3 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Jumping on a New Social Media Platform

3 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Jumping on a New Social Media Platform

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

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One of the things that I see happening with entrepreneurs day in and day out is distractions. 

It's like squirrel brain everywhere all the time. And I get it. 

I feel it too, where something new will pop up and we'll wonder if we need to go do that. If it’s going to completely change our business?

We experience a little bit of FOMO if we see other people doing it and we're not on the platform or implementing that strategy. 

And while I do believe in adjusting and pivoting, in fact, we've got an episode coming out in a few weeks all about marketing, I also know that pivoting all the time or doing it because of FOMO and not from an aligned decision is not a best practice. 

You're going to find yourself distracted, running out of time, and with mediocre content and energy on every platform and within every strategy, rather than simplifying, going all in and excelling at what you're doing. 

The goal with marketing is to do a really good job at what you're putting your time and energy into so you yield results quickly.

If you find yourself jumping on the bandwagon with every new platform that's coming up and wondering how to know what you should put your energy towards and what you shouldn't, then this episode and blog is for you!

What do you do when a new cool platform and major FOMO comes up? 

What questions do you ask yourself? 

What do you have in place and how do you ultimately decide if implementing that is going to be right for you? 

Let's get into it!

CREATE YOUR MARKETING RULES

We have a tried and true approach to branding and marketing over here at Brandmerry. It's one of the reasons I created Brandmerry Academy, as a way to build a sustainable marketing practice and growth without feeling the ups and downs of every trending new platform.  

When it comes to marketing, we have a very, very, clean, simple, minimalist approach. 

And one of the things that we do not do is jump on the new thing. 

Now that doesn't mean that I don't research the crap out of it. I'm the marketing strategist, it's my job to do all the dirty work, so then I can pass along to you, “Hey, this is what we're seeing, this is what's happening,” and hopefully offer a different opinion than what you might be seeing online.

I recently experimented with this when Clubhouse was announced. 

So just like you probably were, I was like, what is this? Should I be on it? What's happening? 

I went back to my marketing rules to ultimately decide if this was the platform for me.

I use these to make aligned decisions in my business and encourage you to create the same.

Rule Number One: I want to drive traffic to my website. 

My website is my home base. It is where the information that you need about my brand lives. It's a one-stop shop for messaging, who I am, how I can support you, resources, blogs, podcasts, and authority. 

It's where I want people to go, because that's where you can get information that you need no matter where you're at in the client journey. Whether you're just starting out and just want some cool resources to figure out if you like this person, or if you're ready to invest.

Rule Number Two: I create evergreen content. 

When I first started my business, like many of you probably, I was showing up on social media all the time. And I felt like I had to show up on social media every single day, because that's what I was being taught. At the time I was working a nine to five, building a business, and I had a baby. That is not a recipe for showing up on social media every single day. It just didn't work. And I started to say, “well, shoot, if that's the way that I'm supposed to grow this business, how is this going to work?”

So I got really good at bulk scheduling. 

I got really good at creating content and repurposing it. But then I quickly realized as I went through that, that the key to success was evergreen content. 

Content that wasn't going to just disappear in an hour, a day, months even. I'm talking about content that will live on, content that will drive traffic to my website for years and years to come.

So any time a new platform is coming up or something new is happening, I'm asking myself, all right, is this in alignment with my two rules?

Ultimately, when deciding on Clubhouse it could work with rule number one, but straight up broke rule number two.

3 QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF WHEN CHOOSING A MARKETING PLATFORM

New platforms and information are always going to be coming our way, which is why it's really important that we focus on asking ourselves three things.

QUESTION #1

Is my audience there? 

This should be the number one question that everyone askS themselves any time they're thinking about their marketing strategy. Is my audience there? 

I'll continue with the example of Clubhouse. When I was considering exploring that platform, I started paying attention to my audience and what they were saying. And my audience is made up of working women, some with full-time jobs and most likely taking care of their family and their children and building their business.

Every time I was doing market research or talking to people about Clubhouse they were like, “I don't have time for that. I don't have time to sit on something for six hours and listen in a room and hope that I get value.”

I realized very quickly that my audience was not there. 

You need to remember this with all marketing strategies, because if your audience isn't there, then you're just showing up and creating content and nothing's going to happen because the person that you're creating that content for isn't actually there and it's not getting in front of them. 

With new platforms, your audience might not be there yet so that's where you've got to do some digging and some research in those different pieces.

But if you know your audience really well, you're going to know right away that they're not there.

QUESTION #2

Do I have the capacity for this? 

When I say capacity, I'm referring to time. It's important that you're always prioritizing your time. 

I talk about time management a lot over here, time in and of itself is a major value for me. And using our time in the best way possible while also using our time in alignment with the life that we want to create.

We're not just doing things to do things.

We're not just doing things because people told us that we have to do that and that's expected of us. 

We're being very, very conscious of our time and how we're spending it. So when you're thinking about it, do you have the capacity for this?

If you're already working at your cap, and if  you added something else, would that mean that you would compromise what's already happening?

And that's what I see a lot. 

When Clubhouse first started, I was in a membership community and I was watching what was happening in this group. I saw all these people talking about Clubhouse and how amazing it was. 

They were talking about how it was amazing and they were on it for eight hours the other day. And they were listening to it while they wrote emails. They grew their email list by like five people and it was very, very exciting. 

And then I watched those same individuals within a week or two say, “I don't have any time to work on my business. I'm finding that I don't have time for anything. What are your tips?”

Do you see the disconnect here? Because you do have time, it's how you're spending your time. 

Remember, we don't want to compromise what you're already doing, that'll just make everything "okay"! 

We don't want every marketing strategy to just be okay, we want them to be awesome. That's why sometimes doing less is best!

QUESTION #3

Does this fit with how I do business? 

This goes back to what I shared in the beginning on the two rules. My two rules, when it comes to marketing, are that traffic goes to my website and that I will create evergreen content.

I will not create content that disappears because it's not serving me in the long run. We have blog posts that are still driving traffic from 2016!!

So, if you're going through these questions and they pass question 1 (your audience is there) and question 2 (you have the capacity), but you get to three and it's not in alignment with your rules, then don't jump ship. 

Stay the course because so much of marketing is resiliency. 

Marketing is about resiliency and putting in the time and the energy and not stretching yourself too thin.

TOP MARKETING RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ENTREPRENEURS

At Brandmerry we believe, and teach, that every single brand should have a website. 

Now that does not mean that every single brand needs to be a design expert or needs to fork out a bunch of money for a brand design, or needs to hire a copywriter. 

Most of my clients actually don't do any of those things because I give them the tools that they need to do it themselves. Some of my clients even do it in a weekend. 

These don't have to be fact, what we're focused on is the information you're providing.  Think about your copy, messaging, brand affinity, the emotional pieces of your brand, those are the things that really work on a website. 

You can have a pretty website, but if people are landing on there and not converting it's not working for you!

Now, a lot of people will say, "but I have the website and none is landing on it!" That's where these next few pieces come into play.

