Using video is a great way to reach your target audience. Video marketing is a powerful tool that can be used to grow your business. It helps you build trust with your audience, generate leads, and increase your conversion rates.

It doesn’t have to take long to create a video either. Get out your smartphone. Have someone hold it for you, lean it up against something, or even hold it yourself and you can start. Videos don’t have to be too long, so you can be done in just a few minutes and can then upload it to a service. You don’t need to be professional or spend hours creating them. You don’t need to be technical, and only need to know how to hit the start and stop buttons.

While it’s easy and quick to create, it can really help you grow your business.

Here are eight ways to use video marketing to grow your business:

Start a YouTube (and/or TikTok Channel)

TikTok and YouTube are both social media platforms with millions of monthly users. TikTok is a micro-video app that allows users to post short clips with music in the background. YouTube’s streaming service enables people to upload and share long-form videos easily. If you have videos on these sites, people who enjoy watching videos will find you. These people might not be interested in reading blog posts, and never would have found you otherwise. Share things with them.

They’ll get to know you better by watching your videos, and may start to follow you.  You can also share your website with them, as well as direct them to sign up to your list.  This will allow them to learn about you, and trust you more. This can help you educate them as well as make more sales from them in the future.

Tell a Story

Storytelling is a great way to create a message that your audience will love and stay interested in. It is always the best way to persuade your audience or make them feel a certain way. It also helps people get to know you better. If they know you better, they’ll like and trust you more too. So, if you want to make the best impact with video marketing, tell a story.

Review Products

Many people like to hear what others have to say about a product before buying it. Watching a review can help someone learn a lot. They’ll get to hear exactly what you liked and didn’t like about the product. Since it’s video, they might get to see the product too. Depending on the product, they might even be able to see the product “in action.”

What’s even better is that when watching a video about a review of a product is that you can show emotion through it. When someone is watching your video, they’ll get to hear and see how much you like a product. A lot of times that isn’t easy to convey via text, but with a video they can see your passion about the product. They will be able to hear that you’re excited by it and really recommend it. Video can definitely help you sell products.

Educate your Audience

People want to learn things. Think about the last time you wanted to learn how to do something. Did you go to YouTube so you could not only learn how to do something, but see exactly how to do it? That’s what people love about videos. They can see exactly how to do something. Why just read about something when you can watch it too?

Informative videos are what keep your audience interested. It also helps them want to share your videos with others. The more engaging and informative your video, the more likely that your audience will consume it and share it with others.

Showcase Your Products or Services

Video is a powerful marketing tool in the modern-day business world. It’s also one of the most powerful ways to highlight your products and services. Statistics show that businesses who use video as part of their marketing efforts are more likely to generate leads, convert leads into prospects, and close sales faster.

Go Live

The benefits of performing live events on social media are endless. Live videos don’t get lost in the feed, and you can reach a wider audience. You can also interact with your viewers, which builds relationships. As you do more of them, you’ll find that more people show up to them and start to look forward to them.

Let Your Audience get to Know You Better

When someone only knows you by reading text from you, they can only know you on a certain level. Sure, they might know a lot of facts about you, and have heard a lot of stories, but they probably wouldn’t say that they knew you.

When someone watches a video of you, they get to see you and hear you. While it’s not quite the same as being in the same room as someone, it is pretty close. This helps people get to feel that they know you more. When they know you more, they’re more trusting and take more seriously the things that you have to say.

So if you can give your audience the chance to see and hear you, you should definitely do it. Even if you don’t enjoy doing videos often, giving them the chance to see and hear you can greatly improve their view of you.

Get Higher in the Search Engines

When you think of someone finding you via the search engines, you’re probably thinking of blog posts. Videos are so helpful now though that if you do a search, there is a good chance that videos will come up high in the search rankings. So if you’re trying to be higher in the results when someone searches for certain keywords, create a video around that keyword. Not only will you be helping someone, but there is a good chance your video will end up higher on the search engine results than a blog post would have.

This will cause you to get more traffic, and build your audience faster.

As you can see, there are many different ways to use video marketing to engage and interact with your target audience. Using videos is a powerful source of content that is attractive to many online users. This helps you increase your reach, build a loyal audience, and make more sales.

Enjoy,

The post Eight Ways to Use Video Marketing to Grow Your Business first appeared on Workism.

Getting and staying organized is key to seeing success as an online business owner. When you’re not organized, you end up getting less done, missing deadlines, having poor communication, and more. It also leads to a lot more stress as you don’t know what you should be doing. To ensure that you can succeed within your business, you need to learn how to get organized.

Here are five ways to get (and stay) organized as an online business owner.

Don’t Rely on Yourself to Remember

As an online business owner, you’re likely doing many different things. This means that you can’t assume that you’re going to remember everything that you need to do, and when you need to do it by. Instead, always write it down, or use tools to help you remember. There is no point in using mental space when there are tools to help.

If you have a deadline, make sure it’s in the calendar. If you have an appointment, make sure you have that written down as well. Want to get something done, even though it doesn’t have a hard deadline? Make sure that’s written down too, or it won’t happen.

Always keep your calendar or planner nearby. That way you can see what you have planned, and when you have it planned for. You can see if you have time to do something new, or if you’re booked up and can’t take on anything new for a while.

