How Violent Cat Lady Used "KnitTok" to Build her Own Business

Before she became Violent Cat Lady, one of KnitTok's top designers, she was Jade Berghoff, a finger-knitting enthusiast on the school bus and a bow seller in high school. Now, with over 2,000,000 likes and 100,000 followers on TikTok, plus another 66,000 on Instagram, Jade has turned her craft business into her full-time job. She not only designs patterns and knit kits but is also releasing a new yarn line, Bloom, inspired by the Montana wilderness surrounding her backyard.  Welcome to the Business of Craft podcast, where we'll talk about business models, marketing strategies, and crafting tactics so you can grow your business and your passion for your craft.  One viral TikTok video helped Jade go from a full-time marketing job to a yarn-sourcing, pattern-designing, knit-kit-bundling career. Jade grew her business organically, through social views, a (surprisingly powerful) email list, and a focus on her audience, not the view count. If you want to get into the monetization of your following, Jade offers some crucial considerations: Will you be an influencer with brand deals, or will you use the following to monetize your own business? And: why views aren't the point; why Instagram Stories are much more effective than you think, and why being the brand is a double-edged sword (that's worth the balancing act!).  Stitch Markers from Jade: Why selling patterns, not production crafts, may be what your audience really wants You don't need to go viral to build a following (and a brand), but you do need to do this Email is far from dead: how Jade uses it to reach a more dedicated audience than she imagined  What you should (and shouldn't) be selling on TikTok Shop  Being the brand: how to grow a business when it relies on your time, energy, and face Turning your small craft community into advocates for your products  ____ Schedule Your Free, 30-Minute Consultation with Lisa   Check Out "Bloom," Jade's New Yarn Line! Follow Jade on TikTok Follow Jade on Instagram Get the Pattern Jade Wore on Today's Show!  

Let's jump into today's topic: using your analytics to set your future SMART goals. In 2023, we surveyed over 900 retail business owners in the craft space. One of the most shocking data points was that only 14% were collecting marketing data — and even more shocking, only 4% were using that data to inform strategy.

Whether your shop is physical, virtual, or a blend of both, this episode is your blueprint to transforming that space into a community-building, customer-magnetizing powerhouse. 

Today we're diving into a topic that has completely reshaped modern marketing—influencer and content creator partnerships. For this season, we're excerpting chapters from our book Marketing Magic for Savvy Craft Businesses that you can purchase on our website stitchcraftmarketing.com. This is chapter 14 We call this chapter "Alchemical Alliances," because when you find the right content creator or influencer, it truly feels like magic. Let's break down what you need to know to create those powerful partnerships that can elevate your brand.

Today we're exploring how to scale your brand using digital advertising—yes, the kind that doesn't have to feel like throwing spaghetti at the wall. So whether you're boosting posts or venturing into more advanced ad strategies like programmatic or geofencing, this episode is your incantation for attracting, converting, and scaling. This season we're pulling from our book, Marketing Magic for Savvy Craft Businesses, that we released in May of 2025. You can buy a copy from us directly by going to our website stitchcraftmarketing.com/magic where you can get it as hardcopy or on kindle edition.

Today we're jumping into the topic of utilizing social media to build your community. Today's content is a snippet from our book Marketing magic for savvy craft businesses that we released in May of 2025. You can buy a copy from us directly by going to our website stitchcraftmarketing.com/magic where you can get it as hardcopy or on kindle edition.

Welcome to Business of Craft, a show designed to help entrepreneurs with fabric or fiber businesses become more successful.  This is our 8th season of BOC and today we have another solocast to cover one of the topics in our new book, Marketing Magic for Savvy Craft Businesses. I'm super proud of this book which my whole team wrote in 2025. The book is available for sale in Kindle and print version (and soon to be audio) on our website or Amazon. Today we're talking about the topic in chapter 11 of our book, Marketing Magic for Savvy Craft Businesses: Mastering Email Newsletters for Deeper Engagement.

Welcome to Season 8, Episode 9 of Business of Craft. Today we have another solocast to cover one of the topics in our new book, Marketing Magic for Savvy Craft Businesses, that my whole team wrote in 2025. The book is available for sale in Kindle and print version (and soon to be audio) on our website, http://StitchcraftMarketing.com or http://Amazon.com. Today we're talking about a tool that's been around since the '90s but still packs a major punch when it comes to marketing your brand: blogging.

Welcome to Season 8, Episode 7 of Business of Craft. Today we have another solocast to cover one of the topics in our new book, Marketing Magic for Savvy Craft Businesses, that my whole team wrote in 2025. The book is available for sale in Kindle and print version (and soon to be audio) on our website, http://StitchcraftMarketing.com or http://Amazon.com . Hey there, crafty entrepreneurs — it's Leanne Pressly with Stitchcraft Marketing again. If you've ever caught yourself saying, "SEO? I think I set that up years ago," or "I'm not even sure what an algorithm is," then this episode is your cue to step up your digital game. Because today, we're discussing both topics. Now, don't worry — you don't need to be a wizard of code. But you do need to understand how search engines and algorithms work for your business — or else they might be working against it.

Welcome to another episode of Business of Craft. Today we have another solocast to cover one of the topics in our new book, Marketing Magic for Savvy Craft Businesses, that my whole team wrote in 2025. The book is available for sale in Kindle and print version on our website, Stitchcraft Marketing - Specialists in social media help for craft businesses - Home or Amazon.com. Today I'm diving into one of my favorite topics from the book: Generosity Marketing. We call this chapter "The Generosity Charm" because, truly, this is where the magic starts