Marketing

  • How to boost your Affiliate Sales with a Gift Guide

    Do you want to grow your Affiliate Income this year? Gift Guides are the perfect way to promote your own products and share favorite affiliate products with your audience. They can help you to boost your sales and affiliate income throughout the holiday season, but different types of gift guides are popular all year long (think Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, etc.)

    Learn how to easily create your very own gift guide in Canva below (if you don’t have a Canva Account yet, you can sign up here for free)

    Your Gift Guide Target Audience

    Decide who your gift guide is for. Ideally, your gift guide should include products that speak to a very specific group of people. The more specific it is, the more likely it will be found on search engines like Pinterest or Google.

    In my Holiday Gift Guide template, I included examples such as “Gift Guide for Small Business Owners” or “Pet Lover’s Gift Guide.” Other ideas include categories like “Wellness Gift ideas” or “Best Holiday Looks” or “Amazon finds under $100.”

    Pro Tip: Research trending and popular products with Google Trends or Pinterest Trends to incorporate into your guide.

    Gift Guide Product Photos

    The most important aspect of your gift guide design are visually appealing images of the products you are recommending. 

    It’s best to choose images with transparent or white backgrounds. You can easily remove your background directly in Canva (use the “Background Remover” tool in effects) or with a free tool like remove.bg. Drag and drop your images into your Gift Guide in Canva and adjust them to fit. Don’t forget to leave plenty of white space for a clean and  eye-catching look.

    Gift Guide Template

    Once you’ve decided on your target audience, picked and prepped all your favorite products to share  it’s time to create your Gift Guide.

    I created a template to help you save time! It includes a variety of layouts, pre-made collages, and festive designs for different styles and types of gift guides.

    Simply drag and drop the photos of the products you want to share into the templates. The bundle includes Guide templates AND matching Pinterest templates so you can post them on your blog and share them on Pinterest to drive traffic.

    Here’s what’s inside:

    • 10 unique Template Designs (10 pages 8.5” X 11″ and 10 matching Pinterest Pins  for a total of 20 templates)
    • Cover Pages
    • Various drag and drop grid and collage layouts
    • Call to Action and Summary Page

    You can edit anything you would like including images, elements, fonts, and colors. Use the templates over and over for all your different gift guides!

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  • How to Create a Coaching Client Welcome Packet

    Coaching Client Welcome Packets are a new Client’s best friend when it comes to working with you. And they can make your life so much easier! Give your client all the information they need up front in a well-thought out packet filled with important information, a coaching program outline, policies and expectations. Not only will you avoid emailing back and forth (and risk forgetting something) but you will also get them excited to start their coaching journey with you!

    Here is everything you should consider including in your Coaching Client Welcome Packet:

    Introduction and Welcome

    This is your chance to share a personal note or a link to a welcome video you recorded just for them. Congratulate them on taking this important step investing in themselves. Ensure them that they made the right decision and that you will do everything you can to make this whole process as easy as possible. 

    You can also include a short bio here reminding them why you’re the perfect fit to help them with their problem. Recap your coaching journey, your expertise and potentially some of your past client results. If you work with team members who your client may be in contact with you can also briefly introduce them here (name and title).

    Investment and Payment

    If you offer different payment plans or options add more detailed information about this process here. How can they pay you? What benefits or bonuses does each payment option include? How many payments will they make over what period of time? When do they have to submit their payment by? Do you offer any refunds or guarantees? What happens if your client misses a payment? Include a reminder that the program cannot start until you receive your payment if applicable.

    Finally, don’t forget to explain what happens next after they purchase. Coaching Programs aren’t cheap so make them feel at ease by walking them exactly through each step of the process (confirmation email, receipt, etc.)

    You can create professional invoices for your clients and accept payments with free tools such as Wave.

    Coaching Program Details

    Briefly explain all of the services included in your coaching package and give a clear overview. Include everything that’s relevant for their exciting coaching journey ahead such as the timeline, the process, goals, and anything else that you want them to be aware of. 

