Thinking ahead to 2024
With craft fair season done, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want and need for 2024. For the next 6 months I want to focus on growing on Instagram and YouTube. For that to work, I need to stop trying to sell my cards. It’s a distraction and the ROI is terrible.
Specifically I need to quit the Unique Boutique. That’s the local artists’ coop I joined in summer. I’ll finish out the year, but then I’ll drop it. We have our next meeting on Wednesday. At that meeting I’ll get my check for the craft fair and November and I’ll tell the leadership that I’m leaving at the end of the year.
Etsy
I’ve put my Etsy store in vacation mode indefinitely. If I’m going to sell any products online, I’d do it here on Squarespace. There are no listing fees here and I don’t need to deal with Etsy’s BS like reserves and refunds for scammers.
OTOH I’d like to become an Etsy affiliate. In fact I applied yesterday and was rejected. Apparently Etsy has two different affiliate programs and I applied to the wrong one. As a bonus I’m now an AWIN affiliate. Unfortunately no stamp companies use AWIN, as far as I can tell.
Their other affiliate program requires you to have at least 500 followers on one channel, so I don’t qualify for that yet. My goal is to get there by mid-2024.
My giveaways have been helping me get more quality followers who are cardmakers themselves. I know that because I click through to every new follower and if they’re cardmakers I follow them back. So far that’s been over 90%. I’m very happy about that.
The next step is to promote my giveaways through reels or stories. I need to put some time into learning how to make reels and stories that people want to engage with. E.g. I just got the embellishments grab bag I bought from Trinity Stamps on Black Friday. How do I create short form video that conveys my enthusiasm for all the goodies I received? What makes a haul video fun to watch? I’m sure the information is out there, I just need to have the time to learn it and implement it.
YouTube
While it’s great that I’m gaining subscribers on YouTube, what really matters on that platform are watched hours. I’ve read through most of the r/NewTubers FAQ on the topic. Here are a couple of key takeaways:
The thumbnail and title are super important to get views from new people
SEO is a thing for titles
YouTube has a Creator Hub and the courses there are worth taking
Engaged subscribers who watch each video to the end and share it on social media are much more important than sheer numbers
High quality content is more important than sticking to a specific schedule
Audio quality is more important than video quality when it comes to keeping viewers engaged
Monetization requires 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time
Monetization is great but it’s not going to pay the bills. Affiliate deals and sponsorships pay the bills.
There’s lots of things I want to learn about creating video content. I want to have time to do that.
Time
The biggest risk with being a content creator is burn out. That means that I need to set aside time to do other things.
Over the last year I’ve let some maintenance type tasks slide. I need to catch up on those. Some of those are fun, others less so.
But I also need to set aside time for doing things just for fun and for resting. When I was salaried I tried to take a week off four times evenly spaced out over each year. That served me well then. It’s probably not my ideal, but rather a minimum requirement. Now that I don’t have to get approval for my vacation time, I can be much more flexible with it.
The time since I started my business has been very hectic. I’m going to take some downtime now in December.
Money
I’m using retirement money to pay the bills. Realistically I’ll have to continue doing that through next year. Maybe I can stop withdrawing money in 2025. 🤞🏻
In 2023 I’ve been trying to spend as little money as possible. That’s not going to change in 2024. But there are some investments I need to make both in my business and my quality of life.
Equipmentwise I’d like to get to a point where filming is a matter of flipping a few switches. The less friction there is in the process, the more footage I create. The more footage I have, the easier it is to edit and release quality content.
Something that brings me great joy is gardening. I want to spend some money on that next year. Maybe I’ll even splurge on an irrigation system. I installed one in my previous garden and it helped me enjoy my garden more.
There are some things I want to upgrade inside my home as well. Some of those things only cost elbow grease, others would run into the thousands.
To turn all these dreams into reality I need a plan and a budget. The goal is to create those before the end of the year.
Spellbinders Holiday Fire Sale
Here are a couple of good deals in the current sale. There will be a bigger sale after the holidays but I don’t expect these to get much cheaper.
3D Layering Stencils
Hot Foil Plates
Floral Frames Glimmering Heart — a solid heart surrounded by a heart-shaped wreath of flowers. Includes dies.
Glimmering Just For You — nice, big floral and a couple of sentiments. Includes dies.
Geometric Optical Background — the prettiest of several geometric background plates