Walter Akolo, Author at Change Creator

Builderall vs Clickfunnels: Which Funnel Tool Works Best for You? [2021 Recommendations]

Turning your business idea into a functional business takes great planning and sharp execution. Making your business profitable online can be daunting. However, digital platforms continue to evolve, giving you the leverage you need to turn prospects into sales.

Great ideas inspire great products. As an entrepreneur, you would like to maximize the strengths of your product to close more sales. There are various strategies you can use to grow your business from a startup to an effective revenue generator.

Most startups concentrate on the product and fail to factor the cost of customer acquisition. Unfortunately, this oversight will kill your business before you see its full potential.

There are tools that will help you maximize your sales. Builderall and Clickfunnels are software tools that can add immense value to your business. This side by side comparison gives you insight into two powerful sales funnels that could rev up your sales.

What is a sales funnel?

At Change Creator we like to say, Path to Purchase when we stragize our clients websites. But its really no different. Sales funnels are tools that are designed to lead your potential customer from interest to a sale. The concept behind sales funnels is adding value through each level of the funnel. By the time your potential customer is down to the narrowest path, your sales funnel should have convinced them to part with their money for your product or service.

Your success with sales funnels depends on 3 key factors:

Search engine result page authority.
Well-designed website.
Testimonials.

These factors blend to give your potential customers assurance. You can make your marketing strategy highly effective by implementing these 5 approaches to your sales funnels.

Your search engine ranking depends on your website’s ability to hold a reader’s concentration. A high bounce rate reflects poorly on a website. Chartbeat CEO opines that web users hardly spend more than 15 seconds on a website. Giving your potential customers diverse pages increases their staying time on your site.

Foresight

Foresight is your marketing team’s ability to preempt the actions of a user. If potential customers follow your prompts correctly, your sales funnel should show a high customer conversion rate.

A clear call to action

Once you manage to convince your prospect about buying your product or service, you should provide them with a clear action to finalize their journey through the tunnel. Whether it is booking a consultation, buying or joining a subscriber list, a call to action is the final step to closing the deal.

Upsell

You can leave a good impression on a buyer by offering them additional options. These options include complementary products that go well with what they purchased and discounts.

Follow the data

You are setting yourself up for failure if you do not utilize data analysis tools to keep records. Data analytics helps your marketing team reorganize business elements for maximum profitability. You can always change your sales funnel to fit another campaign.

Builderall vs Clickfunnels: What is the ideal funnel builder?

Builderall is a platform that helps businesses upgrade their digital marketing strategy. It allows you to create websites, mobile apps and CRM solutions without coding knowledge. Since its inception in 2011, Builderall is responsible for more than half a million published websites. To date, it has garnered impressive reviews from its 40,000 users.

Clickfunnels has a long history of helping online entrepreneurs create funnels. It operates like a custom CRM, with tools that enable you to formulate and execute strategies to strengthen your business. It has been in operation for 5 years and has become a top choice for small-scale and medium-sized online businesses.

Both funnel builders have gone to great lengths to give users valuable plans. Before you settle on any of the builders, let’s have a close look into their strengths.

Builderall has a range of tools that fit any campaign you choose for your online marketing needs. With it, you can access a dashboard with all the starting points to 7 core capabilities.

The Builder capability gives you impressive websites, blogs, e-commerce stores among other sites.

You can use its MailingBoss function to automate your email and maintain contact with your clientele from opt-in to final sale.

The Videos and Design functionality gives you the power to incorporate share-worthy media at any point of your pipeline.

Build user-focused Apps that offer a seamless cross-platform experience. Go further and use its A/B testing function to check key details in real-time.

Put together a high-converting Webinar from the moment you start using Builderall.

Set up payment management systems in the Marketplace. Go a step further and streamline your passive income activity using the same functionality.

Part of Builderall’s popularity is due to its easy-to-use drag and drop feature. This is a handy tool for users who want to use the platform without a background in programming.

Why choose Builderall

Web Building

The web builder gives you 4 options when you begin using it.

Pixel Perfect

This option opens to industry-specific templates so you can quickly start building custom websites. These pages are visually inviting and are divided into some of the most profitable categories on the web. As you fiddle with most of the templates, you may notice a familiar pattern.