This also goes for being able to keep track of all of the steps of doing something. When you have an online business, you’re often doing things that require a lot of steps. Make sure that you write down all of the steps to do something, so that the next time you do them you don’t have to start from scratch again.

For example, let’s say that every time you write a blog post, you have a set list of things to do. Let’s say you post it, and then tweet about it, and then post it on Facebook, and then email your list about it, and then do 3 other things.

Write that down somewhere, so that the next time you write a blog post, you can look at that list and you’ll automatically know what needs to be done. This can go for many different things online. You’ll get things done faster and won’t forget a step if you have things done this way.

Start With a To-Do List

To-do lists are simple to do yet provide a decisive outcome. They can give you the direction, focus, and understanding you need to get each day done faster and with more quality. If you start your day by looking at your to-do list, you’ll know exactly what must get done that day. You’ll know how to plan your time accordingly, and can make sure that you accomplish everything that you need to.

Here’s another thing you should do to stay organized. Before you end your day, always create a new to-do list for the next. This way, you can get right into your work and don’t need to take the time to remember what you have already finished. You’ll start off the day productive, and know exactly what you should be doing with your time. You won’t spend any time confused or stressed trying to figure out what you should be spending your time doing.

Know Where Things Are Located

If you know where the things are that you use most often, it’ll be easier to find them. This goes for both physical and digital things. If you keep your planner and to-do list near you, or know exactly where it is at all time, you’ll be able to use it whenever you need it.

The same goes for digital products as well. Write down where you keep certain files, products, emails, and more that are important to you. This is especially important if you don’t use them all that often.

Then, when it’s time for you to use them, you’ll know exactly where they are and won’t have to waste time trying to figure out where that digital item is. Having to find something on your computer or online can be very difficult if you don’t know where it is already. So make sure you don’t end up having that issue by having it written down somewhere.

Automate as Soon as Possible

Automation can free you from stress. It also saves you from doing repetitive and mundane tasks. For example, instead of having to send an email personally to every person who joins your list, you can create an autoresponder series. You set up a series of emails once, and every single new person who joins your list will get all of those emails. They’ll get sent what you want them to know, and you only had to set it up once.

Another thing you can do is automate some of your social media. You can create a social media post once, and automatically post it as many times as you want.

Plan Things Ahead of Time

You might know what you want to work on this week, and might even have an idea of what you want to do next week. But what does the future look like? What do you want to accomplish in your business over the next month, quarter, or even year?

Spending some time thinking about what you want to do with your business in the future can help you get organized as well. If you know that within 6 months you want to have 3 new courses for example, you should start planning for them now. If you want to have 10 articles written in the next month, you need to start planning when you’ll write them now. This will not only let you be organized, but you’ll accomplish a lot more as well.

If you struggle with organization, then give each of these tips or techniques a try. The more organized you are, the more that you’ll be able to accomplish. You’ll be able to deliver the products or services that your audience needs, and make them happier as well. You’ll also be a lot less stressed, as you’ll get things done when you’re supposed to, and won’t be behind trying to finish something. Use these techniques to get your business more organized today.

Enjoy,

The post How to Get Organized as an Online Business Owner first appeared on Workism.

Even if you’re not big on the idea of creating videos, you should consider doing them for your business. Video marketing engages your audience and encourages them to take action. It’s a great way to market products and services, whether they’re yours or affiliate products. People love watching videos, and so it makes it easy for you to get your point across.

When you create a video, it’s more than just about the video. It’s about the story behind the video. It’s a promotional tool, sure, but it’s a lot more than that as well. It’s an opportunity to share your story, establish trust, and create meaningful connections. It’s cost effective (it doesn’t have to cost anything!) as you only need your smartphone. It’s engaging, and is an interactive form of marketing that can hugely impact your business.

For your videos to be successful, you need to know the basics of video marketing.

Start With a Clear Message

What is your goal of the video marketing campaign? Write that down so you don’t forget it. A clear message will help you stay on track. You’ll avoid being distracted by other ideas, and can better communicate your message.

What do you want people to do after they watch your videos? Do you want them to visit your website? Do you want them to buy a product? Once you have a goal, it’s easier to develop the message for your video marketing campaign.

Be Helpful

No matter what you’re talking about, make sure you’re helping people. You could be reviewing a product, educating people on a subject, or even just entertaining them. If you’re reviewing a product, make sure you share the good as well as the bad. Try to give them the information that they’d need to make a choice whether to buy or not. If you’re educating people, make sure you’re giving them the knowledge that they need, and that they’re looking for. If you’re entertaining them, make sure that you’re entertaining! In other words, try to be as helpful as you can.

Make Sure Its In Focus

There are many different ways you can do a video. You can be in the video yourself. You can show a product in the video – with or without yourself in view. You can show a computer screen or have a PowerPoint presentation while you talk over it. The one thing that matters is whatever is on the screen should be clear and in focus. If it isn’t, everyone that gets to your video will click off of it in seconds. No one will watch the whole thing through, and they certainly won’t be interested in watching other of your videos. They also won’t be interested in following any calls to action that you have.

