I Have a New Helper

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I've been putting a lot of thought and energy into the Taos Folk show, which starts the day after Thanksgiving. I need to have my inventory there on Monday, which means I have a lot of organizing to do over the weekend. Since I haven't done a show of any kind in several years, I'm thinking a lot about just why I'm doing this one. Sure, I hope to sell some beads and make some money, but really, for me, it's more about adding to my customer base. Whether or not people buy my work at the show, there's great potential for getting them to shop on my website later. I need to make the most of the exposure a five week show can bring, and I want to keep shoppers interested for years, not just weeks.

The show promoter is happy to have her artists do all the shameless self promotion we want, so I'm working on a guest book, where I hope to gather a lot of email addresses for my Beadist Mailing List. To entice people to sign up, I'm entering all new subscribers in a drawing for a free Bead Surprise. It might work! We all like to win stuff, right?

And, as always, one thought leads to another, and I started thinking I could use this approach to get new subscribers to join online. Why not? The VIB Lounge was kind of a flop, so it's gone, but everyone on that list is now on the new Beadist Email list. And to encourage new people to sign up, I'm going to hold a monthly drawing right here, and will automatically include all new Beadist Email subscribers in the drawing. Brilliant, if I do say so myself!

I've been using Gmail for a long time, with the intention of signing up for MailChimp at some point. Today is the day, and I wish I'd done it sooner. How sweet it is to have everything automated, with sign up forms, opt-in/out made easy, and fancy email templates to spiff things up. And best of all, the Chimp is free! Second best is, it's cute. I like to keep it fun and not too businessy. And now I feel so organized, so smart, so powerful. Go me! Go MailChimp, you little cutie pie!

I've scattered links to the new signup form all over the place, and I'll give you another one HERE.
Come on! Join the list! I promise not to bother you with too much email, I'll never share your information, and best of all, you might win something wonderful!

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