Lessons

Lesson Info

Bootcamp Introduction

Everybody and welcome to creative live my name is billy tongue, krystal and andre hope today for a special session for this really special event, double your followers with creative marketing with april boles olen now this is not your normal workshop. April is going to guide you through all the marketing that you know, all this tips you need for marketing, for social media, online newsletters and also blogging and she's going to do that in twenty four lessons over the course of five weeks. That's tons of information for you twenty for lessons in five weeks now, if you don't know a fry led to tell you more about herson amazing woman she's, a writer, a creative business consultant and a marketing strategist now april started her website, blacksburg bell, to help creative entrepreneurs take their passions and turn them into a life sustaining careers that they love, which is so great she has helped hundreds of creative entrepreneurs she's been featured on u s, news and world report, etc an...

d design sponge and finally, she's taught right here at creative life, we're so excited to have her back, please help me in welcoming april bulls all into our stage you're so good, I'm so excited for that we are so excited to have you here I mean, this is an amazing boot camp with such amazing information so we're talking about marketing and I wanted to ask you now why is marketing so intimidating for so many people, people sometimes somehow have a fear around it? Yeah, a lot of people have fears around it. I think one of the biggest things there are lots of layers to this, but I think one of the biggest things is that they think marketing equals manipulating people out of their money and it doesn't mean that and so when you think about it as something that you have to manipulate people to give you their money, you're not gonna want to do it and it feels icky and gross and that's why I'm teaching this boot camp it's just one of the reasons because I want you to have positive associations with marketing and feel really excited to do it because it's not about manipulation is to feel good that you're selling a product you believe it? Yeah, exactly yes you're passionate about well there's so much to cover so I'm gonna let you get started I'll go back to my seat and stages yours ok for thank you let's get started so this is the double your followers with creative marketing with me april boles olen and without marketing I would still be miserable at my day job and that's why marketing is so important to me before I started doing this I was a therapist, and while at the beginning I loved that work and I thought it was my thing I thought I had found the thing for me. I soon realized that that thing was draining everything that I possibly had all of my energy and it wasn't what I was meant to do with my life, and so I started a business in order to make that business successful, I had teo really quickly learn about marketing and learn about marketing in a way that felt good for me because out there there are a lot of different things when it comes to information about marketing, and so I was kind of weeding through all of this stuff, and I was taking all these different courses in reading all these different books and some of them resonated with me. Some of them didn't, and I had to get really clear on how I wanted to promote my business, and that is how I have become successful with my business it's marketing, really? I mean, we have to start with a product in service that we love, but I'm assuming that everybody here is already starting with a product and service that you love or you're on the path to figuring out the product and service that you love and that's ok too, if you haven't found it yet, you will find it I use marketing tio grow my blogged from twenty to eight hundred readers a day in just a month in one month's time and it was all due to marketing I only had a handful of block post up at that time and so it wasn't because of that I'll tell you that I sold out my first group coaching program through marketing I've had lots of five figure months through marketing really once you start with that product, you have to get it in front of the right people and so what you need to do is grow your followers and then convert those followers into customers so I want to know where your first thoughts when it comes to marketing what do you think about when you hear the word marketing and I've been I'm telling you guys like you need to be happy in love marketing and have positive associations but lots of people don't so you can be truthful you could tell me what you really think her before you signed up for this course when you heard the word marketing what you thought and if anybody online wants to chime in and talk about what their first start thoughts are when they hear the word marketing I would love to hear that as well so what do you think andy said challenging, challenging? Yeah okay anybody else cindy just uncomfortable just like you said earlier just really hard try to sell your product somebody, because it just it does kind of feel icky sometimes. Yep. Anybody else? Man? I think of those people that are, like, really pushy and in your face and it's like you don't even want to buy their stuff because you're so tired of seeing them everywhere and they're really aggressive with it. That's what I usually have popping in my head. Mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm. So you feel like almost sometimes? Maybe not you, but some people feel like I have to do that in order to be successful. I have to be that kind of person because you see it so often when somebody is being pushy and aggressive and it feels like, is that what I have to do to make this work? Hopefully not anybody else. First thoughts, marketing. I think of it the juggling act because there's so many moving parts. So when I think about that component of my business, I just feel like there's so many things that I need to be aware of and juggle, and it always feels like I'm dropping at least one or two of those balls sometimes all of them once, yeah, yeah feels really overwhelming sometimes I feel like when it comes to marketing, you learn one thing and then you hear about this other thing you have to be doing and then you hear about this other thing you have to be doing and finally you have so many things how drunk possibly keep up with everything yeah in this course we're absolutely going to figure out what are the best things for you as opposed tio here all of the things and I have to do them