You have just become certified to offer life coaching services, but now you must start the hard work of finding people to offer your services to. 

As a new life coaching business, where can you go and what marketing strategies can you use, to find new clients and grow your business?

In this blog post, I will give you ideas, to help you implement some effective client attraction, by using current and easy strategies that work, so you can start getting clients in a short space of time as possible. 

What You Will Learn in This Blog Post:

• How to get coaching clients without a website 
  • Networking events
  • Ask friends or family
  • Tap into your business community or circles
• How to get coaching clients on Facebook
• How to market your coaching business
  • Blogging and guest posting for life coaching clients
  • How to get life coaching clients with paid ads
  • How to get life coaching clients from guest podcasting
  • How to get life coaching clients by starting a YouTube channel

How To Get Coaching Clients Without a Website 

Whilst having a website can act as your business card, in the event you’d like to demonstrate expertise and professionalism, you do not need one to start getting clients to your life coaching business, if it is not a priority for you from the start. 

Just remember, that along the way, prospects may request to see some type of content or material to prove your experience and to even take you seriously, so decide what that is going to be, in the absence of a website. 

So let’s say that you’d like to start your coaching business without a website, how can you attract clients?

Networking events

One way to do this is to attend networking events that are related to your niche. This is the best place that you can find real people to talk to, to build a relationship with and possibly open the lines to work with them, one day. 

Now you’re probably thinking, isn’t there a better way to attract clients without leaving my house?

Well yes there is, but I’d like you to consider the possibilities that networking has when you actually meet people in person. 

The relationship is built so much quicker, plus the fact that you committed time to showing up at a networking event, already shows that you are committed to your business and people are likely to trust you faster. 

Think about it this way. Would you rather give your money to someone you have seen in person and met a couple times, or someone who is behind a computer screen? 

I don’t know about you, but there is something about meeting someone in person, that can really help you seal the deal.

Here’s how to find the right networking event for you:

Step 1

The easiest place to find the most relevant networking event, is by using the internet to see what’s going on.

Sites like Meetup.com, Facebook groups or local organisation websites, provide you with some good information on the type of networking events there are in your area.

When using these websites, be sure to use keywords to find relevant events. For example as a life coach and using Meetup.com, you can search for “goal setting” within 50 miles of Leeds and get results like this.

Step 2

Once you have found some networking events, be sure to understand what type of people will be attending.

Here are a few questions you should ask yourself:

• Does that audience match your target audience?
• How big is the likely audience at these events?
• Do you have to pay to attend the events?

Keep in mind that if there is a price to pay to attend networking events, you may also find people who are likely to invest in programs like yours.

It makes no sense investing in something, that is unlikely to give you a return on your time invested. So make sure that the networking event, will have your ideal audience in attendance. 

Step 3

Plan and strategise your meet up. Remember that you sought out this meetup event because you’d like to get something out of it – that is, clients.

As a result, it is important to do some pre-planning, so you can make the most of your networking. Some preliminary things you can do, is find out who’s attending and see what they do.

Do they have a social media profile that helps you understand what they do? If those people match the description of the type of prospect you’d like to talk to, be sure to list it down so you can make an effort to meet up with them at the event.

Also it’s worth connecting with them before the event. Send a short email such as “hey I noticed that you’re attending XYZ event. Me too. I see we have XYZ in common. I’m looking forward to connecting”.

When you connect in this way, you’ve already started building the relationship, you’re 10x ahead of the next person and are likely to build stronger connections. 

Ask friends or family to help you out

Friends or family are the lowest barrier to entry as a beginner life coach. How about offering free services to friends or family in exchange for a referral.

Or you can offer free services to friends or family in exchange for a testimonial to help you build your portfolio. 

Asking friends and family is an easy task, and if they want to see you win, they are more than likely to do this favour for you. 

One way of starting the conversation is by making a post on your Facebook profile. 

Here’s how that will look:

“Hey everyone, I have started my own personal life coaching business and I am looking for experience. I would be happy to work with you for the next month for free, to help you achieve your life goals and in exchange, all I ask for is a testimonial from you. If you are interested comment below and I will personally reach out to you”

If you do not want to post on your Facebook wall, then ask the question in person. 

Tap into your business community or circles

Are you a member of any business communities or circle of people? Sometimes you may already be a member of a community where you regularly show up. 

Use this circle as a stepping stone to highlight your coaching services and potentially get leads for your business. Here’s how you do that. 

Before you advertise your life coaching business to your community or circle, show up by offering free, valuable advice to the group, so people can take notice of you. 

Why this works? Because it allows people to pay attention to you when you speak. This is how you stand out. Once you have appeared a few times, start pitching your services by offering free consultation calls. 

A consultation call is a great way to see how many people are actually interested in your business, and gives them the opportunity to ask you questions, so they will know whether you’re a right fit for them. 

At the end of the call, be sure to ask for the sale. This is one part that most people leave out, because they are afraid of actually selling their product or services. 

If you do not ask for the sale, you won’t get it. When you ask for the sale, speak about how your services can benefit the prospect and the types of results that they are likely to get if they work with you.     

How To Get Coaching Clients On Facebook

If you want to use Facebook as a means of getting life coaching clients, there is a right way to prospect and a wrong way. 

The wrong way is pitching your coaching services and asking your audience to sign up with you now without giving any real value that helps them get to know you, like you and trust you. 

The right way is delivering valuable content that helps build a relationship with you, so they can see you as an expert in your niche. 

One really great way of finding life coach clients, is in Facebook groups. 

Step 1

Seek out Facebook groups that match the description of what your target audience subscribes to. So as a life coach, you may be looking for people who need to get on track with their life goals. You know that these people may be interested in goal setting, vision board creation or the law of attraction. 

You can easily find these groups by using Facebook’s search feature. So when I type “law of attraction” and I filter the results to show me only groups, this is what my result looks like. 

Once you have joined the group and been accepted here’s what you do next. 

Step 2

Introduce yourself. This way people know of your presence and what you do. When you introduce yourself, do not try to immediately sell your services by saying: “Hi my name is Dawn-Marie and I am a life coach looking for new clients”. 

Instead say something like “Hi my name is Dawn-Marie and I am a life coach. My goal here is to learn how others are using the law of attraction, to improve their lives and make whatever contribution I can to help them on their journey”.

By introducing yourself this way, you do not come across as being sales-y and you will begin to form a genuine relationship with the group’s members when you help them with their questions. This is the way to attract people to you. 

Step 3

Once the introduction is made, another way to attract people to you, is by responding to other user’s questions. Provide helpful answers as a way to show your expertise and do not be afraid to remind people that you are a life coach.

For example, when commenting instead of saying “I am a life coach and you should do XYZ”, instead say “I would do XYZ, as this is one of the things that I teach my life coaching clients and I have seen a big improvement in their progress”. 

Step 4

Try and take the relationship building off of Facebook. When you help people, through commenting and offering help without expecting anything in return, you may find that people start messaging you to get more information from you.

You can also offer to message people that you have assisted on the comments section, by politely asking if you can provide more information to them in their inbox.

Take care of any Facebook group’s rules about private messaging. Obviously if this is not allowed, then don’t do.

Whenever you decide to take the message away from the Facebook group and into a private message, continue to offer valuable insight and always end by recommending that your new prospect get more information by accepting a free lead magnet or read content that navigates towards a lead magnet, such as a content upgrade.

The goal for any social media prospecting, must always be to get your prospects on your email list, so you can market to them further.

How to Market A Coaching Business

If you’re seeking out prospects online, a great way to market your coaching business, is with a sales funnel. 

A sales funnel, is the journey you take your prospects on, from the time they opt in for a lead magnet, to the time you convert them into a sale. 

Many life coaches, offering high ticket products, have used this strategy effectively to sell their coaching packages. 

If you already know what a sales funnel is and you’re looking to design your first life coaching sales funnel, then I highly recommend using Clickfunnels or LeadPages to build and design your funnel.

Here are some ways you can implement a sales funnel strategy into your marketing efforts. 

Blog and guest post with lead magnet

If you have a blog, then consider guest posting on other highly-trafficked, highly targeted blogs, so you can access an audience that wants to learn more about improving their lives through goal setting. 

When you guest post, make sure that you write a well-written, thorough blog post as this helps to attract the blog audience to you and your expertise because of your content. 

Once the guest post is published, remember to engage the audience by responding to any comments that they may leave under the post. This helps you to connect with the audience and can be the stepping stone for commenters to reach out to you, to ask questions about your expertise and then for you to offer your services. 

Usually guest posts do not allow you to promote your product or service within the content. This is where you use the Author Bio, to not only tell the audience about yourself, but also recommend an offer that is completely relevant to the blog post. 

Here is how Sonia Thompson achieved this and promoted her own coaching funnel, when she guest posted on Smart Blogger.

Just be sure to ask the owner of the blog for permission to place a link back to your lead magnet, so as not to cause any awkwardness. 

Run paid ads to a life coach funnel 

Another way to use a sales funnel for life coach marketing, is to use paid ads to drive traffic to your sales funnel. 

With this strategy, you can either use search engine ads, such as Google Adwords or Microsoft Ads, to target people who are looking for your services, or you can use social media ads, Facebook or Instagram Ads, to target people who may be interested in your services but do not know that it exists. 

If using either of these methods, keep in mind that the sales funnel that you build and design, will be completely different for search marketing and social media marketing. 

With search marketing, as you are promoting a product or service to people, who have actually searched for what your business can offer, your sales funnel will specifically address their needs.

With social media marketing, however, the audience here do not know that they need your product or service. Therefore your sales funnel should identify the problem and offer your product as the solution.

Related Articles

• How to Use an Automated Sales Funnel For Any Business

Podcast and end with a life coaching funnel 

Just like you would do with a blog post, appearing as a guest on a podcast is another way of borrowing someone’s audience and sharing valuable content with them, so you can make an offer that leads to your coaching funnel. 

If you are considering using this platform, remember to seek out those podcast hosts, that have a large audience, so you have a better chance at being heard and your funnel converting for the audience that listens in. 

There are many ways that you can get on a podcast and I will share the following tips with you. 

There is a website that I found called Podcast Guests. You can sign up with them for free and find podcasters that are actually looking for guests. 

You can also do a search of Google, using the keywords “be a podcast guest” and find all the websites where this keyword is found. Herein you will find podcasters who are in need of guests.  

Another great place to find podcasts is on the Apple Itunes directory or you can look at Apple Podcasts.

Once you have found a few podcasts that you’d like to be a guest on, it’s time to prepare your pitch to the host, so they can understand the value that you can bring to their audience. 

A pitch is usually a short introduction to you and your brand and the type of content you’d like to deliver to the podcaster’s audience that may solve a problem. 

So when pitching, keep in mind that the podcaster is looking for fresh ideas that will help their audience, rather than it be a promotional piece of content that is all about selling your product or service. 

Don’t worry, usually podcasters do allow you to promote your content to their audience and this is mentioned at the discretion of the podcaster. 

Here is a sample pitch I prepared for a podcaster when I wanted to appear on her show. 

Pay attention to what’s in the highlighted box. 

The Rachael Academy Podcast features small business owners and entrepreneurs and her audience is mainly those persons who are looking for ways to start and build their own business. 

I identified a problem in the small business arena, that is, small business owners or entrepreneurs who believe that in order to be successful they must have a large audience or email list to promote their products or services to. 

I mentioned a solution to that problem that I’d like to focus on in the podcast. I said that I’d like to teach her audience, how to start a blog and get traffic to it using a free traffic source. 