You can customize these templates to fit your specific needs. There are loads of elements to choose from during the design phase of your website.

Responsive builder

The responsive builder comes in handy when you need to edit your site. You can tweak the site to come up with a site that delivers a quick response time. This functionality may be a correction to an oversight on mobile editing. Still, it is an impressive feature that could improve UI/UX features of a site.

Mobile-first builder

A high number of users now access the web using their phones. Even Google opted to use mobile-first indexing.

Optimize a site for mobile usage with the mobile-first builder. You can control every step of a sales campaign from your phone with a meant-for-mobile site. And the best part is that you don’t miss out on key design and navigation options.

Responsive blog builder

Blogs are a great access point for your potential customers. They can help you build an impressive user base that will see your customer acquisition. The blog builder lets you craft interactive blogs that maintain a user’s attention with well-written blogs.

Premium functions

At first glance, Builderall seems like an attempt to jam together a mash-up of capabilities. Yet, when you use it, it delivers on most of those capabilities. Some of the functionalities are alternatives to popular options already in the market.

Mailing Boss lets you manage multiple email lists for each digital campaign. Within, you can compile new lists or start new campaigns whenever you have a new product or a custom target market. The leaner version of it gives you up to 10000 email contacts.

Customizing your welcome email is the first step to setting up an email marketing tool that converts. There is a wide range of popular email automation tools in the market right now. However, MailingBoss has an automation workflow builder that helps businesses to stay in touch with their subscribers.

The drag-and-drop function helps you create an automation sequence that resembles a blueprint. You can map out each section, mimicking a blueprint that gives your sequence a professional look and saves you time.

Builderall comes with a design module that takes your mock-ups and basic design needs to the next level. You can use it to do digital mock-ups, prepare presentations and edit photos. The module helps you boost user engagement as users tend to interact better with text backed by visual media.

The photo editor is a helpful editor when you need your photos punched up. While it won’t achieve the same aesthetics as in powerful software like Lightroom, the image editor provides some tools to make your photos more presentable and professional.

You can go a step further and edit your photos in 3D. This feature works well if you are in a field that requires basic 3D media.

Buiderall has a video module that could be useful for developing quick and easy floating videos and animation. Even with text-only animated videos, your audience engagement numbers could skyrocket just by including video into your campaigns. These 2 functions are separate from the software’s video hosting module.

Typically, you would use separate more mainstream alternatives of each module. However, with all of them in one place, you save on time and resources while maintaining high standards.

App module is a mash-up of interesting tools. On this module, you will find features such as a Facebook chatbot, SEO SERP report tool among other nifty features. A keen internet marketer will likely notice the value of the app module once they see the tools on offer. Their individual alternatives would clutter your marketing approach and increase your cost of doing business.

The webinar tool is a fascinating module that can be used to do a live broadcast. The setup is easy to navigate. There is a feature that feels a bit blackhat, though. The ghost audience feature will mimic ‘live’ comments during a mock live video. You record a video but execute it as a live video and use the ghost audience feature to simulate real-time user engagement.

The cheeky feature notwithstanding, the webinar module is a way to save you the eventual cost of webinar software.

Since your intention with Builderall is to make your business profitable, Marketplace ties together tools that make it easy for users to pay for services or products. Set up any payment avenues using this module. If you’re volunteering and are not looking to make a hard sell, a donate button would fall under this module.

This is the same module from where you will manage your affiliate income. You can view statistics from your affiliates as well.

Can Clickfunnels match up to Builderall?

Clickfunnels has over 65,000 active users. Since its inception, it has helped businesses grow from fledglings to high-flying successes. Clickfunnels has helped create business-critical funnels, landing pages, webinars and membership sites.

You can build a funnel where users provide their email address and get a simple gratitude email. Alternatively, you can build funnels to upsell expensive services as a bonus for buying an affordable product. These tunnels might be hard to create if you don’t have the experience.

However, Clickfunnels gives you an easy time with customizable templates. Some of the templates are free. You may have to spend more money to unlock premium templates. Still, every template available can be designed to drive traffic to your product and secure more sales.

