Tech Tip Thursday Theme –  Today I have a video discussing the top and my favourite tools to use to build your funnels. There are 4 main types of tools you will need to build your Dream Business Funnels as I discuss them in my free video series Dream Business Funnel Blueprint

These tools are:

Page Builders – To build your Landing pages, Sales pages and Thank you and Content Pages

Email Management Service

Shopping Cart

Webinar System.

Make sure to download the free resource with all the tools I mentioned

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We all have our favorite tools that we use in our business. When it comes to planning, creating and scheduling Social Media or blog posts. I too have a few favorites. I don’t use all of them all the time, but depending on the type of posts I create, or the amount of posts I create in advanced or if I have something special that goes along with the post, I will use these tools in different ways.

Dollarphotclub

At Dollarphotoclub you can get good quality stock photos at a reasonable price. You pay $10 pm and then get 10 credits or 10 photos so it works out to $1 per photo. The quality of photos are great for blog and social media posts and they have a huge range to choose from. It’s very easy to get what you need by searching for your topic. I also like buying a series of photos if I’m doing something that needs more than one photo.

Canva

Makes it easy to create Blog post photos and images to use in social media. The pre-sized templates are easy to change.  I also use Cava to add text to photos like adding your headline and website address to a blog images. This ensure that your images will always stay connected to your site and post no matter where it ends up.  Images with headlines are more popular on Pinterest and better searched in Google Images.

PicMonkey is another great photo editing and imaging tool. You can create more advanced images and even work in different layers.

Fiverr

Although not strictly a tool. No Social media site list is complete without Fiverr. Here you can get an endless amount of content, images, infographics, transcripts or eBooks done that you can use in your posts or as an opt-in upgrade.  Having an upgrade to a pdf or infographic available in your posts is a great list building tool and really help you segment your list into different niches.

Co-Schedule

This tool probably need a post all by itself. This is by far my favorite tool to plan, create and schedule both blog and Social media posts.  It comes with a calendar view that makes it easy to plan out your editorial content. You can create you content all inside the tool and even share creation tasks with a team. You then schedule your blog posts and can decide if it should go out to your social media platforms as well. You can also schedule Social Media posts by itself and schedule it to go out every week, month etc.

Another legendary automated scheduling tool is Meet Edgar. My only problem with this tool is that it is a bit expensive to just play around with.  Here you create your social media posts into different categories or buckets. You then just decide when buckets should be posted and Meet Edgar randomly takes from the bucket. It’s a great way to re-use content and a way to always have content on hand.

ITTT

ITTT is an automation tool and you can use it for free to do all sorts of automations. When it comes to social media you can use it to automatically post blog post to social media platforms and also to post from one platform to another one.  You can setup any recipe you want to and customize as needed.

REvive old post plugin

This plugin resides on your blog site and does what the name says it takes all your old posts and bring them back to live by randomly sharing them to Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. This solves both the problem of having old posts that never gets read even though they might be great content and also coming up with good quality content for social media on a daily basis.

Popup ally

I’ve included this plugin in this list as this is an excellent free plugin to be used with blog posts for opt-in upgrades to receive an infographic or pdf version of your post. You can have a beautifully designed opt-in box at the bottom of your post, encouraging the reader to opt-in for more information or a value added document

Pictochart

Is an online tool that can be used to create infographics and other graphics for social media. Infographics are very popular to be shared on social media platforms and people opt-in to get a nice infographic that summarize a post especially if it is a valuable post. There’s a free version but it’s a bit limited, it’s more valuable to get the paid one.

Hope you’ve found my Top 10 list valuable.  This is of course by now means exhaustive and I am sure you also have you favorites. So please share with us what tools you like to use!

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Authentically Automated Webinars

When it comes to authentically connecting with your clients, nothing does this as well as a webinar. Ok maybe a phone call is even better and that is an option and a post for another day, but when you need to address a big group, webinars are the way to go. It converts at a really high rate and establish you as an authority in your field. The thing is your clients can connect and know you and decide if they trust and like you. All by listening and seeing you.