The offer was not just any offer. It was useful and helpful to her audience – listeners will be able to learn how to monetise a blog in a strategic way by building their email list and then selling their products or services to that list. 

I also included my area of expertise in my pitch. I mentioned that I was a blogger and digital marketing strategist and had experience in selling my own digital products to a small audience.

With that in mind, here is what your pitch should focus on: 

• Introduce yourself
• Mention your area of expertise
• Identify the problem
• Offer a solution that you’d like to talk about in the podcast

After drafting your pitch, send it to the podcast host. If you are able to find their personal email or an email that goes directly to the podcaster, then that would be better. 

Ideally you’d want to avoid any gatekeepers (middle men), so look out for podcasters who have a direct email and if you are still not sure, send the email to the attention of the podcaster’s name.

Don’t forget to always follow up if you do not have a response to your pitch. It’s a good idea then to keep a spreadsheet of the podcasts you wrote to, the date you wrote to them, whether you received a response and the date you followed up with them.

If you are accepted to be a guest on a podcast, this is when you should offer to promote your life coaching services and it is always best to provide a direct link to your life coaching funnel, that is designed to generate leads and potentially lead to a client sale.

Create a YouTube video and end with a life coaching funnel

Another simple way to promote your life coaching business, is to start with a YouTube channel. 

If you are good with video, consider sharing free, valuable information to help build an audience. 

One thing that you need to remember when starting a YouTube channel, is that it will take time to build traction and an audience on this platform. 

Building a YouTube channel is like building a blog. You need to put out great content to attract an audience and then nurture them, to encourage them to consider your products. 

Before you sell any of your services on video, always lead with value and remember to include a call to action at the end of your video, telling your viewers what you’d like them to do. 

Whether that is checking out a blog post or opting into your life coaching funnel. 

To engage your audience you could also tell them to leave a comment on your video, like the video or subscribe to your channel. 

These bits of action, help to skew the YouTube algorithm in your favour so that your videos are recommended to more people. 

Wrapping Up

If you know how to find people to promote your product or service to, you will know how to become successful as a new life coach. 

The key takeaways from this blog post is: 

• Find targeted groups of people who are likely to require your products or services in the future.
• Lead with valuable information that will help your audience see you as an expert in your field.
• Capture the names and contacts of those people who expressed an interest in you, by inviting them to enter your sales funnel. 
• Nurture those leads who expressed an interest in you, with exclusive, valuable content.
• Pitch your products and services to convert those leads into sales.

Ready to do whatever it takes to get your first coaching client with sales funnels? The One Funnel Away Challenge will help you launch your first coaching funnel, so you can get a steady stream of leads and sales in less than 30 days.

The One Funnel Away Challenge is for you if:

• You’re just getting started and have no idea where to start
• You want to start your own life coaching business and work from home
• You may already have your own life coaching business, but there’s no growth and you feel stuck
• You are trying to figure out a way to reach more people or have a bigger impact on the world
• You are about to launch your life coaching funnel and want to have a huge success.

Join the 30-day challenge, so you can start building your thriving life coaching business today.

Thanks for reading guys.

Tell me in the comments what strategies you have used to get your own coaching clients.

Cheers

The post How To Get Clients As A Freelance Life Coach appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

As a freelancer, you may have asked yourself, how do you keep your bucket full of web design prospects, so you can convert those prospects into clients. 

In this blog post I am sharing with you, different ways and places that you can find web design clients, so in the event you have run out of ideas, you can always come back here, as a reference point, to learn about other sources that can be a gold mine filled with web design prospects.

Here’s What You Will Learn: 

• How to find web design clients online
• How to find web design clients on Linkedin
• How to find web design clients on Instagram
• How to get local web design clients
• How to get web design clients on Craigslist
• How to get high paying web design clients
• How to get international clients for web design

How To Find Web Design Clients Online 

There are many places online, that help you find web design clients. As well as, there are many things that you can do, to attract web design prospects to you. 

Let’s have a look at some ideas:

1. Create your own website and blog 

It is no doubt, that by showing our expertise through content, you can attract people to you. A blog is a powerful tool that you can start right away, to build an audience and then offer free content in return, so that you can educate your prospects about web design and they can feel more comfortable turning to you for advice. 

When you create your own website and blog, make sure that your content focuses on the pain points of your prospects. That way the end goal of every blog post, is to offer your service as the solution to that pain point. 

Think that this is a good idea? Start a blog today for only $2.95 a month with Bluehost.

Whilst starting a blog is a great strategy, it is a long-term one, so results may not happen right away. As long as you remain consistent with blogging and providing good content, you will eventually be able to convert clients from all the good knowledge that you have provided.

Related Articles: 

• The Complete Guide To Starting A Successful Blog
• The Ultimate Blogging Strategy: 90 Days To Blog Success

2. Implement Search Engine Optimisation and Promote Yourself

This then brings me on to my next point of how to find clients online when you blog. 

Once you have a website and blog set up, it does not end with writing content. You now need to promote that content so that people find you. 

One great way to show up in front of a targeted audience, is with the Google search engines. With the latest Google update, you can now answer your audience’s very specific questions, with the possibility of your blog getting crawled by Google and eventually landing a spot in the search engine. 

Everyone wants to make it to page one of Google, so your aim should not only be to answer your audience’s questions, but provide specific, quality answers, as well as build your blog brand, so that Google favours your content as expert and authoritative. 

Not sure where to start with SEO? Here’s a course that helps you get started.

Besides Google, another search engine that is often under utilised, is Pinterest. 

Pinterest is a great place that has a high female demographic. So if you know that your target market is females, consider focusing on Pinterest and posting your content there. 

If you want to understand how to use Pinterest to promote your blog, I used the Pinterest Traffic Avalanche course to help me generate over 32,000 visitors to my blog within 4 months.

Imagine if your new blog could generate that type of free traffic, what that would do for your new freelance business? That means more visitors, more leads and potential sales of your services within such a short space of time right?

Lastly, you can promote your blog post by asking other web design bloggers to post your content to their audience.

A good way to do that, is by guest posting. You can also agree to be interviewed or appear on a podcast. 

This gives you the ability to share audiences, so that more people see your amazing content. 

Always make sure that when using any of these methods, that you have a strategy with an end goal. 

For you, that end goal may be to get more leads to fill your web design funnel. 

A great way to accomplish that end goal, is to create content upgrades from within your blog posts, to help you generate leads. 

How To Find Web Design Clients On LinkedIn

Linkedin is the social media network for professionals, so your target market – the decision makers of businesses – are bound to be here. 

Like any other social media network, it is also a place where you need to build relationships before you get the sale. 

The following steps will teach you how to create an attractive LinkedIn profile, so you can attract web design prospects to you, who go on to become web design clients. 

Step 1

It all begins with your profile, since this is the first thing that prospects see. You want to have a profile that pre-sells your brand, experience and what you can do, so that by the time you have a conversation with a prospect, they already know about you. 

Hopefully when you craft your profile in a highly attractive way, you can stimulate the minds of your readers and make them want to work with you. Learn how to write the perfect LinkedIn profile by visiting this very helpful resource.

Step 2

Identify your target market, means going out into the LinkedIn marketplace and finding ideal people that you’d like to connect with. 

When you think about it, you really want to connect with the decision-makers of a business. That means, they can hire you on the spot and are not “the middle man”.

Who are the decision-makers? Well they’re the CEOs, Director of Marketing, the CFOs, etc. 

When you have created a list of your target audience, you can use LinkedIn’s search tool to find people that match that description. 

Step 3

Send a connection request. When you have found someone that matches your target audience, it’s time to send a connection request. 

Whilst LinkedIn allows you to send default connection requests, it is wise to send a more personalised message, that will make the reader more likely want to connect with you. 

A great way to personalise a message is by using their real name. 

Also take the time to do some research on them or their company and explain why they will want to connect with you. 

For example, as a web designer, you may want to take a look at their current website, if any, and address a few changes that you could make, to help them with their business. 

Pro tip: Always make the request about the other person. How can you help them?

In that regard, a personalised connection request that falls within LinkedIn’s character limit, can be something like: 

“Hi [first name]

I’m [your name]. I help small business owners create and design beautiful, high converting websites that generate more visitors and eventually leads. Your website looks great but there are a few things that I would recommend you improve. 

May I share it with you?” 

OR 

“Hi [first name]

I’m [your name]. I help small business owners create and design beautiful, high converting websites that generate more visitors and insane ROI. Your website looks great but there are a few things that I would recommend you improve. 

May I share it with you?” 

What this message does, is: 

1. It creates curiosity, since by telling them that there are things about their website that needs improvement to generate a result every business wants – more leads – certainly it will peak their curiosity and they will want to find out what that is. 
2. It identifies a pain point of most companies that own websites – that is, not knowing how to get more leads. More leads means more sales.
3. It demonstrates that you’ve taken steps to do some research
4. It demonstrates that you want to add value and you’re not simply another one of those messages which they may identify as spam.

Step 4

Send a thank you message. Once the prospect accepts your request, deliver what you said you would share, that’s it. 

Don’t let this message be a pitch fest because that is not its purpose. You can always pitch another time. 

All you want to do, is add some value to their business strategy, so you can leave a lasting impression that makes them want to thank you for connecting with them. 

Once you have delivered the value, end with a message such as “talk to you soon” or “I’ll catch up with you later”. That way you’re telling them, you’re leaving the door open for more dialogue.

Step 5

Follow up. Once you have connected with your prospect, it does not end there. You need to continue to build the relationship, so they can see you as a potential resource, should they need help. 

To do that, you can offer content that demonstrates your authority and knowledge on a subject that matters to them. 

For example, if after doing research, you notice that their website traffic numbers are very low, then content that teaches them how web design can be optimised to increase traffic numbers would be helpful to them. 

Again the purpose here is not to pitch your service. You simply want to share a message that lets them see that you are knowledgeable in an area where they may need help. 

This ensures that you are top of mind, should they decide to embark on a web design project.

Step 6

Share content with your connections. This is where being consistent pays off. If you know that your connections would benefit from a piece of content, then share it with them by creating status updates.

Make sure that your status update, has a good hook so that your connections will want to read more of it. Make sure the status update is short and to the point, so your connections can get through the message and to work with Linkedin’s algorithm, all links should be placed in the comment section. 

Step 7

Move relationships off of LinkedIn. After you have built rapport with your connections for a while, now it’s time to take the relationship off of LinkedIn. 

A great way to do this, is to offer a lead magnet that is designed to take the prospect through a funnel that leads to the sale of your services. 

Because you have built a good relationship before hand, it is now a perfect time to pitch your services to them. I would suggest that the relationship building stage lasts for a month, before you start a sales funnel strategy to convert your prospects into clients.

A good thing about this too, is that this process can be automated, because once they are in a funnel system and if you are using email marketing, you can also engage them more often and continue building the relationship. 

Remember that this has to be a consistent effort, because it may take a while to convert your prospects. Some of them may not need your services now, but it does not mean that in six to twelve months, they may not need your services then.  

How To Find Web Design Clients on Instagram

The whole client-fishing strategy is similar with any social network – it’s all about identifying, connecting and engaging with your ideal audience before you convert them into clients. 

So how exactly do you find web design clients on Instagram?

Like LinkedIn, I want you to understand that there is a process to building relationships with people, before you actually get a sale and with Instagram it may look something like this. 

Step 1

Assuming that you already have an Instagram business account, create a bio that tells your visitors, who you are, what you offer and who is your target audience. 

So for example, a great Instagram bio would be: 

Web design that’s not only stunning but leads to higher conversion rates that matter to small business real estate investors. 

