Lessons

Lesson Info

How to Continually Sell

consider how you like to create content. Because if you're having fun creating at then people are gonna have fun consuming it. So don't force yourself to do something that doesn't feel good. If you hate making videos, don't make video, right. If you're really uncomfortable on camera, don't do it. There are so many other options short versus long. This is with the text. This is with blawg posed. This is with videos, anything. Do it, How you like to do it, Do it how it works for your audience. You want to enrich and add value to your followers and readers. Lives not clutter them up even more. This is something I think about before I send something out to my audience. Am I doing this? Is this gonna really help them? Or is this just gonna be another piece of clutter that gets lost? Not. Can I have taken so many things that I have put together content wise and scrapped them because I'm thinking this is just one of those things that's just gonna add clutter. It's not valuable, but it's not t...

hat great. Quality is way more important to me than getting stuff out more and more and more and more train your email subscribers to click on links always include a call to action. So if you're emailing your list every week, get them to click on links. That way, when you're sending them to your sales page, they're already used Teoh clicking on links inside your emails, and it just feels like another valuable piece of content as opposed to Oh, now they're selling to me because they're sending me somewhere else. I like to do this by sharing some of a block post and then click here for more, and the people who are really interested are gonna click. People who aren't interested aren't gonna click, and that works unless people see that content. But the right people are seeing the content, so it doesn't feel like all of a sudden now you're sending me somewhere else. I know that you're selling to me. It feels as if you provide value to me all the time. And here's another way that you're doing it. Let's talk a little bit about email marketing. So I've been talking about how this is a must, something to give you some tips. First of all, the reason why it's such a must is that you have control over the design, the content and how often you send and you get it in front of people. Everybody check their email, right there's. There are hardly any people out there that don't check their email as opposed Teoh remembering to go to your Blawg because I know that there are a lot of bloggers that I love. But I just forget to check in that often. Or I don't see their Facebook pills or I'm not on Twitter when they post on Twitter. Social media is erratic. You can't count on it to stay the same. So if we remember MySpace and then Facebook and people are getting kind of frustrated with Facebook right now, who knows what's gonna happen? So you don't wanna have all your people following you on social media? You want to have them following you on email so that you have control over it, and it's just the best option for keeping in touch with their prospects. So just start getting opt in up on your site and start collecting email addresses, even if it's not the prettiest thing, even if you're not the best of designing something. Get something up now, even if you don't know what your product is or you haven't got a product yet, start collecting email addresses now. Sooner you do it, the better, and then you can pretty it up you can like I like, I said earlier, I hired a designer to create my opt in for $75 it made a huge difference to my business. It paid for itself over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. So it's worth that you wanted to be visually appealing. And what's the incentive to hand over your email address? So, do your customers love you enough where they're just going to sign up to get updates? Because sometimes that's the way it works. Right now, my opt in is for weekly updates, not thing that everybody loves me, but people sign up because they want to get those updates every week, or you have a product space business. A discount code on the first time that they buy is a really good one, 10% off, 15% off, 20% off, because if I come to your site and I love your products and I want to buy something. I'm definitely going to sign up for your email newsletter and the content. It doesn't have to be all new content. I send out my blawg post because people aren't hanging on my every word. They're not remembering to check my blawg all the time. If I send them my block post, they're much more likely to read it. So it doesn't have to be all new content and then also send business updates and never, ever, ever add people who haven't given you permission. Never, ever, ever do it. It's against the law. Also, when you get emails from people and you know you haven't signed up for their MLS to automatically get this icky feeling. And I've had people where they've signed me up to the rim a list and I am all them and I say, Hey, I never signed up for this and they say back, Well, I thought you would really like it. I'm thinking how I really don't and don't make it hard for people to unsubscribe. Make it easy because you really don't want the wrong people on your list. There's no reason, especially for if you're on, I think pretty much every email newsletters software. Once you get to a certain number, you start paying or you start paying from the beginning. And as you add subscribers, you pay for that subscriber each time. So get those people off your list and blogging. Make time. It gives your target market a way to get to know like and trust you. It's one of the easiest ways to market your business. Over the long term, you control everything. It can be very branded, and it sets you apart. People get to know your personality to get to know your brand, and then they're more likely to buy from you. It's a very inexpensive marketing. Even if you're on a self hosted WordPress site, it's not that expensive, whereas if you're paying for being rides that don't actually work, and it's a great long term marketing plan, if you want to know how to get your products in front of the right people and connect with them, logging is your answer. I know so many people saying me, but we don't have time or do I have to really do it. Yes, If you are serious about your business and you really want to make this work, then yeah. Yes, You like I know the answer to this, but I think sometimes it's so hard when you, um, are letting yourself be a little bit vulnerable about it. And so it's kind of like I imagine blogging about starting this whole printable shop and sort of I'm pretty open. So I feel like I would be telling people about sort of the struggle of it all and the excitement of it all. But