    You can include some or all of the following details:

    • Coaching Program Benefits – overview of everything that’s included
    • Timeline – start and end date of your program
    • Tools – How will you conduct your sessions (online, phone, in-person) and what tool will they need (Zoom, FaceTime)
    • Any type of additional support you offer (e.g. Voxer access, email support, website audit)
    • Program Goals – What are the specific aspects you will cover in your program? What outcome do you want your client to achieve and how will you support their efforts?

    Make sure you make this section exciting and engaging as well as relevant and informative!

    Pro Tip: The Coaching Client Welcome Packet includes a pre-written Content Outline for your Program Details – just change out the details, and add your business information.

    Success Guidelines

    Outline any guidelines you have to make your program a success. This is a great place to manage expectations and set boundaries. Some things that you could add here:

    • Coaching Objectives 
    • What I expect from my Client (e.g. be on time for each session and ready to work)
    • What to expect from the Coach (e.g. remain professional, stick to ethical standards)
    • Communication Guidelines – your response time, business hours, etc.

    Coaching Calls

    Use this section to summarize your call policies – Frequency of their sessions (weekly, monthly, biweekly), Duration (1 hr, 90 min, etc.) and total number of sessions throughout the coaching relationship (e.g. 1 kickoff call, 5 weekly calls). Explain how they can schedule their calls and provide any scheduling links if applicable. You can use free scheduling tools for this such as Acuity. 

    Outline your specific call policies. What if they miss a call or fail to reschedule? Explain how they can best prepare for each call so they can get the most out of it. Should they decide on what area they’d like to focus on beforehand? 

    Pro Tip: You can create a Coaching Prep Questionnaire or Coaching Session Planner for them to fill out at least 24 business hours in advance.

    Coaching Contract

    Don’t forget the legal stuff. You can either insert a link to your Coaching Contract or attach it directly. Make sure you explain how they can sign and return it to you. They could fill it out and email it back to you (the old-fashioned way) but that’s rather time-consuming so I suggest using a program like Hello Sign so they can just sign online with one click.

    Pro Tip: The Coaching Client Welcome Packet includes a Sample Coaching Contract Template with prompts to fill out and create each section.

    Frequently Asked Questions and Resources

    List and answer any questions previous clients may have asked you that might be useful for your new clients as well. Encourage them to reach out to you if they have any additional questions. You can also think of other information you want to share and turn them into questions. Some examples:

    • What tools will I need?  – You can share any tools you use for your coaching sessions but also other useful resources such as videos, blog posts, apps, etc.
    • What if we don’t click?
    • How can I share feedback?
    • What if I need to cancel or reschedule a session?

    Worksheets and Client Homework

    This section is great for any prep work you want your client to complete. Provide your clients with worksheets or assign them specific homework so they can prepare for your program. Goal Setting Worksheets, Life Vision Exercises or Question prompts to help your client identify their goals and motivations work well for this. If you have a coaching session planner worksheet ask your client to fill this out before each call so you can both prepare.

    You can also create a handy checklist for your clients to complete and add different sections such as ‘to be completed before we start’, ‘to be completed by a certain date’, weekly checklists, day prior to session checklist or after session checklists.

    That way you can ensure your client is on track and there is no confusion about what needs to get done when. By following this checklist your client will get the best return on their investment. Stick to simple tasks and go over the checklists during your first session if needed.

    Thank You and Contact

    The final section of the Coaching Client Welcome Packet is perfect to recap everything your client needs to do before your next call such as “Sign your Contract” or “Book your first call.”

    If you’re creating this packet in Canva you can easily insert links. Select the element you want to link (in the example below I want to add a link to the “Submit your payment” button). Select the “Link” symbol, insert the URL of your choice and hit enter. When you save your design as PDF File your buttons are now clickable. Don’t forget to add your most relevant contact information here so they can easily get in touch with you whenever they feel stuck or need extra support

    Final Thoughts

    There you have it! Imagine having a welcome packet that you can tweak and reuse over and over for each new client. 