When you have a targeted Instagram bio, it means that you are not just attracting anyone, but attracting a group of people who falls into your ideal audience – in the above example, that is, real estate investors. 

Step 2

Use the Instagram bio link. Always make sure that you have a call to action for your Instagram link so you can get more visitors to check out a piece of content that matters to you. 

Always have the end goal in mind. So what does your content aim to do? It should aim to generate leads, so take the time to create a landing page that will help convert those visitors into leads.

Step 3

As a web designer you want your Instagram feed to have an aesthetic that is visually stimulating. 

A striking, yet clean feed, speaks volumes as to the type of work you produce and gives a good first impression to visitors who are seeing you for the first time. 

When deciding on the type of feed that you want to portray for your business, consider using one colour palette that is consistent throughout, so that your feed has a theme.

Also don’t forget to create varying content. Content should attract and engage your audience so they pay attention and get to know more about you.

Use images that are bright and visually appealing which helps interrupt your audience so they take notice. 

Then tell your story through a caption that seeks to inspire, educate and even tickle your audience. Try to avoid too much content that is sales-oriented because that will certainly make you lose a few followers. 

Step 4

Use Relevant Hashtags. Because how else would people find you? Hashtags are like search engines, in that when someone is searching for an item or content, it gives visibility to your work. 

This is why you should have a good hashtag selection that is relevant to web design. One tip is to use the same hashtags consistently in your posts. That way you stand out more, when several pieces of your content appears in a hashtag search. This typically steers people to check out your profile and could potentially lead to more followers.

Step 5

Once your content is written, you have inserted your hashtags and posted, make sure you engage. You want to spend at least an hour on the gram, immediately engaging with people who respond to your content. 

When you respond immediately to comments, this creates a new wave in the Instagram algorithm, that gives your content more exposure.

Not only should you be aiming to engage with people who comment on your post, you should also engage with your audience’s own posts. 

When you do so, there’s a good chance that that user will check out your profile and feed and give you some love. 

For this reason, always make sure that your bio has a good call to action to check out your content and your content is so magnetic and valuable that it leads to valuable conversions that matter to you – in your case it should be a lead through a nurturing sales funnel.   

How to Get Local Web Design Clients  

I believe having a web design business that targets local businesses, allows you to be more personable with your contacts, thereby building a relationship faster. 

Whilst you can prospect and build your client base online, you can also incorporate some in-person prospecting to give you a better chance at winning a client. 

But it does require you to step outside of your comfort zone and here’s how. 

Don’t be afraid to meet with new people at networking events. 

Whilst this may not be something that you do as a business all the time, it certainly is something you can focus on, in the beginning, to build momentum and have a few clients coming through the door. 

Again building relationships is a key factor so always keep this in mind when you start. 

1. Networking

Attend networking events. You can find networking events that attract your ideal audience by joining Facebook groups.

If the admin of a group posts a network event, always make an effort to show up. This gives you exposure to potential clients in your area. 

Another great way you can maximise your presence in the Facebook group, is also to consistently help other members by answering questions and providing advice without expecting anything in return. 

When you do this, people will start to take notice of you and see you as someone who can help them solve their problems. 

Remember, when providing advice in these forums, it is always best to over deliver and build trust, so that approaching you for advice and feeling comfortable doing so is an easy choice. 

Also by showing up at networking events, gives you the opportunity to meet your potential clients in person, which can be the deal breaker that helps you get hired. 

You can also find networking events at Meetup.com and searching on your local chamber of commerce notice board or website. 

When you attend networking events in person, socialise first, pitch later. The aim at these networking events, is to share what you do and show that you are knowledgeable in what you do. 

It’s also meant to be a fun place to meet new people. If you appear at more networking events and meet the same people over and over, this is how you foster relationships that can then lead to client work. 

Whilst networking takes time to grow a leads pipeline, it is a starting point to getting your name and brand out into the marketplace and can help people put a name to a face when they see you online. 

2. Approach ideal businesses in person

If you don’t want to attend networking events, another good way to find web design clients, is to do the good old-fashioned door knocking. 

Now I’m not saying to knock on every person’s door, but a great strategy, is to pinpoint a handful of businesses you’d like to work with, then do a bit of research on their business. 

As a web designer, that may be looking at their website and see what improvements could be made and why. 

Usually, the next step would be for people to send a cold email to the prospect to share this information with them, but an alternative way to actually meet with the decision-maker and know that your advice gets into the right hand, and also to demonstrate a bit of personableness, is to show up at their door. 

Even if you meet with the person, and leave a hard copy book that speaks about the improvements that their website could make with a subject like “How One Business Owner Got Over 600% ROI by Making Small Tweaks to Their Website”, this is bound to get results because you’re not just another email. 

Everyone is sending emails and it actually takes effort to return to the conventional way of marketing. Business owners truly appreciate you going the extra step.

3. Online prospecting

And if door to door marketing is just not your thing, there is always the internet. In that case you can refer to my paragraph where I explained how to find web design clients online. 

How to Get Web Design Clients on Craigslist

Some people may not think of Craigslist as a lead generator for web design clients but before you rule it out I want you to consider this. 

Craigslist is a classified advertisement website that allows you to search for jobs, houses, items wanted and other things, but it is also a place where you can get web design leads, if you have a good strategy, you’re patient and you’re willing to test and see what works. 

Most people start by posting their ads in sections such as services or jobs, but other sections you can test to see if it gives any results is For Sale – Business or Temp Jobs – Computer. 

Other relevant sections are the Services – Computer, Services – Creative, Services – Sm Biz Ads, Jobs – Business Mgmt, Jobs – Web Info/Design, Jobs – Marketing/PR/Ad and even the CVs section.

When posting ads in these sections a few things to think about, when writing your ads are:

• Split test your headlines 
• Split test the content of your ads
• Simplicity is key
• Keep each of your ads/subject lines unique to avoid it being considered as spam
• You should be prepared to post several ads, even in the hundreds per week, before you get a quality lead. 
• Be consistent and post several times a day
• Be patient

One thing to be aware about Craigslist, is that you have to put yourself where people are actually searching for your business. 

Be creative and get inside the minds of people who are actively searching for people who provide your service. 

Ask yourself, where on Craigslist will they look? What are they searching for and what type of headline will catch their attention?

How to Get International Clients for Web Design

Just because you live in one country, does not mean you cannot tap into the market of another country. 

With the internet and having different ways to connect with potential clients, such as through Skype, Zoom or other online conference applications, finding web design clients should not be troublesome, if you have a good strategy to start. 

If you are familiar with Google Adwords or Microsoft Ads (formerly Bing Ads), then you can launch an ad, that drives traffic to a client funnel to attract leads and then convert them into clients.  

Do the same with Facebook Ads or any social media network that allows advertising, but it is important that you know where your target audience is, so you can target them with the most appropriate social media ads; whether that is Pinterest ads, Facebook ads or Instagram ads for example. 

When creating ads to post on the internet, I strongly recommend that you use a client funnel, or sales funnel so you can attract your target audience and serve them content that educates them about your brand, what you can offer and how your offer can help them solve a problem.

It is important that you build an email list by first serving a lead magnet, then consistently provide valuable content, so you can nurture your leads and help them see you as someone who can help them. So for example, as a web designer, your value proposition might be that you help design highly convertible websites that turn targeted traffic into leads or sales. 

When you create advertisements on the internet, some key metrics to be aware of, is your cost per lead, your sales funnel opt in rate, cost per client acquisition. This way you will know how much you’re spending versus how much you have earned in terms of client business. 

Wrapping Up

Hey, I hope as a web design freelancer, I have given you some tips to help you get started. Even as a beginner, if you implement my steps and remain consistent throughout the way, I promise you, you will start seeing results.

Want to step up your game and go from a bootstrapper to a highly profitable web design freelancer? Then check out the 42-Minute Freelancer Roadmap that demonstrates how one lead-capturing funnel helped Julie Stoian, go from making just $2000 a month to over six figures, in just a few months and how you can achieve similar results too.

Click here to watch the free video.

The post How To Get Web Design Clients as a Freelancer appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

The personal training business is a booming industry, since many people nowadays are in tune to their health and wellness.

That means that personal trainers are highly sought after and if you know how to get personal training clients easily, then you may be one of those personal trainers who have no problem in filling their calendars.

If however you’re currently struggling to understand how to get personal training clients to fill your business, then this post was written especially for you.

I am going to break down several ways in which you can get personal training clients. You will also get a detailed case study of how one personal trainer was able to close his gym, which kept him in debt and go on to generate over $250,000 in sales by switching to one system.

There is a method to getting tons of personal training clients and you don’t have to be anyone special because I am going to show you how to do it, so you can get started right away.

Here’s what you will learn in this blog post:

• How to get personal training clients online
• How do I promote my personal training business
• How do you generate leads for personal training
• How do personal trainers get clients fast – a case study
• How to use Clickfunnels to sell online fitness programs

How to get personal training clients online

Online businesses are fast becoming the easiest business models, that you can start, to make money online.

That’s because, we are in the digital age where there are so many platforms that allow people to get online and get information or products easily.

Not to mention the convenience of getting those products.

Therefore it is necessary, as the personal trainer, to keep up with the times.

As Thomas Jefferson said “… with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times”.

There are many ways to get personal training clients online. I will share with you a few of the most popular and effective ways, so you can be inspired to use these methods to get your first personal training client yourself; if you do not already have one.

Let’s get started.

1. Build a Website

As a personal trainer, the most powerful way to build an online presence and attract clients to you, is with the use of a website.

The most professional personal trainers, who attract and retain a large number of loyal clients and do so quickly and sometimes passively, do it with a personal branded website.

Why should you have a website? Because you will be able to set yourself as the authority in fitness and your prospects will get to know a little more about you, before they actually meet with you.

This is one of the best tools that you can use, to sell yourself and do so, without any real human intervention. Your website will do most of the talking for you, until the prospect decides to reach out for more information.

You can build any website, but if you want to build a successful online presence with a website as a personal trainer, that draws in prospects, there are certain functions that your website must have.

Firstly, to start building your website, check out my easy to follow tutorial, which will guide you, in a step-by-step fashion and teach you how to get your first website up and running quickly.

After you have built your website, consider adding the following items to your website’s navigation menu, to make it easy for visitors to navigate and to give the prospect exactly what they are looking for:

Work with me

Here, you will tell your website visitor how they can work with you. You may list your requirements for accepting new clients here and also speak about any of your personal training services.

About 

This is where you will speak about who you are, what specialist skills you have, your history as a personal trainer, any achievements you have and anything else you want your prospect to know.

It is a good idea, to demonstrate how you can help your prospect, should they eventually become your client and you can do this by talking about, what has worked for your other clients in the past and why you feel it will work for them.

Testimonials

As you may know, having other people vouch for your expertise, is a huge opportunity to get the attention of prospects and build their trust in you.

If people have already used your services and it is evidenced on your website, through testimonials, then this is a contributing factor that can lead to more people being interested in using your services too.

When creating the testimonial section, I recommend that you use an image of your client in this section, as images tend to do better in converting prospects, since the testimonial can be claimed by a face.

If you do not have your client’s permission to use their image, then this is not a problem. Simply use their testimony as it is, although you should note that this can reduce conversions from web visitor to prospect.

Another way to improve conversions in the testimonial section, is to use real video testimonials. Using real videos of your clients as they give their testimonial, is a convincing and compelling way, to make someone attach credibility to your name.

If you do not yet have clients and are just starting out, do not worry. It simply means you will have to sell yourself as best as you can, to attract your ideal prospect.