do you have a sense of there's always that fear that then you're not an expert or you're not professional? And what do you think about that? I think people want the edited version of the truth. Okay, right. So you're gonna share the best parts of yourself. You're also going to share struggles because they happen there. Really? People feel more connected to you. When I told you guys that I have had a failed launch before, I'm assuming that you probably thought like, oh, that's happened to her to Okay, she gets it. She really does understand what it would be like for me. right. So an edited version of the truth, I wouldn't I wouldn't let it all hang out. But I do share when their struggles. I've done that multiple times on my block. Usually I do it after the fact. So it's kind of like a lesson learned like, this is what happened incurable here. The things that you can take away from it is usually how I do it. This is how so many successful entrepreneurs build their audiences and develop trust, because when you're blogging regularly, they start to really trust you. They see that whatever you're putting out, it's consistent, high quality. They start to trust you. And if you don't have time for these kinds of things, you don't want this to work bad enough is often when I tell people who are like Well, I'm just I don't have time for this. I say, Well, maybe you don't want it bad enough. You've got to do the work. He really dio and yeah, you one block a day for a year. Yes. Yeah, yeah. I don't That cash Was it only last year? It was only last year. Yes, I did. And the reason why is because I wanted Teoh share a lot more content in just business content and I wanted to do a lot more creative work, and I still wanted to have the business content there. But I have a really creative audience, so I thought that they would be interested in other step like D I lies and recipes and that kind of stuff. And I really grew my audience from that. Actually, from when people say, Well, do I only have to stick to one topic? I say no, because my experience has been that people have found me like, all of you shared this recipe and I used it and it was so good. Now I'm on your email is because I've been working on my to shop, and I saw that you could help me with that too. Yeah, so, yeah, I did do that. And it was insane. One little build on that. Did you, um, feel the need to tie it back to the like the larger mission of why you're blogging to begin with, like does it always have a strategic element to it? Or sometimes it's just fun. The element was creative inspiration, like I am trying to inspire creative entrepreneurs. So that was the main idea, main message behind it. So everything I put out it was in that kind of Rome. So whether I'm inspiring them to improve their businesses or I'm inspiring them to try some delicious food or two created yet why project? That's the similarity. And then do you, um, have to What do you think about breaking up the list, then? Because I sort of worry about. I have tons of different interests and I want to talk about more of them. But then I think, would somebody be put off for confused if one week they're getting a recipe on the next week, they're getting, you know, tips for how to handle their spirited child, you know? OK, so I Onley emailed out the business post looks. I could let my audience no, in the beginning that they were going to be all these other pills and that they could sign up for the RSS reader to get those in their their feeds if they wanted to see them every day, or to check back in regularly that I have these other posts and then in my email newsletter. I would sometimes mention some of the other post the ones that I thought were really awesome. I would say, Did you see this week's recipe of this? If you're interested, kind of as like a P s stage. Did you stage Grayson with sage Grayson dot com? I will say when I go to a business's website and they haven't updated their blawg in months, I think the business has closed. Yep, yep, or something's going on. Or they're not paying close attention or or seen with email newsletters of It's Been Months Men. All of a sudden I get when I'm like, Where have you been? You close shop? Yeah, yeah, which helped with this one. I don't commitment and stick to it. And this doesn't have to be, especially in the beginning. I tell people to do this is to decide on what your commitment is. It doesn't. You don't have to be blogging every day. You don't even have to be blogging every week. I suggest once a week, but even twice a month, I think is a decent amount. But decide on a commitment. Stick to it, pick a format or formats that you enjoy and do those. Don't worry about the other stuff on. Lee put out solid content entertaining, helpful design and visuals matter, playing out her content so that you don't waste tons of time staring at a blank screen. Content calendars can really help. You have to market your blog's like you do your products so you can't just have a blawg and hope people find it. But again, once you get that ball, rolling it tens to work for itself. Eventually use guest post interviews, social media and features to market your blawg. And because I could only spend a short amount of time on this three full days on blogging, build a successful creative log on creativelive is where you can find it if you want a lot more help on blocking, because I dig into everything within that course, this farce. Social Media My tips are to stop the overwhelm. Pick two platforms to focus on the platforms that your target market uses most often. Concentrate on those two platforms for the next six months and with your next launch, do one thing for each of those platforms every day. If you really want to see results or at least once a week. So instead of feeling like you have to be everywhere, narrow it down. After you've built your brand and connected with your target market on those two platforms, you can add more. So this is if you're newer to social media or if you're feeling completely overwhelmed by all the different platforms. It's better to build followings on specific ones and to spread yourself too thin and not really get a following on any of them. And you can still utilize other pot firms during this time. But they're just not the focus. That means not allowing yourself to stress out about them right there, just kind of there. You update them, you have to update them enough toe where it's consistent toe where when people com It's not months since you've been there, but you don't have to be there every day, a couple times a month. Totally fine. So set social media goals. This is on page 57 sets specific clear goals for each platform. What are to 5 strategies you're going to use consistently for each examples for Instagram