    If you need help creating your packet check out this editable Coaching Client Welcome Packet Template or the Coaching Client Intake Form Templates. I already did the hard work for you by designing and putting it all together. All you need to do is customize the templates to match your branding, save as a PDF and send it to your client. The template can be reused as many times as you’d like!

      Let’s get to it! I’m excited to see what you create and I’m sure your clients will absolutely love receiving your Welcome Packet.

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    • How To Easily Create an Instagram Puzzle Feed

      Honestly, I’m not sure why I haven’t made this post A LOT sooner 🤔 SO MANY of you have asked me about my puzzle feed and I love creating pretty graphics for my feed so it’s about time that I share how you can easily create one yourself for FREE. Follow my easy step-by-step tutorial and design a cohesive Instagram feed with Easil that stands out.

      Sign up for an Easil Account

      First things first, create your Easil account (it’s FREE).

      Easil is a drag-and-drop design tool that lets you create visual
      content so good, it looks like a pro designed it.

      Puzzle Feed Template

      Once you’re logged in, search for “Puzzle Feed” in the Template section and pick your favorite. Although the puzzle feed templates are a part of their premium membership you will get a 30-day free trial when you initially sign up.

      Edit the template

      Time to make it your own! The template is completely customizable. Add your own pictures to reflect your brand colors and messaging. You can swap out images, icons, colors, text, and other design elements. I included an example of my feed below.

      Here is an example of one of the Easil templates. How beautiful are they??

      Download and split

      Download your Instagram Puzzle Feed and use and split up the images (with a tool such as Image Splitter).

      Upload your image.

      In the Rows and Columns entry field, enter 6 (Rows) and 3 (Columns) or 3 (Rows) and 3 (Columns) depending on the template you picked.

      Hit the Split Image button and you’ll get an instant download of all your files so you can upload each piece of your puzzle feed separately.

      Plan your content

      Pop your final set of images into an Instagram scheduler like Planoly, write your captions, research your hashtags and share them on Instagram.

      Final thoughts

      And that’s it! 5 easy steps to create your very own puzzle feed.

      Have you created a puzzle feed? Let me know in the comments, I would love to check out your feed!

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    • A Simple Content Marketing Strategy that will get you Results

      Creating content without a well-defined strategy and purpose is just noise. Here is a step-by-step no fluff content plan that you can easily execute:

      1. The Basics
      2. Define your goals
      3. Pick your Content Platforms
      4. Conduct Content Research
      5. Do a Content Audit
      6. Choose your Content Pillars
      7. Collect Content Ideas
      8. Plan your Content Calendar

      The Basics

      When you create a content marketing strategy write down a few key things before you start:

      ✅ Who will you create the content for? When you know who you’re talking to you will have a much better sense of what exactly to share. Get as detailed as possible.

      ✅ What problem will your content solve? How do you want to interact with them, what can you do to support them, what keeps them awake at night, and how do they want to be spoken to?

      ✅ How can your content stand out? What is your unique selling point? How can you infuse your content with your personality and make it special? What can you share that others can’t share quite like it?

      On to the juicy details. Here are the specifics of how to create a content marketing plan:

      Content Goals

      All your content should be INTENTIONAL and have a clear purpose. Plan out and set goals for every week, every month, every quarter. What will you focus on, how will you market yourself, what are your concrete content goals.

      Break down your big goals into smaller action steps and focus on achieving the next step.
      Example: Your big goal is to make $10k a month on Instagram.
      Action Step 1 – Create a signature offer.
      Action Step 2 – Warm up your audience by providing valuable content and engaging with them, etc.

      Content Platforms

      Which channels will you focus on? Don’t try to be everywhere and get burned out on content. 

