7 Effective Lead Magnets to Bring New Customers to Your Email List

7 Effective lead magnets to bring new subscribers to your email list in 2021 by Stella Web Copywriting Services Montreal Canada

Want to grow your email list with an effective lead magnet? Want to give value to your dream clients so they gladly sign up to your newsletter? Then, you came to the right place. In this post you’ll find 7 effective lead magnets to bring new customers to your email list. Plus, you’ll learn what … Read more

10 Success Habits of Online Entrepreneurs You Need to Practise

Habits of Successful Online Entrepreneurs Stella Web Design Candiac

Looking to build an online business in 2023, but can’t find the time to do so?

Learn how successful online entrepreneurs are achieving success with 10 effective habits they practice every day.

Starting a Digital business Takes Discipline

Sometimes people who start an online business have to juggle with an endless list of things to do daily. For instance a full-time job, a family to raise, groceries to shop, meals to cook. Well, you get the idea. Plus, being an entrepreneur often means working from home… solo.

But, how is it that other people are succeeding at it? What’s their secret sauce?

Well, being an online entrepreneur myself, I wanted to discover the experts’ secret for success. So, I did a research and for the last year I’ve been reading their books, listening to their podcasts and following them on social media.

It turns out, their secret for success is in the habits they practise every single day.

After learning more about each one them, I created a list with 10 of the most effective habits for success.

10 Success Habits of Online Entrepreneurs You Need to Practise

Incorporate some of these 10 brilliant daily habits to succeed in your own online journey.

10 success habits of online entrepreneurs you need to practise, in 2021

Read below the details for each habit you’d like to develop.

1. WAKE UP EARLY

Would you like to have more time to get organized, plan out your day and work on your business? Then waking up early will be key. Just imagine how much would you accomplish with an extra 15, 30, or 60 minutes a day!

Like any new habit, this one takes time to build. But the first step is to find your passion, by identifying the one thing that makes you jump out of the bed in the morning. Then, as soon as you know what this is, you’ll feel motivated to wake up early more easily.

2. CREATE BEFORE YOU CONSUME

Have you ever noticed how successful online entrepreneurs consistently publish great digital content from very early in the morning? It makes you wonder: “When do they have time to do this?”, “How did they come up with this great idea?”

Well, their secret is that they don’t go to social media as soon as they wake up (or spend much time on it). Instead, they focus on creating their own content first, scheduling it, and then later on they consume it.

So, the lesson for you and me is: create content before you consume it.

3. WRITE

Keep close to you a journal and a pencil to write down your dreams, thoughts, ideas, goals, and the things you’re grateful for. In her book “Everything is Figureoutable”, Marie Forleo says that writing helps you get focused and makes you accountable on the goals you want to achieve.

4. PLAN

If you’re dreaming of starting an online biz, it’s important to make a plan that describes how you’re going to make it happen.

For instance, let’s say that you’re dreaming of starting a blog. Then to materialize this dream, you’d have to start writing down a plan that specifies:

  • What will you blog about?
  • What skills you need to learn?
  • Will you DIY or hire someone to create your blog?
  • Who will be your ideal client?
  • How much would you need to invest?
  • How will you monetize it?
  • How will you name your blog?
  • When will you launch it?

To sum up, having a plan for your business will steer your actions towards the materialization of your dream.

Related: Take the “Is Blogging Right For You” Free 1 minute Quiz

5. SET SMART GOALS

After setting a plan, break it down into small measurable pieces by setting SMART goals. By this I mean write specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound goals.

Here’s how to set SMART goals:

  • Specific. For example, you want to start a successful lifestyle blog. But what is exactly successful? Well, maybe you want yours to be the #1 Lifestyle blog in your local community. Or more specifically, you want to have the #1 Lifestyle Blog in your local community with focus on fashion? The more specific your goal is, the easier it’ll be to measure it!
  • Measurable. How will you measure your growth towards your goal? In other words, how will you know you’re the #1 Lifestyle Blog in your local community? Well, maybe getting a daily traffic of 500 visits a day from your local community, will be the way to measure your growth.
  • Attainable. This means your goals should be achievable. Maybe you want to talk about several topics on your blog like fashion, beauty, health and family. But the reality is that you only have time to blog about fashion. Therefore, focus on smaller, attainable goals until you can work on the bigger ones.
  • Relevant. Work on goals that align with the broader vision for your business. If you’re a blog about fashion for women in their 40s, but 70% of your traffic comes from markets that don’t contribute to your business. Then, how is this helping to reach your goal?
  • Time-bound. Set a reasonable timeline to achieve your goals. For instance, you want to have 10k subscribers on your blog, and you currently have 1k. Then setting a 2 year timeline for example, would be a reasonable time to achieve your goal.

