We were lucky enough to catch busy blogger, freelance writer and e-commerce seller Melissa Joulwan of The Clothes Make the Girl, who has found success launching two cookbooks with her husband David. She had lots of meaty insight and advice about promoting your brand with blog content, social media and more.
First off, can you tell me about your business and what you offer?
I'm primarily a cookbook author, and I also have a blog where I share recipes, information about the paleo diet, and inspiration for healthy living like workout stuff, mediation, yoga, and self care. But it's mostly about really good food! In addition, I'm the Paleo Expert for About.com, and I do freelance writing for magazines and other blogs.
Our online stores sells our two cookbooks --
To Eat and Well Fed 2: More Paleo Recipes For People Who Love To Eat. We also sell a few promotional products and from time to time, we have exclusive items. For example, we have knee socks with our Well Fed logo on them, and a few years ago for the holidays, we offered custom-made bracelets with our logo.
How long has your business existed? What is the origin story?
We started our publishing company in 2011 when we self-published our first cookbook Well Fed. I was working a full-time corporate job -- while writing my paleo blog in my free time -- and my husband was a freelance computer programmer. We're both pretty creative and entrepreneurial, and we really wanted to have work that made us excited to tackle it every day. We also wanted to be geographically independent so we could travel more. We decided to write a cookbook together -- I'd do the recipes and writing, he'd do the photography and illustrations. At first, we thought, best case, we might make a little vacation money from the sales of the cookbook. My husband joked that he'd be happy if we sold eight copies.
When Well Fed was released, it sold like paleo hotcakes. We were thrilled and about two months later, I quit my full-time job to focus on building our business around the cookbooks. Since then, we've released Well Fed 2 and a Well Fed magazine, and we're currently working on our next two book projects.
What makes what you deliver unique?
There are two things that I offer to my readers. I'm super organized, and I grew up in my dad's restaurant kitchen, so I have lots of advice to share on how to get cooking done. If you're not used to making your own food every day, adapting a healthier, paleo diet can be really intimidating. I show people how to make cooking manageable by doing a Weekly Cookup and by learning how to put flavors together in ways that taste really good. The second thing that sets me apart is that I really love to play with spices, so I create a lot of internationally inspired recipes that are like a little meal-time vacation. I think cooking can be really fun, and I try to take the drudgery out of it by focusing on bold flavors, kitchen shortcuts, and singing in the kitchen.
How do you market yourself and your business?
We have a lot of little marketing and revenue streams that add up to a big picture. In the social media realm, I have my blog, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. I try to talk to my community on Twitter and Facebook every day, and I update my blog at least once a week.
I usually post photos to Instagram a few times a week, and I have to admit: I'm pretty bad at Pinterest, but I'm trying to get better. A lot of my site traffic comes from Pinterest so I'm trying to find a way to work it into my overall schedule.
In addition to that stuff, I'm very active in the paleo community. I speak every year at the PaleoFX conference, and I write a recipe column for every issue of Paleo Magazine. I'm also a curator for Quarterly, a subscription service that delivers packages of goodies from me to my Quarterly subscribers. That's both a marketing tool and a little revenue generator.
How has your sales/marketing strategy changed over time?
I've always used my blog as the hub of my communication, but I've slowly been relying on social media to help with that, too. The blog will always be the central place that I share recipes and my writing, but Twitter is a really fun way for me to interact with people quickly. I don't enjoy Facebook that much, but I can't deny that other people like it, so it's become a good place for me to promote what I'm doing, invite people to the blog for new recipes, and just be visible to my audience.
How did you go about designing and creating your site?
We're currently in the middle of a site re-design. My husband and I did the current site ourselves with Wordpress and an off-the-shelf design template. We spent a long weekend in 2011 launching it. Now we've hired a web services agency to give us a custom site that better suits our needs and represents our brand. I like the way everything we do starts our home-grown, but as the paleo world is expanding, it's been really important to keep the authenticity while stepping up our professionalism.
What do you think an online business has to do to stand out and be competitive?
Especially for a small business, find your niche. I'm in the paleo community, but I'm also known for having very "clean" paleo recipes, I focus on everyday food that's nourishing and delicious, rather than paleo desserts and treats. I talk about meditation as well as new wave music. These idiosyncrasies are what help differentiate me form the other -- admittedly good and talented -- paleo cookbook authors. If you can define what makes you different and what you have to offer that others don't, you can run with that idea and find the people who are like you. Then you have your tribe, and your tribe helps build your business.
What has made you successful?
I think the things that's made us successful is being available to our audience. I interact with them a lot, and forming that personal connection is beneficial to me as a human and to our business. Because paleo is still a bit new, there's a "we're all in this together" vibe; that makes it rewarding to build a business that helps people and connects us together. That all sounds very groovy, but I think online businesses, especially smaller ones with real people behind them, have an opportunity to not do things the way big corporations do. We can make up our own policies as we go along and act like people while we're also being a business.
What is the best advice you’ve received about selling online?
Don't be afraid to say "no." I get dozens of offers every day to try products, join affiliate programs, participate in contests... that kind of thing. The right opportunities can be very beneficial, but a lot of them are just distractions. I've learned (the hard way) that's important to weigh decisions carefully and to say no to most of them. The things that get a "yes" are the ones that offer some kind of reward: I'm excited to do them or there's a big financial opportunity or I'll get to try something new or work with new people. It's essential to define your framework for making decisions, and then stick to it and be brave enough to say no more often than you say yes.
If I were planning to start an online business from scratch, what would you tell me to do to prepare?
Define your brand. What do you stand for? What's the primary thing you have to offer? How do you want people to feel about you and your company? What problem are you solving? Once you've answered those questions, you need to figure out how you're going to reach people. How will you really communicate with them?
I think most people want to start with the pragmatic stuff: make a web site, set up a Facebook. Those are known quantities and that makes them easier and more comfortable to do. But the really important stuff is the thinking and planning that happens first.
Great tips and advice. I think it is really important to know when to say "no" and "yes" for brands.