      1. Choose one Core Content Platform – Blog, Video or a podcast – How do you prefer creating content and how does your ideal client prefer consuming your content?

      2. Choose one Traffic platform – Choose a platform that can drive traffic to your your website. There is one obvious choice – Pinterest! Almost all my website traffic comes from Pinterest and I swear by it! I use it to drive traffic (and convert sales) to my shop, for affiliate marketing and to book clients!

      3. Choose one Social Media platform – Instagram, Facebook Group, Facebook Page, Twitter, etc. What platform best showcases your work (e.g. if you’re a photographer Instagram would be a great choice here) and where does your ideal clients hang out the most.

      Content Research

      Here is the deal – If you don’t create content that people are searching for or content that people care about – your content will NEVER be found! Conduct Market Research so you can create valuable content that your audience wants to read and will convert on. Don’t assume you know what your clients need and don’t rush into creating content or you’ll risk wasting your time. Here are a few ideas how you can effectively conduct some market research once you have identified your ideal client:
      • Send a survey to your email list – Make sure you explain what’s in it for them when they take the time to fill out your survey (gift card, tailored content, Q&A session with you)
      • Market Research Call – hop on short (15-20 min) calls with your ideal client and ask away. Remember it’s all about them!
      • Instagram Stories – Connect with your audience directly. Use polls, question stickers, the quiz feature or DMs to ask them what content they are CRAVING. And then create it.

      Content Audit

      Review your current content. What’s working, failing or needs improvement across your social media and content channels?

      Content Pillars

      Content pillars are topics that discuss various aspects within your business. They should all connect to an overarching brand message. Your specific content pillars will depend on your niche.

      Pick 3-5 content pillars that are relevant to an outcome your audience hopes to achieve. Don’t forget to throw in 1-2 personal pillars as well (you are a personal brand after all ;)). To give you an example my content pillars are

      1. Content Marketing
      2. Instagram Visibility
      3. Profitable Online Business
      4. Digital Product Creation

      All the content I create is related to those 4 pillars because I have found it to be what my audience needs most and can relate to.

      Here is another example. If you’re in the fitness industry your content pillars might look something like this:

      1. Weight Loss
      2. Muscle Gain
      3. Easy, Time-Saving Recipe
      4. Motherhood (how you combine being a busy mom with finding time to work out)

      Don’t worry – you can always change your pillars as your business evolves and you get to know your audience better.

      Content Ideas

      Find and keep track of relevant topics based on your pillars (find ideas on YouTube, Pinterest, Google, etc.) Start a spreadsheet and list all the niche specific topics you can find on the following platforms:

      • Quora – Questions are asked, answered, and edited by other users. Find topics your potential clients and readers are most interested in learning about.
      • Facebook Groups – Stalk Facebook Groups (others or your own) full of your ideal clients. What questions are they asking? What frustrations are they sharing? Turn them into content ideas.
      • Pinterest – Like Google, Pinterest has search suggestions that show you what your ideal client is looking for. The most popular pins give you all the deets.

      Content Calendar

      How often will you publish your content? Are there any scheduling or measuring tools or programs you plan on using? Set a posting schedule and stick to it and pick a few KPI (key performance indicators) to track your results.

      Using your content pillars and content ideas create a monthly outline. Keep track of what to post, when to post and what channels to post on. For example: 

      Monday: Blog Post
      Tuesday: Email Newsletter
      Wednesday: Instagram Post, Pinterst Pins
      Thursday: Pinterst Pins
      Friday: Instagram Post
      Sunday: Pinterest Pins

      IMPORTANT: Don’t forget to base your content around your promotions and product launches. 

      Remember to focus on quality over quantity when it comes to your content.

      Speaking of: Need more help with Instagram? Check out my Instagram Marketing Success Bundle here: 

      Bonus: Content Batching

      Take a few hours and write all your captions for the week in one sitting. Then create all your graphics in one sitting. You will be more efficient and creative since you focus on one task at a time. Multitasking takes a toll on productivity. 