6. FOCUS

Identify and remove the sources of distraction. For instance, put away your phone or silence it during work time, pause your social media apps, organize your desk, get yourself a bottle of water and put nice music on. You get the idea ;).

In other words, create an environment that stimulates your creativity and increases your focus.

To learn more read How to Create an Environment to Work at Home for Maximum Focus

7. READ

Would you like to become an expert in your topic? Then read every day. Books are a great source of knowledge that will help you solve many problems and in consequence help your audience.

By reading, listening to audio-books and podcasts, you’ll unlock many secrets successful entrepreneurs regularly share (sometimes for free!).

My personal favorite podcasts are: The Goaldigger Podcast and Problogger, they’re packed with useful tips to grow your business online.

That said practise reading even for 15 minutes a day. This will change your life forever!

8. CULTIVATE HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS

Whether you’re hanging out with people in real life or social media, cultivate meaningful relationships. Successful entrepreneurs surround themselves with supportive people, and help others grow.

Entrepreneurship is a two-way street where you grow by giving and receiving support.

9. PRACTISE SELF-CARE

Successful entrepreneurs understand that in order to give their best, they have to be in great shape mentally and physically.

Practising self care includes:

  • Spending quality time with your loved ones.
  • Eating healthy and exercising regularly.
  • Practicing gratitude.
  • Taking breaks and sleeping well.
  • Asking for help.
  • Having fun.

To sum up, your well being is non-negotiable. Take good care of yourself daily!

10. TAKE IMPERFECT ACTION

It’s a great thing to dream big, make plans, and set goals. But most importantly, take the first step. Don’t waste too much time planning or day dreaming.

Also, don’t expect perfection the first time you try something new. Successful people understand that failure is part of the process of learning. They learn from their mistakes and are confident they’ll get better the next time.

Practice and persevere

I hope you found this list of habits helpful. Personally, discovering what other entrepreneurs do to succeed on their biz has helped me to change my mindset and habits.

Finally, note that creating a new habit takes time. Experts suggest it takes 3 to 4 weeks of every day practise. Here are a couple of great references you might find useful:

That said, make the choice of showing up every day for the person you’d like to become.

The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine. Mike Murdock - 10 success habits of online entrepreneurs you need to practise.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this post, join my email list to get free tips to grow your business online.

Recommended for you

How to Create a Quiz that Grows Your Email List Fast

How to grow my email list with quizzes

Want to grow your email list in 2021?

Are you looking for a lead magnet that gives value to your customers in a fun way?

Then discover how to create a quiz that grows your email list. In this post I’ll reveal 7 easy steps to build an interactive quiz for your website!

Grab a cup of coffee and let’s get started!

DISCLAIMER: This post includes affiliate links for Interact Quizzes . If you decide to purchase I’ll receive a small commission. The price you pay won’t change.

Why people love quizzes?

People love quizzes because they make them learn new things about themselves. 😍

Think about it, back in the old days when we came across a quiz on a magazine, we immediately jumped in to take it.

Even nowadays you’ve probably seen on Facebook how your friends love to take quizzes. I love them too!

That’s why when Interact invited me to discover their easy-to-use platform to build quizzes, I didn’t think it twice.

With their innovative tool you can easily create beautiful quizzes and link them to your website, blog or social media page.

Discover how to create a quiz that grows your email list in 7 steps.

7 Steps on How to Make a Quiz that Grows Your Email List Fast in 2021

How to Create a Fun Quiz that Grows Your Email List

STEP 1: Choose a useful topic for your quiz

1. Think of a relevant topic in your niche.

During meetings with my clients, a question they frequently ask me is whether or not start a blog for their business.

Given that this is a topic I can help them with, I decided to create a quiz called “Is Blogging Right for You?”. It will help my clients to find out if they should start a blog.

2. Map your questions and results

To help my respondents know if they have what it takes to become bloggers, I decided to ask preliminary questions to help them find out what type of blogger they’d be.

For this purpose, I chose one of the many Interact templates which served me as a base to ask relevant questions, such as:

“Are you a self starter?, Do you like to read?, Do you like to write?, How comfortable are you with technology?, etc”.

As for the results of my quiz, this template also allowed me to segment my audience into three different types of bloggers: Hobby, Casual and Serious. This is very useful, because the tool automatically identifies the future blogger (the “Serious” type), the leads I should focus my efforts on.