When you start your business, you may lack the resources to afford a technical department. With Clickfunnels, you can put together an expert level multi-page sales funnel. You can even incorporate social media functionality to increase traffic and gain authority. More traffic and stronger site authority rank well on search engine result pages.

Some of the features are similar to Builderall features. Still, the user experience may vary.

Drag and drop is a breeze with Clickfunnels. Once you start designing, you can simply drag and drop elements of your funnel. You can see the progress in real-time. If a setting is not in line with your vision, you can edit it.

You can set up a comprehensive page with payment options, FAQ sections and comment entries using Clickfunnels various page elements. You can go further and tailor each element to suit your specific aesthetic.

Etison Editor makes it easy to build beautiful websites. The key behind Etison’s clean websites is color-coded blocks.

Green sections represent the foundational layer of the site. Here, you input the basic text of your site. Visitors will interact first with this area since it houses your intentional text.

You can use the blue blocks to create rows within the green section. You can add valuable information such as navigation links and CTAs. Where you place the rows could help you decide what you include in the row.

The orange block puts the fine details into your site. Orange sections house the elements of your page. Now that you have a solid structure to work with, you can take advantage of up to 50 design elements available in Clickfunnels.

Drag and drop text, media, forms, and countdowns to suit your site intentions. You can edit these elements using the builder’s customization tools. Functions such as changing the background color, enhancing margins and fonts give your site visual appeal that holds your customers’ attention.

Are you afraid that you may be losing out on thousands of customers because your site is not mobile friendly? Clickfunnels makes it easy to customize your desktop site for a mobile experience. The 3-step method involves setting the text size, selecting the bits you want to appear in mobile-only and a one-click preview of the result.

With that, you can give your customers the best navigation experience on any device.

One of its most impressive features is Actionetics MD. Actionetics MD is a follow-up funnel. After a sale, most entrepreneurs will settle with decent profit margins. Actionetics lets you follow up on new leads or previous clients. With this tool, you can keep your customer retention numbers up, drive sales and get yourself organic referrals.

At its core, Actionetics MD is an email autoresponder. And using it is easy. Once you create a list, use the preset actions to automate your lists. Actionetics MD has a function that separates users in the list based on their activity. For instance, it separates buyers and non-buyers and can subscribe non-buyers to the buyer’s list after they purchase.

It is within Actionetics that you will find Smart List. Smart Lists are Actionetics data analyzer and compiler. They analyze users and gives you information on who they are, how they got into the funnel, their buying patterns, and their funnel activity.

Smart List gives you an edge since you can customize your message to a specific list. This could be beneficial in cases where you have repeat visitors who don’t buy or are frequent spenders.

And you’re not just bound to email communication. Your message can be delivered via Facebook Messenger, text, targeted ads, and desktop push notifications. Having all these follow-up avenues would cost more if they were used separately. Having them as part of a package is a bargain.

How they differ

By now, you have seen most of the great features you can get from these 2 platforms. However, you need to make a choice.

Affiliate model

Unlike Clickfunnel where you make money off affiliates, Builderall gives you a monthly revenue stream. The Builderall model makes you a business person rather than a salesperson.

Under the Leveraged Affiliate Program, you will earn as long as your referrals keep paying for hosting. A Builderall user has an advantage over a Clickfunnels user due to niche popularity. Web hosting is an evergreen niche.

Affiliates can earn bonuses on recurring payments. You receive a 100% commission on the first payment. The next 2 payments by a customer translate to a fixed commission. The 4th recurrent payment attracts a $15 bonus on top of the $20. The retention bonus applies every 3 months.

The Unlimited car bonus is calculated by multiplying how many customers you have under a certain plan. For instance, if you have 100 customers on the premium $69 plan, you garner 6900 points. 690 points make you eligible for a $50 bonus. That means 6900 points earn you $500.

When you buy a plan, you are awarded 3 points per dollar. However, when you sell a plan, you are awarded a point per dollar. Not only do you refer users to a comprehensive builder, but you also enrich their experience by making them business owners in more ways than one.