Optimize Your Videos for Social Media

It is important to know how to optimize your videos for each social media platform. For example, if you upload your video on YouTube, you should make sure that you have a thumbnail image. Make sure that you have a title that will attract viewers. Also make sure that your description is helpful as well. If you think that they’d need more information, make sure you put a link to your website, or wherever else they can get that information. Likewise, on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, you should post videos with short captions or subtitles to catch the attention of viewers. When helpful, make sure you use hashtags so that it will be easier for people to find your content. This will get more people watching your videos who are looking for that type of content.

Get Their Attention

You’re trying to get and keep the attention of your viewers for as long as the video lasts. So make sure you are interesting. Whether it’s having a nice background, or are making sure your voice is upbeat. You might consider using some humor depending on the topic as well. The goal is to get someone to watch your entire video, and then follow your call to action. Make sure when you’re creating your videos that they are something that is interesting and will keep your audiences attention.

Add Subtitles and Pick the Right Audio

Subtitles are important because they are the only way a deaf or hard-of-hearing person can enjoy a video. They also provide context for people who cannot hear well. The good news is that if you use YouTube, subtitles will show up automatically if someone clicks on them. There is nothing that you need to do for that. The audio track is just as important as the video and should not be overlooked. This is especially true for music videos and any other video with dialogue. If you try to make your viewers calm, the music should match.

End with a Call-To-Action

Ending a video with a call-to-action can be an excellent way to increase the likelihood of your audience taking action. Providing viewers with a clear understanding of what they should do after watching the video is imperative to your success. Remind viewers what the ultimate goal of the video was.

If your goal is to get your viewers to subscribe to your YouTube channel, for example, then ask them to subscribe. If you want them to go to your website, then tell them to go to your website (and put it in the description of your video as well.) If you want them to purchase something, then make sure you mention where they should go to purchase the product.

The call-to-action you choose depends on your marketing needs and goals. If you don’t tell them what to do when they finish watching the video, they’ll move on to something else. So make sure you tell them what you want them to do next.

Incorporating these video marketing fundamentals is vital if you want to see results. Videos are highly attractive, making them an easy tool to take advantage of in order to reach your target audience and engage them more effectively. So, the next time you go to market a product or service, consider these video marketing fundamentals to improve your results.

Enjoy,

The post The Basics of Video Marketing first appeared on Workism.

In a perfect world, we’d all have enough time to work on anything we wanted to in our business. Unfortunately real life isn’t perfect. No matter how much time you have to spend on your business, you probably don’t have enough time to do everything.

If you only have so much time per day or week, you might be wondering which is more important, doing email marketing, or social media. Entrepreneurs have been using email to communicate with their customers for decades now. While social media hasn’t been around as long, it’s become a very popular way to communicate as well.

If you don’t have enough time to do both, which should you choose? The answer is almost always email marketing. Email is more effective than social media at both generating sales and leads.

Email still has an average user engagement rate of forty percent. Compare this to Facebook’s at four percent and Instagram and Twitter’s at one percent. Your success requires regularly staying in touch with your target audience to stay at the top of their minds. Email marketing is a powerful tool for anyone running a business, as it helps them build and maintain relationships with customers.

Here are four main reasons why email marketing is more powerful than social media:

Email Marketing Generates Higher Conversion Rates

The cost-effectiveness of email marketing makes it highly desirable for small business owners to use. Even if you don’t enjoy writing email to send to your list, understand the statistics. The average email open-rate is around forty-three percent. The click rates are approximately 3.2 percent. In comparison, the average click rate for social media is roughly 1.3 percent.

If you’re looking for your message to be seen by people, email is the way to do it. You’ll have a lot more people see what you want them to see, and act on what you want them to act on.

Email Marketing is More Personal and Direct

Email marketing is personal and direct, so it’s more effective than social media. Unlike other forms of advertising, email marketing messages are less likely to be blocked by spam filters, and emails are delivered quickly to inboxes. Email marketing also makes it easier to segment your market and only share certain information. For example, while you’d want to send your new readers an email about who you are, you wouldn’t send that to someone who has been on your list for a while. This allows you to diversify your communication and engage in many different ways.

Plus, when you send emails to someone, you start to build a relationship with them. As they read your emails, they get to know you better. You share stories with them, and they learn about you. As they learn about you, they start to like and trust you more.

As they know, like, and trust you more, they’ll start to buy from you more, or buy through your links. This means you’ll earn more money.

When you’re using social media, who knows what messages people are seeing. They might only see some of them, and therefore not see everything you’re trying to say. They won’t get to know you, like you, and trust you as much, and therefore it’ll be harder to sell to them.

Plus, if someone signed up to your list, there was a reason for it. They must have liked something you said or something you were offering. If they see a message of yours on social media, it doesn’t mean anything since there are many ways they could have seen it.

Plus, if they’re reading your email, you have their full attention until they close that email. With social media, all their eyes have to do is wander an inch or less up or down the screen, and you’ve already lost their attention.

Email Marketing is More Affordable

Email marketing produces the best return on investment when compared to any other type of marketing out there. Email marketing campaigns are also not that costly. It’s much lower than running a successful social media campaign. The average cost per lead for an email campaign is one to two dollars, while the same metric for Facebook is roughly six to eight dollars per lead.

