Blogging

You’ve finished your first webinar and you feel amazing. You’ve grown your list, deepened your connection with your community, and had the chance to show off your smarts. Before you move onto your next project, spend some time making sure that your webinar continues to work for you. Here’s what you need to do…

Check Your Recording

The first thing you’ll need to do is to listen to your recording. Make sure it sounds clear and the words are easy to understand. If there’s a lot of noise or it’s difficult to hear, you may want to hire a virtual assistant who specializes in webinars, improve the sound quality for you.

Update Your Landing Page & Welcome Email

Now that your webinar is over, you’ll want to update the landing page to mention that the event has passed but that they can still register to get the recording. Giving away the recording this way will keep a steady stream of new subscribers coming into your sales funnel.

After the landing page, tackle your welcome email. Make sure to provide the recording and the handout link. Visitors will want to access this gift right away so make sure this email sends as soon as a new subscriber joins your list.

Email Your List

Don’t forget to email your list of subscribers after your webinar. Thank them for attending and provide a link to the recording along with the handout.

If you made an offer at the end of your webinar, remind them of it. You could say something simple, “Remember, I only have enough space to take on five clients and spots are already filling. If you’d like to work with me, do [your call-to-action like fill out a form or reply to this message].”

Optional: Turn Your Webinar into a Product

If you used your webinar to educate your community, you can turn your webinar into a product to sell. Add 2-3 worksheets that will help your attendees implement what you taught as well as an audio version of your webinar. This will boost the value of your product in the eyes of your buyers.

Then bundle these extras with the original webinar and upload it to a host like Amazon S3. Put a buy button on your webinar page and charge visitors to access this content, just like you would for any other product.

What you decide to do with your webinar is up to you. There’s no right or wrong answer. Just make sure you don’t leave your webinar in a closet collecting virtual dust. You want to keep this content fresh so you can promote it again and again for years to come.

Speaking of webinars, if you’re looking for a fun way to stretch yourself in September, why not join the Stretch Yourself Challenge? One of the challenges you can pick from is hosting a webinar 😉

Hosting your first webinar can be intense and make you feel a bit jittery. But don’t let your nerves hold you back. Use these tips to make sure your webinar runs smoothly from start to finish…

Choose Webinar Tool & Style

Now is the time to make a firm choice about the webinar conference room you’ll use so that you can start to work with it and get comfortable.

Begin to work on your message outline as you’ll share it during your webinar. If you don’t want to present it by yourself, you could get a friend to co-host and ask you questions in an interview style.

If you’re not experienced with presentations, the interview option may be the most comfortable and easiest solution for you. But if you want a co-host, pick someone who has a personality that’s a great fit for yours.

Create a Beautiful Handout

Now you’ll want to make a beautiful handout for your participants to use to follow along with you. You can do this by creating a document in Microsoft Word or Google Documents and saving it as a PDF.

Type up your main points and remove some of the words so your attendees can fill-in-the-blanks as they listen. Don’t forget to include a notes section. You want your handout to be about a page or two in length.

Try a Practice Run

Continue working in your message outline and get it fleshed out so you know exactly what you will be covering from start to finish. Go over this with your co-host if you have one or if you’re going solo, dive in and do a rehearsal presentation. Doing it this first time gives you a chance to adjust to the webinar software, position your microphone and make minor tweaks to your content.

You may even want to invite a few friends to act as a live audience.  Practice it as if you were doing it for real. This step is invaluable because it gives you and your co-host the chance to identify any potential problems and compensate for it when the official date arrives.

Email Your List with the Webinar Link

Give your list a two day advance reminder. Share your excitement with your subscribers. Remind them of your topic and what they’ll learn when they attend. Then provide them with login link and instructions.

Have a Final Meeting

Go over your webinar presentation one last time. If you’re working with a co-host, make sure both of you know what you’re doing and when. You should also upload your final webinar handout. Make sure to grab the download link.

Send Your List Reminders

Before your webinar, you want to send out two quick messages. Send an email with the handout link and login instructions in the morning.  Then message your list about an hour before webinar begins.

Once it’s go time, go live and have fun. Don’t forget to hit record so you’ll have a replay available for attendees who couldn’t make it live.