If you are not maxing out Clickfunnels’ powerful functionalities, you can make money off it. You can add to your passive revenue stream using Clickfunnels’ Backpack Affiliate program. The basics of the affiliate program remain the same as most affiliate programs. However, there is a proprietary program, Sticky Cookie, that puts passive revenue in your pocket every time a referred user buys anything AFTER the initial buy.

The benefits of the Backpack program are not only financial. They help with traffic too. Sticky cookie tackles yet another pain point. If you had saved an affiliate link to a product on one device but purchase the same item through a different device, you just lost some revenue.

Yet, with Sticky Cookie, the link works across devices so you can complete your purchase on any device when you are comfortable.

Some affiliate programs come with set-in-stone conditions. Backpack will let you structure your commission plan according to your product. And you can have the plan active in 4 steps:

Step 1: Go to the Management function in Backpack’s dashboard. Add a commission plan and create the plan.

Step 2: Customize each of your plans. This is important if you are juggling multiple affiliates. If a plan is inactive or has outlived its purpose, simply toggle OFF. Set the running ones to ACTIVE.

Step 3 and 4: Set affiliate types and customize each type’s terms of engagement. Here you can assign different commission rates depending on the type of affiliate.

Step 5: Is a bonus feature that lets you set up tier 2 affiliates. If your affiliate brings a new customer, they earn a commission. If the new customer closes a sale using their own link, your affiliate will receive a small fraction of the commission.

You can create affiliate centers so you and your affiliates can establish some synergy. You can view their performance and avail helpful material that will help them boost sales. In the spirit of friendly competition, you can run competitions and award your top earners. These tools are made to enable you to build a community and add value at each stage. More traffic and knowledge sharing from a central point means you build a cohesive system based on mutual benefit and trust.

Price

Clickfunnels and Builderall have unique selling points. Builderall looks appealing if you are looking to start small. The most affordable plan, the web presence plan, starts at $9.90 per month.

Under this plan, you only get a website and might miss out on some premium features. For $29.90 monthly, you will be on the Digital Marketing Growth plan. To unlock all the Builkderall features, you will part with $49.90 per month.

To get a feeling of what to expect with a fully functional builder, you can pay the $49.90 and if you get a subpar experience, use the 30-day money-back guarantee.

Clickfunnels comes with a 14-day trial. After the trial, you can sign up for the $97 a month package or for the $297 a month plan. $97 will limit you to 3 custom domains, 20 funnels, 100 pages, and 20,000 visitors. However, upgrading opens up limitless features. You can open unlimited funnels and add as many pages as you would like. You can have as many domains as you can manage.

On the $97 plan, you miss out on the Actionetics MD service and Backpack affiliate program.

Support

ClickFunnels beats out Builderall on live chat support. Currently, Builderall does not have live chat support. However, a vibrant online community frequently answers questions and help other members solve queries. The support is ticket-based and communication is prompt. The response time varies.

ClickFunnels, on the other hand, has a wide community of active users on social platforms. Their support lines could use improvement. Fortunately, they have periodic updates on the platform so the support issue may get due attention.

Integration

While these 2 solutions offer a comprehensive list of tools in one place, customers tend to have separate favorite solutions for some functions. For instance, you may be accustomed to using Paypal as a payment option. Clickfunnels enables you to integrate most of your favorite tools. Users who use Clickfunnels to drive sales can integrate the pack and ship service, Shipstation to handle shipping logistics.

Builderall integrates with a number of independent programs such as Facebook Messenger, Stripe, MailChimp and mainstream social media platforms. However, users will opt to use the tools within Builderall.

Builderall vs Clickfunnels: The final word

The decision on whether to use Builderall or Clickfunnels to scale up your business will be based on personal preferences. These are great products that help you increase traffic to your online business and make you decent profits.

With tools such as Script Builder, you can take control of your marketing strategy and build your business from scratch. Builderall has a list of great features that will help you build fast powerful websites and apps. Clickfunnels, on the other hand, promises to deliver customers with their various funnels.

Clickfunnels offers two fair prices and promises to build you custom funnels that convert. $297 works if you are looking for an affordable tried-and-tested funnel builder to amp your sales. However, for a lower price, you can assemble a suite of business solutions.

Both offer learning centers that keep you up to speed with industry hacks that accelerate your sales. Builderall even offers tutorial videos to make your learning curve friendlier.

