Way back in 2017 – yeah, that feels like ages ago now – Instagram launched their Story function that allows accounts to share stories to their followers that last for just 24 hours. Perhaps this sounds somewhat familiar, and that’s because they weren’t the first to do it! Snapchat, another noteworthy social media platform, has been using the same Story function for years with great success so it makes sense that Instagram hopped on the wave. The year is 2021…

WordPress is a great platform for creating your own vacation rental home booking website and in this blog, we’ll share our favorite WordPress Travel Website Themes and Easy Booking Options using Forms and Payments. While you may also advertise on online travel agency sites like AirBnB, VRBO, Florida Vacation Rentals and others, bringing your repeat customers and referral customers back to your OWN site is crucial. You can generate 30% more revenue by not paying fees to OTAs for repeat…

SquareSpace is a popular online commerce store that is both easy to use and lets you develop beautiful websites quickly. Compared to other platforms like Wix and Shopify, SquareSpace’s interface is much easier for a beginner to manage.  It’s a good platform for creative business owners and craft designers to build sites that are beautiful and function elegantly. Your home page of your website is the page that you probably link to most often (although it’s not always the page that…

An exceptionally visual business, the sewing pattern business is full of incredibly talented makers and designers, but most of them struggle with the business side, focusing instead on their love, on the creative side. So how to market your sewing pattern businesson video when you’re a behind-the-scenes designer? As with anything, it’s preparation, skill acquisition and practice. Let’s dive in on how to market your sewing pattern business on video. First, learn what your customers want. It may be tempting (or scary)…

It’s for going for a ‘simple more’ and working steadily toward your desired future goals You can’t help but trip over every post on social media that wants you to “crush your goals’, can you? I don’t have to tell you the dumpster fire that was 2020 for businesses. Even if your business was well positioned to thrive, it was a rough year emotionally and personally for most people. If you had all this going for you: You had an…

You’ve successfully set up and launched your sewing business, now you need to figure out how to promote your sewing business (with the help of some prior planning as outlined in this blog post.) For many designers and creators, this is either the easiest or the hardest task – and it can flip flop between them over time! In our experience, many designers either freeze at the amount of work that needs to do, or get started, then rapidly trail…

Marathon, Florida vacation rentals website for the independent property owner Build a second stream of revenue along with your listings on VRBO, Florida Vacation Rentals, AirBnB and other vacation rental websites I’ve been saving this client spotlight for the winter, because, Florida Keys! Entrepreneur Joe Curley, whom I’ve known for more than twenty five years, owns rentals in the Florida Keys. This client spotlight is about the importance of owning your own marketing and not relying solely on the platforms…

If you’re looking to make an e-commerce website in WordPress, there are some industry standard options to get started. First off, WooCommerce is one of the leading plugins for WordPress and it’s for good reason. There are a ton of plugins available to extend Woo Commerce to enable online bookings, digital and physical products, upsell, use marketing funnels and more. It’s not the ONLY way to make an e-commerce site in WordPress but it’s good for growing stores. If you…

Whether you design your own sewing patterns, sew your own gifts for sale, or sell fabric and notions online or in a brick-mortar store, it is a great way to share your creative talents with the world, and bring joy to sewists worldwide while bringing in income.  The basics of starting any business are grounded in solid marketing and customer fundamentals. Ask yourself: Does the world need what I’m offering? If you’re starting a business sewing patterns, or fabric, you…