The Woolly Hat Society - tips for new members

This month I’ve published a new free pattern, Tubed. As always it’s exclusive to Patreon supporters and members of The Woolly Hat Society for a month, before going on general release on my website.

Whenever I publish a new free pattern I get a flurry of new members - welcome! For a few signing up doesn’t always go smoothly, so here’s a few tips to make things easier.

• check that your email address is correct when signing up - if it is you’ll receive an email asking you to confirm membership. If your email address is correct and you don’t receive the Confirmation Email, see tip 3 below. You’re not signed up until you’ve confirmed, and once you’ve confirmed you’ll receive the Welcome Email - this is an automated service.

• ensure you grant GDPR permission - you can’t join if you don’t. I’m a European with a European business and I take GDPR seriously :)

• check your spam/bulk/promotions folder as several email clients redirect emails. Gmail are particularly bad for this and often folks aren’t aware that a folder has been created and their emails squirreled away. There are known issues with emails going missing with Hotmail; Yahoo can block emails without you knowing and AOL also have stringent filters that often remove emails or attachments that are genuine and intended. I’m sure they’re not the only ones with issues, all email clients have controls of sorts.

• if you’ve received the Confirmation Email but not the Welcome Emails, it’s highly likely that your email client has squirreled it away. One thing you can do is do a search of your emails - not just your inbox - for my email address (mail at domain name dot com). Once you find it then let your email client know that it’s important, move it from whichever folder it’s been put in to the inbox, then do the last tip below.

• if you’ve received the Welcome Email just fine, read through and scroll down just over halfway and it’s there in plain text. The whole email is plain text, there’s a lot to get through!

• only folks who subscribe and confirm get the Welcome Email - if you ask me to add you manually it won’t help, as it only goes out to folks who sign themselves up (that GDPR thing again ;)

• don’t forget to add my email address to your contacts - this is an important step that helps make sure your email client doesn’t redirect the emails or filter them, and in turn will make sure you receive all the benefits of membership going forward. It could be more effective to add my emails address before you sign up, which isn’t always possible, but I’d advise doing it if you’re trying a 2nd email address.

The thing is is that sometimes emails do just go missing. I check regularly my end to make sure things are running smoothly and they are. It’s frustrating to be one of the few for whom the email doesn’t arrive but there’s not a great deal I can do about it, I’m afraid.

I am looking at changing my newsletter service in the near future as I’m paying daft amounts each month with Mailchimp (fee structures are very different when subscriber numbers are above 10,000) and there are new services with better delivery success rates than Mailchimp.

Contrary to common belief, I don’t provide free patterns to encourage new members or supporters. I provide free patterns to my Patreon supporters and members of The Woolly Hat Society as a thank you for their support. It’s fantastic that lots of extra folks want to join whenever a new free pattern is published, and I hope it gives you a flavour of my work.

The free content is entirely supported by my Patreon supporters - I couldn’t afford to keep producing it if it wasn’t for them and it’s only right they get the perk of early access to free patterns! Club members, i.e. folks who sign up to The Woolly Hat Society get lots of perks too as a thank you for letting me dive into their inboxes every few weeks.

I know not everyone can afford premium patterns and maintaining membership really is the best way to get good deals. Not only do you get early access to the free patterns but you also get member exclusive discounts on new releases and more. If you only join to get the free stuff there’s honestly no judgement from me and you’re more than welcome! Unfortunately the folks who complain about needing to sign up to get free stuff or leave negative reviews because of it are only making free patterns less likely.

While I’m here, here’s some tips for unsubscribing - if you want to unsubscribe straight away it helps everyone to do it cleanly :)

• If you no longer wish to be a member, use the Unsubscribe option that’s at the bottom of every email.

• Hitting ‘report spam’ isn’t a good way to unsubscribe as it creates a negative report and penalises the sender. If you signed up, it’s not spam - reporting someone like this is pretty mean, especially if you’ve just received their work for free.

• Unsubscribing the dirty way also makes it harder for your fellow members to receive their emails or new members to get the perks, because their email client will have more reason to redirect the email(s) to spam.

I suspect folks aren’t really aware that hitting ‘spam’ to unsubscribe is a bad thing, and I hope this explanation helps. It really is one of the biggest reasons why my emails don’t get through and it causes me so much extra work, not to mention the time and costs associated with that.

If you’re only joining to get the free pattern then leaving, that’s no problem at all and I hope you enjoy the pattern. Not taking short cuts as you leave makes it easier for your fellow knitters and helps ensure the free patterns continue :)

I hope this helps and enjoy Tubed! It’s the perfect mindless knit with a clever bit of seaming and folding at the end.