DRIVING TRAFFIC AND GETTING LEADS

No matter who you sell to, everyone's on Google. Google is the largest search engine and ever business needs to pay attention to how and where they show up when their ideal customers are searching for their services.

In addition to Google, and using the same SEO strategy, are Pinterest and YouTube. 

Because of the search engine platforms, just like Google, when you go to Pinterest or YouTube, you type in a topic, and then you get all of these different pieces of information regarding that topic. It's such a powerful tool because your ideal customer is typically further along in the buying process.

So it's about having consistent content on your website, usually in the form of blogging, podcasting with a transcript or show notes, or video embedded with the transcript or show notes. And learning how to drive traffic to your website, so that if someone lands on your website, they then can take action. 

These are the strategies we teach inside of Brandmerry Academy so when a new platform comes up you don't feel like you need to jump ship.

These evergreen platforms might shift from time to time, but for years they've been consistent for entrepreneurs everywhere.

CONCLUSION

Remember, no matter what's changing around us, it's important we have our website, we have our core content, we're driving traffic to it and that is what I recommend every business focus on. 

Then sprinkle in Instagram, sprinkle in Facebook, sprinkle in TikTok, sprinkle it all in until you reach your capacity. But the reality is many of you don't have the capacity to add more of those things that are going to disappear. 

Still not convinced? Here's a scenario for you.

My clients often ask, “Well should I be showing up on Instagram every single day? I heard that you have to post five days a week in order to get results, so I could do that or I could blog.”

What if you didn't do that. 

What if you took the same amount of energy that you were going to do on Instagram. Let's say for five days, and you took that amount of time to write a blog post that's going to perform for you years down the line and not disappear in like a day? Then shared that on Instagram for a boost?

Think about steady, steady, steady growth, and not having to jump on and off bandwagons as they come, because it really is about resiliency, and sustainability as a business owner.

P.S. If you want to learn how to repurpose your content like a pro and create a better marketing workflow, grab my free Repurposing Guide here.

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

The Stages of the Consumer Buying Process and Why Marketing Matters

I'm jazzed and determined and lit up to talk to you today about the consumer buying process. 

If you are a marketer, if you sell anything online, I don't care what it is, if someone pays you for something, you need to be aware of the consumer buying process. 

When I discovered the stages of the consumer buying process, as we will talk about in this post, I quickly recognized how I, as a marketer, could make sure I was attracting leads at every stage.

But, before I get too far ahead of myself let’s start with the basics.

What is the Consumer Buying Decision Process?

Let's start by talking about John Dewey, the philosopher behind the consumer buying decision process stages.

John Dewey created this five-part system, which includes: 

Stage One: Problem or Need Recognition

>> This when the customer is aware of their problem.

Stage Two: Information Search

>>  When the customer is in the process of finding information to solve that problem. That's when we go to Google and other fun areas to find information to solve our problem. 

Stage Three: Evaluation of Alternatives

>> The customer has found the solution to their problem, they figured out there's a way to solve it, now they're weighing which way am I going to go? This is when they’re product shopping or brand shopping, trying to figure out the best one to solve our problem. 

Stage Four: Purchase Decision

>> They've decided on the brand, on the company, and on the product that they are going to purchase. 

Stage Five: Post-Purchase Evaluation
>> This is when they're sitting there and going, "Did I make the right decision? I don't know. Can't wait for my product to come." 

A major part of the final stage is closely related to how you onboard or welcome your new clients and customers. In a recent blog I shared my 8-step client onboarding process, so be sure to check that out after you read this post. 

The Consumer Buying Process Begins When…

...the consumer has identified their problem. 

Every consumer will go through the process at a different pace. Some will spend a lot of time in Stage Two, while others will be ready to make a purchase decision in a matter of days or even hours. 

As marketers, this process, and where consumers begin, is important because you want to make sure that your content is reaching people at every stage of the process.

Creating content that is valuable and accessible to people at each stage can drastically improve your marketing efforts and conversions.

Ok, now time for a curveball because, in true Michelle fashion, I am going to share an alternative 5-stage buying process that is designed to specifically support you with your content creation.

5 STAGES OF THE CONSUMER BUYING PROCESS FOR CONTENT CREATORS

So we’re still focused on five stages, but you're going to notice there's a bit of a difference when it comes to designing a process for content creation. 

STAGE 1: NOT AWARE

So, unlike the traditional stage one, I believe there is a group of individuals who experience symptoms or daily “red flags” that haven’t identified the true problem enough to seek out a solution. These are my Stage One-ers.

Maybe they've recognized that something might be up.
They are feeling a little off, maybe they're like, "Oh, I think I want to leave my job. I'm not sure. I think I might want to get healthy. Something's wrong. I don't know why." 

The reason that it's important to think of this stage is that many people who are coming to discover your brand are at a place where they don't know the specific problem they are experiencing - maybe they can’t even identify or communicate what is happening clearly. 

But through your content, through your education, through your marketing, you can help them become aware of the specific problem. 

You can educate them on that, moving them quickly through the decision-making process.

STAGE TWO: PROBLEM AWARE

Stage two is when they are officially aware of the problem. So you'll notice that I add a little bit of extra in there from John Dewey's philosophy, as it applies to content creation. This is the stage, like his #1, when they are aware of the problem. 

They know that they've got a problem, they've identified what it is, can describe it and find themselves starting to relate more closely to others with similar struggles, problems and pain.

This stage is all about connecting with them and their pain points with your marketing and content creation.

STAGE THREE: FINDING A SOLUTION

During stage three, your ideal customer is now aware of the problem and is now looking for solutions.

We find many ideal customers at this stage are looking for How-to and educational content, looking for quick solutions to their problem, but they're not necessarily aware that there's a product or a service that can solve that just yet. 

Once they move into the third stage, they are aware of that solution. So they're starting to say, "Okay, I know how to solve this problem and now, I want to figure out the best avenue for me," which leads us to stage four.

STAGE FOUR: PRODUCT AND SERVICE AWARE

You'll notice in stage three, is when you're getting a lot of Google search results and your ideal customer is searching for brands and businesses to help them solve their problem.

Then stage four is when they're aware of the very specific offers and solutions to their problems. Their search has narrowed and they're starting to dive deeper into specific brands, yours hopefully because you delivered such awesome content 😉

At this stage, you’ll hear many entrepreneurs talk about moving from cold to warm (i.e. into brand awareness).

That's when people tend to move from being a cold audience to a warm audience.

They're starting to consume more of your content and getting to know you and this is when the know, like and trust factor is elevating. 

STAGE FIVE: PURCHASE DECISION

Then finally, in the final stage, they are ready to purchase. Now, this is when they have taken out their credit card, they've decided to go with your brand and they are ready to make a purchase online or in person. 

You'll notice there are a lot of similarities between what I'm sharing with you and what John Dewey originally shared about this client process, but there are some differences as well and I love to and encourage you to focus on the ones that I shared with you as it applies to content creation. 

Why is that important? Because we have to understand that sometimes people are coming and discovering our brand, not fully aware of how to solve their problem.

They simply have a problem and now they're seeking out answers and information. 