By having a beautifully-designed website is the first step to selling yourself.

Services

In your services section, you should list what personal training services you can provide and their prices. This makes it easy for a prospect to become familiar with your services and price and helps them take that step of reaching out to you, if they consider your price point reasonable.

Contact Me

This is one of the most important categories you should have on your website. Some websites have contact forms embedded on a website for this purpose, but I recommend you include an email address, physical address and contact number if you have one.

Blog

If you want new website visitors, I strongly recommend having a blog. What is a blog? It is a section of your website where you regularly provide updated content that is informational (just like this one that you’re reading).

This is called a blog post.

As a personal trainer, your blog post should be used as a way of showing your expertise. You can use a blog to write helpful content that is useful for the viewer. For example, you may want to post challenges, recipes or health and wellness tips.

The reason why a blog is crucial to you finding new visitors, is because, if written well, can play a part in your website being found in the search engines.

If your website is found in the search engines, for keywords or key phrases that people are typing into Google or Bing, then you will continue to expose your name to new prospects, which will grow your audience.

Haven’t yet started a website or blog for your personal training business?

I have a free blog course which will guide you through the steps of starting one and getting you on the right track.

In this course, you will learn:

• How to start a blog
• How to get people to find your blog
• What to blog about
• The best ways to monetise your blog

2. Have A Lead Magnet To Attract Subscribers

Once you have set up a website, one other way to attract your ideal clients, is to first build a relationship with them.

Even though people would visit your website, you must take additional steps to convert them into subscribers or leads.

A subscriber or lead is likely to be worth hundreds or thousands of dollars to your business once they have converted to a client.

In order to convert them to a client, you must attract them as a subscriber or lead first.

How can you do this? One way to do this, from your website, you can add a subscriber opt in box, otherwise known as a lead capture form.

This form, will be a means to collecting your prospect’s details (typically their name and email address), in exchange for your lead magnet.

A lead magnet, is any free offer that you give away, such as a PDF report, a video training series or worksheet, for the main purpose of gathering your prospect’s contact details. 

So as a personal trainer, perhaps you can give away a free fitness challenge, a free PDF report on the types of food to eat to burn muscle fat, something like that.

Click here to learn how to create your first lead magnet and the best format for your lead magnet.

Once you have received your prospect’s contact details, you will be able to communicate with them through email, SMS or messaging services, like chat bots, so you can start building a relationship with them.

Think of this, as having a conversation with your ideal clients, since we know that the road to creating client relationships, starts with conversations.

When you build a relationship, you are basically offering content about you as a brand, providing helpful information and even selling yourself.

To see how to do this, click here to read how to warm up a cold lead for sales.

3. Build A Social Media Presence

Social media is a huge platform where your ideal audience may be hanging out.

You want to show up in places, where your target audience may be present the most and these days, this is on social media sites like Facebook or Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and even Pinterest.

You do not need to have elaborate tools to show up here. You simply need to have engaging, helpful and interesting content, that gets people to recognise you.

For example, if you decide that you want to use YouTube, to show up to and attract your ideal audience, you can create simple videos talking about a number of various topics that you feel would matter to people who you want to attract.

For example, some topics that you may want to focus on, can include:

• Your own personal journey to losing weight and why you want to help other people
• Your own client’s success stories, after they used your services
• Health and fitness tips that make people healthier or lose weight

For Facebook, you can use posts or live video to share your content.

For Twitter, because of the limited number of text you can use, use tweets that has a link back to another platform with your content.

For Pinterest, share pins that are connected to helpful blog posts (this is where your website comes in).

When you prepare content for these platforms, it is important that you take it seriously and you remain consistent.

Also, one important tip that you should remember to include in these videos and posts, is a call to action at the end of your content, inviting your viewers to join whatever program you have for them.

Remember to also post a link to your website, which if you followed my advice above, has a lead magnet with a sweet giveaway, so you can acquire leads to follow up with.

4. Take Part In Online Forums or Groups

As a personal trainer, you may already be a part of a forum where you have answered other people’s questions and have been helpful.

Maybe you are seen as the go-to person for fitness. If that is the case, these places are where you can polish up your profile to attract your ideal clients.

When you are seen as an authority, people pay attention and may secretly have you on their radar, checking out what you do.

If you are a member of these online forums or groups and never thought to create an attractive profile, now is the time.

Here are some pieces of information to help you build an appealing personal trainer profile:

• Include your real name
• Include a way for visitors to contact you, whether that is a website link, a social media profile link or an email address
• Make it absolutely clear, what your mission statement is – what is it that you do and which group of people do you serve? For example “I help women over 50 become more healthy and fit as they age”

If you are not part of an online forum or group, then you can start now. However I do not recommend joining a group with the mere purpose of selling your services.

You will definitely sell out yourself.

Instead, join a group and in the first month or two, only provide helpful advice.

Answer questions and be approachable so people can get to know you and then like you.

Once you start showing up in these forums or groups consistently, people will recognise you and start checking you out.  

How do I promote my personal training business

If you have built a website or blog or have created video material which gives more information about your brand, then it is time to promote your personal training business.

You are not going to get any new clients or even recognition, if you do not promote your personal training business.

When you promote your personal training business, you are simply letting other people know that you exist and that you are open for business.

Here are a few ways, free and paid, that you can promote your personal training business:

1. Social media advertising

The best way to reach a massive number of people in a short space of time, is through advertising.

Whilst there are places like Craigslist, classified ad websites or online marketplaces, you want your ads to show up in places that is likely to make a huge impact and give you a return on your investment.

The best places you can confidently spend your money and get a great return on your investment is with:

• Facebook or Instagram
• YouTube
• Twitter
• Pinterest

If you intend to use any of these platforms, it is a good idea to learn how they work before you spend any money on ads.

A good place to start for Facebook Ads is with the Social Traffic Blueprint course by Jon Penberthy and Jubril Agoro. This course helped me increase my revenue for my business by ten times and helps me acquire thousands of leads every month.

2. Search engine marketing

Search engine marketing can be very effective, if you have a website and lead magnet and you target keywords or keyphrases that your ideal prospects may be searching for.

Search engines, give you the opportunity to tap into a huge market of people who search Google, Bing or other search engines like Pinterest, for answers to their questions.

If you can answer that question properly and thoroughly or you can provide some solution to their problem, you have a higher chance at acquiring that visitor and converting them to a lead.

Once that person becomes a lead, you can place them in your email sequence to work on converting them to a paying client.

If you do not have an email list and you want to learn how to start one from scratch, then I recommend that you start with my blog post, How to Start An Email List From Scratch. 

If you do not want to use either social media advertising or search engine marketing, you can use the following free methods however, it is important for you to understand, that it may take longer for you to see results.

3. Search engine optimisation

When you use search engine optimisation to promote your personal training business, you are simply improving your website content, by using different on-page and off-page strategies, to improve your chances of being found in the search engines.

If this sounds too technical for you, but you are interested in learning how to use SEO to improve your website’s discoverability and especially if you want to get free visitors to your website in the long term, then I recommend the Complete SEO Training Masterclass for beginners to help you get started with SEO.

Search engine optimisation is more of a long term strategy to getting significant results on your website, so if you want to build a clientele now, then I would recommend that you use paid methods which I discussed above.

4. Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing has become a very hot topic in recent times, especially with the growth of social media personalities.

There are many social media account holders or even bloggers, vloggers or podcasters, who have a huge audience that you can rent, to expose your brand to.

For example, one creative way to do this and which is a win-win for most influencers, is the provision of content in exchange for an appearance to that influencer’s audience.

For example, many podcasters, vloggers or bloggers are always looking for new content. You can help provide that content in the form of a blog post, an interview or video material.

This way, you have pretty much done all the work for them – you have created the content – and all you need to do is deliver the content and show up.

Influencers love this. They are content creators and you are making their work easier since you are helping them fill their content calendars – and as a blogger, this is not an easy or interesting thing to do.

To get started with this, I recommend that you do a quick Google search of fitness, health or wellness blogs that have a high volume traffic, then find the contact details for the author and pitch your request to them.

Do the same for podcasters and vloggers.

Here’s a simple hack that you can use, to find relevant blogs and podcasts using Google.

Use the keyphrase “blog inurl:”keyword” to find relevant blogs.

Use the keyphrase podcast inurl:”keyword” to find relevant podcasts.

Take a note of each blog or podcast owner, their contact details, then work on contacting each of them and pitching your idea.

Just one opportunity on a highly-trafficked podcast or blog can increase your following and open up so many opportunities to meet new prospects.

How do you generate leads for personal training

A lead is someone who has raised their hand and expressed an interest in what you have to offer.

So whilst you may be present with a website, on social media or acquire visitors from borrowed platforms such as podcasts, bloggers and vloggers, you must make it your focus to always convert your audience into leads.

There are two ways you can do this, manually or automatically.

1. Manual lead generation

This is where you get leads without the use of any tool or software to acquire and store them.

To get leads you may buy them from a lead generation marketer, where you now have to contact those people and introduce yourself whether by phone, email or post.

You may get leads through a referral or word of mouth. You must still follow up to convert these type of leads by phone, email or post.

You may get leads from your own content, where people comment on that content expressing an interest in working with you or simply engaging with you.

If someone interacts with your content in this way, it’s a good idea to reach out to them personally, whether by messenger, if they are part of your social circle or by email, if they have left an email address and communicate with them to see if they have any need for your service.

2. Automated lead generation

This type of lead generation is my favourite since it does not require a lot of effort on your part and most of the connection is via inbound means.

That is to say, people that are interested in working with you, actually reach out to you and ask for more information and the process of sharing that information with them, is done automatically.

Automated lead generation requires a system, set up with various tools which include:

• A Domain
• Lead capture page
• Email autoresponder or messenger chatbot
• Lead magnet  

The great thing about this method, is that once you have set it up, you can forget about it and let it do its job.

Here is how this works in practice.

Domain

Your domain is what will identify your website on the internet. When choosing your domain, you may wish to use a niche domain that is related to fitness or health and wellness.

For example your domain could be healthcoaching101.com or fitnesscoaching101.com

Your domain could also be personally branded, such as your name. For example dawnmarienesbitt.com or workwithdawnmarie.com.

Lead capture page

Once you have your domain you need to connect it to a website. Your website is what will have your lead capture page on it.

Email autoresponder or messenger bot

Your email autoresponder will be connected to your lead capture page and will store pre-written emails that tells your leads more about your brand, your services and provide some education on personal training.

This is where your leads get to know more about you and why they should work with you.

Lead magnet

Finally, your lead magnet, is the hook that will attract people to your lead capture page.

Once everything comes together, you can then share your domain URL with the world through the various channels where you distribute your content, such as YouTube, Facebook or Instagram.

Always remember that when you share your URL, include a call to action in your content, so you can tell people what to do, and how they can work with you.

How do personal trainers get clients fast – A case study

Personal trainers, who understand online marketing, are using various strategies to transition from being a personal trainer at the gym, to an online personal trainer.

The benefit of having an online personal training business is that it:

• Reduces your overhead costs
• Expands your reach locally, nationally and even internationally
• You can grow your income exponentially
• You can be location-independent and still run your personal training business
• The price of your product can be more competitive since you have reduced your overhead costs.

This is exactly how Nick Garcia, a personal trainer, who opened his first gym in 2014, was able to make over $250,000 a year by transitioning his business online.

He eventually closed his gym in 2016.

How did he do it?

Nick used Clickfunnels, an online software tool that helps you create specialist specialist sales funnels to build websites, generate leads and communicate with your most targeted prospects via email, to convert them into paying clients.