Email Marketing is Easier

Building a list with email is simpler, but it’s also more effective than a social media following for building a hungry list of buyers. This is because most people use email. It is estimated that roughly ninety-four percent of users on the internet have or use email. In addition, email is straightforward to understand and doesn’t require a lot of time to implement as social media does.

You go into your email marketing software, write an email, and click on what list or lists to send it to. It’s pretty quick and straightforward, especially after you’ve done it a few times. When it comes to social media however, it can be more difficult. Especially because each social media platform does things differently. This means that if you want to use multiple social media platforms, you’re going to have to learn how to use each one. Plus, with each platform you use, you’ll have to take the time to learn the distinctive features to maximize your results.

While this information is important to be aware of, that doesn’t mean you should ignore social media. Choosing social media over email is only something you should do if you don’t have a lot of time. If you can, you should do both email marketing as well as social media. The goal is to be where your audience is. So if some of them are on social media, it would be smart to spend some time there as well.

Enjoy,

The post Which is More Important…Email Marketing or Social Media? first appeared on Workism.

It can be difficult to know what you should say to your audience. It doesn’t matter if you’re emailing them, creating a video, or are doing social media. Sometimes you have no clue what you want to write.

There’s a good chance you have something to promote, but you don’t want to only talk about that. You want to have something else in there as well. The question becomes, what on earth do you talk about?

You want your audience to like you, as well as be interested in what you’re writing. So I get being unsure of what you should write about.

Here are 4 different things that you can talk about when you have no idea what to say:

1. Talk about yourself and your life

If someone is on your list, it’s because they like you. They want to hear more about you. Tell them what you’re doing or have done recently. What’s going on in your life?

Talk about what you’re doing within your niche. Have you learned something recently? Are you working on something in particular? If they are interested in the niche, they’ll want to hear what you’re doing in it. It could even be a great place to promote something if you’re talking about something you recently purchased and liked.

You can talk about how things are where you live right now. Is it raining today? Is it beautiful out? Are you going to go out to the park later? Talk about the things that you’re doing. Maybe you’re going to run errands later, or are going to do something fun tomorrow. Let your audience know. They’ll get to learn more about you this way too. They’ll see the things that you spend your time doing, and what you like and enjoy. They’ll see what your life is like.

2. Share a story

People love to hear stories. They’ll get to know and like you better if you share stories. Want some examples? Let’s say you’re going to be promoting a book in your content. You can share a story about what made you buy the book, or what happened when you went to the store to buy the book. You can share a story about what happened while you were reading the book and learned something. You can share a story about what you did with the knowledge you gained after reading the book.

You can share a story about something going on in your life right now. Most likely your not writing your content right after you woke up. Did something funny or entertaining happen between when you woke up and when you’re writing? If you have a pet, did they do something that people would get a kick out of if you shared it? Did your child say something that made you laugh? It didn’t have to happen in the last few hours either. You can write about something that happened yesterday, the other day, or even a little while ago.

Even if you don’t think some of these things are all that exciting, it helps paint a picture of who you are and what you do. Sharing stories from your life help people get to know you better. You could share a story that talks about why you got into the niche in the first place, or why you spend so much time on it.

3. Teach them something

People want to learn from you about your niche. That’s why they follow you. Make sure that you’re teaching them things that they’re interested in. Of course you aren’t going to go into too many details for a small piece of content, but you can still teach something. You can offer tips when you’re sharing content. Even just a sentence or two about your niche can help someone that doesn’t know as much as you do.

You can teach them about something that you think they need to know about. You can share something you learned recently. You can share something you wish you knew when you were just starting out.

If you’re promoting one of your courses, teaching them something related to it could be very helpful. Another thing you can do is teach them something that would be in the course. Then you can say that if they buy the product, they’ll learn this as well as a lot of other things. By sharing something small from it, you’ll be letting them know what types of things they’ll learn. It can be helpful and make you more sales.

If you’re promoting someone else’s product, you can still teach them something first. It may be related to what you’re promoting, or at least something similar. It can help them decide if the product is for them or not.

Most of us love to learn and you’re the perfect person to teach them! If you’ve been in the niche for any length of time (and if you’re teaching others about it, you probably have), you have a lot of knowledge that you can share with others.

4. Give them some advice

We all like getting advice from people who have “been there, done that.” Whether it’s in your niche, or not, advice is always helpful.

You can share something that you found out the hard way in your niche. You can share some advice about getting things done, or accomplishing your goals.

You’ve been in your niche for at least a little while, and have learned a lot. Share some advice to make it easier for your audience. Remember, someone is on your list because they like you and want to learn from you. So they’ll be happy to get any advice from you that they can.

There are many things that you can talk about with your audience when you don’t really know what to talk about. A few sentences here and there before you promote something can help your audience. It’ll help them get to know you better, like you more, and trust you more as well. This will help you make more sales, and earn more money overall.

Enjoy,

The post 4 Things to Talk about When You Don’t Know What to Say to Your Audience first appeared on Workism.

We all have times where we feel blah. Sometimes there is a specific reason for it, and other times you don’t even know why you feel that way. The problem is, when you feel that way, you don’t want to do anything. You don’t want to work, you don’t want to clean, you don’t want to do anything that you need to get done.