That's why, as I mentioned before, some of those How-To videos and knowing your ideal customer and where they're at, can be helpful in coming up with titles and content to share. 

As somebody moves through the buying process, they're looking for specific solutions to that problem so integrating specific solutions for your audience can be incredibly helpful as well. 

Then, and this is where I think a lot of marketers miss the mark, you always want a way to attract people who are ready to purchase. 

Creating the educational content is helpful, we’ve already discussed this, but I see so many entrepreneurs miss out on ways to attract ideal customers who are ready to purchase right now - from you!

When someone is ready to purchase, where do they go? Google and search engines like Pinterest and Youtube.

One thing I noticed a couple of years ago is that we were getting a lot of traffic from Google for people who were specifically looking for personal branding coaches and personal branding consultants - at the final stage of the customer journey.

These customers were very, very quick to move into a high-level offer that I have called my VIP Intensives, typically without consuming any other information from me. Why? Because they were at stage five. 

They already knew what they wanted and they were ready to invest and found Brandmerry.

HOW TO CREATE WELL-ROUNDED CONTENT

Now that you understand the stages of the buying process, it’s time to switch your focus to a well-rounded marketing approach to address every single part of this five-stage process.

So what are some things that you want to have in place? I know you're curious. 

There are three things to have that will support you in making sure that you are hitting every single stage of this five-stage process with the content that you're creating every single week.

#1 Content For New Audience

Your first goal is to make sure you’re creating content for new people (aka new community members). So this is typically content that people are discovering on Pinterest, YouTube, through your blog, or search engines. 

When we are in the first stages of the buying process when we're not quite sure the problem or the solution to our problem, we might be just browsing things that we know are wrong on Pinterest, looking on YouTube, searching on Google.

When we're further along in the buying process, think stage four and five, we're specifically looking for products and services. That's why marketers mustn’t just focus all of their attention on social media and instead have avenues for people to discover them. 

This is also why advertising is very effective because we can target people that we know are our ideal customers, get our content in front of them and bring them in. But we don’t need to rely on advertising dollars, we can utilize organic reach through search engines to achieve the same results. 

Some of the content that works well with this is How-To content, educational content, and knowing your audience so well that you can use their language in your copy. 

So for instance, if I am a marketer and I am specifically marketing to highly sensitive individuals, empaths, you might say.

If my audience doesn't know that they are empaths, if they don't carry that label as being an empath, then I can't use that in my marketing, because it's not going to help me attract new people. 

If they're at some of the beginning stages, then I want to talk about more of the feelings and the everyday things that are happening, how they're highly sensitive, how they tend to possibly be more affected by things that happen at work than maybe their colleagues. 

These are things that they've told me are happening in their day-to-day that I can use in my marketing. 

If I am using the term empath but they don't know that's what they are or they are not carrying that label, it's not going to help me bring them in.

Same with perfectionism. I talk to a lot of perfectionists. Many of my clients are perfectionists or recovering perfectionists, but sometimes I won't use that in all of my marketing because some of my clients aren’t aware that that is something that they have. But they do know the symptoms. 

So goal number one is to create consistent content focused on bringing in new people. Some of my favorite platforms for this are blogging, Pinterest, and YouTube because they are search engines.

#2 Warm Up Your Audience

Goal number two is content that warms up your audience. This is focusing on those stages two through four when people are discovering that you have a solution to the problem and they want to get to know you. 

We know that trust leads to purchase decisions.
Storytelling leads to purchase decisions.
Emotional connection leads to purchase decisions.

So this is where you get to amp up the storytelling, this is where you get to share more edutainment, those fun videos, Instagram Reels, show up on Instagram, and share behind the scenes of your life to build that know, like, and trust factor with your audience.

Creating content that warms up your audience is important. 

Once somebody finds your blog and joins your email list, how are you staying in contact with them? Emails, Instagram, podcasting, all those different things are incredibly helpful for moving someone through the client decision-making process.

#3 Site-Wide SEO

Then finally we have the third goal, and this is something that every single business needs to set up today.

Do not wait to do this. 
This is your site-wide SEO. 

You have a website. I know you do. You spend a lot of money on it and a lot of time on it, in fact, probably too much. So when it comes to getting traffic to your website, specifically traffic that is in the fifth stage of the buying process, meaning they're ready to pull out that credit card, you want to make sure that your website is optimized for those keywords. 

The people who typically find me through my SEO strategy are coming because they are ready to make a purchase decision and I have those searchable keywords on my site-wide SEO. It's something that once you do your research and you set it up, you don't have to worry about it again. 

This shift has made the biggest difference in my business. I have a lot of resources on SEO and using SEO on your website, here on the Brandmerry Blog, but it's also something that I teach in-depth inside of Brandmerry Academy.

Brandmerry Academy is my membership community that teaches you how to market your business without social media. You can go to Brandmerry.com/academy to learn more about that and join the waitlist to hear when doors are opening again soon.

CONCLUSION

Now, remember, you must be touching your ideal customer at different stages of the buying process. 

We all go through each of these stages, some faster than others. So when you wear this hat when you're creating your content, it's going to help you make sure that you're consistently bringing in new clients, nurturing those new clients, and ultimately creating consistent revenue. 

Thanks, John Dewey for dropping us those original five, sorry, I made some modifications, but there you have it. 

If you haven’t heard, I have a free Repurposing Guide that will support you in creating content for each of these stages. Head to  brandmerry.com/repurpose to get an inside look on creating a repurposing plan and a workflow for actually getting your content out into the world, simplifying that process, making it easy peasy to show up consistently for your audience.

Watch the full video here!

P.S. Ready to build a revenue-generating brand? One that not only stands out online but also makes it easier than ever to create high-value content? Tune in to my free brand class and learn my Build a Better Brand Method. Watch now at brandmerry.com/class.

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

How to Plan 6 Months at a Time in Your Business: A Step-by-Step Guide

Have you started thinking about the next 6 months in your business? What if I told you that you could plan 6 months as a small business owner and entrepreneur and feel confident in your business plans as we head into your next phase? Half of your business success comes down to having a plan, and this 5-step process can help. Learn how to make your 6-month calendar for content, launches, and main focuses in your business. Learn more at brandmerry.com! #businessplans #6monthplans #endoftheyearplan

In March 2021, I released a Reel over on Instagram that showed a quick look at how I prepare for every quarter in my business. 

The video showed my giant calendar wall in my office where I have exactly six months visible to me at all times. I showcased the process of me planning with my Post-it notes, and the response was, "Michelle, we need a video about this. Michelle, we need to know how you're doing this, all of the details." 

So here we are. 

We’re jumping in with a six-month, step-by-step, behind-the-scenes look at planning. 

Now, before we get into those step-by-step pieces, I want to take a few minutes to talk about why I think planning is important and also talk about one of the key things that I do before planning for six months.

WHY PLANNING IS IMPORTANT

Some of you might be here because like me you love planning!

Some of you might be teetering a little bit. You might have been gung-ho about planning. You might try to do it a lot and then find that you fall off the wagon, but you get back on again, and you keep doing it, and you keep trying new strategies over and over again. 

