Business Blogging Archives - ChrisDucker.com

The Super Easy 6-Step Email Marketing Funnel [Infographic]

IMPORTANT: If you’ve not started with your email marketing yet, I strongly suggest you get setup with Convertkit. It’s the service I use. It’s brilliantly priced, the support is incredible and the company is a cool one to be teaming up with to help grow your business – in a nutshell, they just ‘get it’. Plus, use my special link and you’ll get an entire month for FREE!

Building out an email marketing funnel can be one of the trickier aspects of growing a successful online business.

Many ‘new’ online entrepreneurs (if you’re like many of my readers, you might not be new to running a business – but, perhaps could just be getting started on building your online offering!) struggle with this subject, but it needn’t be a stressful activity to get to grips with.

Unfortunately many don’t see it that way, with some being downright intimidated by the idea – leading them to constantly put it off, or even worse – to simply imitate someone else’s marketing structure / sequence. I’ve talked about the importance of being original before – so won’t be ranting on that today!

Developing and growing your email list should always be the number one priority when building your business online. However, in order for your email marketing funnel to make an impact on your audience, you need to take a more strategic and personalized approach.

If you haven’t gotten started on building your own email marketing funnel, here are six quick steps to help you make sure that you are on your way to growing that email list the right way, for the right reasons – and most importantly… at the same time as helping the right people!

To further support this infographic, I strongly suggest you listen in on Episode 118 of Youpreneur.FM, where I chat with Greg Hickman on the in’s and out’s of funnel creation and building.

Greg and I got into a lot of great detail on this subject, and he laid down an incredible step by step guide that you can ‘borrow’ yourself, to get started on either building your email marketing funnel from scratch, or simply refining the one that is already alive and kicking!

Focus in on this side of your online business, and you won’t go wrong.

Did this infographic help you? If so, please consider sharing it and be sure to tweet me and let me know your biggest takeaway! Alternatively, pop over to Facebook and say ‘Hi!’ there.

What Exactly IS Your Brand? Here’s the Answer!

Click HERE to Tweet this Value Bomb!

As an entrepreneur, making it a priority to build my own personal brand has quite frankly turned out to be the best business move I’ve made in my entire career – and I don’t say that lightly, believe me. It’s brought about more opportunities than I could shake a stick at, and helped me grow my businesses bigger than I ever thought possible in the process.

Building your Brand is SMART because it:

Creates awareness of what we, as entrepreneurs stand for.
Gives us opportunities to become liked and followed consistently.
Elevates our credibility, because we embrace being ‘out there’ for the world to find.
Allows us to gain trust – which ultimately leads to more business!

Over the last few months I’ve talked a fair amount on the subject of personal branding, as well as the importance of building a brand online on a number of occasions – all of the content has been very well received and I’ve got lots of positive emails and tweets on the subject for the readers of this blog.

What I’ve Experienced Thanks to My Personal Brand

Here are a handful of amazing things that have happened to me, as a result of consciously building my own brand a few years ago:

I’ve become the number one go-to source in my industry.
I’ve been featured, countless times, in Entrepreneur Magazine.
I’ve been featured by Inc.com, Forbes.com, Huffington Post, Success Magazine and other press outlets.
I’ve launched and catapulted a speaking career.
I’ve landed a traditional book deal (which has since become a bestseller!)
I’ve netted a large social media and blog following.
I’ve grown an active mailing list of well over 50,000 subscribers.

If all that wasn’t enough, like I said, I’ve also been able to grow my three businesses to a level I never would have imagined, with over 400 full-time employees working for me, and clients from all around the world.

10 Quick Tips to Branding Building Brilliance

#1) Have a Unique Blog Design – Don’t copy anyone. Create something new looking, and stand out. People want to do business with innovators.
#2) Get a Proper Logo Designed – Cheap (home-made) logos always look bad. Invest in a good one, use a service like 99designs.com.
#3) Think About Creating a Tagline – You don’t ‘need’ it, but it might help get your message across quickly, especially in a crowded niche.
#4) Create an ‘About Me’ Page – Tell people about who you are, and most importantly how you will help them. Think about things properly and then do it. Check mine out here, too.
#5) Add Links to your Social Media Channels – Facebook, Twitter, Google+ – take the conversation off your blog.
#6) Publish a Podcast – The ability to literally be inserted into someones earbuds is untouched online today. It’s a medium that everyone loves.
#7) Publish Online Video via YouTube – YouTube is just like another search engine. Provide it some good content and people will find you.
#8) Create Unique, Compelling Content – Listen to your audience, they will help you solve problems and answer questions for them.
#9) Have a Unique Free (Opt-In) Offer – Work hard on building something you could charge $100 for, then give it away to build your email list!
#10) Be Yourself – Always. People can read right through the ‘Online BS’. So, be you. People want to do business with other people.