Let’s face it. Sometimes you just don’t have a choice and you need to get things done. While some of won’t be instantaneous, they will help you feel less blah, and get you more motivated to get work done. Others will start to help you feel better almost immediately!

Get More Sleep

I know that this won’t solve everything right away, but I’ve found if I don’t get enough sleep at night, the next day I’m not in a great place. When I do get a good night’s sleep though, I’m ready to accomplish a lot and nothing can stop me. I know it isn’t easy to go to bed early. If you could try going to sleep 15 minutes to a half hour earlier at night though you might see a big difference! If you notice that the extra sleep is helping, but not enough, you may want to go to bed a little earlier than that as well. Once you’re waking up in the morning and you aren’t tired, and are in a decent mood, you’re getting enough sleep.

When you’re getting more sleep, you’ll find that you’ll wake up feeling refreshed, and will be in a lot better mood. That mood will make it easier for you to get work done, and to WANT to get work done. You may hate the idea of losing a little “me” time at the end of the night, but I can tell you from experience that it is worth it. You’ll feel better all day long and accomplish a lot more and the only thing that changed is going to sleep earlier.

Exercise – Move Your Body

I get it. I don’t enjoy exercising. What I do love is the feeling I get after I exercise. When I exercise soon after I wake up, for the rest of the day I am motivated. I have more energy. I get more work done. I am in a good mood. It’s amazing what exercising does.

I’m not saying that you have to spend hours exercising. All you need is a little bit and you’ll get the benefits. I usually do about a half of an hour (sometimes only about 20 minutes) and it helps me want to work. If you don’t have much time, try even short spurts of 2-3 minutes at a time of doing some exercise.

I bet you’ll notice a lot of major differences in how you feel. You’ll be more motivated to get things done, happier, and energized. It may be hard to convince yourself to do it, but once you’re doing it, I bet you’ll be glad you did. In fact, once you start seeing the benefits, I bet you’ll continue to work out – even if you never enjoy exercising. You’ll still love what you get out of it.

Listen to Music

Are you looking for an option that can help you right away? Music can really change your mood. If you’re feeling blah, try listening to some of your favorite songs! My guess is that you’ll soon feel a lot better, and will be singing along. Soon after, you’ll be energized, and ready to go. You’ll want to work or accomplish whatever other tasks that you wanted to get done, but didn’t have the energy for.

The type of music that you should listen to depends on what you like. If you’re into a certain style of music, that will be what helps make put you in a more energized state and makes you happy.

If you’re not sure what type of music to listen to, try listening to something with an upbeat tempo. Something on the faster side. But all it takes is something that you like. If you’re enjoying it, you’ll be singing along and will be happier. You’ll be in a better mood, and in turn will have more energy and want to start getting things done.

Have a Snack or Drink

If you’re looking for something else that can help you right away, consider food or drink. If you haven’t had any water in a while, you may be dehydrated. If you are, you may be tired, blah, and not want to get any work done. If that’s the case, make sure you drink some water! In fact, keep a glass of water nearby, and make sure you have a sip every so often. That way this won’t happen again.

Another thing that can help is having a small snack. If you haven’t eaten in a while, you could be hungry and not realize it. A small snack (preferably something healthy) will give you some energy, and hopefully give you the push you need to get some work done.

While any food can help, chocolate can also help give you that little kick you need to start getting work done. Eating chocolate creates a feeling of pleasure and motivation. This can help you get more things done, and get rid of that blah feeling.

It can be hard to get things done when you’re feeling blah, but sometimes you have no choice. If you try some of the methods above, you’ll find that you’ll be happier and more motivated. You’ll find that you’re able to accomplish a lot more than when you started and were blah and didn’t want to do anything.

Play around with the different suggestions, and see what works best for you. The same thing won’t work for everyone, but if you try these things, I’m sure that at least some of them will help you. You’ll be more energized, more motivated, and will get a lot more done!

Enjoy,

The post What to Do When You’re Feeling Blah and Can’t Get Yourself to Work (or Do Much of Anything) first appeared on Workism.

It’s about to be another holiday weekend here in the US. That means there are three days that many people won’t be going in to school or to work. It has me thinking of when people work on their businesses. I definitely plan on spending a little bit of time here and there doing some work. It makes me happy to work on my business. I’m glad to put in an hour here and there to grow it.

We all have the same 24 hours a day, but some people accomplish a lot more than others do. It’s true that some of us have a lot more time to devote to our businesses than others, but we can all find some time if we want to.

Monday – Friday Working Hours

This is when full time entrepreneurs get to work on their business. Other people who still have jobs will be doing their primary job during this time.

If you can, for a lot of people it’s a great time to work as most people are working. This means you won’t be bothered by people who expect you to be available. They’ll be working themselves, and will leave you alone so that you can work done as well.

I am a full time entrepreneur, so most of the hours that I work are in this timeframe. But I do have to say that by design I am not always working every minute of those working hours each day.

Why not? I have many reasons, and you might as well. First of all, I have a young daughter to take care of. She’s in school for most of that time, but not all of it. So during some of it I’m taking care of her.