And then there are a few of you that are here because you're super intrigued, but you also have a lot of resistance when it comes to planning because it can feel very restrictive.

So I want to take an opportunity to share with you the mindset shift that completely changed the way I view planning in my business. 

I've always been a big fan of planning. Even since I was a little girl, I used to plan out, on note cards (thanks, Mom), my goals for the year.

Then I'd tuck them away, and I'd never look at them again. I think we can all agree that's not how you plan effectively 😂. 

Over the years planning took on two different emotions for me, I’d either have these big ambitions to plan, but then I’d feel as if I was setting crazy unrealistic expectations for myself and freeze.

Or the idea of planning would feel restrictive; as if I couldn't do anything else, and so I never really followed through with the plan.

It wasn't until I became an entrepreneur and started my business in 2016 that I realized that I was constantly sitting in overwhelm without a plan.

I would question:
👉 How am I going to make money?
👉 What am I going to share today?
👉 What am I going to email?
👉 How am I going to get new clients?
👉 What am I focusing on?

And every day, I would repeat that kind of overwhelmed feeling, because I didn't have a plan.

This season of life made me realize that by having a big-picture plan in place, I was able to be more creative in my business. By having this roadmap in place I moved out of overwhelm, and I had more opportunities to create and be in my zone of genius, and that has served me as a business owner in so many ways.

So if you're coming into this like me where you might have had a little bit of resistance about the idea of planning and having it all mapped out, I hope that this blog changes your view on what planning is. 

So if you're worried about being restricted when it comes to planning for six months, I want to encourage you to look at it a different way, and look at it as a roadmap guiding you, allowing you to be in your zone of genius and have more time and space for more creativity.

PLAN YOUR FOCUS FOR THE YEAR

On my office wall, there are six calendars, one for every month. Now every single day doesn’t need to have something on it, remember this is big picture planning, but the purpose is to map out where you’re going.

So the first thing you need to determine before you start mapping out your steps, is what is the main focus for the year.  

Now, many of you watching this video are most likely small business owners and entrepreneurs and might find that your yearly goal is a specific dollar amount, but this works for anything and I often follow the same structure when I determine how many trips I want to take in a year.

When I'm heading into the year, I like to figure out: 

• What is my purpose? 

• What is my focus going to be for the year? 

• How much revenue do I want to bring into the company for the year? 

• How is that broken up into each quarter? 

• How is that broken up into the individual offers that I have, or that I'm planning on putting out?

So I never go into six months completely blind. I definitely know, "Hey, by December 31st, 2021, this is what I want to achieve," and this allows me to reverse engineer, and it makes the planning process easier. 

So although I'm not going into all the details of planning for 12 months at a time in this post. I want you to know that thinking of the big picture is important, and you want to have at least a number, or something measurable, tied to your yearly goal so you can move forward with mapping out six months, quarterly (every three months) and monthly actions in your business.

5 STEPS TO PLAN 6 MONTHS

Don’t move on until you’ve got your big picture goal established.
Ready?
Ok, let’s dive into it!

PLANNING TIP #1: START WITH THE BIG PICTURE

Number one is kind of a piggyback on what we just talked about, and that's thinking big picture. When you're planning for six months, which can feel like a lot of work, you're thinking about focus. 

You're thinking about the bigger picture of…
What am I trying to achieve for these six months?
What are going to be my big three things that I want to hit?

That is going to allow you to figure out all the nitty-gritty details needed to get there.

Sometimes people think when we're talking about content, specifically, that we're planning content for six months. I'm not saying, "Tell me the title of every blog post that you're going to create for the next six months."

That's not necessary, at this stage. That comes later, in step five. 

But you do want to understand what the focus will be over the next six months.

So think again: 

• What is the yearly goal? 

• Okay, how does that play a role in the next six months? 

• How does that play a role in the next 90 days? 

Because in case you didn't realize, you have to go through the 90 days to get to the six months, and the six months to get to the year. 

So reverse engineering from the big picture goal for the year to the focus every six months and 90 days will give you the stepping stones to get to your end result.

PLANNING TIP #2: CREATE YOUR WORKFLOW

Step two is to create your workflow. 

Now, in a recent episode of Monday’s with Michelle, I talked about the process of creating a workflow. As entrepreneurs, workflows are so important. If you want to achieve your goals, you need to have the systems in place that are going to support you in achieving your goals. 

One of the things that I did a couple of years ago, that changed my business completely, was this idea of creating a very clear content workflow. 

So every week, I know how many blog posts I'm creating, how many videos I'm creating as part of Mondays with Michelle, how many podcast episodes I'm putting out there, what emails are coming from that content, where I'm showing up on social media or other platforms. And I have a clear workflow every week that resets.

So we go through our week, tick the boxes, and it resets the next week. The topic will change weekly, but what we're doing behind the scenes to get the content out there does not change. 

Having a workflow is going to help you plan out six months with ease. 

This calendar that I'm looking at, says every Monday there's a Mondays with Michelle video.
Every Thursday, there's a blog post.
Every Wednesday, there's a YouTube video.
Every other Friday, there's a podcast episode.

That's what I'm able to visually see on this big-picture calendar that I've got up, and that helps guide my efforts. So make sure you have a workflow in place, and if you don't have one, there's an entire video and blog teaching you how to create your own.

PLANNING TIP #3: DETERMINE IMPORTANT DATES

Step three, when planning out for six months, is to determine any big launches, promotions, dates, and vacations. Any big these-are-set-in-stone dates that aren't super flexible.  

You want to put those on your calendar because that is going to impact a lot of your content that you're creating. It's going to help you look ahead and say, "Oh, I'm opening the doors to the Academy." 

Which I am, at the end of May. Just a heads-up 😉

I know that that's happening and it’s already on my calendar. This helps me determine what content to share leading up to that. I know The Academy is focused on marketing your business, so my content will be marketing-focused.

This clear focus will help build know, like, and trust with my audience so that you're most likely to join me inside of the Academy.

It's also going to allow me to put my promotion dates on there. If you're doing a challenge or a masterclass, what day you're going to open the cart and what day you're going to close the cart. If you're going to run ads, when are you going to run ads? 

So putting your actual promotion dates on your calendar will allow you to reverse engineer and add in the smaller details needed for a successful promotion. 

So step three is to determine those big launches, promotions, or any specific dates that you have. 

Think of EVERYTHING!
Maybe you're launching a podcast. What date is that? 
Maybe you're thinking of launching or putting a new product out there. What date is that? 
Maybe you're putting out a freebie. What date is that? 

Putting these markers on your calendar will help you get ahead of the game and help you embrace more of a forward-thinking mentality so you never “feel behind.”

One of the biggest things that I see entrepreneurs doing is that they aren't planning this far in advance.

They'll do maybe 30 days, and then the end of the 30 days comes, and they're like, "Oh, I have no idea what I'm doing next month." And then they're like, "Oh, I want to start a freebie, and I want to put it out next week." And then they're scrambling and doing mediocre work to get it out there. 

Give yourself space. 