Build your brand, people. Build your brand.

If you enjoyed this post, please let me know on my Facebook page or via Twitter. And… if you have some likeminded friends, I’d love for you to share it with them. Thank you!

7 ‘Must Listen’ Podcast Episodes for Personal Brand Entrepreneurs

If you’re anything like me, and the majority of the members of our Youpreneur Community, the chances are that you’re an entrepreneur that’s on the go a lot of the time.

Traveling to speak at live events, holding workshops, doing book tours, interviews for press, visiting coaching clients – all that time adds up. Which is fine, it comes with the territory. However, what isn’t fine is if we’re wasting that time by watching movies on the plane, or snoozing in the back of the taxi.

Thanks to the world of podcasts, we can utilize this time to our advantage by tuning into great, free content that’ll help us incrementally move the needle, when it comes to our personal brand and business growth.

With this in mind, I decided to put together this quick list of seven of the best episodes of Youpreneur.FM, along with highlighting what you can expect to gain from tuning into them, on your next trip! Enjoy.

1. The Business of YOU: Why Building Your Brand is Paramount to Success

When it comes to creating a business with long-term in mind, there’s nothing better than focusing on building it around you, your experiences and how you can best serve your clients and community. This episode is the perfect overview of the ‘no competition economy’, as I like to call it – LISTEN NOW!

2. How to Build Your First ‘Real’ Email Marketing Funnel

This is so important, that I feel like we should discuss it on every episode! My good friend, Greg Hickman (who personally manages a lot of my marketing online) joins me to break down exactly, step-by-step how we can grow a high converting email marketing funnel – LISTEN NOW!

3. How to Convert Your Podcast Listeners into Email Subscribers (and Paying Customers!)

One of the easiest ways to build a brand online is to start your own podcast. However, getting listeners is just the beginning. In this episode with Tim Paige we deep dive into strategies (a lot of ’em!) that’ll take your listeners on a zero-friction journey to become email subscribers – LISTEN NOW!

4. How to Launch and Grow a Membership Site

In this episode I sit down with bestselling author, Robbie Kellman Baxter to discuss the ‘membership economy’ and why, exactly, all personal brand entrepreneurs should be considering building a membership driven business, in order to bring insane value to those that follow them – LISTEN NOW!

5. How to Build Your Brand on Facebook and Beyond

This is a real goodie. In this episode I’m joined by Kimra Luna, who grew a massive following on Facebook in a very short space of time, and is now making well over seven figures, as a result. She drops some great strategies, you need to take note of – LISTEN NOW!

6. Top Tips on Understanding and Navigating the Branding Landscape

Here I’m joined by branding expert Karen Hardie and we talk all about the differences between big brand names and those building businesses around their personal brands. It’s a real eye-opener of an episode, with lots of insights from this seasoned professional – LISTEN NOW!

7. How to Avoid Entrepreneurial Burnout When Building a Personal Brand

Nothing, and I do mean NOTHING… is more important than taking care of ourselves as we focus on building our brand focused business. The problem is we routinely forget that fact, and here I discuss how we can re-focus and avoid hitting burnout – LISTEN NOW!

‘Listening’ is Just The Beginning!

Now, I will say that in the past I’ve been guilty of sitting down and listening to a podcast episode, expecting to learn lots – actually do so… and then doing nothing about it!

Not anymore, I assure you.

As a personal brand entrepreneur myself, I’ve now started taking instant action on what I learn from my podcast consumption time – be it by actually doing something myself, making really in-depth notes and saving them (along with calendar alerts) to act on in the new future, or perhaps by delegating something to one of my virtual staff. Either way – I take action.

That’s what YOU need to do, too – it moves the needle. It gets things happening… and that’s the difference between us truly GROWING our brands and businesses and not. So, promise me you’ll take some action after you tune into some of the shows above, okay?!

What did you think of this post? I’d love to hear from you. Please drop me a tweet, or a quick message on my Facebook Page! And, as always, if you know of someone that might benefit from seeing this, please do share it with them, I’d appreciate it.

How to Create and Promote a Blog Post ‘Perfectly’ Every Time

Important Note: The ‘Process Blueprint’ featured in this post is one of our monthly deliverables at Youpreneur.com. These workflow process documents, along with other exclusive content, as well as our private mastermind forums make up the Youpreneur Community. It’ll all help you build your business better! For more info click here!