If you are looking for a fast funnel builder to increase your online revenue and bump up your passive income, Clickfunnels is a winner. However, if you want to test out different approaches for your site, Builderall is reasonably priced.

If you are looking for a trustworthy affiliate program that promises recurring payments, Builderall is the answer to your needs. Clickfunnels is a superb option for big affiliate commissions.

Give each a try and decide which one works best for you. A 14-day trial and a 30-day guarantee are all the incentives you need to give them that initial shot.

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Market Hero vs Clickfunnels: Which Tool Boosts Business Revenue Faster?

Marketing automation plays a huge role in online business success today. Processes like email marketing, website hosting and management, social media marketing and customer support can all benefit from automation. Entrepreneurs today can save time and increase revenue by streamlining these processes with automation.

Right from lead qualification to creating digital campaigns, automation makes the process less complicated. You can your monitor marketing campaign, enhance productivity, and improve customer retention. However, you need the right tool. The market is awash with several automation tools but we’re looking at two of them today, Market Hero and Clickfunnels.

Each of these tools offers unique benefits to online businesses today. Let’s look at them in detail.

The Main Differences between Market Hero vs Clickfunnels

The Main Differences between Market Hero vs Clickfunnels are:

Market Hero focuses on e-mail automation services and marketing, whereas Clickfunnels helps you build high converting sales funnels.
Market Hero provides templates for you to use, whereas Clickfunnels has a variety of products to use like conversion pages, affiliate programs with email, text and messenger follow-up funnels and more
Market Hero use a special ROI calculation tool for track you sales, whereas Clickfunnels does not have this feature.

Let’s take a further look at these key differences.

They Focus on Solving Different Problems

Despite the fact that they are both marketing automation tools, Market Hero focusses on email marketing to grow your business revenue while Clickfunnels builds beautiful sales funnels that turns visitors into leads and leads into loyal customers.

ROI Calculation Tool

Market Hero features a special lead ROI calculation tool. It actively tracks each sale and conversion within your business. You’re able to tell how much your leads are worth over a long period with several filters. This way you will tell what is bringing the best ROI in your business.

You can advertise in Facebook or Google, spending less than what each lead is worth. That way, you’re sure to make a profit. Clickfunnels does not have this feature.

Products are Packaged Differently

Clickfunnels offers a variety of products including Clickfunnels for building funnels, Etison Editor for creating high-conversion pages with a ‘drag n drop’ editor, Backpack which runs affiliate programs in your funnel and Actionetics which creates email, text and messenger follow-up funnels. Each of these products is elaborate with a variety of well-designed templates to make your work easy.

Market Hero on the other hand does not have separate and elaborate products. For example the email editor provides only seven templates with basic design. You cannot create your own forms because the form builder is incorporated within a specific funnel. The elements available are limited.

Training

Market Hero offers an in-depth training by Alex Becker himself.

Even the cheapest membership fee gives you full access to the Market Hero academy. The training offers a ton of value. Clearly, they are committed to seeing you succeed with email marketing.

What is Market Hero?

Market Hero is mainly an email marketing service. It was founded by Alex Becker who wanted to help businesses grow by generating more revenue from a lead than it cost to acquire. The goal of Market Hero is to provide the best email analytics system and revenue centric auto responder. Market Hero’s aim is to empower businesses with a simplified process of obtaining metrics for explosive growth.

This company focusses on the basics of growth to take your business to the next level. Not only do promise you a simplified email marketing system, but also next-level automation and analytics presented in a user-friendly, simple and sleek app.

What is Clickfunnels?

Russell Brunson founded Clickfunnels in 2014 as a solution to the frustration that many business owners face with building websites and funnels. For the business owners who can’t code, you don’t need a tch team. Building an attractive and profitable website is easy with this dynamic platform. This all-in-one software helps entrepreneurs grow their businesses with more leads, more sales, more revenue and several other benefits.

Clickfunnels provides businesses with the tools they require to market, sell and deliver products and services online. You can easily generate leads, sell your products and even follow up on your customers anywhere and at any time.