Speaking of webinars, if you’re looking for a fun way to stretch yourself in September, why not join the Stretch Yourself Challenge? One of the challenges you can pick from is hosting a webinar 😉

Once you’ve created a landing page and you have an opt-in form, it’s time to begin promoting your webinar. It’s important that you get plenty of traffic flowing to your page. Without enough traffic, you’ll only get a few sign ups and even fewer attendees.

But the good news is that getting the word out about your webinar can boost your traffic and drastically increase the number of attendees you see. Here are four quick tips to help you promote the heck out of your webinar…

Publish a Blog Post

Start your promotion efforts on your own blog. Write a post that introduces your banner message and backs it up with a couple of strong points.  Shoot for at least 500 words. You can go for a longer word count (think 800-1000 words) if you feel you need and have plenty of content to share.

But don’t try to cover everything that you’ll be sharing on your webinar. You want to give visitors a taste of your content, not the whole cake. The whole cake is your webinar. Right now, you’re just trying to lure them in with a free sample.

Become a Guest Poster

Find a blog you’d like to guest post on and ask if they’d welcome a post from you ASAP to promote your webinar.  This is where you’ll want to make the most of your networking relationships – the people closest to you are most likely to say yes. So start there first.

Make your guest post helpful and informative for your readers. You should introduce the main theme of your webinar and back it up with strong points. Then link back to your landing page in your author bio.

Get Interviewed

If you have business friends or friends in your niche that already have a platform, reach out to them. Share with them that you have an upcoming webinar and ask if they’re looking for a guest for their next podcast episode or an upcoming Facebook Live video.

Being interviewed makes listeners associate you and your brand with authority. When they think of you as a leader, they’re more likely to visit your website and sign up for your upcoming webinar.

Be a Social Media Star

Use social media to send more traffic to your landing page. Post about your webinar and why your fans should attend. But don’t just stick with text updates—use video to tell your followers about your webinar. You want to use video because it often gets more views than traditional text updates. It’s also a simple way to make your fans feel like they’re connected to you.

You can also update your social media banners with information about your upcoming webinar. When fans visit your profile, they’ll learn about your webinar.

If you have a budget, you can also try paid advertising on social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter. But you only want to do this if you know how paid advertising works or if you have a trustworthy VA you trust to manage this step for you.

Be sure you link back to your landing page in each of your promotional pieces. Whether it was an interview, Facebook Live video, or a post on your own blog, you want your visitors to clickthrough to that page and sign up for your webinar.

Speaking of webinars, if you’re looking for a fun way to stretch yourself in September, why not join the Stretch Yourself Challenge? One of the challenges you can pick from is hosting a webinar 😉

After Janice decided to put together her first webinar, she became nervous. She didn’t know what tech skills she needed. But her online business friends shared their favorites and explained how they worked so she could put together an awesome webinar. If you’re ready to create your own webinar, here are the tools to help you rock it…

Webinar Software

Choosing a webinar conference room is all about getting the features you want at a price you can afford. You want a room that allows for full interaction by text and audio.  You want to be able to share your screen or at least co-browse. You also want the ability to record the session.

Zoom allows you to hold meetings with up to 100 participants for free. If you’re creating your first webinar and have under a hundred sign ups then Zoom could be an affordable option for you.

But Zoom isn’t the only tool that’s available for virtual events. You could also use Adobe Connect or GoToMeeting for your webinars. Both websites offer free trial accounts so you can test out their software and see which one is right for you.

Landing Page Software

You need a landing page where you can send traffic to sign up for your new webinar. On this page, you’ll need an attention-grabbing headline, a paragraph that highlights the topic you’ll be covering, and a bullet list that tells visitors what they’ll be learning.

Some WordPress themes come with a landing page template. Some frameworks like the Genesis Framework also contain this feature.  If you’re not using a WordPress based website or if your theme doesn’t have a landing page template, you can use a service like LeadPages or Thrive Leads to create your landing page.

Mailing List Manager

After you’ve put together your landing page, you’ll need a mailing list. When a visitor arrives at your website and likes the idea of your webinar, she can sign up for a special webinar mailing list.

Now that she’s on your list, you can email your attendee before you go live and remind her about your event. You can also follow up with all of your attendees and share follow up information and even exciting offers with them.

