Oct 02

Leverage Your Customers To Grow Your Reach

leverage existing customers to grow your reachHow to Leverage Your Customers

If you have a good product and you take care of your customers, you will quickly attract a group of people who love what you do and aren’t shy about telling others about you and your products. This type of word-of-mouth advertising is one of the best ways to leverage your customers to grow your reach and your business.

While some customers will start to recommend you on their own, others need a little encouragement from time to time. Here are a few different things you can do via email to get your customer to help you grow your business and make more sales.

1) Ask Them To Share Your Content On Social Media

One of the easiest things to do is to invite your customers to share any content you create via social media or email. You’d be amazed to find out how many people have no idea that it’s ok to share a blog post, article, or free short report.

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Oct 01

How Live Streaming Can Improve Any Business

How Live Streaming Can Improve Your BusinessLive streaming is a powerful marketing tool. Studies show nearly 64% of consumers more likely to purchase a product after watching a video about it, and almost 80% wanting to see more social media content from their favorite brands. All of which means:

If you want to make more money, take advantage of live streaming content.

Four ways live streaming can improve your business:  

1-Allows You to Better Engage Your Audience

Engagement is vital in any business. You need to know how to interact successfully with customers to make them followers of your brand. “Going live” gives you a chance to show a unique side of yourself and create true engagement.

Going live also allows you to learn more about your audience. Not only can your viewers ask you questions, but you can (and should) ask them plenty of questions too. Getting them talking about themselves helps to make them feel special, heard, and a real part of something. So, attend to your audience. They are your business, and the main point of live streaming is to engage them.

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Sep 22

Video Tip: 10 Ways to Show Up

Are you looking for ways to put yourself out there? I know how challenging it can be to get online exposure so Watch this video to get 10 ways to show up & get the attention of your audience.

Plus, you can download the cheat sheet below, which explains the 10 ways and gives you resources for further exploration, here:  https://iaplifecoaches.org/10-ways

Sep 20

5 Ways To Turn Existing Customers Into Repeat Buyers

5 ways to turn existing customers into repeat buyersHow to Get Repeat Buyers

The most valuable list you can build as an online marketer is your customer list. On average, you will see much higher sales rates when you’re emailing an offer to a customer list than if you send that same email to a free subscriber list. It only makes sense, then, to email your existing customers on a regular basis to get them to buy again and again—thus turning them into repeat buyers.

Here are 5 ways you can turn existing customers into repeat buyers.

1- Email Your Customers About New Product Launches

The first thing to do is email your customer list anytime you launch a new product. So, as you think about creating new products and service, keep your current customers in mind. What can you create (or offer to serve) to help them reach that next step toward their goals?

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Sep 13

Using Foreshadowing To Improve Your Email Open Rates

Using ForeshadowingHow to Use Foreshadowing

Email marketing can help make a living. It can sell your own products, or those you are an affiliate for. It can also help get more traffic to your blog and thus improve your advertising income. In other words, email marketing is a cornerstone of any online business. 

Remember that the first and most important goal anytime you send an email to your list is to get subscribers to open that email. And there’s a lot you can do to make that happen, from ensuring deliverability to writing killer subject lines. But today, I want to talk about something else you can do to improve email open rates – foreshadowing.

You may be more familiar with the term when used in books or movies. Game of Thrones, for example, is famous for frequent use of foreshadowing. The basic idea is that there are hints about what’s to come in future chapters, episodes, etc. Now we’re using that same idea for email marketing.

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Sep 06

Labor Day Musings

kayaking with pelicanIn the US we just had a 3-day weekend that formally ends the summer season. Of course that’s for “normal” people. But for us solopreneurs, we can take a 3-day weekend any time we want! That’s the beauty of being your own boss—not for everyone, but perfect for those of us who are of that mindset.

The only caveat to this is that if you want to do something with a “non-solopreneur” you have to do it on their time off. So that’s why I went kayaking and swimming last Saturday with a friend who works during the week. Can you see that white bird in the background? It’s a pelican. I was thrilled to see one so close. It was almost 3 feet tall!

The rest of the 3-day weekend was cloudy, so I worked on my business, in order to be free on the next good weather day. That way I can enjoy myself while I work, knowing that I’m getting ahead, and at the same time, creating future time off. This is how you create a lifestyle for yourself. 

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Sep 01

Use Content Upgrades To Grow Your List Faster – Part 2

Content upgrades - 2Last month I introduced the idea of content upgrades —freebies that you add to your blog posts to build your list and provide extra value. (Read it here.)

In this article, you’ll learn:

  • How to add upgrades to existing posts 
  • Different ways of presenting the upgrades 
  • How to track your results 
  • Some short-cuts 

If you follow the ideas here, you’ll not only grow your list faster, but you’ll also get more targeted subscribers. 

Creating Content Upgrades For Existing Posts 

You may already have created content, such as blog posts. If that’s the case, you can upgrade the content you already have. To target your audience in the right way, take the following 5 steps for creating content upgrades on existing posts:

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Aug 30

Are You Planning Your Emails Or Just Winging It?

Email cheatsheetEmail marketing makes money. 

According to ConstantComment.com,  80 percent of professionals say that email marketing drives their customer acquisition and retention. 