Another reason is that I really hate going food shopping on the weekends. I don’t like crowds, and try to avoid them. When I go during the day, many times the stores are empty! It’s a wonderful thing.

Yet another thing I like to do in the middle of the day when the weather is nice is go for a walk. Not only does it give me a much needed break from working, but it gets me out of the house. I love to spend time walking around the neighborhood, enjoying the trees, flowers, and even the animals I see on my walks. When I get back inside and get back to work, I find that I’m more focused and get more done than right before the walk.

Early Morning / At Night

Some people are morning people, and love to accomplish more in the early hours than other people do all day long. Others are night owls and would prefer not to work until most people have already gone to sleep. It doesn’t matter if you’re one of the two. If you have a time that you know you’ll get a lot of work done, because you’re “in the zone” then try to make some time during that timeframe so that you can work. If you work well in the morning, it may be worth going to bed early so you can get work done before everyone else wakes up. If you prefer to work at night, maybe you can get up a little later, or at least work instead of watching TV or relaxing at night.

These days, since I don’t always have enough time to work during the day, I try to put in an hour or so in the evening at least a few times a week. Once my daughter goes to sleep, it is nice and quiet. While the television is on, I’ll often do something work-related that doesn’t need too much attention, but that I want to do. Going through my emails is something I like to do during this time. Maybe you can come up with something you can do while you’re relaxing. This way you still get to relax in the evening, but you’re also accomplishing something.

Weekends and Holidays

What do you usually do during the weekend, and on holidays? It’s definitely a good time to take a break and relax. Spend some time with friends and family, run errands, go shopping, etc…

Would you spend any time during a weekend (especially a long holiday weekend like this one) working? Or would you work on a day off? I know a lot of people who would say absolutely not! This is time to be spending with friends and family, or relaxing, or running errands. Why would I want to work during the weekend, or when I get an extra day off?

Weekends and holidays are a great time to get some work done. Usually there is less going on than during the week. Even if you’re with children or other family members, there will hopefully be some time where you can get some work done.

I can tell you what my plans are for this holiday weekend. One afternoon I’ll be spending time with a friend I haven’t seen in a few months. One day I’ll be relaxing, and part of another day I’ll be spending time with family. I love when there is a holiday weekend and there’s more time to spend with my daughter and husband, and just relax. Or see some loved ones we haven’t seen in a while.

I can tell you what else I’ll be doing. I’ll be working. It’ll be an hour here and an hour there. It won’t interrupt any of my friends and family time, and it definitely won’t interrupt any of my relaxation time. I can’t wait to spend some of it working in fact. I consider it “free” time, because I don’t usually expect to put in much time over the weekends, or a holiday. To me, that means I can work on anything that I want! I can do something that I’ve been wanting to do, but felt like it wasn’t a top priority and so it has been put off. Or I can spend some time working on one of the projects I’m working on right now (such as creating a new product) so that when Tuesday rolls around, I’m a little farther along.

When I work during a holiday weekend, I’m happy. It remind me of how lucky I am that I get to do something that I enjoy for a living. Most of the tasks of my business are things I like to do. I don’t feel put out to have to do them on a weekend, holiday, or at night. In fact, it makes me feel even better about my business.

Whether you have a full time business, a part time one, or haven’t even started one yet, find something that you enjoy doing. Then you’ll be happy to put all of the time into it that you can to make it successful.

My goal is to help you start or grow your business in the way that works best for you. You don’t need much time in order to make money online. Learn how to “Start Making Money Blogging in Just 30 Minutes a Day!”

Enjoy,

The post When do You Work on Your Business? first appeared on Workism.

When you promote products to people who are on your list, they are more likely to buy from you. Why? Because they already know, like, and trust you. It doesn’t matter if they are products that you created, or if they’re affiliate products. Once someone likes you, they’re more likely to buy from you. If they’ve already bought from you in the past (or through your link), they’re even more likely to do so in the future.

It also costs less for you to promote to your current audience than to new ones. These people are already on your list, and you’ve already built a relationship with them. On the other hand, with a new audience you need to go out and find them first, and then start to build a relationship with them. This can cost actual money if you pay for ads, or can cost you time in having to promote yourself and your blog.

If you have people on your list who have already purchased from you, you can find complementary product to promote to them. If the people on your list have not bought from you yet, you can promote any products to them. The best way to do this is with good list segmentation.

Segment Based on Behavior

No matter what, you should be building your list. Whether you are going to share products that you created, or promote affiliate products, it doesn’t matter. You should build your list. Why? You’re more likely to make sales with your list than any other way that you come across people, whether it’s your blog, social media, or something else.

Once they’re on your list, you can start building a relationship with them. One way you can do this is by segmenting people based on their behavior.

If someone is on your list because they bought something, it’s very different than if they signed up to get something for free. You want to know which is which. It will make it easier to “talk” to the person knowing that they bought your product or if they didn’t. You’ll know what to recommend to them.

Set Up Evergreen Product Promotions in Your Autoresponder

Having evergreen product promotions in your autoresponder lets you promote awesome products. It doesn’t matter if someone signs up to your list now, or three years from now. These products will still be good and will still be available.

By having them in your autoresponder, you know that every single person who gets on your list will eventually get that product promoted to them. You don’t have to worry about bringing it up on blog broadcasts in case someone hasn’t seen it before.