uploading one short video each week, adding five photos each week. Changing your profile link regularly to match content and doing monthly giveaways to grow your followers. So what you want to do is have strategies for each platform you're gonna be on. So you're not just kind of waffling. It really helps to build up your followers. And if you are struggling with social media in your workbook, I put in cheat sheets for Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter. So I don't know why that one's missing there. But for all of those, I put cheat sheets and so you can take those and they can help you figure out your goals. E evaluate your marketing efforts each quarter and year to find out what works best for you and what you're wasting your time on and do more of what works in less of what doesn't is a big one. Just do more of what works that's going to be so helpful. People always ask me what they should spend their marketing money on targeted giveaways, extra amazing customer service like physical thank you cards and extra something. Sending something in the mail and your current marketing efforts like upgrading your business cards, redesigning your blog's upgrading your camera getting getting a new video camera, those air things to invest in, as opposed to advertising one of the marketing strategies that Ashley uses from principal wisdom. I talked about this earlier when somebody asked a question Is she gives away free, be store blawg readers? And like I said before, the way that she thinks it works really well is that she sells prints, so instead she gives away desktop calendars. Also, I think it's really, really, really, really helpful to plan out a yearly promotional calendar you want to consider when you'll be launching new products and services. Giving yourself in your fans time off from selling like we've already talked about include blawg topics, email, social media plans, interviews, guest post speaking engagements, everything I like to use one of those big Wall calendars. Or you can use a whiteboard, plan it all out so you can see it and so that there are places when you're not selling. When you are marketing can see where you can add a little bit more for a current product and you'll want to include marketing efforts on current products, not just new. That's a mistake that a lot of entrepreneurs make is that they stop marketing their products that they already spent so much time creating instead of those marketing funnels. We already talked about how they can really help you feel less overwhelmed if you have a current product that you haven't marketed in a while, set up a funnel for it so that it will just do it on its own. And one of the last things I really like to emphasize when I talk about marketing is cultivating relationships. If you're the only one talking about your product, it's going to take a much longer time to get it in front of your target market. But if you have the help of others, you'll get bigger results in much shorter periods of time. It's so true. So what I suggest is do one thing a day to cultivate relationships, connect on social media, chat on Skype, leave a thoughtful block comments and an email meet in person, try one small thing per day, or if that really freaks you out one small thing per week and then do one big thing per quarter or per year, like attending a conference chatting on Skype, you can do it once a month. If you feel like you've got the time for it coming to something like this where you guys are making amazing connections, it's gonna go so far, you really are going to be amazed when we're talking about relationships. Don't be a leech. Give more than you get on. When you do that, you're gonna get so much more and return. And when when someone does something for you, ask how you can support them. So when somebody does something for May I often say to them, Is there any way that I can help you? Is there any way I can support you and don't burn bridges no matter what, Even if you think this person is not a connection that I am going to have or keep for a really long time, do not burn the bridge because you never know what's gonna happen in the future. So as far as your index card would have been your big ah ha moments And what's the first thing you're going to do to start creating and selling digital products? In fact, I'd like to hear what's the first thing you're going to dio. Yeah, my big ah, home. Ah ha. Moment is to do the easy thing because that's the opposite of any choice I ever bank. I always make things really hard for myself. I needed, like a giant inspiring printable on the wall to remind me every day to first do the easy thing and then take steps. I like it. Sarah shots at Sarah shots. The last thing I want to tell you is that you can do this. You really can think about why you want to create digital products whenever it feels like a struggle, whenever it feels like it's getting tough thing about those goals that you set were those business goals. And how are these digital products gonna help you get closer? Keep that long term picture in mind. I promise you it all of you are capable of making this happen. You can do it. Beautiful. All right. Hard to believe the time has flown by and we're at the end of this course. Sorry. Let's give a round of applause. April fools. All right, April, I'm gonna close things out here. It's been so great having you here. I want to read some quotes that we had here from the chat rooms. Now we had so many people who really love this last segment, and I want to read a couple that came in now, Super, Kara said that this has been so good. Oh my God, I think my brain is going to explode. I love how April always packs in so much information. She rocks. I bought the class beforehand, and I love how great all the bonuses are. The vein says. I love the hot seats. It's been great to watch this throughout the day. I just bought, and I need to rewatch this course when the house is more quiet so I can pay attention. Sasha says the course has been amazing. I always thought of digital products as something for the future of my business, but now I feel like I have the tools to get working on them right now, and the workbook has been great. I'll be printing it out again and again for planning each of my future digital products. Finally, Cabin says, I'm so sold on all of April Bulls Olin's course. This has been the best creativelive class I've attended. Teoh attended to date April's over delivered, and I'm looking for more courses from her. But thank you so much for everybody for tuning in today for our session. Here again, this is the end of create digital products that sell while you sleep with April Bulls old and once again, my name is Chris Jennings. Thanks for tuning in. Right now. That's a wrap.