For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $36, according to Litmus, or $43 according to the Direct Marketing Association.  That’s a higher return than you can expect from any other form of marketing

Email marketing is more likely to drive sales than social media marketing. 60 percent of consumers say they’ve made a purchase as the result of a marketing email they received. Contrast that with the 12.5 percent of consumers who say they’d consider using the ‘buy’ button on social media.

Although social media marketing is an important tool for growing your business, when it comes to driving sales, it doesn’t even come close to email marketing.

Now, I’m not saying don’t use social media—but you don’t have any control there and any platform could disappear overnight. So use social media to build your list, because you own that! 

Email is also a fast and effective way to reach your audience. Based on Constant Contact data, on average 21% of emails are opened within the first hour.

Also, according to Marketing Sherpa, 61 percent of consumers enjoy receiving promotional emails weekly, and 38 percent would like emails to come even more frequently.

So the gold standard of marketing still involves building  your email list.

But as with everything in business, you need a plan—an email marketing plan.

There are two kinds of plans that you need:

One is planning out your evergreen emails, and the other is planning out your broadcast emails.

  • Evergreen emails are the follow-up email series for your lead magnets (freebies), and paid products. Each series will have a goal, which is the call-to-action.
  • Broadcast emails are the ones you send out daily or weekly, depending on your strategy and your audiences’ preferences.

They are both important. I have several  low-cost resources that can help you plan and organize both kinds of emails.

1- The first one is my free Email Follow-up Cheatsheet. It gives you some prompts for 7-part email series that you can use either for your freebies or products.

2- The second one is my Email Follow-Up Series Planner. This is like an in-depth mini-training that walks you through the steps necessary to design follow-up email series.

3- And finally, I have an Email Marketing Planner that includes 23 different printable worksheets to help you organize your broadcast emails.

Email Marketing Planner

So I encourage you to use email marketing  as one of your marketing strategies, and an email marketing plan to attract more ideal clients.

Whether you want to increase your number of customers or strengthen your relationship with existing customers, email follow-up and email marketing will give you the tools you need to do so.

Aug 22

The Art Of Setting Up Post-Purchase Email Series

post-purchase email seriesWhat is a Post-Purchase Email Series?

Marketers can spend a lot of time and effort making a new sale. But, once the purchase is done, they often just make sure the customer receives their product, and then call it a day, moving on to the next sale. 

But that can be a mistake. Let me show how something as simple as setting up “post-purchase” or “after the sale” email series, (also called auto-responder messages) can help improve your relationship with your customers. It can also  reduce refund requests, increase word-of-mouth advertisement, and, most importantly, improve your bottom line.

First of all, you’ll need an email service provider that offers autoresponder messaging, such as Mailerlite, Mailchimp, or AWeber (that’s the one I use).

Start with the basics.

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Aug 18

Planning Products for Multiple Sales

planning products for multiple salesIn keeping with this month’s focus on email engagement, this article is about planning products for multiple sales, so you can sell them to existing customers. 

Fact: It’s easier to sell another product to an existing customer than it is to find a new customer. With that in mind, it makes sense to plan out a product funnel that allows people to make multiple purchases from you. That way, instead of focusing all your energy on going out and finding new customers, you can also focus on creating new products and on serving your existing customer base. 

I’m not saying to stop looking for new customers. That’s always a smart business practice. I’m simply saying that if you create a series of related products to sell to your existing customer base, you stand to make additional profit from every single customer. 

There are a few different ways to do this. Let’s run through them, so you can pick whatever planning strategy will work best for you and your customer base. 

1-Step By Step Product Funnel 

With this product planning strategy, you help your customers or students do one thing with the first product. For the next product, you think about what they need to do next, and then next after that. For example, let’s say you start with a product about writing your first kindle book. Your next product could teach them how to create a cover and upload it to Amazon. The one after that could be all about how to market a kindle book, etc. 

product steps

You see how a product funnel works? (Here’s an article about funnels.) Each product builds on the one before, and it makes perfect sense for your customers to work through the first, then buy the second, third, and so forth. Each product is designed to help them take the next step until they reach their final goal. 

2-Creating Related Products On Similar Topics 

If a step by step product funnel doesn’t make sense for your particular market, you can create products on closely related topics. For example, if you’ve been teaching someone how to blog, you could then create products on email writing, and info product creation. As with the previous example, it’s easier to email an existing customer list with offers like this than it is to email new prospects. 

related products

3-Creating Consumable Products Or Membership Sites For Frequent Sales 

Last but not least, think about products or services you can create that your customers would buy again and again. Let’s say you’re a writer and you’re offering ghostwriting service. You could create an offer to write 10 articles on any topic for a set fee. You could then keep marketing that offer month after month, and your clients will buy anytime they need a new set of articles. 

Membership sites are another great option for multiple sales. Maybe there’s a new topic you can teach each month, or some templates and cheat sheets you can create for your members. Memberships are a great way to create passive income. And it gives you the opportunity to create a new product every month.

In Summary: Take a look at all three strategies for creating more products that you can sell to your customer base. Feel free to mix and match as you see fit. Then get to work creating new products on a regular basis. 

Download this free worksheet to map out your multiple sales funnels here:
https://iaplifecoaches.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Multiple-Products.pdf