all because we can't do it all so let's talk about if this course is for you but before we move on to that do we have anybody on line two we dio so candy from paris it's marketing equal strategy I like that one and marshes is marketing our first thoughts r for first thoughts used to be lies sure the sassy seamstress says market equals equals time consuming yeah yeah and alice ceases marketing is visibility and finally sarah shot says I've always struggle with marketing it felt ski z and profit hungry to me yeah hey, sarah I know sarah uh yeah, absolutely all of these things are true and what we want to dio is make sure that we're doing marketing in a way that feels good for us so that we're not thinking about it is something that is sleazy or that are lies and I never ever, ever want anybody to tell lies because it doesn't feel good to you and often not stuff comes out and we're going to talk about this later but it's really hard to build trust but it's very easy very easy to lose trust so let's talk about if this course is for you because I want you to know whether it right fed or not if you struggle with growing your online following and that could be because you've plateau maybe you have a pretty good following but you're out this place where you want more and you can't figure out how to get to that next level it could be that you're just starting out and you don't know what to focus your time and attention on it could be that the stuff is just a struggle for you and you need help with it because we're not born knowing how to do this and if you're a creative entrepreneur so I listed a bunch here like photographer knitter jewelry designer pattern designer, writer blogger life coach calligrapher maker digital product creator artist yoga teacher speaker virtual assistant and my favorite lady boss if you consider yourself any of those things but if you're creative entrepreneur and you don't fit into one of these categories you can still be a good fit in my last creative live audience we had a super sassy lawyer who was awesome and she works with creative entrepreneur so she has to be very creative in her marketing in order teo connect with them and so she was the perfect fit for that course, even though you wouldn't think of a lawyer as a creative entrepreneur, she considered herself that that's. All that really matters to me and you want to inject fun into your market ank I want this to be fun, I want you to enjoy it and like it because that's, when you're actually going to do it, this course will help you. If when you glance at your marketing to do list of all of the things, all of the things blogging, posting on instagram and facebook, email in your list, updating your product photos if that point in time you're thinking shot of tequila right about now would be wonderful, I wonder that such a bad thing I thought happens to yu ever you're in the right place or if you're terrified of sounding sale z or even worse, it's like you have the personality of a dead blowfish and it's, usually one of the other that people come to me with their thinking. I don't know how to inject myself into my stuff because it's not that easy when you sit down to write whether it's sales copy or blawg post or social media a bit it's not that easy to become us, even though we are us it's like we turn off our brains in this direction of must write for my business and so it ends up sounding like something that we wouldn't normally say or they come to me saying I don't want to sound too sales I don't want to be the person turning people off because I'm promoting my stuff too much it will also help you if you wish a fairy godmother could tell you what marketing efforts will finally result in money in your paypal account so you can pay your light bill this month wouldn't that be wonderful pay all the bills have extra money grow your business so if you need help with that kind of stuff marketing equals sales if you've got a product or service that you're really passionate about and that you know will help people or even bring joy to their day then I can help you I can help you get it in front of the right people if you love your creative work but sometimes you feel like you'd be better off a day job with a boss telling you what to do and when because sometimes that feels a lot easier and a day job is not a bad thing we need lots of people who are doing the work that they're doing but the people who are coming to me often want something else they want to be their own boss they want to be an entrepreneur and so I'm not saying a day job is a bad thing by any means but their days for sure in the beginning of my business that I thought, what am I doing to myself? I worked a lot less and I knew what I was doing every day I was good at it it wasn't that I was putting out an e mail newsletter and nobody was responding to it I was good at my work what am I doing to myself? So if you have days like that, I can help you as well and we all have days like that by the end of this boot camp, you'll have a marketing plan there actually excited to implement instead of one that just feels overwhelming it will probably feel like a lot because we're going through a lot of information, but we're going to prioritize every step of the way we're going to prioritize you'll have all the tools you need to double your online followers and hopefully even more than that I mean, it could be that you do something big and it just grows and grows and grows and grows. I've had that happen to me multiple times where I think I don't know how this is gonna work out and then it ends up that I have three times the amount of people on my email list two weeks later you'll have a strategy for converting those followers into loyal repeat customers because it's not going to be good enough to just bring followers in that's not enough so throughout the entire course we're going to be talking about how you then take those people and convert them into customers for your business you'll feel confident talking about and writing about your business so no more selling from a place of like, oh, this is all very and I'm unsure selling from a place of I lose something great to offer and I'm selling it to the right people so they're going to care about what I have to say and I want to talk a little bit about why I should be the person teaching this course for you guys I just celebrated my five year anniversary for blacks for belle all right, all right that's pretty great right? But before that I had another blog's I've blocked for over nine years and I've learned a thanh along the