Nick first started an online bootcamp from his website Upgraded Health, where he generated over 100 members, paying $99/month for a monthly membership and every 3 weeks, he ran a 6-week fat loss challenge that generated him an additional $3000 – $6000 in revenue.

With Clickfunnels, Nick now brings in over $10,000 per month and in one month in 2018, he made $24,000 selling digital products in the online fitness and weight loss space.

If you want to learn how to use Clickfunnels to build your own personal training funnels or even a supplement funnel and get clients really fast, sign up for the free webinar that Nick used to get started. 

How to use Clickfunnels to sell online fitness programs

One way that Nick has been able to make over $250,000 per year, was by selling online fitness programs.

Can you package what you know into an ebook or video series?

If yes, you can create these products, known as digital products, set up a sales page to sell these products, then create an automated email autoresponder to deliver the product as promised.

Even if you do not know how to do this, Clickfunnels trains you and helps you to create this entire system which you can then make functionable, by posting your Clickfunnels website link on your social media platforms, your personal branded website or blog or even send it to people that you speak to daily.

When you sell your digital fitness programs online, you can even generate sales when you are away from your computer, when you are out and about or even whilst sleeping.

That is the magic of using automated systems.

If you want to copy the sales funnel that Nick personally used to go from personal trainer at the gym to online personal trainer click here to join a free webinar that teaches you how to do so.

Wrapping Up

Getting personal training clients, does not have to be difficult, if you have the correct systems and tools in place.

I hope that this blog post, opens up your eyes, to give you ideas on the current ways to build your personal training business, get personal training clients and establish yourself as a reputable brand.

Branding and acquiring clients do take time, but once you remain consistent and focused on the goal, it can definitely be done.

With the help of Clickfunnels you can accelerate your business as well.

If you watched the webinar, let me know what you think and whether you are on your way to setting up your first personal training funnel.

Cheers

The post How To Get Personal Training Clients With Sales Funnels appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

My review of Clickfunnels vs LeadPages is going to give the blogger, affiliate marketer, ecom store owner and marketer a clue about whether these marketing tools are ideal for their business.

Hands up, if you would rather know what the deal is, before spending money and time trying to learn something that does not meet your expectation?

Well as a user of both marketing tools, I hope that I will be able to give you a clear picture of the features of these products and whether they are the right fit for your business

I know there are a ton of Clickfunnels vs Leadpages reviews, but I had not seen any, that specifically answers to who the user is.

Which is why I decided to take a different route and provide a review for each specific business owner.

I will be making this review as unbiased as possible. After all I do have certain gripes about both Clickfunnels and LeadPages that I’d like you to know about.

If you’d like to skip to my review based on what kind of business owner you are, be sure to use the navigation menu below.

Without any further delay, let’s get right to it.

Here is what you will learn in this blog post:

• What is Clickfunnels?
• What is LeadPages?
• Clickfunnels vs LeadPages features
• Who is Clickfunnels vs LeadPages for?
• Clickfunnels vs LeadPages for affiliate marketing? Bottom line.
• ClickFunnels vs LeadPages for bloggers? Bottom line.
• ClickFunnels vs LeadPages for physical or digital products? Bottom line.
• ClickFunnels vs LeadPages for ecommerce? Bottom line.
• ClickFunnels vs LeadPages for network marketers? Bottom line.
• ClickFunnels vs LeadPages for local businesses? Bottom line.
• How to build a funnel on ClickFunnels or LeadPages?

What is Clickfunnels?

I have so many people come to me and say they’d like to build a clickfunnel. Let me set the record straight by clarifying that Clickfunnels is the name of a product or more specifically an online software.

Just like Microsoft Word or Powerpoint, it is a product or online software that helps you build a sales funnel.

A sales funnel is a series of web pages dedicated to the promotion of a particular product or products that helps the business owner achieve a desired goal.

That goal may be a sale, lead generation, booking a consultation or call or whatever objective you may have.

It is different from your traditional website because it does not have features like external or internal links, navigation menus, etc.

In this regard, the funnel is the ideal marketing tool because it helps to keep the user (your target audience) focused on the main objective of the funnel.

The owner of the Clickfunnels product is Russel Bronson.

What is LeadPages?

LeadPages was designed as a lead generation software but it can also be used as a sales funnel.

That is because LeadPages also allows you to build sales pages that help you generate sales of products.

So just like Clickfunnels, you can use the LeadPages software to also generate leads, sales, consultation bookings or calls.

When you first get to the LeadPages home page, if your goal is to sell a product, you may be wondering whether LeadPages is the right product for you, since their focus is more on the lead generation aspect.

Don’t worry because you can take payments with this online platform as well which means that you can sell a product if you want to.

When compared to Clickfunnels, notice how Clickfunnels immediately addresses this, by pointing out almost everything that can be done with the Clickfunnels software.

ClickFunnels vs LeadPages Features

Rather than write a paragraph about the features in each of these online software, I decided to create a table setting out the main features so you can easily get an overview and comparison of each one.

I will then go into the specifics of each feature so you can learn a little bit more about it.

Mobile Friendly Templates

Both Clickfunnels and LeadPages have mobile friendly templates.

However, if I were to pick one for easy mobile responsiveness, my vote would go to LeadPages.

That is because, with Clickfunnels even though their pages can convert to mobile, you must manually adjust your text for mobile viewers, before publishing.

What I mean is, if on desktop you have used a font size of 32px, with Clickfunnels you want to make sure that the text is down-sized for mobile.

If you do not take this additional step the text will also appear large on mobile. Clickfunnels have catered to this by adding a mobile text button in their editor.

The difference with LeadPages however, is that the text and images are automatically down-sized for mobile.

Drag and Drop Interface

Designing a lead page or funnel is simple with their drag and drop interface.

No coding is necessary which makes Clickfunnels and LeadPages easy for amateurs who have no coding or design skill.

To build a page with Clickfunnels, you can either use one of their pre-designed templates and drag and drop any additional elements that you want to the page.

If you are starting from the beginning though you must understand how a Clickfunnel page is designed.

Each of their pages are made up of sections, rows and elements.

Each page starts with a section which is identified by the colour green, which contains a row identified by the colour blue and a row contains an element, identified by the colour orange.

The elements are your content boxes and it is from the content boxes that you can design your page.

LeadPages has a similar construction however to start designing your page, you only need to add a section then drag and drop your content.

So once again in terms of ease, LeadPages wins making it easier for the user to build their pages effortlessly.

Pop-Up Lead Boxes

If you do not want to create a sales funnel but still want a place to convert your visitors into leads from your website or blog, you can create pop up lead boxes with both Clickfunnels and LeadPages.

Clickfunnels refer to these lead boxes as Clickpops.

Once created you are given code to embed the box onto a website or blog that you own.

Such pop up box can be added to your website as a link or an image which when clicked, causes the box to pop open. If you’d like the box to appear automatically such as on time or on exit then you can configure the settings to generate these actions.

LeadPages refer to these boxes as lead boxes. They essentially operate in the same way as Clickfunnels’ clickpops do.

LeadPages’ lead boxes can be embedded by a link, button or image. They can also appear on time and on exit.

Payment Integration

The two most popular payment gateways, Stripe and Paypal, can be used with both Clickfunnels and LeadPages, however PayPal does not integrate with either.

What this means is that when used, PayPal does not fully become part of Clickfunnels or LeadPages, so when payments are made, Clickfunnels or LeadPages’ automated features do not activate.

For example, when integrated with Stripe and a payment is made by a user, Clickfunnels or LeadPages would redirect to a thank you page within the funnel and if set up, will store the buyer’s details in their database.

When PayPal is used however, this does not happen. Whilst there are work-arounds, it is something you must be conscious of, if you want to use any buyer data from the platforms.

Clickfunnels goes a step further and integrates with and allows access to other payment options. Sadly LeadPages only stops at Stripe and PayPal.

Finally if you wish to use payment gateways with LeadPages, you must upgrade to a Pro or Advanced account which is $79/month when paid monthly ($48/month when paid annually) for the Pro and $321/month when paid monthly ($199/month when paid annually) for the Advanced.

Tracking Codes

One of the most important elements of your funnel, especially when you are using paid advertising, is tracking.

If you are using paid ad campaigns like Facebook ads, Google Adwords or any other platform, you are able to add your tracking codes or pixels to both Clickfunnels and LeadPages.

It is very easy to add, all you do is copy and paste the code into a section provided by the platforms.

A/B Testing

Both Clickfunnels and LeadPages allow you to perform split tests on your landing pages and funnels.

When setting up the split tests, they are both easy to implement for either of the platforms.

All you do is create your control, which is the first variation of your page. Then create a variation which is a variation of your control page.

Both Clickfunnels and LeadPages will take note of the conversions that you are testing and let you know which one is performing better.

You can then mark whichever page has the better conversions as the winner of the split test.

This is great if you want to see what type of factors affect your visitors and helps you improve the overall performance of your campaign.

Marketing Tools Integrations

Clickfunnels and LeadPages integrates with many other marketing tools to make your marketing efforts seamless.

Here is a full list of all the integrations that Clickfunnels has.

Here is a full list of all the integrations that LeadPages has.

If the marketing tool that you are looking for is not on the lists, then you can safely assume that it does not integrate but you can use the Zapier tool to help you connect one tool to the other.

Zapier is a web-based service that allows you to perform integrations with many different applications.   

Campaign Analytics

One thing I like about Clickfunnels and LeadPages is that it provides reporting on the performance of your campaign.

So you can see how a funnel or landing page that you created is performing and helps you make important decisions for your campaign.

Depending on how many pages there are in your funnel, Clickfunnels provides analytics for every page of the funnel.

The difference with LeadPages however is that several pages can make up a funnel which needs to be pieced together.

In that regard you must piece together your analytics for each page – so you do not get one global oversight like Clickfunnels provides.

This makes it a little more difficult to judge the overall performance of your funnel if several pages make up your funnel with LeadPages.

Here is what that looks like.

WordPress Plugin

If you have a WordPress website or blog you can integrate both Clickfunnels and LeadPages with their respective plugins.

This will allow you to use either Clickfunnels or LeadPages funnels or pages directly on your website or blog so that it looks as though the funnel or page is part of your website or blog.

This is just another way of directing visitors from your website or blog to your funnel or landing page but instead of going to a Clickfunnel or LeadPages domain, the users remain at your website or blog’s domain but still see your funnel or landing page.

That’s a pretty cool feature.

To see what this looks like for Clickfunnels you can take a look at Barbie Figueroa’s video where she explains how to marry Clickfunnels with your WordPress website.

To see what this looks like for LeadPages you can take a look at Inside Marketing Hero’s video.

Lead Notifications

LeadPages notifies you when you have generated a lead through one of your landing pages.

This is a great feature if you have many lead pages and you want to keep track of which one is helping you acquire leads.

It is not a major feature in my opinion as I am not too concerned about lead notifications but for those who want to know, you can receive these notifications directly to your email inbox.

Clickfunnels does not have this feature.

As I mentioned it is not a significant feature to have as you will have many emails notifying you of leads when you can simply log into the platform to check how the lead page is doing.

Dedicated Support

Clickfunnels and LeadPages both have support available but one is definitely a winner out of the two.

LeadPages offers phone, live chat and email ticket support. They also have a library of support documents in case you need any help and want to do it yourself.

Phone support is however only available with LeadPages Advanced package.

Clickfunnels only offers email ticket support. So if you have an urgent matter, then you’re pretty much screwed. You will need to submit your ticket and then wait for their support team to respond.

Usually responses can take a few hours and up to a day.