If you already have a mailing list manager like Aweber in place, then all you have to do is create a new list and add the sign up form to your landing page. But if you don’t have a mailing list yet, you’ll want to start building one right away. You can do this by signing up for a marketing automation tool like Active Campaign or Drip.

Make sure your welcome email thanks new subscribers for registering for the webinar and lets them know that you’ll be sending access details when the date is closer.

Once your landing page is working, you may want to get some other online business owners to critique it. They can point out problems, suggest additions, and even give you tips on how to boost your conversion rate. When you share your link, make sure you mention you’re looking for feedback so you can improve the page.

Speaking of webinars, if you’re looking for a fun way to stretch yourself in September, why not join the Stretch Yourself Challenge? One of the challenges you can pick from is hosting a webinar 🙂 

Hosting a webinar can be a great way to build your mailing list, position yourself as a leader in your niche and sell your services or products. Hosting your first webinar can seem overwhelming or scary. But it doesn’t have to be. Creating and hosting your own webinar can be fun and easy. You can get started by making four key decisions…

Determine Your Purpose

It’s important to determine the purpose of your webinar as soon as you decide to host it. Ask yourself what action you want your attendees to take after they watch your webinar. Do you want them to sign up for your waiting list? Purchase your latest project? Buy a product you’re promoting as an affiliate?

Don’t go into your webinar with three or four different goals. You want one goal so you can make a strong call to action at the end of your virtual event. Remember, the purpose of your webinar is what will guide you as you create your content.

Choose Your Topic

Start by finding a topic that will meet a specific felt need or answer a pressing problem that your community has right now. You want this to be a topic that you’re passionate about, something that you could talk about for hours on end – because you believe that your advice on the topic can be of true help to others.

If you need help with picking a topic, consider what products or services you’ve released that resonated with your community. If you’ve used surveys to learn more about your subscribers or followers, look over those results. You can also reach out for inspiration from a business friend you trust to support you.

Know Your Talking Points

Once you know your topic, it’s time to think about the key information you’ll want to share. You’ll need six or more talking points so you have plenty of content ideas to pull from during your webinar.

It can be helpful to brainstorm your points by using index cards or sticky notes for this part of the process. Write down one idea on each card or note. When you’re done, you can rearrange the notes in a logical order.

Keep in mind that during brainstorm, you may jot down points that you decide won’t work. You can throw those cards away or save them if you think they might be helpful later.

Pick Your Date

Now, you’ll need to pick a time and date for your webinar. You want to set it at least two weeks in the future so you have time to promote it. But if you really want to create a buzz about your event, you should plan it 4-6 weeks in advance.

As you look to schedule your webinar, keep in mind different time zones. A webinar scheduled at seven in the morning Eastern Time means it’ll be four in the morning for your attendees living in the Pacific Time zone.

Hosting a webinar can be enjoyable and fun. You may even discover you love creating and hosting online events.

Speaking of webinars, if you’re looking for a fun way to stretch yourself in September, why not join the Stretch Yourself Challenge? One of the challenges you can pick from is hosting a webinar 😉 

3 Surprising Facts about PLR Content

Lily built a thriving coaching business. She loved serving her clients but she wanted to expand to offer more services like group coaching without increasing her workload. A friend told her about private label rights content or PLR – content that is sold and you can use as your own, editing or changing it if you like.

If you’re new to the world of PLR content, here are three surprising facts you should know about it…

Fact #1: It isn’t stealing to use PLR content.

Stealing content is finding an article online and copying the whole thing to your own website. It doesn’t matter if you credit the author or not. If you take more than a paragraph or two, you’ve violated copy right law because you didn’t have the right to copy that material.

With PLR content, the seller is giving you the right to copy their material. Most PLR providers even allow you to change the content if there’s a point you disagree with or if you want to add your own opinion to the work.

Fact #2: It isn’t unethical to use PLR content.

PLR content is usually created by a ghostwriter. Ghostwriters create content with the knowledge that their name will not go on the content. They know this upfront and they don’t mind. In fact, many ghostwriters enjoy what they do because they get the chance to educate and inform readers while writing on a variety of topics.

PLR content is also used by many different types of businesses. For example, politicians rarely write their own speeches.  Most athletes don’t write their own autobiographies, choosing instead to work with ghostwriters.

It’s perfectly ethical to use PLR content to serve your community and it’s one of the fastest ways to grow your business.