Technology has made it possible to now have automated webinars and this is an amazing thing as long as you don’t lose the benefits of having a webinar. Being the queen (self-proclaimed) of authentic automation I have a few ideas of my own.

Why would you want to have an automated webinar? 

• Firstly the obvious reason is to run the whole set it and forget it style of sales funnel. You place ads on Facebook and Google to drive interested parties to an opt-in for a webinar. They can choose when they want to watch it and might even watch a replay straight away. They have the same excitement and connection of a life webinar and timed Call to actions and Scarcity tactics redirect them to a sales page. This can be brilliant when done correctly. Most people know that in this case it is an automated webinar and it is still more authentic than traditional styles of marketing.

• You can also use technology for a product launch. Having a whole Launch funnel setup with automated webinars and then ending with a life one with call to action.

• There is however also other uses where you are genuinely participating in the event but just leveraging the technology. For first time webinar hosts it is sometimes daunting to go on life especially when thinking about all the technology mishaps that can happen. Rather than avoiding it all together having a hybrid type of webinar might be an option.

• If you live in a country, like I am, where electricity and internet failure are very common and the internet not trustworthy at times. Having the knowledge that your webinar is all setup and ready to go is amazing.

Knowing this how can you make it more authentic?

• If you are using a tool that can do hybrid webinars like Easy Webinar or the new Webinar Jam Studio, you can go on life and say hello, and then stream the recording, you can also answer questions at the end and say goodbye.

• Most of the technologies also let you chat in real-time. This can be an excellent option if internet or electricity is an issue as you can participate from your phone in worst case scenarios.

• Tell your audience that it is an automated webinar and explain to them why you are using it and what the benefits are.

Tools to use

Luckily there are an ever growing amount of tools that will let you do automated webinars. Unfortunately not all of them let you do hybrid webinars therefor my favorite one at the moment is  Easy Webinar Others include Eebinarsonair.com, Runclick.com, Evergreenbusinesssystem.com, StealthSeminar.com and Webinarignition.com. The new Webinar Jam Studio also now has an automated component. Unfortunately you have to pay extra for it.

Most of these have the option to integrate with a chat features, depending on the type you can integrate with Chatwing, Lifefire, Facebook or Twitter chat.

You can create your video with Camtasia, Screenflow or a free program called Screencast-O-Matic and upload it to Youtube, Amazon S3 or anyone of the other video hosting services.

Finally another way to make the most of your webinar

If you do decide to use a software similar to Easywebinar, you can also run the following high converting event sequence:

1. Start of by having a life event.
2. You can then re-broadcast the event later the day or following day while still being on life manning the chat. .
3. Have the replay up for a limited time.
4. Covert the life event into an automated event that is evergreen and get streamed in real time.

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However when running your own business you should always look at the repetitive tasks that don’t really need your involvement.
Even things like Social Media that traditionally needs your involvement can be automated sufficiently and authentically. You can still write everything yourself. You are still sending out your own message to your own followers. But by automating your business, you open up your time up to do what really matters like:
• Working with your clients
• Having “real” conversations on social media (with your page posts taken care of, you can be more active in the groups for example)
• Create products and programs that will boost your income.

Having to post the same thing to 5 different Social Media platforms is not considered the best use of your time or your VA’s for that matter and the risk of getting sucked into whatever platform you’re visiting is just too great. How many times have you “just nipped onto Facebook” for 10 minutes and then realized that the whole morning has gone?!

Social media is just the obvious example because so many of us do it and that might be the easiest to automate. But there are so many more important aspects in your business that you can manage in a “hands off” way:
• Your back office
• Sales funnels
• Finances
• Launches
Automating these things could mean a significant difference in the hours you need to put into your business and could mean that you could finally wave the 9-5 goodbye and work when your creative genius strikes you.

Automating your business does not mean you will have nothing to do. It does not mean that you’re lazy.
It just means you spend your hours doing the things that makes a difference in your life, your business and to a great extent your client’s life or business.
You spend your days doing the things that truly makes your heart sings knowing that you have the time to be creative and fulfilled.
If this is something that speaks to you be sure to book a complimentary “Hands Off” Session with me. What would your life and business look like if you could free up 10 extra hours a week?

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