The Magic Starts Here!

A carpenter is only as good as his tools, right?

I'm not sure how true that is. But I know it took a lot of trial and error for me to arrive at this list of marketing tools that have become a part of my daily life! Technology is an amazing thing when it solves a dire need.

How many times have you heard, "Oh yah, there's an app for that!" ?

So here are the apps and resources that have helped shape me into the marketing machine (humble much?) I am today!​

​I'll split my recommended resources into categories, so you can dive into the section that most interests you right now.

copywriting

    • Creative writing and copywriting have a few similarities. Telling stories, for example, is a great way to grab your reader's imagination. Creating vivid images by invoking all five senses is another tactic common to creative and copywriters.
    • Yet all creative writers don't make good sales writers. To be a successful copywriter, you need a deep understanding of your intended audience - what's their needs, frustrations and aspirations - and position the product or service in such a manner, that your reader is persuaded to spend their hard-earned money with you.
    • The good news is, learning this skill is not hard. It takes a lot of careful learning and practice. Here are my recommended resources for writing conversion focused copy. (click the headline to visit the site)
      • Kopywriting Kourse
      • Neville Medhora runs this site and also offers a video course on copywriting you can purchase. Either way, just go there and get on his list! And thank me later
      • Copyhackers
      • Joanna Wiebe is one of the modern-day copy geniuses. I first came across her Amazon reviews mining method of writing copy. I have sinced used that principle when writing copy for product sites and landing pages. Follow her advice on writing and you'll soon start selling more
      • The Boron Letters
      • Neville Medhora made a strange request in one of his Kopywriting posts. He said "Do just 2 things and you'll be on your way to building a successful career in copywriting"
      • 1) Visit the Boron Letters website, download 25 chapters of "The Gary Halbert Letters, PRINT them out (this step was stressed), sit in bed with a marker and start reading.
      • Gary was a direct marketing legend in the 80's. While in prison, he wrote a series of letters to Bond, his youngest son. The letters contained lesson's of life Gary wished to pass over to his son. But he also revealed in great detail, the copywriting techniques that made him millions through direct marketing.
      • So I pass the baton over to you, my young student. Do it, now, tonight! A whole new world of opportunity will open in front of you.
      • Advertising Secrets of The Written Word
      • 2) The second request Neville made was to get your hands on a copy of Joseph Sugarman's book, Advertising Secrets of The Written Word. This is a more structured approach to writing sales copy, but a treasure trove nonetheless.
      • Think of this book as the ABC on your copywriting journey. Keep it close. Read & re-read, and soon your audience will be sliding down your slippery slope...
      • This Udemy Course Called "Writing With Flair"
      • The course can cost you as little as $10 after applying one of Udemy's coupons. It's a steal for the price. Shani Raja is a seasoned journalist who has written for the Wall Street Journal, Economist and other top-notch publications. 
      • I never actually studied writing, and I often feared that the pros would see through my amateurish grammar mistakes I'd unknowingly make. This course will remove many of those fears. It's like sitting down for coffee with a real pro and being let into the secrets of the trade.

landing page tools i use

  • Let's first talk about what exactly IS a landing page. 
  • It's a web page designed with one purpose in mind - Make a sale, or capture an email or lead. In some cases they're called "Sales Pages"
  • Sales pages are powerfully persuasive pages, incorporating copy triggers to move the reader closer to purchase. Scroll to the bottom of this link, and you will see a framework for creating a high-conversion sales page. By the way, join Bushra Azhar's email list while you're there. She'll teach you how to get your reader to dream...drool, and BUY!
  • Apart from the copy, landing pages exclude elements like menu bars, sidebars and widgets. You want your reader to focus on the message, which if done right, will effortlessly slide them down a slippery slope, culminating in a successful lead or sale.
  • What you don't want, is a campaign idea that has you all pumped up, and then have to wait for developers to schedule design time for your page. (This happened to me...and it drove me insane!)
  • Until I found out about landing page builders. Once you have a few templates customised the way you like, it's literally click, replace and boom!
  • In the course of an afternoon, I'd have a landing page, email campaign and blog post ready to send off. Best part is, the pages are super-optimised for conversions so opt-in rates soar and linking the opt-in forms to your email provider is usually pretty simple as well. 
  • Leadpages
  • Leadpages is probably the number one landing page builder on the internet. Once you use a few of their templates, you will easily recognise it in use on other sites.

    It's popular for good reasons. Their pages are super-quick to deploy, easy to link to your email provider of choice and publish to the internet in a snap.

    My favourite reason though is their pages convert like crazy. No magic in there except that their job is to get conversions...and they do it well.

    Some people scoff at the cookie-cutter templates, as they aren't terribly customisable. But for most intents and purposes, it's actually a blessing. Just use the design of the template you choose, insert your images, text and logos. Link the form to your CRM or email provider...and Bob's your uncle!
  • Thrive Content Builder & Thrive Leads
  • The Thrive suite of plugins has quickly become my goto application to quickly whip up beautiful landing pages & opt-in forms that convert. Create compelling call-to-actions for your blog and start building your email list. Design a long or short sales page with no tech required. And that's just the start...

    They also have plugins to make it easy to collect testimonials from your customers. Testimonials & reviews are vitally important social proof elements for any business. But many people struggle to collect them - even when the customer is happy to provide one. Get rich, detailed and persuasive testimonials on auto-pilot, using Thrive Ovation.

    And one of their latest additions is a plugin that makes it easy to create interactive quizzes - one of the most powerful marketing tools right now. Using a quiz you get to effectively diagnose your visitors number one struggle. Armed with that info you now know what content to develop, what emails to send and even what copy to include on your sales page.

    It's a simple concept - when executed properly, will have you practically printing money! Just 'Ask' Ryan Levesque who wrote the book about it.

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