3. Determine of the goal of your quiz

My “Is Blogging Right for You?” quiz would serve a double purpose. On one hand, it would help my readers find a solution to a problem (in this case, find out if they should start a blog).

And on the other, it would help me segment my audience based on the results they get, grow my email list and generate leads!

STEP 2: Create your interactive quiz

Let’s get now to the thick of it! As mentioned before, I used the Interact platform to create my quiz.

How To Make A Fun Quiz For Your Website

  1. Choose a template, or build your quiz from scratch.

    As I’m approaching this task as an absolute beginner, I decided to use a template to get some inspiration from what’s already been created and save myself tons of time.

    Use a template to make a quiz or build it from scratch

  2. Select the industry relevant to your business (Blogging in my case).

    In my case I selected Blogging. In addition, you can select multiple industries.

    Select a quiz according to your niche

  3. Choose a type of quiz.

    I chose to build a Personality Quiz. Alternatively, you can create other types of quizzes such as Assessment and Scored. To learn more visit: How to Create an Interactive Quiz.

    Select the type of quiz you want to create

  4. Select a relevant quiz template for your topic.

    As you can see in the screenshot below, there are plenty of options. However if none of them suits you, you may request a new one.

    Select the quiz template

  5. Customize your quiz:

    – Use your brand’s assets (logo, font, colors and images).
    – Edit the questions and answers.
    – Connect your email marketing system to your quiz (below you’ll tell you how I did this).

    Here’s a screenshot of the Interact’s quiz builder, which is very easy to use.

    Interact quiz builder Stella Web Studio

What are the benefits of using a template for my quiz?

Using a template to create my quiz rather than build it from scratch was really convenient because:

  1. Interact’s templates have been proven and tested, so I didn’t have to worry that my questions, answers or results were too far-fetched.
  2. They provide inspiration to create new questions and answers.
  3. Having a busy schedule, I was able to focus on other aspects of my work.

My quiz’s cover page

And here it is! This is how my “Is Blogging Right For You?” quiz looks like. I’m happy I was able to adapt it to my own brand’s style.

STEP 3: Choose your questions and answers

Selecting relevant questions for my quiz was a breeze thanks to the available templates. Moreover, they’re flexible enough to change the questions to print my brand’s voice.

As for the style of the answers, I decided to give the quiz a fun twist by using text and image answers. Here’s an example:

Choosing questions and answers for my interactive quiz
Example of text answers.
Example of Image Answers

Additionally, you can use the stock images available on this tool or upload your own.

STEP 4: Set your results

As for the quiz results, the template helped me to divide them into three types of blogging personalities: hobby, casual and serious. For each of them I wrote a helpful recommendation along with a Call-to-Action that takes the respondents to my pillar content. In this case, I’m taking them to content that helps them get started with Blogging.

In other words, this step is your chance to lead your audience to your primary content pillar or your social media. So, get creative and take this step strategically!

STEP 5: Integrate your Email Marketing System

Interact allows you to connect your quiz to several email marketing systems. I connected mine to MailChimp.

From that point, and depending on the results from the quiz, I was able to strategically segment my audience into three categories for which an action would be taken.

Finally, I was able to successfully test the connection between my quiz and MailChimp. This was a fast process.

STEP 6: Implement your quiz on your website

After making sure your quiz works properly, you can publish it and implement it on your website by simply:

  1. Creating a page where you would embed my quiz.
  2. Installing Interact’s plugin for WordPress websites.
As you can see, Interact offers several options to promote your Quiz!

STEP 7: See how it works

And now the moment of truth. Please try it out and see how it works :)!

Create Your First Quiz and Grow Your Email List!

Quizzes are innovative lead magnet tools that attract potential customers faster than traditional tactics. Moreover, they’re still underutilized, which means you can use them to stand out in your industry. When done well, quizzes can help your readers learn new things about them, have an interest in your business and see you as the subject expert.

Try out today Interact to set up a quiz customized to your brand in less than 30 minutes!

Need some inspiration?

See live examples from famous brands and influencers or read 50 Quiz Ideas and Titles for Every Industry!

Proud parter of Interact, the Quiz Collective

7 ways to establish online credibility for your brand

How to establish online credibility for business

If you have some sort of online presence your brand is exposed every day to new audiences, which means there’s an opportunity to make a good first impression among them. In this post I’ll tell you how to establish online credibility for your business, by implementing 7 actions.