After signing up with Clickfunnels, your business is on the sure path to success by simply answering the following questions:

What is your business?
What is your objective?
When do you want to achieve your goals?

By now we’ve already established that Market Hero is focused on increasing revenue through email automation while Clickfunnels increases revenue using well-built websites and effective sales funnels. Let’s look at the features of each marketing platform.

Why Compare Market Hero and Clickfunnels?

Market Hero is primarily focused on email marketing and Clickfunnels on creating funnels – although they have an autoresponder service as well. So, it would seem strange to compare these two tools. Wouldn’t it be much easier if they were both email marketing tools? Or funnel building tools? But they are not.

We’re comparing them so that you get the best value when trying to convert leads to sales.

Market Hero is targeted towards new fairly marketers who want to use email marketing to generate revenue. Clickfunnels can be used by beginner and seasoned marketers. The platform’s features make it so simple to build a funnel without technical help Making Instead of scratching their heads over which tool is better, some business owners have resorted to using both tools – together. Let’s look at their features.

Features of Market Hero

Messenger Enabled Auto Responder

Email and Facebook messenger are the two most used communication fronts online. You can use messenger to apply all the awesome automations you’ll find on email. It has over 1 billion users and is the most engaging channel online.

Facebook messenger has an average of 80% open rates and a click through rate (CTR) that is 4-10 times higher than email. This means that your audience is actively using messenger on a daily basis. This is a great opportunity to have your business as a part of it too.

Integrations

Market Hero has the ability to connect with other platforms including Shopify, Zapier, Clickfunnels, Demio, SamCart, Leadpages, JVZoo and PayKickstart. Are you on Shopify and not using Market Hero? They claim that you are simply choosing to limit your income potential. Market Hero allows you to segment and email your customers.

This software automatically compiles your sales and provides you with metrics concerning your customers. It also automates upselling, down selling, abandoned carts and more.

In-depth Metrics

With Market Hero, all the information on your customers and emails are at your fingertips. You can see how many emails were opened, clicked and sent. You can also see the CTR, spam complaints and how many have unsubscribed from your list. It is easy to obtain your sales metrics and determine how much each customer is worth.

Support

Market Hero provides a 24 hour chat support on their website if you need answers quickly. If you’re on Facebook, Twitter or any other social media platform, they can find you there too. They hold monthly webinars and trainings where world renowned experts show you how to use the platform for effective email marketing and exponential business growth.

When you sign up, you’re entitled to a mega course on email marketing, Shopify and messenger. Alex Becker (CEO, Market Hero) created this course to provide you with the same email tactics he has used to build several million-dollar businesses.

The mega course will teach you how to get the most out of email marketing, how to grow your Shopify sales with funnels, emails and messenger, 7 figure advertising techniques, sales and behavior based automations and high ROI email funnels.

Pricing

Market Hero pricing is obviously dependant on the size of your email list. On the website, you’ll have to drag a slider across to see the prices for each category. For 1000 emails, the cost is $19 per month. For 3000 emails, it’s $49 per month and 7500 emails cost $99 per month.

For 10,000 emails, you’ll pay $129 and 25,000 emails will cost you $229. If your email list is 50,000, you’ll part with $549 while 75,000 and 100,000 go for $800 and $950 per month respectively.

Market Hero offers a 14-day trial period – no commitments whatsoever. It comes with a mailing limit but you have access to the whole platform. They also have a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you would like to pay yearly, it comes with a 15% discount. You can pay using Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. You can also use PayPal, checks or wire transfer.

Other Features

Attractive Interface

Any platform with a great looking interface attracts the attention of users. Of course let’s not forget that there are more important factors on the inside that should keep the users. Market Hero features a simple dashboard and a well- designed interface.

Subscriber Management

Adding subscribers or leads can be done using the import tool or manually. The platform uses a tag-based management system. The tags are added when a lead enters your funnel or during the import process. You can easily filter the leads based on various factors like names, emails and status.

Email Campaigns

To send an email broadcast, click the ‘Broadcast’ option on the sidebar menu. Click ‘get started’ and set up your first broadcast. Fill in the sending information and the segment of leads you’re sending the email to.