way I have also worked with hundreds of creatives through one on one consulting and group coaching and online courses and it's a lot I mean I've worked with a lot of entrepreneurs over the years it is over the one thousand mark of people that I've worked with and I've learned a lot from digging into their businesses and figuring out not just what works for my business but what works for their businesses as well and then I've been featured and a lot of places some including where women create us news and world report designed sponge and etc but it means more when you hear from somebody else why this person is a good person at what they do we're going to talk a lot about testimonials and how to use them and why you should use them, so I asked the women in the studio audience why me? Why would you choose me? What makes what I do a little bit different? And they gave me some great things to share with you guys, so I'm going to do it. Amanda creek said I've had some major wind since your last creative live course, including doubling my income from last year in just six months that's pretty great then we've got olivia from random olive, who says I've been sitting on the internet sidelines for years in april's blogging course on creative live got the ball rolling for me a few classes later connecting that digital products on creative live six weeks course and I'm actually selling things to real people on the internet. Yea, april knows her stuff and she's a fantastic teacher high praise coming from a pro yes, but the most important reason I take classes from april is her desire to support and help us you can tell that she gets a ton of joy and satisfaction from our successes and that she does everything in her power to make it happen for us and that's from chris and I really do I really love helping you guys and when I get an email that says something like I doubled my income that's when I do my happy dance that's when I turn on the music and do my happy dad and tell my husband we need to go out to dinner and celebrate it's for somebody else but it feels like a win for me too I really am invested and I want you guys to get so much out of this okay I have built my dream business I wake up some mornings you guys and I'm thinking to myself uh I did it I waited it then my next thought is usually I got to keep doing it I got to keep going I didn't keep going but I have built this business that I'm so proud of that I love and I built it around a life that I want to be living that's the second important piece I don't teach people to build businesses that they end up resenting because it takes over their lives and they have nothing else going on or they have nothing else to do because they're always spending time on their businesses and I want to help you do the same my dream was really to build a business around my love of teaching and writing and creating and that's how they spend my days for the past I don't know maybe five months I have been working on this course which is teaching, writing, side's, writing sales copy all of that kind of stuff for this, so I've been immersed in that world I've been creating photos and water colors, so I've been in my element recently and that's what I need to be doing constantly is building things into my business that I love and that's what we all need to be doing, I want to be able to take yoga and dance breaks to make lunch with my husband toe have enough money to go in my anthropology shopping sprees because I love it and to spend my day with my dawgs at my feet it's one of my favorite things, the fact that I get to spend my day with my lab sitting down at my feet and I want you guys to build that kind of life in business for yourself, it's it would be an amazing world if we all did things that we loved and were able to spend our days on things that we love and when you learn how to market your business with confidence, everything else comes easier. One when you sit down to actually do the work, you feel like you've got it, you don't feel as if oh my goodness, should I even post this on facebook? Should I even write this email or you write me knowing you're like, maybe I'm not going to send that out maybe it's not good enough or you're working on a product and you finish it and you're at that point where you're really excited about it but then you don't share it or you don't work hard it chariot like you do the minimum likes another tweet you posted on facebook and then maybe a little bit later you put something up on your block we want to get confident and a lack of marketing plan equals an empty lonely paypal account and we want happy full papal accounts in business accounts. So why a boot camp? There are lots of different ways to learn on creative live and I love all of them there are the three day course is there more focus courses where it's only like a one day course and some people like all their information at one point in time but some people get really overwhelmed by having all of that information at one point in time I know some people were overwhelmed when I taught my course on building a successful creative blawg because there was so much information and then people were like I don't know where to start or maybe I'm going to jump in here was it a little bit overwhelming for anybody a lot? There was a lot of information right? So marketing is one of those big topics just like blogging so we thought it would be best to teach it in this bootcamp format where you're getting a lesson each day it's going to be easier on you and you're going to feel as if you can do it if you do the home mark each day by the end of this, you will have transformed your business. I'm not even joking. It will be it will look and feel so much different for you. Then we have the fact that you won't skip critical steps. One of the things that I find a lot when people come to me and they say it's not working, I'm working really hard, I promise I am putting so much time, effort and energy into this, but it's not working often, they've got some parts that are working well, they've got some pieces that they've done really well, but then they've got some pieces that they haven't even addressed or that they kind of did a little bit, but they didn't really spend a lot of time on it and they skipped those critical pieces, so I have put things in a nice is pretty order for everybody. The first couple of sessions were really building a foundation for marketing that's gonna work, and then we're going to get into, like, the exciting, sexy stuff that really is going to bring in all of those