How to establish online credibility for your business

1. HAVE A WEBSITE

Having a website helps building your online credibility
A website is a permanent place where people can learn about you anytime, anywhere.

When people search on Google to discover new products or services, they will want to learn as much as possible about the company they’ll choose to buy from.

Probably the first place people will find out about you, will be through your Facebook page, which is a good start.

However, having a website that showcases the personality of the company, and your products or services, will give people signals of the authenticity of your business.

In addition, it is strongly recommended to register your own domain name with a .com extension, and getting a SSL Certificate as a seal of trust for your website.

2. BE ACCESSIBLE.

Place your contact info, working hours, social media accounts, and contact form in a visible place across your website. Also, create an “about” page for yourself and/or the team members of your company.

Additionally, have a personalized email address with your own domain name and avoid using free email services.

3. BUILD A CONSISTENT BRAND.

Choose a professional logo and a set of colors and fonts for your brand. Implementing a consistent image for your business will help you build memorability. As a result of this, every time you share a post on your blog or social media, people will start to associate it with your brand.

4. HAVE A SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE.

How to rpomote a blog post after publishing it

Ask yourself where your ideal audience is gathering and focus on using one social platform regularly. Adding social media to your marketing strategy, will allow you to develop a relationship with your audience using a more relaxed tone of voice.

The following quote illustrates the style to use on social:

“For businesses, communication through social media requires to abandon the marketing speech and using a more authentic tone of voice. A company that uses a corporate speech on social media, runs the risk of being perceived as someone who during a social event, talks to her friends as though she was a walking brochure.”

Brunet, Lessard, Ducas – Les Médias Sociaux en Entreprise

5. CREATE USEFUL AND ORIGINAL CONTENT.

Why start a blog for your business, what it is and who blogs and how to create an effective blog post
Build authority and create trust through a blog.

Writing regularly (or blogging) about your product or service is a great opportunity to build authority in your niche. For instance, you can create content inspired on the questions customers frequently ask about your products or service. As a result, you’ll start establishing yourself as an expert on your industry, and furthermore, gaining your audience’s trust.

Recommended: How to create an effective blog post

6. CARE FOR YOUR AUDIENCE.

Care for your customers whether you're online or offline to build credibility for business.
Care for your customers whether you’re online or offline.

If someone takes the time to reach you out by email, or on your blog or social media to ask a question, to make a thoughtful comment or giving a review (good or bad), please take immediate action and respond as soon as possible. This will be key to not only create a good impression, but also a good reputation.

7. ASK FOR REVIEWS AND TESTIMONIALS.

When browsing on Google, people will make a quick scan of the results and will naturally choose those businesses that have the best reputation. Therefore, take care of your customer service (online an offline), so people will be willing to recommend your brand to others. Also, ask satisfied customers to leave a review on your website or social media platform.

CONCLUSION

Taking the actions mentioned above will allow you to make a good first impression online. Moreover, showing authentic care for the people that takes the time to interact with your business online or offline, will build a more valuable asset for your business: credibility.

What other actions do you think can be taken to build online credibility? Share your thoughts on the comment section below.

Thank you for reading!

Please subscribe to my blog to receive online marketing tips by email.

How to establish online credibility for business with 7 actions
Pin this image. Follow me on Pinterest

How to create viral content?

How to create viral content Stella Web Studio

Getting content to go viral is every online business or digital marketer’s ultimate achievement. Just imagine, having thousands of people re-sharing that awesome video or post you created, within their social network. Basically, setting your content on autopilot.

Well frankly, who wouldn’t want that for their online business?. There have been times when the subject has came up during meetings with my clients, where they’ve mentioned the idea of creating a viral content, to which I politely nod and suggest to discuss further later on.

“Asking for viral content would be like demanding a movie producer to win an Oscar”.

Michelle Blanc, Les Médias Sociaux en Entreprise.
I imagine this is the feeling you get when your content goes viral.

Given that this is a frequently asked question by people who have an online presence, I decided to investigate more about this subject and get some answers. Here’s a summary of the most important aspects to consider.

How to create viral content for your business?

As the phenomenal quote above says in a few words, there is no magical recipe to create viral content. There are however, three basic factors you can work on, to hopefully succeed in this area of online marketing.*

1. Create content that will reflect positively on the sharers within their social network.

How to rpomote a blog post after publishing it
“We share because we want to project a certain image of ourselves out to the world,” Emerson Spartz. Photo: Unsplash

Generate in people the need to express themselves through your content, by sharing it within their social network.

