Building an email list is one of the most important (and valuable!) things a store owner can do to drive online sales. Denielle Lue has created profitable email lists not just once—she’s done it twice! And in her second business, she went from zero to selling 6 figures online! Read on to find out how she’s done it and why.
Denielle Lue has wanted to be an entrepreneur since she was just a child. She’s tried a lot of different ideas, including multi-level marketing companies—and she’s seen some success. But she really wanted to find something that would be truly hers.
A quilting class was the beginning of Denielle’s discovering exactly what her business could be. The timing wasn’t right on the face of it; she had a crazy busy and stressful corporate job at the time. But she gave it a go and found that cutting strips and making quilts was actually soothing to her. It was also fun for her to create pieces for her son and daughter.
Denielle went on to purchase her first embroidery machine to expand what she could do. And as requests from friends came in for all sorts of embroidered items and promotional products, she chose a name for her company: Stitch to My Lue.
Going the Business-to-Business (B2B) Route
Denielle says that she wishes she’d have taken the leap into the world of entrepreneurship much earlier in life. But she also realizes that working in corporate environments has given her many advantages—one of which was the decision she made early on to focus her online store on providing promotional items for businesses.
Why? Well, the biggest one is that they have far more events in a year than consumers do. And companies love to pass out swag at those events, whether it’s business apparel for employees to swag bags to customers and other event attendees.
Denielle also learned to say “yes” a lot in the first years she was in business. A customer might say they didn’t need the specific thing she’d pitched them, but did need something else. They’d ask her if she provided those items, and she said she did without hesitating. Then she’d go online and learn how to do it.
Scaling Stitch to My Lue
How long would it take you to embroider a logo onto a polo shirt? Well, Denielle found out that she could do 100 shirts in 40 hours. In other words, an entire week to produce a single order. She knew that wouldn’t work.
Denielle found a company that would take on the embroidery work for her—one that could embroider thirty shirts at a time. She made sure that the quality of their works was what her customers had come to expect from her and turned the work over to them. That decision allowed her to do more of what she enjoyed: customer interaction and scale the business even faster.
Introducing We Print U Press
Spoiler alert: entrepreneurs have a hard time doing just one thing. Denielle is no different. When COVID-19 hit, it took Stitch to My Lue to long to get the shirts and other items they needed to meet their customers’ needs. She started researching how they could produce and deliver their products faster.
That led her to launch her second online company, We Print U Press. The company creates and produces direct-to-film transfers which work on any type or color of fabric, unlike sublimation or screen printing. We Print U Press sells their transfers to shirt makers—all they need is a nice quality heat press to apply the transfer. If you’re selling tees or sweatshirts for example, you can submit your own design to the company. They create it and send you either individual transfers or what’s called a “gang sheet”—which is a big sheet of film that has multiple images.
She and her husband chose to purchase their own printers and bring things in-house. It gave them greater control over the production of transfers to sell to shirt makers as well as delivery timelines. The company also has a great team of folks which allowed her to pivot as needed.
Building an Email List
Denielle’s business experience had taught her that building an email list was an important step in strengthening your company. Having a great email list allows you keep on selling even if an advertising platform like Facebook, Instagram, or Jane were to have any issues.
When she started her new business, Denielle recognized that her audience for We Print U Press was different than her first company, Stitch to My Lue. That meant she would be building an email list from scratch.
Denielle found a plugin called Privy, which she says reduces the time it takes to create emails while also generating website popups. She put it to work in both businesses.
Within about 6 months she’d built the We Print U Press email list to 10,000 to 12,000 addresses. And from those followers, the company generated over 6 figures in sales.
Denielle advises anyone who is using tools like Facebook ads to have the ability to capture buyer information in some way—preferably building an email list with it. She says a good email list allows you to stay in front of customers, bring them back to your website, and showcase what you can do to make your life easier. Denielle also reminds online business owners to make sure their emails aren’t spammy—they should have good offers, information people want, and deliver good value.
She also says that if you are going to use Facebook to help market your business, build lookalike audiences in Facebook. She’s found it to be an invaluable way to find new customers, and she refreshes her lookalike audience every few months to keep it fresh.
Top 10 Takeaways
My friend, this episode of the How to Sell Online podcast includes a LOT of good information. I strongly encourage you to listen to it by clicking on the player above, and make sure to take notes covering the information Denielle shares. Here are some of my takeaways:
- Recognize the FEELINGS.
- Be a walking billboard.
- Lean into past experiences.
- Listen to your customers.
- Figure it out if you don’t know how to do it yet.
- Build an email list.
- Do simple tests to see what works.
- Run ads (after testing to see what works).
- Don’t overthink.
- Be a part of groups.
Additional Resources
About Denielle:
Denielle Lue dreamed of owning her own business even as a child. That dream came to fruition when she launched Stitch to My Lue Promotions in 2011. Stitch to My Lue initially offered embroidered business apparel and eventually expanded to a variety of business marketing products.
In 2022, Denielle and her husband invested in direct-to-film printers for their own business. Denielle saw the benefit she could provide to other business owners who wanted to sell printed shirts. That company, We Print U Press, reached over $100,000 in sales in approximately 6 months and continues to grow. She hopes to someday teach other entrepreneurs how to help others grow their own custom apparel business.
Denielle and her husband have been married for 25 years, and the couple has three children, currently aged 23, 20, and 6. When not working, she enjoys spending time with family or watching Netflix; however, she’s most likely to be found coming up new marketing methods.
Shop with Denielle:
- On her website: weprintupress.com (for a 20% discount, use code alison20)
- On Facebook: @weprintupressransfers
- Through email: hello@weprintupress.com
Connect with Alison:
- On Facebook: @alisonjprince
- On Instagram: @alisonjprince
- Learn about the 0-$100K System and how you can launch and grow your own online business here.