When I think about creating and getting a new blog post out there into the world, I look at four main areas that need to be covered, pretty much in the same way, every time. Creation, Layout, Promotion and On-Going Marketing.

It’s true, almost the entire process can be delegated to a virtual assistant, but the creation side of things is all done by you. It has to be handled by you – after all, your community / audience is tuning in because of you, your expertise, your voice and what you’re all about – as well as the value that only you can bring to them.

Like most pieces of content that you’ll produce as an online business owner, blog posts are much easier to research, create and design when there’s a system, or process in place. Not to mention how to actually promote a blog post when it’s finalized! So, I thought it might be helpful for you to check out the Process Blueprint below, so that you can take your blogging to the next level.

You can use this workflow as a guide for yourself to follow, or simply hand off to a team member – once you’ve written that content yourself!

It’s following processes and systems like the blueprint above that’s enabled me to grow my online brand, reputation and community faster than I ever would have been able to – if I was just knocking things together as and when I felt like it.

It’s this methodic approach to building a business, as well as the focus on surrounding yourself with the right, like-minded people that we’re all about inside of the Youpreneur Community.

If you found this post helpful, I’d love for you to kindly share it with your friends and followers on social media – just click any of the buttons below! Thank you.

The Power of Understanding Your Customers Motivations!

Important Note: The ‘Tropical Think Tank’ clip featured in this post is one of our deliverables at Youpreneur.com. These live training videos, along with other exclusive content, as well as our private mastermind forums make up the Youpreneur Community. It’ll all help you build your business better! For more info click here!

Back in May 2015 I held the second annual Tropical Think Tank conference in the Philippines. It was a brilliant week full of amazing masterminding, lots of fun and games, and a boat load of business learning.

One speaker who was a real hit with our attendees was Darren Rowse, from Problogger. In this short clip, he urges you to ‘dig deeper’ and beyond just mere demographics. By identifying your audiences needs, problems, desires and fears, you can find out what is meaningful for them and understand how you can help them better.

It’s all about understanding your customers motivations.

He also talks about how the best blogs aim for more than just providing something useful to their readers, they aim to leave a mark on their readers. Darren does a marvellous job of encouraging everyone to identify what their readers are when they arrive on their blogs and more importantly, what they will become when they leave.

We know the power of creating avatars for our online audiences – those people that we ultimately want to market and sell to – but, by creating ‘future avatars’, you gain not only more ideas on content, but you also strengthen your message and how to monetize your blog.

It’s watching world class leaders, such as Darren in action that’ll propel your business growth online. I’ve learned so much from listening to him myself, and I know I’ll continue to do so – he’s THAT good!

It’s this never-ending approach to building a business, as well as the focus on surrounding yourself with the right, like-minded people that we’re all about inside of the Youpreneur Community – come check us out.

If you found this post helpful, I’d love for you to kindly share it with your friends and followers on social media – just click any of the buttons below! Thank you.

12 Ways to Use Periscope to Build Your Personal Brand! [Infographic]

If you’re focusing on building a personal brand, you simply MUST get active on Periscope!

I’m on Periscope. Follow me @chrisducker

You might be thinking, “Wait a second Chris, I was just getting a handle on incorporating Instagram and YouTube into my brand building strategy and was even considering the idea of doing a podcast – and now I need to learn Periscope?!!”

Well. Yes… and No.

NO because you don’t need to ‘learn’ Periscope, because there’s really nothing to learn. As you’ll soon see from this post, functionality is quite easy and there’s no reason why we can’t have you doing your first live broadcast (if your a newbie) in 15-minutes from now!

YES because the only thing you need to say YES to is actually ‘doing’ Periscope. It’s in the consistent doing of periscope that you’ll find traction with your brand building.

What’s This Periscope Thing All About?

For me, Periscope is about intimacy and simplicity.

No editing.
No webinar slides.
No countdown timer.
No commercials.

And if done correctly and consistently I believe Periscope will become the go-to platform for personal brand builders who wish to deepen their relationship with their audience. But wait. There’s more…

It also means that emerging brands now have an opportunity to build an intimate and loyal following with a global audience too. And even faster than ever before.

I truly believe this is truly going to be a game-changer. And it’s all happening right now – in real time.

Periscope is about living in the moment, candid and unscripted. In fact, the more candid and unscripted it is – the more engaged your audience will become and the more hearts you’ll get – you’ll love those bloody hearts, trust me – they’re addictive! So whether you’re a brand builder, a speaker, an author, or an emerging entrepreneur looking to bring your innovation to market – you’ve got to get on Periscope. You can download the app on iOS devices, or on Andriod, too.