By me looking at September, I can kind of, in the back of my mind, start thinking about all the things that I am doing and start formulating ideas around that. So when it comes time to create that stuff, it's not just coming out of thin air.

PLANNING TIP #4: PUT UP A 6 MONTH CALENDAR

Now, and only now do we physically put the calendar together.

I like seeing my calendar all of the time in my office, it’s incredibly helpful for me and has been for my clients as well. 

Sometimes people feel overwhelmed because things change, but again when we’re planning for 6 months we’re not focused on the tiny, tiny details we reserve for our Google Calendars, we’re focused on “What’s Happening!”

Once you’ve determined your physical calendar, then you want to take those dates that you've determined from step three and use Post-Its to pencil in. 

I like Post-its because you can move things around, as things change, which they will and not have to start over.

So once you have your calendar up and Post-its ready you want to do the following:

1. Add you’re important dates. Think launches, sales, promotions, vacations, etc…
   

2. Add your weekly workflow to the calendar. Think blogs, podcasts, videos, live streams, etc… If you write a blog every Wednesday you need a Post-it for every Wednesday.

What this is going to allow you to do is support you in the last step, which is adding the details for the next 90 days.

PLANNING TIP #5: ADD DETAILS FOR THE NEXT 90 DAYS

Now, I am not going to sit here and lie to you and tell you that I know what I'm talking about in September. I don't know what I'm talking about in July, but I know that I will be showing up, and that is super clear. 

But what I do know is what's happening in the next 90 days in my business down to the detail.

This blog that you're reading right now, if you are reading it on May 6th, when it's released, was recorded for a Monday’s with Michelle on April 6th. It's an entire month ahead, and that's because I have a clear workflow. 

So one of the things that you want to do in step five is add those individual details OFF of the calendar. I prefer a task management platform or Google Calendar for the details because your calendar can get super messy and you’re not able to list out all the tiny micro details on your physical calendar.

We use ClickUp, as a task management tool, and put those tasks and the workflow inside of there.

This allows your 6-month physical calendar to showcase the big picture and focus and your task management software to map out the smaller details needed to achieve that focus.

Or, if you’re visual like me a little something like this:

BIG PICTURE YEAR GOAL

👇

6 MONTH FOCUS
With important dates, general workflow, and promotions

👇

90-DAY FOCUS 

Specifics on what you’ll be sharing in your content, topics, etc...

HOW PLANNING LEADS TO CONSISTENCY

While I do have a team to support my business efforts today, I've been doing this since I was sailing the ship by myself. Having a clear idea of how I was showing up every week for my audience allowed me to continuously grow my audience and make sales.

As an online brand wanting to build a revenue-generating business you don’t want to disappear or ghost your growing audience, this is why creating consistent content is important.

Consistently creating content and putting your brand out into the world will allow you to continuously attract new people who have never seen you before, lead them through the process, and ultimately to the sale. 

And rather than constantly feeling overwhelmed with, "What should I talk about?" How would it feel if you just took an hour, every quarter, to plan all that out? 

I promise you, you get faster at it, and it gets easier.

RECAP

So let's quickly go through the five-step process again, and then I'm going to let you go on your way and start planning the next six months in business. I like to do this every quarter, adding on the next three months, but you can start this now, whenever you're reading this blog. It does not matter, but getting yourself in the habit will do tremendous things for your productivity and creativity.

Number 1: Think big picture. Remember, we're not talking nitty-gritty details for the next six months. We're looking at our goals for the year, and we're saying, "What is my focus going to be the next 90 days, the next six months? And how is that going to get me to my end goal?"

Number 2: Make sure you have a workflow in place. If you don't know what that is, or you need a step-by-step, go ahead and watch this video and grab this free gift. That is going to help you with this process.

Number 3: Determine any big dates, any big launches, and promotions. if you're going to launch a new freebie if you're launching a podcast if you're going on vacation. Whatever it is, it goes on your calendar, so you can work around it and reverse engineer any necessary promo.

Number 4: Put the six-month calendar up. Make it visible. Don't hide your plans. And if you can put it on a wall in your office or have a binder or something like that, go ahead and do that. But get that six-month calendar up. Put the major dates on there that we talked about in step three, and then put your workflow, blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, all the different things up there, with Post-its or dry erase or something.

Number 5:Add the individual details for the next 90 days. We add these details into ClickUp but you can use any task management software. Again, the calendar that I'm looking at behind me has very specific dates. How I'm showing up, launches, promos. But all my emails aren't up there. All of that stuff is in my task management platform, ClickUp. This is my big picture. This keeps me focused. This is my roadmap.

CONCLUSION

So I hope that this blog supported you in starting to think about the power of planning and how it can ultimately help you feel more aligned, make better decisions as a CEO, and be more creative. 

Let's remove the overwhelm with a plan! And this roadmap is going to make a difference.

Be sure that you save this post, so you can come back to it and you can repeat this process time after time. 

If you want to take a look at this layout, I've also linked the reel that I shared with you, if you want to physically see what this calendar looks like. 

And make sure you check out the workflow video to walk you through creating your repeatable workflow. And for additional support, go to brandmerry.com/repurpose to grab a complete repurposing guide that talks about creating your workflow.

Watch the full video here!

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Beautiful Climb podcast? I release new episodes every other Friday on topics around productivity, motherhood, habits, goals and going after the life of your dreams! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at thebeautifulclimb.com

---

- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

---

MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

My Top 4 Tools to Increase Productivity in Business

My Top 4 Tools to Increase Productivity in Business

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

We’re continuing our Tools in Business Series over here and chatting about our top tools for productivity over here at Brandmerry. 

If you didn't already know, I'm a big, big fan of optimizing my time. 

I have a lot of podcast episodes about time management and Monday With Michelle episodes about time management because time to me is my greatest asset and I want to make sure that all of the things that I am doing as a business owner are really optimized to use my time at peak performance. 

Because, like you, I’m not only a business owner, I am also a mother, a wife, and a woman. And I want to make sure that I'm not spending all of my time running and scaling my business and that I'm spending optimal time doing the things that I love. 

Yes, I love running my business, but I also love traveling, I love working out, I love having fun and hanging out with my family and experiencing life.

When I'm sitting down to work, I want to know that what I'm working on and the process that I'm going through to do it is allowing me to get it done in an efficient manner. 

My husband and I often joke that efficiency is key over here, and these tools that I'm going to share with you today have really helped me do just that. 

The following are my top tools that we use over here at Brandmerry to increase productivity, and whether you're a solopreneur or you're working with a team, these productivity tips and tools will allow you to grow your business efficiently.

SMALL BUSINESS PRODUCTIVITY TOOL #1: Slack

The first one that I want to share with you is called Slack. 

Many of you are probably familiar with Slack, but some of you might not be. 

Slack essentially allows me to not live in my inbox. I do not have time for that. 

I have very specific times of the day when I'm checking my email. I typically check it twice throughout my workday, depending on what's happening. I check it first thing in the morning and then I check it right before I close my computer for the end of the night. 

The thing that I love about Slack is that the people who need to get in touch with me regarding important things that are happening within the business, contractors and team members, all communicate via Slack. 

