Hi ya’ll,

It’s been a while since we sent a newsletter outside our standard formats. But last week we were so captivated by a story @Pern Bann’s founder @sukrachand told on Instagram that wanted to share it (+ our thoughts) with you! Bobby’s story is in two reels, part 1 & part 2.

First of all, both reels are worth watching, as Bobby dives into how to prevent people from using your photos to sell counterfeit designs. His insights are detailed and extremely helpful.

And in our eyes, there’s an even bigger lesson about business growth, PR, content, and social media in general, so keep reading…

What really fired us up

Before this copying debacle, Pern Bann was getting over 350,000 unpaid organic impressions on Pinterest per month! As you may imagine, this was a huge driver of traffic *and* sales.

But, when another company started running ads and posting organic content using Pern Bann’s images, Bobby’s Pintrest traffic plummeted.  

He saw a 3x drop in impressions and website visits, and that led to 3x drop in sales. According to the video, that might be a $60-70,000 drop in sales on this single product.

The reason? Pinterest, like other social media platforms, prioritizes users who spend money. And the folks who were spending money on Pinterest were the counterfeiters. The thieves were winning with stolen IP.

What’s worse. Even after Bobby was able to get the counterfeit site removed from Shopify and the ads taken down on Pinterest, their Pinterest impressions, traffic, and sales never recovered.

psst- Pern Bann is a small creative business, like yours.
Do give them a follow.

We won’t call it “post-social media”, but we’d like to…

Remember when social media was a huge business builder? And it was all about organic (aka unpaid) engagement? Those days are mostly gone.

Social media platforms want you to spend money, use their latest features, and spend more time on their apps. All while keeping their algorithm a secret and giving little to no customer service or meaningful guidance on how to effectively spend your ad budget.

Of course, there are reasons to spend time and money on social media. In full transparency, at Wolf Craft, we do run ads from time to time. Many of you even found us via an Instagram ad!

What’s important, in our eyes, is what you do to build your community and stay in touch with people beyond relying solely on social media. You ask them to sign up for your newsletter.

Newsletters, Newsletters, Newsletters

At Wolf Craft, we believe in owning your own content, specifically newsletters. While social media has its benefits, the unpredictable algorithms and lack of support can be a black hole of time and money.

Newsletters give you complete control over your message, timing, and delivery. Your content is delivered chronologically, not based on some mysterious algorithm. And the amount of personalization you can do to target specific members of your community are endless.

But do people even read email anymore???

On a recent call, the founder of an architecture firm asked, “Is email worth it? My inbox feels like a wasteland. There’s a ton of stuff I never open.”

This is a very common question. So let’s just look at the numbers.

YA’LL emails on average across industries are almost 5x more likely to be seen than unpaid posts on Instagram.

Our newsletter has a 57% average open rate, so that’s 8x more views than anything we post. No wonder we spend more time writing emails than creating content for social media.

An interior designer that we work with had a 42% open rate before we started working together, and now it’s at 61%!

How PR fits into all of this

So what is one of the big goals of social media anyway?

To build brand awareness and get new eyes on your stuff.

And you know what else does that *really* well? Media placements!

We’ve always believed in the power of press. It's a fantastic way to get more eyes on your business without spending a dime on ads.

And the difference between ads and press is significant. People trust recommendations from magazines and blogs much more than paid ads. Plus, media outlets strive not to publish counterfeit work.

Story time—here’s what wallpaper designer Faye Bell said when we asked how PR has helped grow her business:

“The answer is nuanced. PR has been very empowering as I've shifted from a wholesale/showroom strategy to direct sales. Now I’m building more relationships. Maintaining a PR presence is a key part of my more independent strategy. It gives my brand credibility and builds my network into something much more dynamic and useful than when I was mainly just connecting with showrooms.

Having a well populated press page lends credibility to my brand that the "stockists" page used to. So as I've been working on this transition, leaving most of my showrooms and embracing the learning curve of marketing directly to designers, I've had a dip in sales but not in profitability.

Most simply, people just take me more seriously and are willing to give me the time of day when they see I'm getting press. I tell everyone who will listen that the $5k I spent on your Media List + Opp Kit is the best money I've ever spent on my business.

It's very empowering as a business owner to have my own in-house press strategy rather than to be sitting around waiting for the showroom or designers to make something happen.”

Good Links
To hone your PR strategy & get ready for media attention

See what your peers are doing to get ready for successful media outreach.

Wired Magazine’s pitching guide is super useful

Wondering “how do I get started with PR?”, here’s our answer

Thanks for giving our newsletter a bit of time in your inbox!

Nora & Kirsten

PS- We’ve helped creative businesses both build newsletters from scratch and improve the email marketing they’re already doing.

Interested in newsletter help? Reply to this email, and let's start the conversation!

How to work with us

If you want to get great at telling your story, for more
press and more clients, we can help!