Interested? Good!

Here are twelve ways that you can use Periscope to build your personal brand!

#1 Keep it Candid

Don’t stress about trying to come up with the perfect topic to discuss. Be you, and be vulnerable. In fact, why not have your first broadcast be about the fact that it’s your FIRST broadcast!? Seriously. This is a perfect way to turn the tables on your viewers and make the show about them. Ask them what kinds of broadcasts they like to see, and what they feel makes a good or bad broadcast.

#2 Entice with Your Title

What’s amazing about Periscope is that no topic is too small. Even people with broadcast titles like “I’m bored” are getting a live audience. Yes, it’s cra-cra… I know. So take a few extra moments to think of a title that would entice you to want to join in. (And don’t’ over think it).

#3 Acknowledge Your Viewers

Unlike a webinar which requires you to have content you’re teaching, with about 10% given to Q&A, a good Periscope session is all about hanging out with your audience – and that begins with personally acknowledging the profiles that enter your broadcast.

#4 Ask Questions

Some of your viewers will only be there to watch, and some will be there to be a part of the conversation. Help draw out these viewers by asking questions.

#5 Don’t be Afraid to ‘Go Off’ on Tangents

Periscope is all about being authentic and REAL, and the reality of intimate conversations is that sometimes they get off topic or go down a path of reminiscing on a story from your past. So don’t be afraid to keep it real. Go off on tangents and enjoy where the conversation takes you. Even if your broadcast topic is about teaching a specific thing, still have fun with it.

#6 Ask for Some ‘Love’ and ‘Shares’

Hearts are currency on Periscope. The heart count shows how much people are enjoying what they’re watching and your total hearts received (which Periscope refers to as “love”) will be displayed under your profile, becoming somewhat of a social vanity metric.

Likewise, we’re all more adapt to acting on recommendations from people we know, than complete strangers. Because of that – ask for people to share your scopes – they WILL do it, and it WILL help grow your Periscope following!

#7 Follow Those that Show You ‘Love’

After your broadcast is over you can view vital stats, such as how many total viewers you had, how much ‘love’ you recieved, etc., and even WHO sent you love (right down to the # of hearts they sent). This is a great opportunity to follow those that like you. It’s also a great opportunity to offer a follow back for those people that show you the most “love” during a broadcast.

#8 Build a Following by Broadcasting Often

I have no doubt that the most successful broadcasters on Periscope will be those that broadcast often. How many times is ‘often’? At this point in the game I have no idea, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see 10-20 broadcasts a day coming from popular personalities. I’m averaging one a day, but sometimes pop on for a second when I have some downtime.

#9 Play ‘Show and Tell’

You can never go wrong playing ‘show and tell’. So give your viewers a full experience of your broadcast by showing them a 360 degree view of your surroundings. This includes introducing them to people near you, along with showing them any interesting items that happen to be there.

I’ve shown people around my home office, discussed items such as podcast mics and even dragged my wife (affectionately known as Mrs Quack online!) onto a couple of broadcasts, which has always got a nice burst of hearts… I wonder why?!

#10 Act Like You’re Hanging Out with a Friend

Think about the last time you and good friend got together. Did you feel as if you had to have an agenda? Did you worry about whether or not they would laugh at your jokes? Did you feel as if you couldn’t pause the conversation to get a drink of water? All of these things that might be seen as unprofessional in a webinar are 100% the ‘standard’ on Periscope.

That doesn’t mean you can’t teach anything or have an agenda of what you’d like to discuss, but don’t hold too strictly to it. Periscope is all about living in the moment – and communicating that to your audience.

#11 Explore With “Me’

Sharing exciting, or engaging experiences is typically how strong friendships are born. Now just imagine being able to have that kind of power on-demand, with the entire world! Yeah, pretty powerful stuff right?

So the next time you explore something new like trying new food, seeing new places, meeting new people… or even using new gadgets – take the world with you. It will bring a human element to your brand and give your viewers a deeper connection since they are truly sharing this moment with you in real time.

#12 Learn From Your Replays

Great athletes watch themselves on tape in order to get better. And since Periscope saves your broadcasts you can use this feature to your advantage by taking a look at your own performance to see how you could improve. Don’t be harsh on yourself. This is a work in progress, especially if you plan to be in business for the long haul it’s all about incremental improvement. And if you don’t like what you see, you can easily delete it, or simply wait for Periscope to delete it automatically… 24-hours after you end your broadcast.

