Should you write a crochet business plan?

Yarnandy crochet business plan

Business opportunity

A lot of people have taken up handicrafts during the past decade as a way to relax and relieve stress after work. Crochet is not for grannies any more, it is for everyone who needs to do something creative in their free time.

Shopping and watching movies are too passive and not fulfilling, so a lot of people have started learning to crochet, knit, draw, sew, work with wood.

Some people need to make things to feel fulfilled, some people need something relaxing to do after work.

A lot of independent crochet-related websites have appeared during the last 10 years, catering to this group of people who are not used to buying magazines or who want more complex, more interesting designs than the ones they could find in magazines.

Crochet magazines have been around for at least a century, but their designs are difficult to read, as they need to be printed on as small a surface as possible, most are outdated or not suitable for the needs of contemporary crocheters.

There are several websites that provide independent designers the possibility to list their own digital products (Etsy, Ravelry, LoveCrafts, CrazyPatterns, Ribblr, several others) and sell patterns to their audience.

An independent designer with a website or accounts on these websites can reach the potential audience that is not served by magazines, but that prefers to choose their own designs based on photos and reviews, as opposed to the reputation of a magazine.

Positives

Independent crochet designers who publish online have the freedom of unlimited space for publishing, as they control the text, photos and other details that are included in the pattern, offering much more value to the customer than a magazine could.

The revenue stream feeds the designer directly, by direct sales on the owned website or on the various platforms.

Having patterns and other articles available on a personal/business website is an opportunity for advertisements and affiliate marketing, by matching what people search for with genuine content that helps visitors.

The production process is controlled by the designer, who can decide how often to publish, how the testing and review process happens, what yarn is used for samples.

There is great potential for marketing through social media channels, since crochet is an essentially social activity.

Negatives

Being an independent designer means that all content creation, all the design decisions, the actual sample making, all marketing, all financial aspects are the responsibility of a single person, the designer.

This might be overwhelming in the beginning, but very manageable with a content strategy in place. The content strategy is developed in time, and is based on experience, which means a lot of experiments need to happen before the strategy can be put into words and into action.

The potential reach is also much less than in the case of designers working for magazine publishers. The audience needs to be built slowly and through intentional marketing (not fad marketing, as it doesn’t create long-term customers).

Reaching a large enough loyal customer base takes a long time. It also takes commitment to quality and consistency in publishing.

It also requires confidence and the strategy mentioned above.

Market and competition

There are many independent designers that offer their patterns either on their own website, or on the various other platforms. They have successful businesses, some based on pattern sales, some based on ad revenue from their blog or YouTube channel.

They each have their own marketing strategies based on their individual strengths and past experience. Some employ their family members for sample making or for taking photos. Some hire outside help.

I am part of several online communities or groups with designers and have conversations with them regarding our common struggles with pattern writing or with customer service.

This is a great way to get to know the competition in this niche and to create the potential for future collaboration.

There is a known strategy in the crochet community, where collaboration helps multiple designers to grow their potential audiences, by making each individual audience of each individual designer aware of the work of other designers.

Learning from our common struggles and creating content relating to solutions to these problems is another avenue for passive revenue generation once I can add relevant ads to the particular articles relating to the design process.

Yarnandy – business description

The main idea behind Yarnandy is to provide patterns that are easy to make, but give beautiful results.

Patterns that provide the meditative rhythm that many people look for when making something, but without being boring.

Patterns that are simple enough to be made even by beginners, but that look stunning when finished. Original designs that bring joy to the people making them, as well as the people using them.

Patterns that make use of beautiful and precious yarn that are not often used by crochet designers.

This is a difficult balance to achieve, as there are many patterns out there already, but not many that meet all of these criteria.

The name is targeted, personal, short, easy to remember, and it is a play on words. In English, it can be interpreted as “Yarn Andy” (yarn and my nickname) or as “Yarn and Y”, where Y can be either a shortening of “why” or another spelling for “I” (first person singular personal pronoun).

https://yarnandy.com is the website that includes a blog with articles related to crochet, free patterns or shortened versions of patterns that are also available as PDF files in the shop, which is also on the website.

The website is optimized and growing with new articles every week. Currently, it has about 80-100 visitors per day from various sources when I don’t participate in marketing events.

Other platforms where I publish the PDF files are:

Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/YarnAndy

Ravelry: https://www.ravelry.com/designers/andrea-cretu – currently the source of the highest revenue

Lovecrafts: https://www.lovecrafts.com/en-gb/user/maker/e2af429d-fc62-410c-81fb-c9774c0f83d7

Main marketing channel

Email list – the email list is still small, at 360, but slowly growing. It is a double opt-in list, where people sign up to receive updates.