It means you can have a nice long autoresponder series, knowing that everyone who joins your list will get great content and promotions. You can set it up once, and then not have to think about it again since the promotions will all still be available.

Find Complementary Products and Services to Promote

If you’re selling your own products, you want to make sure that you find complementary products that work alongside your own products. This way you can help your audience more. Plus, if you know that your customer is interested in something enough to buy a product on it, they’re probably also interested in other similar topics.

Repeat

The key here is to keep doing it. If you promote products only once, you’ll miss out. People need to see products at least a few times before they even notice it. Then they can decide if it is for them or not.

Set up your autoresponder evergreen promotions to go to people who don’t buy or don’t open more than once. Set it up so that it will send to those who haven’t responded at least seven times. That may seem obsessive but remember that it’s not likely they’re really seeing it every single time and if you’re segmenting (which should work automatically in the system you choose) it will work out great.

Plus, you’ve probably heard that people don’t really notice something until they’ve seen it seven times. So by allowing them to see the content seven times, there is more of a chance they’ll really notice it.

Every time your customer does something – from responding to an email to clicking through to a sales page – after buying one of the products you recommended, track it and segment them further so that you can do it all again. If you keep your eyes open to products that can help different segments of your audience, you’ll be able to add evergreen promotions and short-term promotions often that will get interest from your customers for the long term.

Enjoy,

The post Segment Your List and Fill your Autoresponder with Good Affiliate Promotions first appeared on Workism.

I recently wrote about how you should start building a relationship with your list from the beginning. If you’ve done that, you have sent at least a few emails to your list. You’ve given them what you promised them in order to get them to sign up to your list. You have hopefully sent them at least a few emails that were in your autoresponder that everyone gets when they sign up.

Now they know a little bit more about you, and have learned a few things from you as well. What should you do now?

Send Emails Regularly

If you only send your list an email every once in a while, there is a good chance they will forget about you! We all get a lot of emails every day. If someone don’t know you very well and then sees an email come in with your name on it, they might be confused. They might not remember right away who you are, or why you’re sending them an email. There is a very good chance that they won’t even open the email.

Sending regular emails not only allows them to remember you, but also helps you build a relationship with your audience. Many people who build lists are afraid to send an email too often, worried about unsubscribes. However, sending helpful emails on a regular basis is what will help you keep people on your list. They’ll become accustomed to your writing schedule and look forward to your emails. Not only that, but they’ll start to take action on your emails as well, which will include clicking on your links and making purchases.

When you send regular emails, it helps you build a trusting relationship with your audience. They’ll see what you’re sharing, and realize that you are someone they can learn from. They’ll also learn that they can trust your advice, such as what products to buy – whether they are yours or an affiliate’s. Because of this, you’ll start making more sales.

Sending regular emails also helps you stay on their mind. When you send few or no emails, your name won’t mean anything to them. But when you send emails more often, they’ll know who you are. When seeing your name in their inbox, they’ll think about things you’ve said, and might even be able to put a face to the name.

They’ll start to think of you as someone they know and trust, and look forward to the emails they get. In fact, the more places they can “see” you, the better. If you have a video or webinar that you’ll be a part of, make sure you let them know so they can check it out. If you’re going to be at a local event, invite them to come and meet you. The more active you are, the more you’ll stay on their minds.

If you’re sending at least 3-5 emails a week, your audience won’t forget you. Of course, you don’t want to just sell, sell, sell. You want to include valuable content that will help them learn things in your niche. Also make sure you share your thoughts on things, as that’s what people are looking for. They want to know more about you, and what you think about things within their niche.

By doing this, you’ll start to connect with your audience. As they learn more about you and your thoughts, they’ll start to trust you more and take action based on the things that you say.

While you’re doing all of this, make sure you don’t forget your main goal. Someone signed up to your list to learn something. So make sure that you’re teaching your audience.

Sending emails regularly is important. However, regularly sending information that resonates with them is more important. Ensure each email has a purpose and goal that meets your needs, as well as those of your audience.

Encourage Conversation

You might think that your relationship goes one way. You write emails, and your audience reads them. But that’s not the best way to build long lasting relationships with those on your list. Build relationships by encouraging two way relationships instead.

Invite (and encourage) your audience to write you. Make sure that you either have a good “reply to” email when you send out your emails, or that you share an email where they can reach you. Make it very simple for them to get in touch with you if they want to.

It can also help to ask questions within your emails, and invite your audience to write you. You can be very vague and ask your audience if they have any questions that you’d be happy to answer. Or you can be more specific and ask a question or ask if they’re having a specific problem and offer to help them.

When you’re sending out emails, make sure you come across as open and sociable. Write your emails as if you’d talk to a good friend. Also write them as if you’re talking to one person. Make sure you’re being friendly, as that can come through in an email.

You don’t have to stick to asking your audience to write you at your email address. If you’d prefer you can ask them to write you on a Facebook Group, a Twitter account, or wherever else you spend time. As long as you give them a way to contact you that you’ll reply to, you’ll be building a good relationship with those on your list.