How Does Any of this Help with Brand Building?

Here’s the Paradox of Periscope…

While I don’t see Periscope becoming the go-to place to generate more leads and sales for your business (not directly, anyhow), I do see Periscope becoming an accelerator to helping your existing leads convert – and a lot of the time, faster.

Why is that?

To put simply, the mere fact that your audience can tune in and see you live will prove that you’re real, and demonstrate that you care enough to connect with your audience, customers and prospective customers.

None of this means you should stop posting YouTube videos, Instagram, or Twitter. It just means you should consider sharing a few of your private moments with the world – it’s all about P2P… People to people.

So, don’t waste anymore time. Download the app, connect with me and other people, watch, have fun, interact, give some love and then start broadcasting yourself.

And be sure to follow me @chrisducker – see you soon!

What did you think of this infographic? I’d love to hear from you. Please drop me a tweet, or a quick message on my Facebook Page! And, as always, if you know of someone that might benefit from seeing this, please do share it with them – they won’t be mad at you for providing them value. Promise!

Walking Through the Redesign of Chris Ducker Dot Com

Unless you’ve visited this site for the first time in the last month or so, you’d have noticed some big changes… like the way the entire site looks and feels!

I recently switched over from a WordPress theme based site to the Rainmaker Platform, which is the latest offering and now the main focal point for the Copyblogger Media team – and wanted to show you the reasons behind WHY we made the changes we did.

In a nutshell, Rainmaker is a one-stop online publishing and business building platform – and it rocks!

I’ll publish another walkthrough post in the near future showing you all the bells and whistles that Rainmaker provides online business peeps like us, but for this post I wanted to answer a whole load of questions that have come in via email and Twitter, asking for details and insights on how we went about the redesign process. So, here ya go!

Out with the Old, in with the New!

The old site had been in the same design form since 2012 and had served me very, very well indeed, helping me grow my mailing list to over 35,000 subscribers, attracting and serving an ever-growing online audience and generally just being my ‘home’ online – a home I was very proud of.

But, if you looked at the site on a mobile device, although responsive, it wasn’t all that great.

Also, the design elements themselves, like the fonts, colors, etc., were out of date, as you can no doubt imagine.

Along comes Brian Clark and his team at Rainmaker and everything changes… As you can see, a LOT of work went into the redesign of the site and I am over the moon with the way it ended up.

Design DOES Matter!

It drives me crazy when I hear people say that design doesn’t matter – that’s complete BS.

Design most certainly does matter.

When someone visits your site for the first time, you have 4-5 seconds to convince them to stay. That’s it. If your design is crappy, they’ll leave. If it’s awesome, they won’t. It really is that simple.

Obviously, following ‘good looks’, what really does matter is how you’re helping them by being on the site – but, that first impressions does count and you only get one chance to make it, so you have to make sure it’s a good one.

What did you think of the redesign of ChrisDucker.com – like, dislike? I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a Tweet and let me know, and if you have blogger and entrepreneur friends that are active online, or thinking of upping their online game soon, please share this with them on Facebook – I’m sure it’ll help them out a little.

The Top 10 Best Small Business Blogs for Entrepreneurs in 2015

As a small business owner myself, I know how important it is to stay up-to-date with the ever changing trends that the business world throws at us.

Because I watch very little TV, and rely heavily on the internet for keeping up-to-date with the news, it’s somewhat obvious that I’d also use the ‘online medium’ to learn, consume and also produce and market my own content. Bloggers (and increasingly, podcasters, as well as video producers – and many are wearing all three hats!) have the ability to express themselves in somewhat ‘real time’, and in an evergreen way, by keeping their content fresh, and sharing their opinions with the world.

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10 Online Influencers That Will Affect Positive Change in Your Business!

Even the best leaders need to follow, in order to continue to grow. [Tweet This!]

At the end of each year I pick three influencers that I will follow throughout the course of the next year to learn from. I keep these secret (so don’t ask!) and quietly study how they do what they do. I reach out to them, converse with them, become friends with them (if we don’t know each other already!), perhaps get them on my podcast and generally soak up as much knowledge and experience from them as possible.

It’s a great growth strategy which I’ve followed for the last 4-years now, and I strongly suggest you start doing likewise.

In order to help you, I’ve put together the following list (which is presented in no particular order) of all-star influencers that are currently serving up plenty of brilliant content and know-how tips and tactics. You might fancy following some on the list (in full, or part) to learn from.

Let’s get to it!

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