The updates include everything relating to YarnAndy: new articles, new patterns, testing opportunities. The emails are personalized for each recipient and they can be forwarded.

The email list is the main marketing channel because it is certain that the people receiving the emails are interested in the current offers.

My current open rate for emails is between 30-40% per email campaign, but this might be affected by different email providers, that hide emails that they deem “promotional”.

Social media platforms for marketing

The social media platforms bring some revenue, some more passively than others.

YouTube is the main channel that I concentrate on, as it also functions as a search engine and can direct interested people to my website to buy the patterns that they are interested in.

YouTube videos also have a long life, when compared to other social media posts, which are phased out after only a few hours unless they become viral through no active effort on my part beyond creating the content itself.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/yarnandy

Instagram: https://instagram.com/yarnandy

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yarnandy

Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/yarnandy/

These marketing channels have made possible the following revenue since official business activity started in July 2020.

Some of them were set up in advance, to start reaching an audience, even before selling started.

So far, since July 2020, I’ve published 15 patterns and created 30 blog articles.

Activity and strategy

This strategy was developed during the past 8 months of trial and error with trying various other strategies.

The current strategy might change in the future. Included are activities that I currently perform and activities that I am planning towards.

Design & pattern writing

There are several designs in production at any given time. I own a good amount of yarn from past yarn shopping, enough for at least 10 new designs.

I experiment with various ideas when they arise. I write some down, I sketch some, I make swatches for some using different yarns.

I have a list of requirements for each pattern, which help with the writing of the pattern itself.

The sample making process can take from a few days to a few weeks.

I write down in shorthand everything I do for each design while working on it, or afterwards, when I’m ready to work on that specific pattern.

All patterns follow the same structure, for clarity and ease of understanding.

This creates trust and makes customers return to buy the new patterns because they know what to expect.

All patterns that I can draw a chart for will include a chart. The drawing of the chart takes several hours to days.

I take photos and edit them for both the pattern and the marketing phase.

For some patterns, I record videos of the most important steps. The editing of each video takes me about a day or two.

After the writing is finished, most patterns go through a testing phase, where volunteers make one sample of the pattern and provide feedback.

Publishing

When the pattern is ready, after testing, I write the descriptive text that will accompany the pattern on each platform that it will be published on.

For most patterns I prepare a blog article where I detail the design process and sometimes provide a part of the pattern for free (including the video, but excluding the full instructions and chart).

I prepare text and images for social media, especially for Pinterest, which is a good driver of visitors, as well as Facebook group posts, where self-promotion is allowed.

I publish the various PDF files on the different platforms and promote them on social media.

Sometimes testers also promote the patterns on their own accounts.

I prepare and send out an email update to my email subscribers.

Sometimes I also write other articles relating to crochet, which I also use to promote my patterns that relate to the topic of these articles.

Events

There are online and offline events one can participate in as a crochet designer. Given the current pandemic situation, offline events are not available, but they might be in the future.

Regarding online events, there are events called “Crochet-along” or CAL that many designers or crocheters organize for their audiences.

They involve prizes for participants who complete their chosen project during the even.

I am planning to organize such an event for a particular pattern, as well as a recurring event for all of my patterns.

I also participate in other people’s events as a guest designer, which helps increase my audience.

There are also blog hop events, where a group of designers feature each other on specific days during a set interval.

I have participated and will continue to participate in this kind of event.

Regarding offline events, there are yarn festivals, where crochet designers are under-represented, as well as workshops.

In the future, I hope to be able to host workshops in a peaceful outdoor setting or a cozy indoor setting.

Workshops bring together people of various abilities and either teach a specific skill, or allow for sharing of knowledge between participants.

I also hope to be able to participate in yarn festivals in Europe and potentially start collaborations with yarn and notion sellers.

Opportunities for growth

Some independent crochet designers collaborate with yarn sellers to offer their patterns as parts of kits, or to offer patterns for free, but they get paid by the yarn companies to promote the use of their yarns.

Some publish some of their patterns in magazines, which pay specific fees. They can later on self-publish their patterns independently, after a specific period of time.

These could be two possibilities to explore.

There is also the possibility of collaborating with other designers on creating joint patterns and publishing them together in books. Guest posting free patterns on other people’s websites is another possibility.

There is the possibility of hosting an event to showcase the work of other designers or to create a collection together.

There is the possibility of providing tech editing services to other designers.

There is also the possibility of providing chart design services to other designers.

There is also the possibility of creating courses for crochet designers regarding pattern design and writing, chart making, marketing and other activities related to crochet design.