Email Autoresponder Integration

One important function of the funnel and lead page is the ability to capture leads and place them directly in your chosen email autoresponder.

Don’t yet have an email autoresponder? Here’s one that I reviewed that I currently use and recommend. 

Clickfunnels and LeadPages integrate with many email autoresponders and allows you to connect to them easily.

Here are all Clickfunnels’ email integrations.

Here are all LeadPages’ email integrations.

Once again, if you do not see your email service provider on the list, you can always use Zapier to integrate, provided Zapier allows the connection.

Sub Accounts

If you have a team working with you, you can assign them manager accounts where they have their own sub account and can work on projects for you.

This helps so you won’t have to give the worker, access to your username and password since doing so makes it very risky for you as the account holder since they can access your account settings and do anything with it.

LeadPages offers sub accounts only with their Advanced plan. That means you have to shell out a whopping $321/month or $199/month billed annually for this benefit. With their Advanced plan you get 5 sub accounts.

I noticed that Clickfunnels does have the feature but it appears non-functional.

Even when I searched for literature on the topic there was none.

I will assume that maybe it is a feature they intend to install in the future but not right now.

SEO Friendly Pages

Clickfunnels and LeadPages allow you to optimise your landing pages and funnels for SEO (search engine optimisation).

Although they both allow you to implement some on-page SEO I wouldn’t solely rely on this feature to help your landing pages or funnels show up in the search engines.

There are other things that you can do such as:

• Having your own domain and URL and including a keyword in that domain/URL.
• Use keywords in your funnel or landing page that you’d like to rank for
• Build a content map to help your funnel and landing pages align to the visitors needs and desires. Don’t just create a funnel for the sake of. Keep your visitor’s desires in mind.

In this Clickfunnels blog you can learn more about how to implement SEO into your funnel and landing pages. 

Web Hosting

The great thing about both Clickfunnels and LeadPages is that they provide their own web hosting.

So when you purchase a package with either platform, you do not have to look for separate hosting.

Both Clickfunnels and LeadPages host your funnels and landing pages on their servers. The only thing though is that when you host your funnels and landing pages with them, you must take on their domain.

For example, if you build a funnel with Clickfunnels, then your domain will be www.yourdomain.clickfunnels.com. If you build a landing page with LeadPages, your domain will be www.yourdomain.lpages.co.

This can look ugly if you are promoting your funnel or landing page and you may prefer to have your page align with your brand.

For that reason you can always use their domain assignment feature so you can replace their domains with your own.

Looking for cheap domains? Try Namecheap, Godaddy or Bluehost.

Domain Assignment

Clickfunnels and LeadPages both help you assign a custom domain to your funnels and landing pages making it more personal and branded to you.

I would strongly recommend that when starting on either Clickfunnels or LeadPages that you purchase a custom domain and connect it to Clickfunnels or LeadPages.

That way it is easier for your audience to find your funnels and landing pages and helps you create an identity for you, instead of one affiliated with the Clickfunnels or LeadPages domains.

Whilst you can purchase a separate domain from places like Godaddy, Namecheap or Bluehost, Clickfunnels allows you to claim a domain for free directly from their company for first time users.

If you have already claimed the domain then you can buy it at the retail price of $20 annually.

Customised HTML

What if you have an application, form, display banner or miscellaneous item that you want to install on your website using HTML?

Well both Clickfunnels and LeadPages have HTML elements that you can add to your funnel and landing pages to easily add these items to your pages.

For example, on a landing page that I designed with LeadPages to promote an affiliate product, I was easily able to add this gif banner to my page through their HTML feature.

So instead of adding an image and linking the image to your affiliate product, you can select the html code for the banner that your affiliate manager will provide to you and embed it on your page.

You can find the HTML widget in your LeadPages widget area.

The same for Clickfunnels. You can add the HTML element to your pages from your Clickfunnels editor.

Digital Asset Delivery

If you do not have an email autoresponder which you can use for delivery of digital products, or you have no place to host your documents, LeadPages and Clickfunnels digital assets delivery feature, allow you to store your documents on their platform and enable delivery when a user takes a specific action.

For example if you have a lead magnet that you want delivered to a lead when they opt in to a funnel, you must first add your digital asset to Clickfunnels from the digital asset menu.

Then you must set up outgoing emails so that Clickfunnels can send the email on your behalf.

Finally you must add the digital asset to the page where the opt in is being performed. This will be your opt in page.

LeadPages makes this process a lot easier for us.

To add your digital asset to LeadPages and have it delivered to your lead you only need to add the digital asset to the opt in page settings and LeadPages takes care of the rest.

There is no need to upload the digital asset and then select it on different pages. There is also no need to setup email SMTP settings for outgoing emails.

Adding a digital asset in LeadPages is a one-step process therefore eliminating the time and confusion that you get with Clickfunnels.

One Click Upsells

If you sell your own products or have an ecommerce store, the one click upsell feature is a great tool to help you increase the average order value of each order placed in your funnel and increase conversions.

Whilst I have never used LeadPages one click upsell feature (so I cannot say how easy or difficult the process is), they do have instructions on how to integrate this feature into a funnel you are managing.

The instructions look pretty simple, but when I read through them I do not like the technicality of the instruction.

It may be simple if you follow along slowly and take your time. If you do struggle to implement an upsell into your LeadPages funnel you can always fall back on the LeadPages support team for help.

Clickfunnels is a very simple process. You only need to drag and drop an upsell page into your funnel, design your page, add your product and that’s it.

You do not need to worry about any configuration.

Clickfunnels does all the hard work for you, so everything works smoothly.

Membership Areas

One special feature that Clickfunnels has, which is not integrated with LeadPages are membership sites.

A membership site allows you to house digital products such as a video library, ebooks or courses where free or paid members can get access via a username and password.

At one point LeadPages did offer a Wishlist membership site to Annual Pro members back in 2014 but it looks like this has been discontinued.

In any event, even if you no longer have access to this product with LeadPages you can always connect a LeadPages sales page to Wishlist separately if you want to.

Wishlist is a WordPress plugin so you must have a WordPress site to use this product.

Click this link to download your Wishlist plugin here.

Clickfunnels though has membership site features integrated into it so if you think you may want to create a membership site where your paying customers can get access to your products then you may want to consider Clickfunnels over LeadPages.

Affiliate Center

Clickfunnels helps you to offer affiliate commissions to affiliates for a product that you are selling.

Their affiliate center is great if you believe you have a great product, but need to get the word out about it.

By setting up an affiliate center, you can have people sign up and so be able to control their access to your product as an affiliate to promote it on your behalf.

The affiliate center is only available with Clickfunnels Etison suite however, so be prepared to spend at least $297/month for this feature.

Who Is Clickfunnels vs LeadPages For?

So now that you know the main features of Clickfunnels and LeadPages, this all probably does not make sense to you, if you do not really know how each product can help you in your business.

That’s what the next section is for. Simply follow your business model and read my unbiased view as to whether Clickfunnels or LeadPages can help you.

Does Clickfunnels or LeadPages work for affiliate marketing?

As an affiliate myself, I know how important sales funnels are for building email lists and guiding traffic to your affiliate product.

Even if you do not want to build an email list and you want to promote your affiliate product with advertorial type blog posts then you can use either Clickfunnels or LeadPages for this.

Because the affiliate funnel would be a simple two step funnel then you do not need any complicated software.

Both Clickfunnels and LeadPages are perfect for this. It will be up to you to decide how much you want to spend on your marketing tool to achieve this.

To remind you, Clickfunnels is $97/month and LeadPages is $37/month. Clickfunnels offers a free 14-day trial for you to test it out to see if you like working with it. Click here to get your free 14-day trial.

LeadPages offers a free 30-day trial. Click here to claim your free trial. 

Bottom line?

I would recommend LeadPages although both Clickfunnels or LeadPages are great. 

Does Clickfunnels or LeadPages work for bloggers? 

Can Clickfunnels or LeadPages replace a blogger’s website? Yes it can, but it is not feasible and I certainly do not recommend the software for traditional blogging.

If however you want to create a one off blog post, like I did in my one blog post strategy for promoting a product, then the software is a good one.  

A blog comes with so many moving parts. You need navigation menus, the ability to post as many blog posts as you can, the ability to embed contact forms, etc; you really and truly need a conventional website.

This is why I would recommend that you use a content management site like WordPress.

If you are ready to build your blog then you can head on over to my step-by-step guide where I teach you how to build your blog using WordPress and Bluehost as your webhost.

If you already have a website or blog and you really want to use Clickfunnels or LeadPages then they can be used as a lead generation tool.

For example, you may wish to generate leads for the provision of content upgrades.

Clickfunnels and LeadPages allow you to embed code into your website where contact forms can be installed on your blog to generate leads.

In this regard Clickfunnels and LeadPages are beneficial to bloggers.

With both Clickfunnels and LeadPages you cannot add an inline contact form to your website but you can add a link or button which pops open to a contact form. Here is an example of what LeadPages looks like on my blog.

Bottom line?

Don’t use Clickfunnels or LeadPages for your blog but use them for your lead generation tools.

Click here to claim your free Clickfunnels 14-day trial. 

Click here to claim your free LeadPages 30-day trial. 

Does Clickfunnels or LeadPages work to sell physical or digital products? 

I would give this question a resounding yes. Clickfunnels and LeadPages are perfect if you want to sell a physical or digital product.

Because of price point, I use LeadPages for all my digital products – it is cost effective and achieves everything that I need, to create a great sales funnel to sell my products.

It can design great opt in pages, sales pages and has easy to implement payment and email integrations.

Although I do not use upsells in my LeadPages funnels, I cannot comment on the difference between LeadPages and Clickfunnels, but if you are looking to increase the average order value of each purchase with upsells, then you may wish to consider whether Clickfunnels or LeadPages will give you better value.

I touched on this briefly here so you can go back and read my comment.

Bottom line?

Yes both Clickfunnels and LeadPages are perfect for your own products.

Click here to claim your free Clickfunnels 14-day trial. 

Click here to claim your free LeadPages 30-day trial. 

Does Clickfunnels or LeadPages work for ecommerce? 

Typically people use ecom-dedicated platforms like Woocommerce or Shopify to sell their ecom products.

Ecom funnels are however becoming very popular especially since it can help you drive massive sales to your business by focusing on a few core products from your ecom store.

This ensures that the customer only sees the specific products that you want them to see and that they are not given an overwhelming number of options.

In my opinion, the best platform for the ecom funnel is Clickfunnels. This is because they have specific well-thought out templates designed for ecom and makes the set-up process easy.

Although LeadPages do have ecom templates they are not as sophisticated as Clickfunnels.

You can use LeadPages for a simple product sale but if you want to include multiple products and have one time offers, upsells or downsells then I would strongly recommend Clickfunnels.

Want to see what an ecom funnel looks like in Clickfunnels? Watch the video below.

Bottom line?

Clickfunnels and LeadPages work for ecommerce but I would recommend using Clickfunnels for a more streamlined and easier process.

Click here to claim your free Clickfunnels 14-day trial. 

Click here to claim your free LeadPages 30-day trial. 

Does Clickfunnels or LeadPages work for network marketers? 

Like affiliate marketing, where you do not own the product and you are promoting it, you can use Clickfunnels or LeadPages.

A two step funnel is ideal for promoting network marketing products, although some funnels can be simple – such as a lead opt in and thank you page; to more complicated – such as a lead opt in page and onboarding page.

To help you decide which platform to use you may want to consider ease of building the type of funnel and price point.

LeadPages can work very well for network marketing funnels and so you really do not need the sophisticated elements of Clickfunnels.