Fact #3: People you respect are using PLR, you just don’t know it.

Thousands of online business owners use PLR to power their businesses. It’s how they’re able to produce so many blog posts, podcast episodes, Facebook Live videos, and more.

The simple truth is trying to create all of your content on your own can be exhausting. But PLR is an affordable solution that’s easy to customize for your community with just a few subtle tweaks.

How to Make Your PLR Content Unique

Private label rights content is much cheaper than hiring a ghostwriter and it’s faster than creating the content yourself.

One of the drawbacks of PLR is that anybody can purchase it. But this doesn’t have to be a big deal for you. Instead, just customize it for your business by following these tips:

Change the Titles

The very first thing you want to do when using PLR is to change the title. When you search on Google, you can find millions of articles titled How to Choose the Right Lipstick Color or a subtle variation like Choosing the Right Lipstick for Your Skin Tone.

Now Allure magazine could have used that same tired title. But instead they opted to use the headline, The 10 Commandments of Lipstick. This title leaves readers curious. It makes them wonder if they know all ten of these lipstick rules, which causes them to clickthrough to the website.

Rewrite When Necessary

If you’re using PLR in your autoresponder or as an opt-in report, just lightly edit it with references to your target market.

You’ll also want to add in your own opinions and stories to make the content unique to your community. Doing this establishes you as a thought leader in your niche.

Add a Call to Action

PLR content will often lack a call to action at the end. That’s because the PLR seller doesn’t know exactly what you’re focused on in your business right now. So it’s your job to add CTAs to the content you’ve purchased.

Think about where your readers are in terms of your funnel. If this is content that’s on your blog, then you want to include a call to action that invites visitors to become subscribers. If it’s a free report that you’re giving to subscribers, your call to action might be recommending they buy a product or service from you. Regardless of what PLR you use, always add a CTA to encourage your community to go deeper in your funnel.

3 Fun Ways to Use PLR

When it comes to building your mailing list, there’s one secret weapon you should definitely be using: PLR content. It’s a great resource that’s easy to implement. Try using it one of these three ways and watch what happens to your list…

Launch Multiple Opt-Ins

Opt-in gifts are like dangling carrots. They offer something the reader wants and motivates him or her to go deeper into your sales funnel. But having just one isn’t enough. If you really want to grow your mailing list, you need multiple gifts sprinkled throughout your website.

Having multiple opt-ins is especially important if you have several customer avatars. For example, you’re a business coach that helps women create recurring income. Customer avatar #1 is a service provider who’s looking for more passive income opportunities. She might like an opt-in gift about how to add more affiliate marketing to her business.

Customer avatar #2 is a stay at home mom who wants to make recurring income by writing books. Your opt-in gift might be a guide to self-publishing for new writers.

You’re helping these women discover recurring income but you’re also tailoring your opt-in gifts to meet the unique needs of each one.

Come Up with Blog Content + Upgrades

If you already have a few pieces of content that you want to use as opt-in gifts then you can find PLR on these topics to post on your blog. For example, maybe you wrote a short report on how to get started with self-publishing.

Then you’d want to find and purchase some PLR on the topic of Kindle publishing. Rewrite this PLR content and post it to your blog then add a strong call to action inviting visitors to sign up for your short report.

Funnel Traffic to Your Opt-In Page

Another way to use PLR content to grow your mailing list is to break down into social media posts. Look over a PLR article or blog post and take 5 sentences from it. Use those sentences as text updates on social media and link to your opt-in page.

If the PLR seller included images, you can use those too. First, brand them by your adding your logo or website name to them. Then upload them to social media sites. Link your followers to your blog posts to encourage sign ups.

PLR content can help you grow your list quickly and easily. This gives you more time to spend growing your community.

Creating Content Upgrades with PLR

Many online business owners that use PLR, edit it and publish it on their blogs. They spend a few days promoting it then they let that post die a quiet death and they move on. The problem is that while the post may be informative for the reader, it doesn’t invite them to go deeper.

That’s what a content upgrade is all about. It’s a way of building on the blog content so that visitors are invited to become subscribers who will (hopefully) go on to buy your product or services.

But don’t freak out thinking that content upgrades have to be difficult. They’re easy to make. All you have to do is take the PLR you posted to your blog and turn it into an upgrade.