By using Slack, we're not sending email chains back and forth and making sure that everyone's CC'd. By avoiding this mess, it has helped tremendously in my business because I don't have to check my email often. 

As a result of not living in my inbox, I'm not getting distracted with things that are coming in that aren’t a priority, but then end up pulling my attention from what I was doing. I know you all know what I'm talking about. 

Slack is a really great way to keep the team communication going and to even have communication with your clients.

I know a lot of people who use Slack to communicate with their clients as well. You can use it and make it your own, but I absolutely love it because it's a clean platform that allows you to handle communications without living in your inbox. 

I have to say, like I know I'm talking about tools today, but that's a side tip as well. Don't spend all your time in your email. 
Turn off your notifications. 

I promise you the world will be okay if you're not living in your inbox.

SMALL BUSINESS PRODUCTIVITY TOOL #2: Task Management Tool

The second tool that we love to use over here at Brandmerry is a task management tool. 

Now, there are a lot of options out there, and I want to share with you the one that we used to use and where we've shifted to and why in 2021. 

Originally I was using Trello and Asana in my business. 

Both are absolutely amazing tools in their own right, and Trello worked really well for me as a solopreneur. I still use it from time to time to organize content ideas, map out launches and organize my weekly schedule using the card feature. 

Trello was something that I was using mostly to manage my own schedule, my weekly workflow, and the things that I needed to do. I wasn't using it to communicate with my team because I found that it wasn't really supportive in doing that, but it was great for managing my own tasks and priorities. 

Then, as a team, we were using Asana.

Asana was really helpful in organizing our tasks that were repeating themselves every week, and to be able to assign new things when we were preparing for a launch. We would list out every single thing that needed to be done, assign it to whoever needed to do it, and put a deadline on it. So everyone's really aware of what was happening in the big picture, and the things that they needed to do individually.

Then, in early 2021, we made a big shift and elevation in my marketing strategy. 

If you followed any of my videos, workflows are something that I use consistently in my marketing strategy. 

Every single week we are following the exact same workflow to make sure that I'm creating consistent content that not only attracts new community members, but also nurtures my audience, and ultimately builds that know, like, and trust value with you.

Having consistent content is really, really important as a business owner and it's really important to me as well because I have found that creating consistent content actually leads to an increase in sales. As a result of this and to make sure we honor this consistency, we have this weekly workflow that we are repeating. 

As we elevated the Brandmerry workflow this year, we found that we needed to switch platforms in order to serve the new communication at the highest level.

The platform that we are using today is called ClickUp, and I highly recommend it. It's kind of a combination of Trello, Asana, Airtable and so much more.

You can really do a lot inside of this platform, and it's super customizable. There are a lot of different features including team chats, embedding Google Docs and Folders, assigning everything to different people, tracking progress, checklists and more. 

But, while we found ClickUp to work best for us, choosing a task management platform is based on your needs. I really think you can’t go wrong, but if you don’t have one in place you’ll struggle.

As a solopreneur, you might not think it’s necessary, but you’re going to want to hire support and a team down the road. 

If you start putting your daily tasks into workflows, into SOP’s (standard operating procedures) for your business, then when you bring people on, it's much easier for you to say, "Hey, these are the things that I would like you to do." 

Otherwise, when you decide you're going to bring people on to your team, then you've got to take everything out of your head, remember everything, put it on paper, put it into task management and that’s just adding more work to you in the long run. 

I recommend getting a task management platform started right now, no matter what you choose, and getting in the habit of putting your tasks and putting your workflows on there. 

I've also found that using these platforms takes the mystery out of, what should I be doing, or what do I need to do this week? And we're less likely to miss something or forget to do something because we know that it's in our platform.

SMALL BUSINESS PRODUCTIVITY TOOL #3: Loom

The third productivity tool I want to share with you is called Loom. 

I record a lot of videos over here at Brandmerry, and if you are in the coaching, consulting, strategy business, you're probably making a lot of videos as well. Whether you have a course or a membership site, or you're working with your clients and offering feedback.

I have found that the process of recording and saving and downloading and uploading and sending and all that stuff, is a massive headache. When I was traveling full-time in our RV in 2019 and 2020, I had very little internet most of the time so recording a video, then having to download it and upload it for my team required so much energy.

That’s when I really fell in love with Loom because it allows you to record things on your computer and save it to a cloud drive which your team can then access.

It makes the entire process so easy because you can record your video directly in Loom. 
You can choose to record just videos of your face, or screen-share or even a combination of the two.

A lot of my training videos that I have are a screen-share, but my face in the bottom left-hand corner, so they feel more personal to me and my brand. 

I often will record feedback videos for my clients if they are creating a sales page or a new free gift for their audience and rather than typing up all of those notes, I’m able to walk through the video with them on screen so they can make adjustments. What would take 30 minutes of my time, suddenly takes five.

And perhaps my favorite part is that once I record it, it's there. 

All I have to do is send a link to my client and say, "Here's the link to your video. Go ahead and watch your feedback." 

If Delana on Team Brandmerry is uploading a video into one of our courses, then she has a log-in to Loom and all she has to do is download the video on her end. I'm not downloading it, uploading it to Google Drive so she can download it, and then upload again. 

Loom is a fantastic resource and saves a great deal of time. You don't realize how much time you spend with this whole download/ upload situation. When you can shave off 15, 20 minutes every single video, that adds up quite a bit.

SMALL BUSINESS PRODUCTIVITY TOOL #4: Calendar

The last one I want to share with you is something we all have access to, and it's your calendar. 

When it comes to productivity, it can truly be that simple.

I have paper calendars for all of my upcoming dates and launches and projects that I'm working on so that I have a bird's eye view of what's happening in my business. 

Then I also use my Google Calendar religiously. Every single thing is in my Google Calendar from a date night with my husband Ben to a workout, to a team meeting, to an upcoming launch that we are working on here at Brandmerry.

Every single thing is put into this calendar so that I am really filtering the things that are a top priority to me. Nothing gets on that calendar if it's not a top priority.

Using the calendar is a great way to also be in charge of your schedule to get in the habit of saying, "You know what? Yeah, I might have a 15-minute pocket here, but I want to use that to go make lunch or go walk around or do something,” rather than jamming your calendar. 

I've found that having my Google Calendar filled out actually gives me more time and space to breathe, and I'm honoring my commitments at the same time.

So aside from all of the things that I've shared with you that are great for business, I will say that the Google Calendar that many of you have, but probably aren't using to its highest potential, can actually help you in business and in life the most.

It's super easy for you to get started with just this one tool.

We have a business calendar, so all of my business meetings are on there, and then I have a personal calendar where I put my workouts, as I've talked about with my morning routine on my podcasts before, as well as date nights, appointments, different things like that so that we're making sure nothing's overlapping. 

I'm making sure to get tons of time in between, and again, I'm focusing on the things that are important that are moving my business and my life forward. 

There you have it. 

Those are the four productivity tools that we use over here.

We're really simple over here at Brandmerry and prefer to keep it very minimalist. 