Create content that for instance will make people look smart, trendy, funny or positive in social media if they share it. Emerson Spartz, CEO of Dose, a digital media company told Forbes Magazine the following remark:

“People will be more likely to share your content if it will reflect well on them.”

Emerson Spartz

Additionally, he suggests that this content doesn’t necessarily need to be original. You can use existing content -like funny articles, cute animal videos, nostalgic or informative content- as long as it reflects positively on the sharers within their social network.

2. Make sure your content is easy to share in social media.

Nordwood Themes

People’s time is limited, don’t over complicate things for them, asking them to take a bunch of steps to share your content. Additionally, don’t forget to add a call to action to your post or video. For instance, ask people to share it. As obvious as it sounds, a reminder of what to do next, is an absolute must!.

3. Set a strategic plan to launch your content

Be strategic about creating viral content for your business. Photo: Unsplash

A viral post is rarely a spontaneous event. Firstly, you need to carefully set a strategy on how, when and where your content will be launched. In order to do this, you have to coordinate the efforts with your marketing team and even contact the right influencers, bloggers, radio speakers. Additionally, paying ads may also have to be considered.

That being said, most of the operations that have gone viral, took off AFTER being strategically shared through different channels. In other words, you have to have a launch plan and avoid hoping that everything is going to take off all by itself.

CONCLUSION

So let’s recap: create content that will reflect well on sharers within their social network, that is easily shared and set a strategic plan to launch it.

Here is a graphic that sums up the elements mentioned above. Pin it or save it for your reference.

Three aspects to cover if you want your content to go viral.

Do you have content that has gone viral? What actions do you think are needed to succeed in this area of online marketing?

Thank you so much for reading!

Please subscribe to my newsletter to receive online marketing tips by email. And of course, share this post. 😉

SOURCE:

  • Social Media for Business, (Les Médias Sociaux en Entreprise), Brunet, Lessard, Ducas. Infopresse, 2012
  • The Secrets of Viral Content and how to create it, Mark Hunkler for Forbes Magazine, 2017

What to do after publishing a blog post?

How to promote a post after publishing it

Once you hit the “publish” button for a new post, you have to tell the world about its existence, in other words, promote it on the web. In this post I’ll tell you what to do after publishing a blog post in order to get new readers from search engines, newsletters and social media.

THE FOLLOWING ACTIONS FOCUS ON:

  • Making your post visible on search engines.
  • Getting new readers from social media.
  • Notifying your subscribers of your brand new content by email.

What to do after publishing a blog post?

For each post I publish, I immediately carry out five key activities (divided in two main areas) to promote it online.

  • Submitting the new post to search engines for indexation in their database.
  • Telling people about the new post through social media, newsletters and commenting on other blogs related to your niche.
What to do after publishing a blog post - how to promote a post

I. SUBMITTING YOUR NEW URL TO SEARCH ENGINES

Submit your post url to search engines and start getting traffic
  1. Firstly, in order to make your post visible as soon as possible, submit your new URL to search engines for indexing in their database. For this purpose, use Google’s Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. These free services will make your post appear in search results, measure your site’s Search traffic and performance, and fix issues. As a result, your post will show up for search queries matching the keywords you optimized your post with.

II. TELLING PEOPLE

How to promote a blog post after publishing it
Photo by: Rawpixel at Unsplash

2. PROMOTE YOUR NEW POST IN SOCIAL MEDIA.

Start by finding out who is your target audience, where do they gather, which social media platform they use. Depending on your answers, create an strategy for the platform (s) you choose.

3. USE EMAIL MARKETING

A powerful strategy to build a base of readers, is by asking your visitors to subscribe to your newsletter. This way, your subscribers will receive an email from your blog every time you publish a new post. Additionally, if you’re new to blogging, the best solution is MailChimp to start building your email list.

4. COMMENT ON OTHER BLOGS

Visit other blogs relevant to your niche and leave useful comments. As a result, you’ll get their interest and eventually gain new readers.

5. ANSWER TO EVERY COMMENT

Take the time to answer every comment on your post and show you care for your readers.

WHAT TO DO AFTER PROMOTING MY BLOG POST ON THE INTERNET?

At this point you’ve learned how to create an effective blog post and promoted it online, but somehow you’re not getting a lot of traffic. Don’t be discouraged, this is a learning process and there is always room for improvement.

STAY TUNED

In the next post, I’ll give you some tips on how to improve your post performance with the use of insights to increase its visibility.

Thank you for reading and I hope you found this guide useful!

Please leave a comment or subscribe to my newsletter to receive online marketing tips for your brand.