Bottom line?

I would recommend a simple platform like LeadPages for this type of funnel. It is up to you to decide which platform you eventually decide to use.

Click here to claim your free Clickfunnels 14-day trial. 

Click here to claim your free LeadPages 30-day trial. 

Does Clickfunnels or LeadPages work for local businesses? 

If you are a local business and you want to generate leads for services that you provide, Clickfunnels and LeadPages are great options.

As you only need a lead generation funnel then you can consider both platforms but I would recommend LeadPages, again because of its simplicity. 

If you are conscious about money spent on your marketing tools, then LeadPages is a great alternative to an expensive product like Clickfunnels.

Bottom line?

Yes Clickfunnels and LeadPages are great for local businesses but I would recommend LeadPages.

Click here to claim your free Clickfunnels 14-day trial. 

Click here to claim your free LeadPages 30-day trial. 

How To Build a Funnel With Clickfunnels

How To Build a Funnel With LeadPages

Ready to create your own funnel and need some direction. Hire me to build your sales funnel.

Click here to get a free 14 day Clickfunnels trial

Click here to get a free 30 day LeadPages trial

The post Clickfunnels vs LeadPages appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

As a beginner affiliate marketer, you should be selecting affiliate products from the networks that actually want to work with you and help you grow in your career. In this blog post, I will share with you, which networks I consider to be beginner affiliate-friendly, so you can find the best affiliate programs for beginners.

Before you read on, consider checking out my blog post for beginners, that teaches you how to start affiliate marketing today.

When deciding on the product to promote there are a few things that you should consider before you actually start investing time or money in promoting it.

This post will help you with those criteria so you can be sure you are investing your time and effort in producing content around these products that will convert and pay you the best commissions.

What you should consider when choosing your products:

The commission rate commissions should be at a level that you are comfortable with and is going to give you a good return on investment. When looking at the compensation plan, consider how many people will need to see this product in order for you to get a sale and how much you are going to achieve when you make a sale.

Usually products that have a higher commission rate are more difficult to sell and require greater effort put in compared to products that have a smaller commission.

Whilst the effort is greater, that only means you will need to add more value to your affiliate marketing funnel in order to convince your target market to take action which will lead to a conversion for you.

One way to achieve this, is through the use of bridge pages.

Recurring commissions this is how you create passive income when the product that you promote has a subscription base. Recurring commissions are great because it means you only need to do the work once and you will probably gain a lifetime customer who will contribute to your income every month.

This does not mean that products that do not have recurring commissions should be avoided. It simply means that you will have to continue looking for customers to enter your sales funnel or visit your website to keep a steady flow of income each month.

Grab Your Step By Step Guide To Making Money With Affiliate Marketing

High conversions before promoting a product you should do your research to find out how marketable the product is. Is the product a good one? What are people saying about the product? What do other marketers say about the ease of promotion?

These are some questions you should be asking yourself before you jump in to promoting a product.

Ease of approval most affiliate programs and networks are easy to join if you can show that you have a proper website and that you have a sound marketing plan to promote the product. Other affiliate programs require you to be a paid member of the product before you start earning commissions. That way there is no approval process, but the commission structure is higher in that you can earn very handsome payouts.

With these criteria in mind I have handpicked some of the best affiliate programs for beginners, if you are now starting affiliate marketing or even writing as a blogger.

Top 10 Places To Find The Best Affiliate Programs For Beginners

1. Clickbank 

Clickbank is the best known marketplace to find products that you can promote on your blog or website and in an affiliate marketing campaign.

It is one of the oldest platforms and widely used by marketers when they want to make extra money.

With its search and category features you can easily find any product that resonates with you within your niche.

It is simple to start promoting products on this forum because you do not need to be approved. You can simply create a free Clickbank account and immediately have access to tons of products that you can promote.

In order to do well with Clickbank products, pay attention to the gravity score of the product. That tells you how popular it is amongst other marketers.

Popularity determines how well a product converts. It also means that there is more competition.

As a beginner it is important that you understand how much research plays a part in you selecting the best affiliate program that actually converts with cold traffic.

So before choosing a product, be sure to carefully go through Clickbank’s metrics to make sure you are choosing a product that has the best chance at success.

I always aim for products that have a gravity score that falls between 50-100. Anything over 100 means that it is highly competitive and if you try to break through as a beginner you are likely to be up against skilled marketers.

Clickbank automates the entire sales process. They deal with all customer refunds and you can see how you are performing from the analytics within your dashboard.

You can receive payment from Clickbank via direct deposit or check depending on your country.

To join Clickbank as an affiliate, sign up here. 

2. ShareASale

This is an affiliate network like Clickbank which houses numerous products that you can promote depending on your niche.

ShareASale is great for pay-per-lead products and pay-per-sale products.

What is pay-per-lead? This is a system whereby you are paid for any lead that you direct to the merchant’s website. In order to qualify for the payment you may have to provide leads who confirm their email address with double opt-in or provide a name, email address and contact number. Leads may also have to sign up for consultations in order for you to qualify.

What is pay-per-sale? This is whereby you promote a product and get paid following the sale of the product.

To start promoting products on ShareASale you must apply to the merchant whose products you are interested in. Therefore it is still possible that even though you are accepted to ShareASale as the affiliate network, you can be declined by a specific merchant who owns the affiliate program.

If you are declined then do not be despondent as there are many other similar products that may fit the description that you want.

Always be sure to consider the amount that you will be paid per lead or per sale in order to get the best return on investment.

Be mindful of the merchant’s terms and conditions to see what type of traffic is allowed because you can be terminated if you provide traffic that does not meet the merchant’s criteria.

To join ShareASale sign up here.

3. Panthera Network

This is an affiliate network which you must apply to, to get started.

Once you have applied and are accepted, there is no further application to be made to promote the product of your choice.

The network is an easy to use one as you can simply search for the desired product and you are provided with your affiliate link to share with your audience in a campaign, on your blog or website.

When applying for Panthera Network, the best and quickest way to get accepted is to contact the affiliate manager by phone.

The reason for this, is because you can have personal contact with the affiliate manager in the event he/she has questions about your objectives when using the Panthera Network.

When I first joined Panthera my application was approved within 10 minutes and although there was a small objection to the number of visitors to my site (as it was fairly new), I still got accepted because I took that extra step, contacted the affiliate manager and discussed my aims with him.

I would strongly recommend that you do the same. Their contact details are provided in the email that you receive once you have completed your application.

To join Panthera Network sign up here.

Grab Your Step By Step Guide To Making Money With Affiliate Marketing

4. Amazon Associates

You really cannot lose with Amazon Associates, although I have seen people who advise against relying on Amazon Associates as a way of earning a substantial income as an affiliate.

If your goal is to make a full time income with Amazon Associates then it is possible to do so.

Your niche simply needs to be a profitable one centred around high-cost products.

Amazon Associates is not great for low cost products unless you intend to send millions of visitors to your website to produce thousands of sales per month.

My advice therefore is to focus on a product and niche where the cost of the product is in the range of $1000 and upwards.

After researching the internet, I have found some examples of successful Amazon affiliate websites which you can use as inspiration for your own blog or website.

Lucieslist.com is a baby product reviews and a survival guide for new moms to help them cope with new parenting tasks.

Outdoorgearlab.com is an outdoor gear reviews website which helps buyers decide on the best products for their outdoor activities.

Snapsort.com is a digital camera and comparison reviews website to help customers quickly determine the best products for their needs.

Thisiswhyimbroke.com is a website featuring odd and innovative gift ideas. They are not a reviews website but simply list some of the products that are unusual that they have found on Amazon.

Thewirecutter.com is a gadget, gear and electronics reviews website that helps the customer figure out which product they should get for their needs.

As I mentioned before, in order to be successful with Amazon Associates you either need a high-trafficked website or a website where you are promoting high cost products.

Amazon is free to join and the approval process is quite easy. When you submit your site for approval, ensure that it is live. It does not appear to be the case that the website needs a lot of traffic to get accepted into Amazon Associates but it must already have some content on it.

Also you must ensure that you strictly comply with Amazon Associates program policies as if you do not, you risk losing your account and forfeiting any commissions that you may have already earned.

What I like about Amazon Associates is although you may have referred a customer to their site for a particular product that you recommended, you will still get paid from that referral if the customer buys any product from the Amazon site within 90 days.

To join Amazon Associates as an affiliate sign up here.

If you are interested in learning how to build niche affiliate websites, where you can promote Amazon Affiliate products, my interview with Affiliate Marketer, Leon Angus will help you. He makes money from Amazon Affiliates using niche affiliate websites and gets traffic to his website by search engine optimisation.

5. CJ Affiliate by Conversant 

You may know this network as Commission Junction.

It is similar to the ShareASale network in that you must apply to the respective merchant in order to start promoting any affiliate products.

Application to the CJ Affiliate network is a simple process. Like any other network, it is a good idea to ensure that your website is live and that you have a clear marketing plan before completing your application.

To be honest, I have not used CJ Affiliate as much as I would like to. Once I got into the CJ Affiliate program and applied to a few affiliate companies, it took a little over two weeks to be approved by those companies.

This is not a poor evaluation of CJ Affiliate but rather of the specific companies that I applied for.

I did find however that when I sought out the same companies on another network, I was approved a lot faster. Sometimes I did not have to make an application to the company as is the case with Panthera Network.

CJ Affiliate does support all types of commission models. They include pay-per-action and pay-per-sale.

It is a solid affiliate marketing platform hosting every type of product that you can think of for whatever niche you are interested in.

To become an affiliate of CJ Affiliates sign up here.

6. Rakuten Marketing

I have only recently joined Rakuten Marketing so I have not had time to assess the features of this affiliate network.

It is a reliable network as it is among one of the oldest affiliate marketing networks in the industry.

Rakuten is free to join.

It hosts over 1000 merchants so there is bound to be some product within your niche that you can include in your portfolio.

If you see the name Linkshare anywhere on the interwebs then this is reference to Rakuten as they re-branded their name recently.

To join Rakuten Marketing as an affiliate sign up here then click “Publisher Sign Up” in the top right hand corner.

7. FlexOffers

I  love FlexOffers. In fact they are one of the affiliate networks that helped me earn over $10k in affiliate sales by promoting one of their products. 

Like the other above networks, FlexOffers provides a connection between affiliate marketers, bloggers and advertisers. They help advertisers get their products out on the market and help affiliate marketers and bloggers make money from reputable brands and products.

FlexOffers has over 12,000 affiliate products in a wide range of categories that you can select from. You must have a website that you own in order to join this affiliate network.

Once you have been approved, you can search their advertisers and select the ones that best relate to your niche.

You also get your own affiliate manager so if you have any questions about your account or an affiliate product, you can speak directly to them.

As to payout of affiliate commissions I had to wait approximately three months to receive my commissions. Like most affiliate networks, FlexOffers’ payment terms require that they receive payment from the advertiser before they can pay you. 

This results in you, as the affiliate, having to wait months to receive payment. This was the only thing that I did not like about this company.

FlexOffers does have a Revshare program, which means that if you refer someone who is approved as an affiliate, you can earn a certain percentage of whatever sales they make.

To join FlexOffers, you can start here.

Make sure that the information you provide about yourself and your website is accurate. The review process does take approximately three to seven business days but if it crosses this you can always follow up with them.

8. Clickfunnels Affiliate Program

Clickfunnels is owned by Russel Branson and is an in-house affiliate program. This means that it is a product by itself and you must go directly to the company to join as an affiliate.

The difference with the affiliate networks and affiliate programs is that you may join affiliate networks and find numerous products under one umbrella that you can promote.