followers, but we've got to build that foundation first. And my favorite part is we get to spend more time together you get five weeks with me I'm so excited about that, so I wouldn't give you an overview of what we're covering these air all of the sessions and the lessons underneath for each session session one is marketing that doubles your customer base in two months session two is build a brand your customers love session three is right authentic, compelling content every single time session for is double your email list and blawg readership in session five is promote your business on social media without wasting time we're going to dig into each of those a little bit more so session one. Lesson one is why your business success depends on marketing so that's the lesson for today and that's all about figuring out why you really need to be doing this stuff and then getting started. We're going to take a really fun quiz, which I'm really excited about because quizzes are fun and it's gonna help you figure out where you should be focusing your marketing time and listen to why your customers should choose you in your brand were digging into what makes you different how do you stand out from the crowd? How do you get those loyal repeat customers and we start talking about something that's really scary for a lot of people and that is building confidence when it comes to selling in session three your target market in a day is your ideal customer we're getting very clear on what you really need to focus on when it when it comes to your ideal customer in your target market because there is so much that you could focus on we're going to get clear on what's the important stuff so that you don't feel lost in this sea of making up people and pretending that they're your ideal customer because that necessarily won't work unless you know her really well it's not gonna work for you and less than four is make marketing funds so you actually do this stuff that's important we're gonna be talking about what if you're an introvert what if you have a day job how do you make this more fun? What about relationships and connections and how that can make all of this stuff feel a little less daunting and then we'll be moving into session to let lesson five the psychology of marketing a k a what works and what doesn't this is one of my favorites because we're talking about proven things that work proven things that don't work and how you can apply them to your business so they're not just pulling things out of the air hoping because a lot of us do that lesson six compiled brand inspiration and make a great first impression this one is important because your website matters you only have a few seconds to impress and so you've got to be making a really great first impression on your website and everywhere. Also mine is, well, you're little media platforms and all of that kind of stuff, so we're going to make sure that you're looking good. Online. Lesson seven is pricing your products and services, and this is this lesson is less about here's your formula to follow and more about here's what you need to figure out so that you're making enough money to support yourself, support your business and grow up. Lesson nine is the power of video getting started and beyond? I'm really excited for this one because lots of people think you need lots of fancy things in order to create a decent looking video, and I don't think you do. I mean, you can have the fancy things and it's nice, and it does make it look better. But you, khun d'oh, ah lot with a little so I'm going to show you my set up my lighting set up what I actually use, what it actually looks like, all of that kind of stuff, so that you can then rapidly replicate it yourself if you want to or you can take pieces of it and we're going to talk about how to make your videos even better. Session three lesson ten we're focusing on writing headlines that get your followers to click in share headlines are the most important part and lots of times what happens is we spend all this time writing our block post spent all this time writing our email, and they were like, oh, let's, just get this over with already and we write a headline and we just go with what we wrote the first time or we'd kind of play around with it, but not that much, and then people don't click on it and people don't share it. People don't read it, and you spent all the time writing a block post or an email that is really good, and then nobody is reading it. We've all learned this the hard way, I think so we're going to talk about writing really great headlines. Then in less than eleven transform ho hum writing to content worth reading, chris is going to be joining me for that one we're gonna be talking about for writing process. We're going to be trump talking about injecting your personality into all things that you write online. Your sales copy, you're blog's, your emails, your social media updates, it's everything, lesson twelve the transcription in one percent one person methods I'm gonna kind of leave you guys in the dark for this one because this is kind of like one of those secret things that you have to join me to find out, so I'm gonna leave you with that. Lesson thirteen is persuade, connect and sell with story, and I have talked about the importance of story before, but I am coming at a lot of this stuff with different angles so that hopefully things were really starting to click in place for those of you who have been following me for a while or that it's really fresh information for those of you who are first timers to me and will really help you figure this stuff out. So with story I am talking about, how do you story in the way that makes sense it's for your business and that's not writing fiction? Obviously. So we have to figure out how we can put it into your business. Lesson fourteen right? Sells pages that actually cell so that you're making money, this one is going to be a fund one it's got a lot of content in it, and I think you're going to feel really confident when you go back and you're writing that sales page lesson fifteen is the basics of email marketing and more because I couldn't just stop at the basics so it's the basics and more of email marketing that you feel like you can start your email marketing on a really good foot the lesson sixteen is design your email freebie and writer intro email so even if you have an email freebie even if you have an intro email it could probably be improved upon everybody's could mind could everybody is good so we're going to talk about designing one that