Over at White Label Perks, the PLR packages come with content perks included so this makes it super simple for you to create content upgrades quickly!

Here’s some ideas for creating content upgrades…

Create a Checklist

You know that tutorial you posted to your blog? Summarize each step in just one sentence. Then paste these steps into your favorite word processing software.

You can use the bullet point feature and select squares for an instant checklist. Now just save it as a PDF and you have a downloadable checklist to include with your tutorial.

Make a Worksheet

Take a PLR article and turn it into a worksheet. All you have to do is come up with 3-7 questions. For example if your blog post is about overcoming fear, you may want the first question to be something like: “What were you afraid of as a child?”

Keep asking questions until you help your readers work through their fears. When you’ve finished, save your questions as a PDF and you have a worksheet you can use as a free content upgrade.

Design a Resource List

When it comes to creating a resource list, look at the tools or software mentioned in your PLR content. For example if your PLR content is all about how to make beautiful graphics, it probably mentions websites like PicMonkey or Canva.

All you need to do is open a document and copy every tool listed in your PLR. Be sure to add links where necessary so subscribers can find what they need easily.

Turn Your Post into a PDF

Sometimes, visitors want to keep your post for future reference. This is especially common for tutorials, recipes, and lists. So, make it easy for visitors to access your content again by providing a PDF of your post.

This is a content upgrade that’s deliciously simple. As soon as your newest post goes live, visit a website like Printer Friendly. Once your conversion is finished, upload your PDF to your website and you have another content upgrade ready to go!

Content upgrades can be simple and easy to make. It just takes a few minutes and you can turn any post into a conversion machine.

Taking It A Step Further: How to Reuse Your PLR

Most online business owners make a crucial mistake with their PLR that limits their mailing list growth – they use it in only the format it came in. For example, you bought a PLR report on how to stop procrastinating. You broke it up into blog posts, created content upgrades, and called it done.

But the truth is you can switch up your PLR content by using different formats like changing text to audio. This can make your content stretch even further. Here’s how to use different formats to grow your list:

Turn a Report into Podcast Episodes

You’re probably using at least one PLR report or workbook as an opt-in gift. That’s great for a downloadable gift. But take your text and transform it into audio by creating podcast episodes.

This doesn’t mean you should have long podcast episodes where you read out the entire content. Instead, grab the main ideas from your PLR content and expand on them in audio. Add new insights and opinions. Brainstorm recommendations you forgot to include the first time around.

At the end of your podcast episode, let listeners know they can download the full report or workbook from your website. Then direct them to your opt-in page so they can sign up for your mailing list.

Live Stream an eBook Chapter

If you have an eBook as an opt-in gift, break it down chapter by chapter. Turn each chapter into a live video using a social media platform like Facebook Live or YouTube streaming.

Again, your goal is not to read the entire chapter to your viewers. You want to expand on the chapter by going deeper into it.

If some of the content has changed since you first uploaded it, then talk about that. For example, you might say, “In the eBook I mentioned a graphics website that’s no longer online, now I recommend ABC tool. It has a similar layout and I like that it’s simple to download the images I’ve created.”

When you’re winding down, make sure to mention that visitors can download your eBook in its entirety on your website. Provide a link to your opt-in page in the comments section so viewers can easily sign up for your awesome gift.

Create a Challenge from Your Course

If your opt-in gift is a course, consider turning it into a challenge. This works especially well if your challenge is short (think 7-10 days) and has plenty of action steps that your followers can follow through on.

Create a Facebook group and invite participants to check in daily during the challenge like Kelly does in her Love People + Make Money Facebook group. Let them know that they have to sign up for your mailing list and download the course in order to follow along.

Then show up in the group each day of the challenge. You can do this by starting discussions, creating homework assignments, or using Facebook Live to motivate your challengers.

At the end of each day’s assignment, remind your attendees to sign up for your mailing list so they don’t miss new challenges. Have a special opt-in page for these participants since your challenge can lead to a lot of new traffic and new subscribers.

Don’t fall into the trap of only using your PLR in only one format. You can recycle your favorite PLR pieces again and again.

Speaking of PLR, if you’re looking to master the process of selecting and implementing great PLR that will fill gaps in your content marketing and profitably meet needs for your community, be sure to check out the Brandable Content Workshop.