With affiliate programs you can join directly with the company so there is no middle man.

You do not have to be a customer of Clickfunnels to become an affiliate.

However it will be to your advantage if you understand how Clickfunnels work so that you can promote it, when recommending it to your audience.

This is why most websites get trust from their audience because they have used the product themselves and can provide the best user guidance to help the customer make the right decision about whether the product is for them.

You are able to earn 40% commissions from each sale that is made of the Clickfunnels product. This equates to either $38.80 or $118.80 depending on the product plan that the customer purchases.

Commissions are recurring as Clickfunnels is a subscription based product.

They also have a Dream Car Contest where if you refer 100 active members to their software, this entitles you to a $500 monthly check towards your dream car.

If you refer 200 active members then you are entitled to receive a $1000 monthly check towards the reimbursement of your dream car payments.

To join Clickfunnels as an affiliate sign up here.

9. Aweber Affiliate Program

Aweber is an email autoresponder service and is widely used by marketers and bloggers to communicate with their email list. 

If you teach your audience about list building or email marketing, Aweber is an ideal product for you to promote and recommend within your content.

For example, you may have created a blog post on “How To Build An Email List of 1000 Subscribers” where you can recommend Aweber as an email marketing software to build that list.

You can also create content specifically around Aweber reviews or promote it as part of your affiliate marketing funnel.

It is free to join the affiliate program and you earn 30% commissions from each sale that is made.

Aweber has a structured price plan.

So the bigger a customer’s email list, the more money they pay for their subscription.

This will therefore impact on the type of commissions you earn with Aweber depending on the purchase plan the customer chooses.

You will continue to earn commissions on this product as long as the customer continues to use their account. This makes it a great source for passive income.

To join Aweber as an affiliate sign up here.

Grab Your Step By Step Guide To Making Money With Affiliate Marketing

10. The Social Traffic Blueprint Affiliate Program

The Social Traffic Blueprint Affiliate program is a program that is associated with the Facebook Ads course presented by Jon Penberthy and Jubril Agoro.

You get the chance to earn while you learn. If you want to know more about how to use Facebook ads to drive traffic to your business, then this is a great investment to help you succeed with Facebook Ads.

At the same time you can sign up to their affiliate program and promote the course to other marketers who want to learn how to use Facebook ads as well.

The Social Traffic Blueprint program allows you to earn up to $400 per sale.

This is a great affiliate product if you want to earn a high commission payout.

In order to start promoting this product you must be a course member. The course actually costs $997 and comes with group coaching, access to their private Facebook group, 24/7 support and lifetime access to the course and updates.

To take part in the course and become an affiliate join here.

Final Thoughts

Joining the best affiliate programs for beginners is easy if you are looking to monetise your blog or website or simply promote these programs as part of an affiliate marketing campaign. The easiest programs to promote are those which are proven to convert well.

My handpicked selection of programs and networks will help you choose some of the best affiliate products, that you can have on your blog or website to add content to it.

Some great ways to promote affiliate products are in “How To” blog posts or List blog posts. If you do not want to use a website or blog, you can also promote affiliate products with traffic sources such as Bing Ads or Facebook Ads.

Now that you’ve joined some affiliate networks of your choice you should check out my ebook on How To Do Affiliate Marketing Without A Huge Blog or Website 

It’s the perfect solution for those who are looking to promote an affiliate product, but really don’t want to create a traditional blog. This ebook teaches you how to do affiliate marketing or promote any product with small valuable blog posts.

Plus it comes with a bonus freelancing guide that teaches you how to get other people to pay for your business costs and how to use free traffic methods to promote your content fast for incredible results.

You can check it out by clicking here!

Remember that the most difficult part of any business is showing up. Make sure and show up today to get the best chance at success.

Don’t wait too long to invest in you.

Cheers,

P.S Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments whether there are any other affiliate networks you have joined and which one? 

The post 4 Best Lead Capture Page Builders With Free Trial Offers appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

So I have been getting lots of questions from folks about the Power Lead System so I decided to create a blog post about it and show you exactly how you can use it in your own business.

Update: I am no longer using the Power Lead System. I have switched to LeadPages as an alternative marketing tool that helps me create landing pages, lead opt in pages and sales funnels. Read here for a detailed review of LeadPages.  

With so many systems popping up these days, I know it can be hella confusing as to what does what.

Sometimes you just need a place where you can go and find concise information.

I get it!

You want this to be an easy decision so I have taken all the hard work out of it for you.

I hope to be able to answer your questions.

If you have another product in mind, then this post will help you make an informed decision as to whether the Power Lead System is for you.

Think of this post as an unboxing of the Power Lead System.

You will walk away with a ton of ideas as to what you can do with it and how it can help grow your online business.

What Is The Power Lead System?

The Power Lead System is an online marketing tool that creates capture pages, landing pages, lead magnets.

You can also build out an entire training website or sales page.

If you like doing webinars, then there is also that capability.

Thank you pages with social media share buttons? A breeze!

The primary function of the Power Lead System is to build your email list and automate your business.

It is pretty much an all-in-one tool and I use it EVERYDAY!  Update: Well I no longer use it everyday, since I have switched to LeadPages .

The Power Lead System Compared To Other Marketing Software?

There are many capture page builders like Clickfunnels, GetResponse or Lead Pages.

These systems are great in their own right but I find that the Power Lead System has a bunch of necessary marketing tools under one roof.

So for example GetResponse allows you to build capture pages and is an email marketing system, but does not have the ability to create training websites or host Google hangouts or webinars.

Lead Pages is a capture page and landing page builder but does not have the ability to create email campaigns for email marketing.

Clickfunnels has many of the features of the Power Lead System, but unless you upgrade to their all in one Etison Elite full suite which is $297/month, you will still need to add an email marketing software such as Aweber or GetResponse for their basic suite which is $97.00/ month in order to communicate with your prospects.

What Can You Use The Power Lead System For?

The Power Lead System has quite a lot of features.

In fact most people do not understand the power of this system. That is why it is called the POWER Lead System!

Ha ha. Get it?

Ok, well let me start by sharing some of the amazing, useful features so you bloggers and entrepreneurs can decide whether it is worth it.

Here are 6 of my FAVOURITE things that the Power Lead System can do. 

1. Training Websites

The above snapshot is one of the e-courses that I built in the Power Lead System.

So if you are thinking of creating and selling your own e-courses there is probably software that can handle such a task.

BUT! It is an extra tool (and cost) that you will need.

More tools and an extra cost?! Nah!

In my e-course I created a four-part video series which was fronted by a capture page also created by the Power Lead System.

Below the video series was the main video where I discussed the actual topic which can easily be embedded from YouTube.

2. Host Webinars

If you want to do webinars, then you can easily embed your live presentation into the Power Lead System. There is also a live chatbox hosted by Chatwing which is positioned under the video so your guests can ask questions and interact with you.

Webinar software can be really pricey and why would you want to pay an extra cost?

The Power Lead System can do all the hosting for you, if you are using Google Hangout broadcast and is a really great option for anyone wanting to get started.

3. Opt In Boxes On Your Website Or Blog Post

If you want to build your email list without your viewers having to leave your website, then you can add opt in boxes to your websites or blog posts.

The Power Lead System has an easy to use opt in box builder.

HTML code is created for you so you can simply copy and paste the code in your website editor.

So this is what your form will look like on your website or blog

You can also add an image on the left or the right of the box to snazz it up.

I like adding opt in forms to the bottom of a blog post if I am promoting an offer, like my free E-book for example.

I think it looks simple yet pretty neat and professional.

4. Capture Page Opt In Forms

I love this feature about the Power Lead System. They have a ton of different templates that you can use to create ANY kind of capture page opt in form that you want.

The plus to it is that you can create unlimited capture pages!

So let us say you are promoting many different affiliate programs, well you can create a capture page for each program that you are promoting.

You can also create different captures pages as part of an ad campaign to test against each other.

Here are two of my capture pages that I created for my e-course and e-book.

In the first capture page, if you click the green button, an opt in box will pop up and your visitor can enter their contact details which will be sent right to you.

In the second capture page, the visitor can easily enter their contact details without having to go through a further step as in the first capture page.

Where can you use a capture page?

Great question!

• Place a capture page before your main website. If you are promoting an affiliate product or direct sales product, then it is a good idea to place a capture page before the product website page.
  That way, instead of sending visitors directly to the affiliate sales page, or the direct sales landing page – they may not return – you can send them to the capture page first, grab their email addresses so you can stay in touch with them.
• Post a link to your capture page on social media. Let us say you have a really cool sale in your direct sales company. Instead of telling people to “go to your distributor landing page, navigate to the sales page and choose the product” – they may never buy – you can easily send them first to the capture page, grab their email address, then lead them to the distributor landing page. That way you can follow up with them by email about the sale. Cool huh?!
• Social media advertising. So you start an ad campaign. The worst thing you can do is send your visitors straight to your sales page. BIG NO, NO! Or respond to your visitors request for “info”. I see so many ad campaigns where in the comments people ask for info and there are hundreds of responses to go through. To avoid doing the work of responding to each person who wants more info, send them to the capture page. Collect their email address, then send them on to your sales page.That way the emails you collect, you can add them to an email campaign and follow up with them after they leave your sales page. Because we both know they are not going to buy from you the first time. See how that works?

5. Sales Pages

When I started using the Power Lead System I did not quite understand its full potential.

It was only recently that I started experimenting with it and realised that I could build a salesesque page, with just a bit more info about my product as opposed to a simple landing page.

One of the pages I built was to introduce the Power Lead System to network marketers.

You can view the website here.  Update: I am no longer using the Power Lead System. Click here for a detailed review of an alternative marketing tool that I am currently using in my business and on this blog.

So what I did here, was add a lot more text and images in the content.

I then placed a button at the bottom of the page leading to where the visitor could sign up for the free trial or make a purchase.

The Power Lead System also has sales page templates that you can customise and use as your own.

If you have Stripe or PayPal as your payment processor, you can easily add buttons to your sales page to collect payments.

6. Blogging

Do you like blogging or thinking of starting a blog?

Well the Power Lead System also has its own blog feature with so many themes to choose from including the beautiful Divi 3.0 Theme.

Now I am not a user of the Power Lead System Blog, as I already had this blog before the Power Lead System blog was created, but from what I hear, it is twice as nice as WordPress.

To check out the Power Lead System Blog click this link here.

You can create stunning websites and blogs and create things visually.

There is also a drag and drop editor, so it is pretty easy to use.

I mean, if you can use WordPress then you can use the Power Lead System Blog.

If you need to host your blog then you will need to buy a domain from the Power Lead System which is $12.97 for the entire year.

So there my friends. That is the Power Lead System for you in a nutshell.

I hope you now have enough information to see how valuable this neat little tool can be for your business.

I really do use it in MANY different ways and frankly I do not know where my business would be without it.

If you are putting more emphasis on building your email list (and you should), then the Power Lead System is a starting tool.

Let me know if you have any questions about this beautiful star.

My friends at The Power Lead System graciously offered a free 7 day trial to all my readers, so taking this incredible work of art for a spin is an absolute no brainer!

Click here to get started with the Power Lead System

Best wishes,

P.S Do you have any questions about the Power Lead System? Leave them in the comment below! 

P.P.S Have you started your online business? Too much overwhelm and don’t know where to start? Then check out my free ebook, Mastering Your Home Based Business, which condenses everything for you and join the THOUSANDS who are already talking about it.

The post What Is The Power Lead System? 6 Ways It Can Grow Your Blog Or Online Business appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.