Spoonflower offers a convenient, internal messaging system within Spoonflower.com to help manage for communication between customers and artists.
As an artist, understanding the message center, how to send and reply to messages, and how to automate messaging features will help establish deeper connections within the Marketplace and the Spoonflower community.
As a customer or community member, setting mail preference and knowing how to send and receive messages will make it easier when you need to contact artists.
Receiving and Replying to Messages
Personalize Your Saved Message Settings
Automation of your Personal Message
'My Email Settings'
The internal messaging system at Spoonflower will be linked to the verified email address you have on file. It is important to understand how this email address and internal messaging work together, and to save your personal preferences in a way that makes sense for you. Access Email Settings through the Account Settings tab linked to the person icon in the upper right corner of the site. From the 'My Account' page, click the 'Settings' tab and scroll down to the section 'My Email Settings'. These settings are more useful for Artists, but all members of the community can update them.
First, decide if you want to receive communication from Spoonflower to your personal email inbox by selecting 'Yes' or 'No'. From there, determine what sort of communications you want emails about - messages, comments, sales, favorites, followers - and the frequency of those communication alerts - never, immediately or once daily. Once you've set your preferences click 'Save notification settings'.
Note for all Spoonflower community: Any internal messages received in your personal email cannot be replied to directly from your personal email. You must sign into your Spoonflower account and reply directly from your 'My Messages' center. We discuss all 'My Messages' features below.
Finding 'My Messages'
Once you are signed into your Spoonflower account, you can navigate to your 'My Messages' in one of the three following ways.
- Go directly to the URL https://www.spoonflower.com/messages.
- Hover over the (1.) person icon in the upper right hand corner of the site. Follow the drop down menu and click (2.) "Messages". (see left image - 2 - below)
- Link through your Dashboard Home Page - along the left side - by clicking "New Messages". (see right image - 3 - below)
Features of 'My Messages'
Once you have navigated to 'My Messages', you will notice five tabs. From left to right, the first three are standard mailbox features - inbox, sent mail and archive - but the fourth and the fifth offer two settings that can be personalized to help build your brand without much additional effort. We define each feature below the photo.
Inbox - where new messages arrive, to be viewed, replied to, archived, or deleted
Sent Mail- record of replies you have sent
Archive - move messages from your Inbox to the archive for later reference. You can view or delete these messages
Saved Message Settings - the "Saved Message" is a pre-written thank you that can be sent to customers. The default message is "Thank you for your order." The initial subject heading will always be "Thank you!" We discuss personalization below
Automated Message Settings - choose whether or not to automatically send your "Saved Message" to every Spoonflower customer who purchases your designs
Sending Messages
As an artist you are able to initiate contact with customers in a couple of ways:
- You can generate a new message to a customer if they happen to be a follower. You can find your followers by clicking the "Followers" link along the left side of your "Dashboard Home" page.
- If a customer with an account has placed an order, you can send your pre-written "Thank you!" note in one of two ways. You can do this selectively, from one order to the next, or set it up to happen automatically. We discuss how these work in the two following sections.
As a customer you are able to initiate contact with an artist through their public profile.
- Navigate to the artist's profile by clicking their name underneath any of their design titles.
- Once in their profile, click the "Contact" button underneath their thumbnail photo to open up blank fields in which to compose and send an email.
More detailed instructions can be found in the article Customizing Marketplace Designs.
Receiving and Replying to Messages
Receiving: Community members signed into their Spoonflower account can message you by clicking the "Contact" button within your Shop. They may reach out for a range of reasons, about color questions and customizing marketplace designs, to design & commission inquires, or for sharing their excitement about a finished project. This email will arrive in your "Inbox" where you can read, reply, archive or delete it.
Note: Customers cannot send images or attachments, so if you ever want see your designs in action consider including an email address or social media handle in your Shop or email signature.
Replying: Once you have messages in your inbox, replies work as expected. From within the message, underneath the text, you will find a link that says "Reply to [sender_name]." Simply click on that link and an empty message field will open up for drafting your reply. See the image below for hints on where to look.
Personalize Your Saved Message Settings
It should be no surprise that showing appreciation to the customers who buy your designs will lead to a more devoted following and increased sales! To help make communication easier you can personalize and save a unique "thank you" message in the "Saved Message Settings" tab.
The default message - "Thank you for your order" - works fine, but crafting a slightly more personal message will reinforce you and your style. What you communicate is up to you, as this is an opportunity to bolster your brand and goals as a Seller in our Marketplace. Things to consider:
- Are you willing to open up a conversation with your customers?
- Do you want to exchange ways to see designs of their finished projects, by social media or other options?
- Do you want them as followers in the Marketplace, or beyond?
Once you know the intention of your message, you can draft your words in the expanding text box. In the signature you can customize and add URLs and links to social media if you want to connect with your customers beyond the Spoonflower site. Make sure to click "Update" when you are done, as shown in the image below.
Once this message is saved, you can use this message in a couple of ways.
- You can be selective of when to send this message to customers, or
- You can automatically send it to every Spoonflower customer who purchase your designs
If you choose the former option, the opportunity to manually send the message is found within the "News Feed" on your Dashboard Home page. Under each order, you will see a button that says "Send your saved 'thank you!'" as shown below. Once you click your saved message is instantly sent to the customer and a copy will show up in your "Sent Mail."
However, if you prefer the latter option, check out the next section.
Note: You will only be able to send messages to Spoonflower customers who are signed into their accounts when ordering. Guest orders will also be announced in your News Feed, but there will be no option to contact these people directly, or any personal information included.
Automation of your Personal Message
By enabling automated messaging, a copy of your saved "Thank you!" will automatically be sent whenever a customer with a Spoonflower account purchases one of your designs. You can turn this function ON and OFF by toggling the switch between the two settings. It will clearly say "Your automated thank you message is ON" when it is activated. A copy of your messages will show up in "Sent Mail".
See also: Customizing "My Dashboard"
See also: How to Adjust Account Settings
See also: Selling FAQs