attracts the right people lots of times people put up email free views to put something up because they know that they're supposed to but then it doesn't attract the type of person that's going to then buy your product and so you've got all these people in your list who are great people they wanted your freebie but then they don't want what you're selling lesson seventeen track your subscribers and readers behavior we're going to talk about how, when when you when you're talking to your people when you're talking to your block readers or your subscribers often they don't know exactly what they want or need and in order to figure out what's really working, you've got to track this stuff so we're going to be tracking specific things and all of that stuff is going to be in your workbook you're going to be able to go home and start implementing that stuff and look at what's really working less than eighteen is email segmentation in the process of using auto responders this is a fun one because a lot of people don't utilize this yet and this is what's going to really help you grow your email marketing and make it effective for your business so when you start to segment things when you start to put things on autopilot we're going to talk about setting up a sales funnel a sales funnel for a service based business the sales funnel for a product based business regardless of what you d'oh some people think sales finals on ly work for service based businesses they don't we're going to get people in we're gonna autumn e that process so people are buying from you twenty four seven less than nineteen is double your blawg readership and this is one of my favorites too because I love blocking so very much I think it's it's a necessary piece of marketing because you're in control of it and yeah you're in control of it that's that's the best part of that you can really show who you are people can get a chance to get to know like and trust you and so we're gonna talk about how you khun double your block readership and then the last session is session five lesson twenty choose the right social media platform you don't have to be on all of them you don't have to be doing everything so what's the rate social media platforms for you to be on for your business less than twenty one grow your instagram in periscope following we're going to be talking about instagram that's a really big one for creative entrepreneurs I love instagram so what can you do to grow your following there and then on periscope which is a newer newer social media platform? We're going to talk about that one lesson twenty to grow your pinterest and twitter following we're gonna be talking about pinterest and twitter and how you could grow your following on those platforms lesson twenty three grow your facebook following and then finally lesson twenty four your marketing plan put together we're going to start well we're going to be putting the pieces together throughout the entire course but really gonna finish up strong by putting these pieces together so that you can look at here's my next year and this is what it looks like it's forest marketing and I'm gonna go home and I'm going to know what I'm working on or I'm going to finish with the course and I'm going to know what I do next and the next and the next and we have some really fabulous guest instructors and contributors for the course I'm really excited about candace string them is going to be joining us to talk about product photography she's joining us in less than eight because your product photography's if you're a product based business you have got to have amazing product photos it's really important and though we've got the lovely chris who's in the studio audience and she's come to us from canada to help us out with writing, and she is a genius when it comes to writing, she really is she helps so much she's going to talk about the writing process and how you might be getting stuck and how to get past that. And then amanda creek, who is also in the studio audience, we've met some wonderful people in the studio audience. She has put together a bonus for you, anybody who's struggling with your website design she's put together a bonus workbook, and then she's also helped a lot of the women in the studio audience change their web sights and update them so that they're making a really great first impression. We're going to show an example of that kind of why she made the changes that she did and how you can then use that information to apply it to your business so high five to you, ladies and before we start to dive into the content, download and print the workbook that I put together for the course it's over one hundred forty pages and it's really going to help you move from the beginning to the end, you need it unless you want to be. Scribbling and scribbling and scribbling all of the questions and all that kind of stuff, which is no fun when somebody's already done it for you. Plus, I've tried to make it really pretty because we're creative entrepreneurs, we want it to be pretty. I've included lots of water colors, lots of photos, and then each page where it would necessarily be a lot of white space on a lot of them. I've put graph paper that I've created in different colors and polka dot and things like that because I tend to gravitate towards wanting teo make a mess on those type of pages and really great creative with, um so though that's, why I've created the pages the way that I have so definitely download imprinted, and you'll also see that there are some bonus workbooks up there, so check those out as well. They're going to be really helpful is well, when you see this slide, this is the scary side for the studio audio that's in there like this means that there is a hot someone from the studio audience will be joining me on stage to work through an exercise. And so this is when you'll see this orange chair like april, I just wanted to let you know how many countries people are joining us, so gloria is says hi from barcelona and another person is in the uk. They said that they just rushed in from taking their children, swimming to watch and tear the pa trade maker it's, five a m in new zealand, five am and she said, if this is so worth getting up early for, yeah, thank you, there's. People from all over the us, arrested from calgary, alberta, canada, it's, amazing canada in the house, that's. Amazing, thank you, wherever you are joining from. I'm so, so grateful to have you here and honored to have you here. I am really excited about this stuff, and I hope you get a ton out of it.