I promise you, just by using these four tools, you will notice a huge difference in how you're spending your time.

Watch the full video here!

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Beautiful Climb podcast? I release new episodes every other Friday on topics around productivity, motherhood, habits, goals and going after the life of your dreams! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at thebeautifulclimb.com

---

- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

---

MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

How to Create a 6-Figure Course Offer

How to Create a 6-Figure Course Offer

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

This post contains affiliate links which means if you make a purchase through a link, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you!

I had to go through a lot of limiting beliefs about putting my work out there and believing that I could ultimately create a course that would deliver the same amount of value as working with me one-on-one. 

After I went through all of the work on those limiting beliefs and served my clients at the highest level, I realized that one of the best things that I could do for my business was create this course.

The truth is having a course allows you to impact more people and that's always been the driving force for me and my brand. I'm very mission-driven, and I want to help as many entrepreneurs as possible understand the branding process and truly understand themselves more, which is my signature part of the branding process.

The only way to do that without trading my time and my energy for money was to create a course. I also realized that a course complimented my life pretty perfectly. 

I love to travel with my family and I value my time as the highest value, and having a course allowed me to scale my business by creating recurring revenue that I knew and could pretty much count on every single month.

A COURSE IS POSSIBLE FOR EVERY BUSINESS

A course is a great idea for every type of business. I know people who have courses on dog-walking. So you could create a course around anything. 

Some of my clients have courses around knitting, courses around mindset. No matter what you're doing in your business, there is an opportunity for you to create a course at some point in your journey. 

Do I think everybody should just start creating a course right out of the gate? No, not necessarily, and we're going to talk about that today.

Now, the course that we're talking about today is my You! Branded course, which teaches you how to build a personal brand centered around your story so that you can attract your true fans and create a revenue-generating business. 

I created this course in 2019 after following these five steps I'm going to share with you today.

After creating I continued to test the product and my marketing and continued to scale to a 6-figure cash offer in my business which has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs brand themselves online.

Step One: Master Your Framework 

Your framework is really important.

To be honest, I did this in my business pretty early on and I've used it to be the driving force for all of my programs and courses since then. I developed it while working with private 1:1 clients.

It’s so important in business so it’s something I’ve included in my program You! Branded because I believe that your framework is part of the branding process. 

So many people brand an offer rather than branding the business as a whole. 

When you brand an offer out of the gate, then you have trouble with scalability, so what I want you to focus on is branding you, the entrepreneur, and then getting super clear on your framework.

Think of the ways that you support your clients.

Yes, even if you don’t have any paying clients yet you can map out the first version of your framework based on the problem your ideal customer is experiencing.

Everybody has a framework. I promise you that.

I started my business, offering coaching as a one-on-one service, and many of my clients start that way as well. In fact, I think it's one of the best ways to vet a course idea: Start working with people one-on-one, get feedback, map out your framework, figure it out, and then turn it into a course. 

Do you have to do that? No, you don't, but many of my clients choose to go that route because it allows them to make money while they get their foundation and their footing started in their business, and then they're able to turn that into a course. 

Regardless of if you choose to do a private service or not, understand your framework and what it provides your ideal customer is key.

The cool part about having your framework is that each of these different pillars, that make up the framework, can be broken down into individual courses, products, programs and offers or you could create a course that encompasses your entire framework.  

An example of this is inside my program, Roadmap to Freedom I teach a large part of my framework, which includes:
Brand Foundations
Community Growth
Marketing (aka Attraction)
Selling with Authenticity

The only pillar left is Systems to Scale, which is focused more on my 1:1 clients. But, these 5 steps are my framework.

Inside of You! Branded I simply focused on providing one of the pillars and that’s my Brand Foundations.

This main pillar is then broken down into separate modules that support my client, which include:
Your Story and Niche
Your Ideal Customer
Your Messaging
Your Core Offer
Your Authentic Voice
Your Emotional Brand (Aesthetics)

As you can see, you can break everything down even further, but what this allows you to do is make sure that your courses always connect back to your brand framework and therefore create a client ascension model which improves client retention. 

So, step one is to figure out your Brand Framework and then break that down, if needed, into your specific course.

Step Two: Build a Targeted Audience 

The second thing that you want to do is build a targeted audience. 

One of the things that I was doing for years was building an audience around the concept of personal branding, so when I launched my course, people were ready to buy because they were here for that purpose. 

So if you've been building a business around this core idea from the beginning, you already have a community of people who are going to be interested in your course. 

But if you haven't, and this is maybe a new idea, you can absolutely start building your community now and no it doesn’t have to take years to launch your course, but you’re going to need to W-O-R-K or pay money #truth

In fact, I recommend you start building your email list in your community long before the course is even ready so that when the course is ready, you can launch it and you have people to actually sell it to. 

This looks like building your email list using the advanced marketing strategies that we teach over here at Brandmerry, on the Brandmerry blog and at Brandmerry Academy, on how to build your email list using SEO, Pinterest, YouTube and more.

Your goal is to bring in targeted people, the right ideal customer for your course.

That might look like a lead magnet specific to the course that you are ultimately going to be offering. In my case, I have a lead magnet called Your Personal Brand Roadmap that's all about your personal brand and what you need to do to create it. 

That leads very effortlessly to my program and brings in people who are interested in personal branding.

When thinking of a way to build your targeted audience, think of something you can always offer like a video training replay, pdf download, checklist, audio download, or evergreen masterclass.

You’re going to want to run this continuously to make sure you have new subscribers daily in your business and use organic or paid strategies to drive traffic to your landing page for your free offer.

Remember, the goal is to have an audience to sell your course to, so give yourself plenty of time here.

Step Three: Create a Waitlist

Number three is to create a waitlist for your course and then tease your offer like crazy. 

If you know anything about me, you know that I love showing up regularly for my audience. That includes blogging, video content, email, Instagram, social media, all the things, and I have a very streamlined repurposing plan that lets me stretch my content out on multiple platforms. 

But when I was gearing up for my course, or any launch for that matter, I always talk about the course and that the doors will be opening way before it actually happens. 

For instance, on episodes of my weekly show Mondays with Michelle, I would say, "I have a new course coming out called You! Branded, and you can join the waitlist here.” 

I want to make sure to talk about it constantly so that my audience is ready to go when the doors open and I could answer any questions and handle any objections before the doors actually open. This is also a great time to talk about topics that specifically relate to your course, here are some examples:

• How to Create Great Content

• How to Create Better Brand Messaging

• How to Build a Community through Emotional Branding

No matter what model you choose, whether it’s evergreening out of the gate (which I did not do) or live launching (which I did) you want to make sure you lead your audience to the sale with quality content.

For a live launch, I recommend spending the first 30 days minimum teasing your offer and promoting the waitlist.

I tell my clients that the selling doesn't actually happen when the doors open through when the doors close, it's happening 30, 60, 90 days leading up to that. 

So one of the best things that I did to launch my course the first time built this anticipation for a new course offer that I had. I had a substantial waitlist, and then I was able to have conversations with those waitlisters, getting them excited and ready to sign up for the program.