When you’re emailing your list, treat them like a friend, even if they may not be one yet. Offer help, great content, and share things about you. These are great ways to help your list know, like, and trust you more, and will lead to more people opening your emails, reading them, and taking action on them.

Enjoy,

The post How to Continue Building a Relationship With Your List with Emails first appeared on Workism.

Many people enjoy having multiple streams of income. In fact, I can’t think of a reason that you’d be opposed to it. You may have heard the phrase “multiple streams of income” before, but do you know what it means?

What is “Multiple Streams of Income?”

To put it simply, it’s making money in more than one way.

If you have a full time job, that’s one stream of income. If you have a spouse with a full time job, that’s a second stream. If you have investments that give you dividends, that’s a third income stream. If you own and rent out property, that would be a fourth stream of income. As you can see, it can be easy to have multiple streams of income, even if you don’t work 24/7.

For the rest of this article, we’re going to focus on your online business. If you have an online business, that can be at least one stream of income. Some people would say that an online business is only one stream of income, but I would completely disagree.

To me, as long as you’re bringing in money in a different way, it’s a different stream of income. If one of them could disappear, and yet the others are still there making you money, it’s a different stream of income.

Why is it Important to have “Multiple Streams of Income” in your Business?

If you have a full time job, and that’s the only stream of income you’re bringing in, you’re going to be in trouble if your job goes away. It doesn’t matter if you’re fired, if the company goes under, or what. If that income stops coming in, and you don’t have any others…you’re probably going to be in a rush to get another job.

But if you had money coming in multiple other ways, then even if you needed to replace your job, you wouldn’t be as stressed and in a rush to get another job. You’d still have money coming in.

When it comes to your online business, having multiple streams of income is even more important.

Things within your online business can change on a dime. It’s possible that you could be making a lot of money, and then something can happen and now you aren’t making anything.

Many things can happen that can take away a stream of income with an online business. Here are a few examples:

Affiliate Commission Could Go Away. The company (or companies) you’re promoting could either decide to lower commissions, or stop them completely. When the pandemic first started in 2020, many retail stores temporarily changed their commissions to 0% or 1%.

If you were making a full time income with affiliate commissions on retail products, and that was it, you would have been in a lot of trouble. You could say that something like that doesn’t often happen.  But other things can change too. Sometimes stores go out of business. You may have been making thousands of dollars a month promoting one company, but if they go out of business, you won’t make anything from them anymore.

Software/Technology Can Cause Issues. Let’s say you sell your own products. There could be a glitch, and the software you use to sell the product could temporarily stop working. So for that day (or days?) you wouldn’t be able to make any sales. A simple update of something could cause something else to break that may cause issues so you can’t earn money that way. The knowledge in your products could become outdated and people wouldn’t be interested in them anymore.

Traffic Could Stop. Google makes updates to their algorithm all of the time. Just because you’re getting tons of traffic today doesn’t mean you’ll get any traffic from them tomorrow. However you were using that traffic to earn money online could be gone tomorrow.

These are a few reasons. Now, I’m not trying to scare you. Really! I want you to think about it. There are many things that can happen that can cause a stream of income to stop (even if it’s only temporary.) So what you should do now, is to make sure that you have multiple streams of income, so that this won’t be an issue.

This way if you lose a stream of income, while it isn’t great, but at least you’re still earning money in other ways.

What are Some Streams of Income you can Have in your Business?

Affiliate Marketing. Sell other people’s products and you’ll get a percentage in commission. This can even become multiple streams of income. Instead of only promoting one company, make sure you’re promoting multiple companies.

Creating Your Own Products. This too can be broken down into multiple streams of income. Create your own products. And don’t have just one product. Create many of them. Have them be at different price points. Have different types of products. Make one subscription based so that you’re earning more every single month. Don’t have all of your products be about the exact same thing. If people aren’t interested in that exact topic anymore, you’ll have different products for them to buy.

Sell eBooks on Amazon. People love to read and learn. Create one (or more) books on Amazon. You’ll automatically become more of an expert in those niches as you have a book in it, and it’s possible this will lead you to earning more in other ways.

Ads. There are many ways you can use ads to earn money. You can put them on your website, or in your emails. You can have them be graphic ads, or text ads. It can even be clickable links within your text that will lead to an ad.

Sponsored Content. If you have enough traffic, you could get paid to write a post, or social media content. They’ll give you the topic, and you can write about it and get paid for it.

Sell Products on Etsy (or similar.) This works for both physical as well as digital content. Sell these on Etsy or other similar sites.

Coaching. If you know what you’re talking about, and know that others would love to do what you’re doing, become a coach and help them.

There are a lot of ways to have multiple streams of income in your business. The ideas above only scratch the surface. Hopefully they will have given you some ideas so that you can add multiple streams of income to your business.

Plus, even though this should be obvious, the more streams of income you have, the more money you can be making! While some of these require a lot of work, some of them once finished are passive income. As in you don’t need to do any (or much) work in order to make money with it. So there is every reason to want to add more streams of income to your business. You can earn more.

This is a way to make it so that no matter what happens, you won’t end up making money one day, and nothing the next. Having multiple streams of income is really a great thing in your business. So think about it, and then start adding your next stream now!

Enjoy,

The post Why You Want Multiple Streams of Income in Your Business first appeared on Workism.