Stories and messages that bring community and business growth
Based at The North Chapel just off Ashlands Road in Ilkley in a bespoke, light and airy studio with large cutting tables and an overflowing embroidery chest filled with fabric and all the kit a sewer might need, The Sewing Shed is the place to go if you want to learn to sew in a nurturing community in Ilkley.
With daytime and evening sewing classes for adult beginner and mixed ability sewers as well as Young Designers classes for Year 6 and secondary school sewers after school, that adds up to more than 100 sewers walking through the doors every week!
Back in 2021 Leonie asked if I could help her to find a way to keep in touch with her sewers and bring The Sewing Shed’s warmth and camaraderie into her sewers homes while the studio remained closed and sewers shielding during Covid.
Connecting The Sewing Shed community one email newsletter at a time
Leonie initially wanted to explore how she could use social media to engage with her sewing students and community during lockdown. As we talked about The Sewing Shed and its students it became clear that social media wasn’t necessarily the best way to nurture the supportive community spirit The Sewing Shed is known for while sharing sewing tips and ideas but that an email newsletter would be, especially as Léonie already had a healthy subscriber list on Mailchimp to work with.
It meant that Léonie didn’t have to worry about battling algorithms and could lean into the personal nature that comes with writing (email news) letters, reflecting the friendly, nurturing nature of the classes.
We started by getting clear on Léonie’s key messages, taking time to understand her students, what they enjoy about learning to sew at The Sewing Shed and why they keep coming back. From that, we put together a strategy and plan for a regular email newsletter that put Léonie’s sewers at its heart.
That was six years ago and the monthly newsletter is still going strong and the ethos unchanged. Email open and click rates are consistently high with each newsletter leading to bookings and enquiries from returning and new sewers.
Subscribers tell Leonie the newsletter helps them to feel part of a supportive creative community, inspires them when they see what others are making and makes it easy to keep up to date with the latest sewing class and timetable news.
These simple but clear key messages and the warm and chatty tone of voice has also formed the basis for ad hoc Ilkley Chat ads to launch and promote classes, a press release for the Ilkley Gazette celebrating The Sewing Shed’s 15th Anniversary and website updates over the years.
‘I’ve been working with Harriet for six years now and her gift with words, sense of humour and ability to communicate effectively with the written word have played a fundamental part of my businesses success. I’d thoroughly recommend Moor Communication to sprinkle magic into your comms from social media, customer mailers or marketing strategies
Leonie Pratt, The Sewing Shed