Email Software

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a marketing automation platform designed and developed for businesses using email to reach out to their target markets. It is an all-in-one tool where you can manage your mailing lists, create custom email templates, and nurture and automate your entire marketing campaigns.

• How to Create Freebie Opt-Ins using Mailchimp
• How to Create Pop-Up Forms using Mailchimp
• Creating and Using Segments in Mailchimp
• More information about Segmentation in Mailchimp

Pros:

• Can customize your forms and templates with HTML to achieve your desired front-end visual appearance.
• Easily integrates with other digital tools

Cons:

• If you set up a pop-up, opt-in form on your website with Mailchimp and a site visitor closes out the pop-up, Mailchimp uses a cookie (a small snippet of code) to track that action. Mailchimp waits A YEAR after that action to show that same visitor your pop-up opt-in again. That is why WordPress plugins like Popupally and Thrive leads are useful regardless on the platform that you are using.
• Tagging doesn’t really exist as automated action taken when your subscriber clicks a link, etc. Mailchimp tagging is more for your reference. Instead, segmenting and groups are your option. Most features like this are only available for the paid plan in Mailchimp.

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ConvertKit

ConvertKit is a full-featured email service provider (ESP). Thanks to its ease of use, automation and other features, it’s one of the fastest-growing email marketing companies around. It also offers customizable sign-up forms and landing pages to help bring in more email subscribers.

• How to Create a Form in ConvertKit
• How to Create a Pop-U, Opt-In Form in ConvertKit
• The Essential Guide to Email Segmentation
• How to Create and Use Segments in ConvertKit
• ConvertKit Glossary of Terms

Pros:

• Easily create pop-up forms and landing pages in one place within the platform
• ConvertKit provides simple and clear A/B testing for subject lines. When creating an email, you’ll find A/B at the right of your first subject line field. If you click on it, it will extend and include another field for the second subject line. You just need to enter information in your subject lines, and ConvertKits takes care of the rest.

Cons:

• Unfortunately, ConvertKit lacks integrations with widely used software, like PayPal, Canva, SurveyMonkey, and Xero. However, ConvertKit does provide an API with plenty of useful documentation to support you in creating integrations with any other software.
• The customization choices are restricted, so you only can edit font size, color, alignments, or include photos and files. If you want more customization or extensive formatting, you have to enter the email’s HTML and change the code. If you don’t know much about HTML, ConvertKit provides three basic templates to support you with the layout.

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Online Teaching Software

Teachable

Teachable is a robust comprehensive teaching platform. There are four plans to choose from ranging from Free to Business ($249/ mo paid annually). There is an additional fee for each course purchased by a student. It is a percentage depending on the plan. This is in addition to any credit card processing fee by the payment service you use. Accept payments with one of a number of options–PayPal, Stripe, etc. Setting up your course and Teachable site is quick and easy with one of their customizable templates. Start with a free plan (which is limited to 10 students) and upgrade to one of the other plans when you need to enroll more students or add additional features. Use it as a stand-alone teaching website for your business or seamlessly connect it to your existing website. It integrates with email platforms like MailChimp. Offer coupons and payment plans and even bundle classes. Create sales pages easily with their customizable templates. There are lots more features that make this a great platform to easily start teaching online.

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Thinkific

Thinkific is a technology company with a platform that allows people and businesses to create online courses from their existing knowledge and then deliver or sell those courses to their audience from their website, and under their own brand.

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Kajabi

Kajabi is a content marketing platform designed to help digital entrepreneurs and small businesses utilize customizable templates to create and sell engaging content in the form of online courses or coaching programs. Influencers can use Kajabi to build personalized websites, theme-based landing pages, and emails.

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Online Community Platform Software

MightyNetworks

Create a community, membership site and even offer courses all in one place. This is a great alternative to using FaceBook groups for students who enroll in your courses. Unlike FaceBook, you own all the content, you control the environment, there are no adds and distractions and you can add whatever content you would like–videos, documents, events, etc. And you can encourage connection between your students. They set up a profile, share information about themselves (such as interests or medium, etc.) that helps them connect with others with similiar interests or find people with different skills and interests. Also, no one is tracking and using their data unlike FaceBook. I haven’t used the course feature and don’t know anyone who is so don’t have any input if it works well for a stand-alone course site like Teachable.