Step Four: Live Launch Your Course

That leads us to number four, which is where I live launched the program. 

So I personally didn't go out of the gate and straight to evergreen (meaning someone could join the course at any time through a Facebook ad, class or funnel). I know a lot of people who love to teach that and that might work well for you, but I personally want to test things before doing that. 

I want to test my messaging.
I want to test graphics.
I want to get feedback from people who’ve bought and those that didn’t. 

So live launching is my favorite thing to do, to be in it, to hear from people and to be able to test everything then use that data to spend money and evergreen later on.

One of the things that I did when I launched You! Branded, was I launched it for a lower price because it was the first time that I was putting it out into the world. I launched it to my email list that I had been growing through my marketing, through my content, and I got a substantial amount of people to sign up. It ended up being about a $10k launch.

During the launch, I stressed that this was the first time this course was being handed to anyone and that feedback was essential. So I would survey them frequently and say, "How is it going? What's going on?" 

I would ask in emails, I had assessments, we asked for testimonials, and then that allowed me to really pack my course with testimonials and proof when I was ready to ultimately evergreen the program. 

I recommend live launching and getting those testimonials out the gate. Although some people refer to it as “beta” I don’t because I feel like “beta” is kind of like a cop-out. 

It has an “I’m-just-kind-of-launching energy to it and I believe in just going for it. If you’re going to do it, just do it! Offer a discounted price if you want, but get people excited and get those testimonials, get that social proof, and use that for when you're going to launch and possibly evergreen the course later on in your journey.

Now, when you live launch, a couple of things that I want to just touch on: You absolutely can offer support. Some of the programs that I've put out into the world for the first time, I also offered support, a Facebook group or weekly calls or something like that. 

But when I launched You! Branded, I really just said, "Hey, here's the program, here's the course. There's a Facebook group. You can ask me questions if you need to," because I knew that I was going to do that with the evergreen course as well. 

I wasn't planning on doing calls or anything like that, so I wanted to really test that model with that first live launch, prove it works, prove people could get results, and then use that to my advantage.

And if you want to know some of my top tips for building your course, which includes selling it through a launch and then building it, check it out here.

Number Five: Evergreen the Course

That really leads us to step five, which is evergreening the course. Once you have gone through this process laid out for you above, you have testimonials and social proof the next step and quickest way to a six-figure course that's recurring is through this evergreen model. 

That basically means that someone can sign up through an email funnel, through a masterclass, through a challenge, through a video series, and it's 100% automated. 

Now, there still need to be deadlines or ways to add urgency even though it is evergreen.

For instance, if you watch my masterclass, you'll get an opportunity to join You! Branded, but you're only given that opportunity for a short amount of time. We have technology and cool systems in place that actually honor that. You can't access the sales page after your deadline has expired. 

This model works really well because we're consistently bringing in new leads through my marketing efforts to the masterclass. 

You're getting an opportunity to buy You! Branded through my email funnel, so we're getting daily and weekly sales for this product. 

That truly is how businesses build these sustainable evergreen models.

A couple of things you need to know about when you plan for this stage.

TIP #1: KAJABI

You want to make sure that your course is set up for distribution. 

Y'all know I'm a big fan of Kajabi over here, and if you go to brandmerry.com/kajabi, you can actually try Kajabi out right now and get a sweet bonus from me all about live launching. 

If you join Kajabi through my link at brandmerry.com/kajabi, you’re not only getting the amazing all-in-one platform to market, sell and deliver your product, you’re also getting a sweet bonus from me to help you launch your program (see Step Four)!

Kajabi is a great platform to put all your course materials in, including: your videos, your audios, your workbooks, your notes, all the things. Build out a membership portal so that when people join, they have access to everything they need.

Remember, people are joining at any time with evergreen, that's the goal, so you want to make sure that they have access to everything that they need when they join. 

With Kajabi, you're able to drip that content if you choose to do so and it's just streamlined and absolutely beautiful for your customer.

TIP #2: AUTOMATE YOUR ONBOARDING

Since people are able to sign up at any time, you want to make sure that the onboarding process is automated. You don’t need to be adding people manually at 3 am so they have their login information.

Again, we use Kajabi for this because we love the option of keeping it all in one spot.

From the second that someone buys the course, to receiving the confirmation page, to getting a confirmation email, to getting their login link, to filling out their assessment when they're done with the course, all of that is set up in Kajabi. 

We even have emails that go out after someone completes each module, that say "Oh, my gosh, you're doing amazing. Keep going," and I really love that because even though it is an evergreen program, even though it's automated and you're not getting live support from me, it feels like that, that I'm supporting you every step of the way.

Again, Kajabi is a great platform to do that, but you want to make sure that your client onboarding is automated. 

TIP #3: SELL IT

Then the goal is to figure out how you’ll sell it on evergreen.

Are you going to sell it on a masterclass, through an email funnel, a video series, a challenge?

What does this look like for you? 

Remember, no matter what you choose you want it to be recurring, so you want to make sure that it’s not something you have to do live all of the time in order to make sales. 

You absolutely can live launch it a few times a year. I will open the doors to You! Branded a couple of times a year, and that feels amazing, but we have this recurring evergreen revenue coming in the back. It’s important to have that in order to scale your business - consistent revenue.

Then scaling your offer is about testing! As you get the feedback you can adjust your program and your marketing strategy to make it even better. Looking at your data is key to make those adjustments as well. 

Be open to knowing you don’t know what you don’t know! 
Test
Test 
Test
And make adjustments!

I really can't stress that enough. 

So many people just jump in, start throwing money at their course without knowing their numbers. Make sure that everything is functioning inside of your funnel before you start scaling it. 

Then get super clear on how much money you can give every single month, looking at your numbers and saying, "All right, if I spend a dollar, I make $4 off of this course, so I'm going to continue to scale that." That's what you really want to look at.

Those are some of the things that we teach inside of Brandmerry Academy because we love data. So looking at your number and scaling and adjusting your budget or efforts is truly the key. 

You will create an evergreen product and it will be successful, but it does come down to your numbers.

When you follow these five steps, you're setting yourself up for success so that you have all of the pieces in place and then you can continue to grow and scale and build and build and build and build using things like Facebook ads, Pinterest ads, and organic measures like we teach inside of the academy.

CONCLUSION

I want you to know that creating a course is 100% possible for you. 

I highly recommend it when it is the right time in your business and again, I recommend testing your materials, making sure they are proven, that they work, that you've got testimonials out of the gate, and then just continue to scale from there.

That's truly, I think, how everything in business works: test it, scale it, test it, scale it.

If you're ready to take action now and start building your course inside of Kajabi, make sure you go to brandmerry.com/kajabi and get signed up. 

Remember when you join through my link you’re not only getting a free trial period but also a complete Launching Guide to help you host challenges, webinars and plan your launching strategy!

Get signed up at brandmerry.com/kajabi.

Watch the full video below!

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Beautiful Climb podcast? I release new episodes every other Friday on topics around productivity, motherhood, habits, goals and going after the life of your dreams! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at thebeautifulclimb.com

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.