I'll definitely share it on my Instagram story when it comes. But yeah, her Instagram is just amazing. She posts really consistently. She shows so much of the process of everything she makes and shows how much love goes into everything. And that's what made me want to buy. One, because I love the woman.

[00:06:17]Ow. Love you. She's so lovely. And just secondly, you can see how much she loves her business and adors her customers and her products. And that's what made me want to buy. I wanted a vase for my studio. And I just straight away went on to our Forever Utopia and got one from L because that was where I knew I wanted to get one from. So, I'd say if you're looking for inspiration of how to show your personality and your process of what you are making, definitely go and check out L. I'll leave her linked below because her Instagram is just so inspirational and I think you'll get probably a lot of ideas from there of how you can show your process as well of whatever you're making and selling. I think another really important thing to getting traffic to your own website as well is to think a lot more deeply about your product. So, you don't just always want to show the final product and product photos. Of course, you want a little bit of that cuz you want people to see what you're actually selling. But if we take a crochet business for example, a crochet business is not just about the final item, the final animal, let's say, that's been crocheted.

[00:07:18]Crocheting is about the journey of learning a new skill, learning a new skill in adulthood, creative hobbies, and the importance of intentional time away from the screen, being creative with your hands, the satisfaction of making something from scratch yourself.

[00:07:32]And a crocheted item isn't just that.

[00:07:34]You can dive deeper. Why have you crocheted that specific animal? Let's say what does that animal represent?

[00:07:40]Have you chosen to do that animal for a reason? Do you have a story about that animal? Any way you can relate to it and make a story, make a real from it.

[00:07:48]You're drawing people in and you're connecting them with you and that product. And that's the most powerful thing. I think I think it's a lot easier to market a product when it has value behind it. And obviously a crocheted animal isn't particularly valuable. It's kind of like more of a luxury item. So that's what you can do with like luxury non-essential items is draw them in with stories, relate yourself to that. Why have you chosen to create that specific animal or that specific product? But if you wanted to delve into other parts of say a crochet business, you could offer DIY crochet kits where people can make their own crochet crochet item with a kit that you have sold to them. And the value there is that these crochet kits are going to reduce your screen time, which is a massive thing at the minute.

[00:08:29]people want to get their screen time down. The value is that you're allowing people to be creative and have a creative outlet using their hands, making something completely from scratch, learning a new creative hobby, a new skill. It's so valuep packed. So, you could delve into those different avenues as well to try and just generate a little bit more traffic because you'll be able to kind of market those aspects of the business a little bit easier. At least I know I would find that easier.

[00:08:53]Crochet patterns, things like that. just have a little bit of a deeper think of different avenues that you could explore rather than just luxury items if that's what you are selling. But of course, you don't have to do that. This is just my input and what I would kind of recommend and what I'd find easier. But of course, everyone is different. The final thing I wanted to touch on for generating your own traffic to your site as well is another use case. We're going to take Chloe from Hoppity Designs because she has been doing weekly blog posts for her business. So again, I'll leave her linked below, but she does small business stationary. So logo stickers, allergen stickers for bakers, 3D printed logo signs, market banners, market display signs, all that kind of thing.

[00:09:33]And she did a blog post a couple of days ago, I think it was 3 days ago about ways to make your market store look really nice and branded. Not the exact title. I can't quite remember exactly what it was, but then she had an inquiry a day or two after she posted that blog post. Someone had emailed her to say that they'd found her through Google through that blog post and they were inquiring about a gazebo banner because she had linked her gazebo banner in that blog post and that had generated that inquiry which I just thought was amazing and showed how incredible and powerful blog posts can be. So, they're definitely something I want to explore even more as well. But yeah, if you've not thought about blog posts, I think they can be really impactful. They create back links to your shop. They say the more backlinks you have, it kind of boosts you in the SEO world and in Google searches and stuff. So yeah, if we use me as an example as well for my YouTube for small business owners ebook that I'm hopefully going to launch next week, I could write a blog post about how YouTube can help grow your small business and I'd be able to link my new ebook in that blog post multiple times.

[00:10:35]Maybe even link some of my other ebooks like getting noticed 50 no face content ideas because you never know if that blog post might pop up in someone's Google search higher than your actual product if it's a new product if you know what I mean. I'm going to make a mental note of that need to write blog post for my YouTube for small business owners ebook. And the final little section in this Millie studio chat is the little joy section. And this week I've had a couple of little joys actually. Earlier in the week, I think it was on Tuesday I had my parents round for tea. I really wanted to make like a really nice meal from scratch cuz I feel like I haven't done much cooking recently. I cook every night but like not a proper nutritious meal that I can like put a lot of care into. So I decided to do prawn tacos and I went to the fish mongers for the prawns cuz I wanted them to be nice and juicy and stuff. And I don't know, I just took a lot of care with that meal. I made like a mango salsa as well. It was honestly so tasty. I loved it. Lewis loved it. My parents loved it and it was just really nice. So, that was definitely a little joy of mine this week was taking that time out to cook a really nice meal because I love cooking so much as well.

[00:11:40]And of course, being able to cook for my family as well was just really nice. And also, when my parents came for dinner, my mom brought me this lovely bunch of peies. They're kind of No, they're not dying. It's just some of the outside petals have gone a bit green. But yeah, she brought me this lovely bunch of peies and they've been sat in my studio on my little packing desk all week. So, every time I've walked in here, they just make me smile cuz they're so pretty. Pianies are my favorite flower as well. I just love them and the color is just so nice. So, those are my little joys for this week. Don't forget to leave your letters to Millie Studio in the comments or you can send me a message on Instagram or you can even email me as well with your letters. And I'm really looking forward to seeing what we touch on in the next Millie Studio chat. I really hope you found it useful. Also, let me know what your little joys are for this week, too, in the comments if you don't have any letters to send me. I upload weekly to this channel, so make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future ones. And if you did enjoy this video, please give it a like for me so that I know you enjoyed it. And it will also help to push it out to other people who might find it useful, too. Thank you so much for watching, and hopefully I will see you very soon in the next video. Bye, guys.

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