Design Software

Canva

Fast and easy graphic design app. Use online through their website or create on the go with their smartphone app. You can copy your own designs for easy creation of similar designs. They offer lots of templates that are pre-formatted for all your design needs–IG post or story, FB post, Zoom backgrounds, PowerPoint, flyers, handouts, ads, and more. Download designs in a variety of formats–png, jpg, pdf, video, animation, gif. The free plan is versatile and there are options for app purchases of images, graphics and elements for $1 (you can also generate income by licensing your own graphics and photos with them for other users to lease). The advantage to the pro plan is easy resizing of existing designs, saving brand colors and logos, and free access to all of their premium images and elements. There is a free 30 day trial of pro membership.

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Adobe Creative Cloud

Adobe Creative Cloud applications are designed for editing, organizing, storing, and sharing photos and other digital assets on desktop, mobile, and the web. Create graphics and illustrations to use in your projects. Play with layouts, page designs, and more for publishing. Create and share online videos anywhere.

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Video Software

Zoom

With Zoom video conferencing platform you can create and record live video classes, offer one-on-one or group coaching, have interactive experiences or mute all the participants so they can only hear you. It has a chat feature that you can turn on and off. Participants can ask questions and you can poll your viewers. The free Basic version allows up to 40 min meetings and no cloud storage. Both Basic and Pro ($14.99/ mo) allow up to 100 participants. Pro gives you 1GB of cloud storage and meeting length up to 24 hrs. You can add webinar feature for $40/ mo. There are integrations with other software/ apps that make it easy to coordinate actions i.e. Calendly scheduling app will set up a Zoom meeting with a client/ student that schedules with you through that app.

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Vimeo

Once you create your video, you need a place to host it online. Vimeo and YouTube are two options. Once uploaded to Vimeo, you can embed the videos on your website, teaching platforms or share the video links. I prefer Vimeo. Vimeo offers various plans. The basic free plan has a weekly upload limit of 500MB and a maximum account storage of 5GB. This is a great way to get started but you will have to upgrade as you add more video content. Vimeo has a 15% off upgrade discount until 12/31/2020. Use coupon code UPGRDPLN15 to receive the discount. Start with basic and then you can use the code when you need to upgrade.

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Webinar Ninja

WebinarNinja is a robust and easy to use webinar platform. You can choose between live, automated, series/ summits (series webinars are how you would do a course), or hybrid (live and pre- recorded content) without having to purchase any other software. Set up your webinar in less than a minute–enter the title, add any co-hosts, choose date and time, and choose if it is free or paid. Everything else is set–registration page, thank you page, and all automatic email reminders to registrants are automatically set up. Once someone signs up, WebinarNinja links their information to these automated emails. You can use WebinarNinja’s preset pages and emails or edit any of them to change the design or content. There are templates to choose from for the registration and thank you pages if you don’t want to use the preset ones. Your webinars can be public or private. Choose private if you don’t want people to be able to search them in WebinarNinja’s public platform. Public webinars appear in their catalog of available and upcoming webinars. People can discover your public webinars on their site. Enter the studio to start your presentation and interact with your webinar attendees. Upload your presentation to WebinarNinja and you can present your slides on the same screen–no toggling back and forth between Keynote or PowerPoint. You can play videos at any time. Change your screen layout (speaker view, slides, gallery) easily anytime. Built-in chat, question section, and present special offers to attendees. You can create on-demand paid webinars. Payment is handled with Stripe (so you need a free Stripe account). Lots of integrations with other apps. GREAT customer service! Lots of help if you need it. The owner does regular free tutorials and demos of new features or best practices. Automatic recording and storage and unlimited storage. Recording time limit is 2 hrs but you can go live for longer. Auto- replays available to attendees. You can download the videos to add to other platforms such as Teachable. There is so much more.

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VideoShop

Fast and easy smartphone video editing app for Apple and Android phones and iPad (not sure about tablets). Edit video shot with your phone easily on your phone with this app. Add music, trim/ cut unwanted moments, add still photos, slow motion, sound effects, add subtitles, merge multiple clips, add voice over, use filters, add transitions between frames, animate titles, instant sharing. Upload directly to Vimeo, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, DropBox or share via email or texting/ WhatsApp. Make Gifs and more. In app upgrades (for a fee) add additional features but you can do lots with the base app. Save to camera roll too. Copy your videos and use them as a template for the next video you create (a great way to reuse titles, etc. that have been added to an existing video).