Her Boss Died So She Bought the Business | Rachel Jane Hall

Rachel Jane Hall | Episode 449

Home thrown & Hand grown Stoneware made in the hills of Coshocton Ohio. Rachel Jane Hall is a second generation potter but growing up in her parents salt glaze business, potting wasn’t on her short list of careers. But the universe had other plans for Rachel Jane. 4 years ago Rachel Jane met her mentor and started on at a local mini production studio to attach handles. Hillbippie Clay Co. is a product of rural inspirations and functional interpretations.

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How do you get people to click through off of social media to your website?

It is very gentle. You can’t push it or else you seem like you are trying to sell stuff. You have to pretend like you are not selling stuff most of the time. It is like the eighty twenty type of thing. Where you just have to build your story and build your brand up and hope people resonate with it and then ask you where you are selling your stuff. I think you have to really build up who you are and hope that people dig that.

Once you get people to your website what kind of bait do you use to get them to give you their email address?

Well, we talked about the pop up, I think that is super important and I offer the discount code if they sign up. So trying to just entice them saying that subscribing is the right thing to do if you want some of this stuff. Also being a little exclusionary, I only update my website once a month so people are kind of waiting around for the shop drop and they are staying involved and staying engaged. They are waiting around for a chance to purchase something. I think that is important too.

How do you craft your emails to get people to click back to your website and purchase something?

I give them to coupon code of course, because everyone loves their coupons. But I try to make it seem like you need to do it now or it’s not going to be there. I don’t have the sell out shop drops that some do but each time it is going faster and faster. Repeat customers know they have to get on there right away if they have a certain thing in mind. With super popular items I only make a few of them so there is less to try to increase the exclusivity of it.

How about the body of your email, is it pictures of your work or do you tell a story, is it a blog post that you just paste into it? Tell me what the body of the email is like.

It is usually super simple and like I said the promote has templates where you can choose if you want it to be all texts or pictures or things like that. I typically do something really simple like one big picture and maybe a couple of words, but basically leaving it fairly scarce so they have to go to the website to see more about what I am talking about.

When you put the picture in there, are you putting multiple pictures in or are you putting just one picture of what you feel is the best representation of your latest shop drop?

I am usually just putting one and I try to use elements of a post I had done to play up the shop drop. I try to have it all cohesive. Maybe I will have a couple of posts with a specific item on my Instagram and then I will have a similar type of picture or maybe them all together to use in the email so that it is kind of familiar to them so they kind of know this is for her shop drop. It is all cohesive so that it is something they recognize that they wanted.

Do you price differently for the email list or is it just the coupon code that they get?

It is just the coupon code. I haven’t really done special pricing for them yet. I have been trying to develop a special…I don’t want to say club, but a group I guess where you could offer maybe special pricing. If you are a ten time customer some how maybe you could get something special. But usually I just stick with the coupon code. It is easy to do on the website, so I stick with that.

How do you go about pricing your work in general?

I try to base it on the amount of time spent. I’d say my prices are fairly low comparatively to other Instagram potters. I am focusing on the form of the pot and I usually do a simple two tone glaze. I don’t have a lot of carving or slip work yet. So I try to keep it affordable and I try to have a wide range. I have higher price point items and lower price point items so that everybody is happy.