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    • 6 Content Marketing Mistakes That Are Hurting Your Business

      Are you making these common content mistakes?

      Are you constantly creating new content wondering why you’re not gaining any traction? Writing great content is essential if you want to grow your business and attract new leads. I made a lot of these mistakes in the beginning myself but fortunately I kept track of all the things that DIDN’T work and can now share them with you so you don’t have to repeat them.

      Here are six of the biggest content marketing mistakes, and the exact steps you can take to avoid them.

      1. Too focused on followers

      You only need to attract followers that will engage with your content. (I’m looking at you 10,000 follower accounts and zero engagement on your posts). Followers only matter if your audience CARES and engages with your content. Your goal is to have an engaged audience that consumes, comments on, shares and saves your content. That’s how you monetize your social media channels – an engaged audience will buy from you and turn into potential clients. 

      WHAT TO DO INSTEAD:

      Your follower count does not represent their real value to you. Build your brand. Be yourself and create stand out share-worthy content that speaks to your audience and is tailored to their needs. Make meaningful connections and focus on the followers that engage with you.

      2. You don't take advantage of Email Marketing

      Collect those email addresses! Sharing your content with your email list can expose your content to a whole new audience. Your chance to be seen and your conversion rates will also be a lot higher. 

      For example, on Facebook, if you post an update only about 2% of your fans will even see it in their news feed. BUT, if you send an email campaign about 90% of your subscribers will receive it in their inbox. 

      WHAT TO DO INSTEAD:

      1. Figure out what your audience really needs. 
      2. Pick an email marketing provider (such as MailChimp or ConvertKit). 
      3. Create a targeted freebie that your audience will love.
      4. S      tart getting subscribers with content marketing. Attract users to your content, and then promote your freebie so they can join your mailing list. 

      3. No focused targeted niche

      You don’t really know who your target market is (we’ve all been there). Your followers are following you for a certain reason and because they want to get content about a specific topic. So niche down, give the people what they want and grow much faster!

      This is one of the biggest mistakes in content marketing. Creating random content is a waste your time because you’re not appealing to the audience you want to sell to. I used to simply scroll around on Pinterest and pin random ideas that sounded interesting to ME but I had no idea if they would relate to my target audience because I hadn’t done proper market research. 

      WHAT TO DO INSTEAD:

      Do your research and only create content that your audience craves and that will solve their problem. Get clear on who you want to attract as a follower and as a customer or client. Don’t start creating content or engaging until you understand who you need as an engaged follower.

      4. You're not building a community

       This one relates back to only being focused on your followers. You’re not responding to every comment you get on your posts. You sit back and wait for people to find you. You’re not seeking out and networking with like-minded people and potential clients.

      WHAT TO DO INSTEAD: 

      Build your tribe. Engage more than you post. Nurture your follower and find new potential followers, engage with them (respond to their Instagram stories, comment and like their posts) and start building an authentic relationship with them. DM and engage with your most engaged users. 

      5. Doing too many things at once

      You’re on every platform, constantly coming up with new topics! Writing blog posts, sending email newsletters, posting on Instagram and Facebook daily – phew! Unless your repurposing game is on point this will lead to content burn out real fast. 

      WHAT TO DO INSTEAD: 

      Focus and start slow. Master one platform at a time and focus on the platforms that you audience hangs out at. 

      6. No content or marketing strategy

      You share random posts that you THINK your community might like. You don’t have any content goals, plan or hashtag strategy and hope for the best. Get your strategy on (Need help? Let me help you ;))

      Final Thoughts

      Are you making these mistakes right now? Content can be confusing (and infuriating at times) but with the right strategies your Content Marketing can be easy and effective. 

      Need more help with your content strategy? My 90 Minute Intensive Services might be just what you’re looking for.

      90 MINUTE STRATEGY SESSION

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