Market Hero provides only 7 templates, all with basic designs, to choose from. The drag and drop functionality in the email editor works well. You can make changes with the fonts, the floating bar and colors. However, the number of elements to choose from is limited.

Form Builder

You need a form to drive leads into your email funnel. Market Hero does not allow you to create a form like other platforms. The form is integrated in a particular funnel. That is where you will make necessary changes to the elements like images and button types.

Features of Clickfunnels

Smart Funnel Builder

Clickfunnels makes it easy for business owners to independently set up high converting digital marketing funnels without the help of a tech team. Entrepreneurs are too busy to deal with all the moving parts of a marketing funnel. This software is the solution and you can do it in as little as 10 minutes following these steps;

Choose the type of funnel your business needs

Business owners create funnels to;

Generate leads – with basic email (or messenger) leads or with long-form application
Generate sales – with a two-step tripwire funnel or a sales letter funnel or a launch funnel
Run events like webinars – a live webinar with third-party software or an automated webinar run on Clickfunnels only

To choose your preferred funnel, go to Clickfunnels and from the drop-down menu, choose ‘Build a new funnel’, select your goal from the three we’ve discussed above, then choose the type of funnel you want. Immediately, the software will set up all the pages required for your funnel. With a few clicks, you’ll have a tried and tested framework for your online business.

Adjust your funnel to your desire

You can add, move, delete or edit pages as you see fit. You can also add membership sites. Clickfunnels can easily add one-click upsells to increase your cart value. You can add a membership page to host your training without another marketing tool or third party software.

You can reduce cart abandonment by creating an easy check-out process. Clickfunnels helps you do this by using a style order form. It captures lead details which you can use to market to those that abandon carts.

You can add your affiliate program to any Clickfunnels sales funnel within minutes, using only two extra pages. Within the affiliate area, you can edit commission plans, do payouts and create affiliate areas with easily downloadable banner ads and copy. You can also generate affiliate links to put on any of your Clickfunnels pages. This way, your affiliates can collect sales for sharing your content.

Customize your pages

You can make the pages look exactly the way you want by swapping Clickfunnels’ videos, text, logos and products with yours.

Your pages should reflect your unique voice and style. You can achieve this within a few clicks.

Capturing Leads

With Clickfunnels, you can do this in two ways.

Automation Tab

You will find this inside your new funnel. You’re able to connect with your audience by creating short email sequences which are sent after an opt-in or sale. Also, you can create notifications that will alert you on any purchase or opt-in.

How do you send an email through automation tab?

Step 1: Add a New Email

Each page in your funnel has an automation tab. First, select the page to send an email to. It could be an order page or opt-in page. Select ‘Add new email’, type in your name, subject and SMTP configuration and the times that you want the emails sent.

Step 2: Select a predesigned template

The predesigned email templates allow you to customize them as much as possible.

Step 3: Edit the template with your unique voice

Actionetics Follow-Up Funnels

Actionetics is a powerful tool within Clickfunnels. It is an auto responder that creates, schedules and delivers email sequences. You can also use it to create powerful follow-up funnels that communicate directly to each customer based on the following information;

Who they are
What they’ve bought from you and when
Their activity within your funnel
Where they’ve come from

Personalized follow-up funnels boost conversions and generate sales.

How do you create follow-up funnels inside Actionetics?

Step 1: Build your list

To build lists inside Actionetics, go to the ‘Email Lists’ tab and select ‘Add New List’. Choose a name for your new list and save. Actionetics also helps you to create a ‘smart list’ which collects specific data on your leads. For example:

Who enjoys your free content and has never bought anything
Who has purchased a product and has over 1000 Facebook followers
Who purchases all your products
Who was interested in your product but abandoned their cart

Step 2: A Follow-Up Funnel

Actionetics is a multi-dimensional follow-up funnel that allows you to communicate to your prospects wherever they are. You can reach them via email, Facebook messenger, desktop notifications or SMS. If they miss your communication on one channel, they’ll definitely see it on another.

Step 3: Send broadcasts to your subscribers

Actionetics helps you send multi-dimensional broadcast messages via Facebook, text, email and desktop notifications.

Step 4: Open your stats and adjust accordingly

When your subscribers receive your messages, you can monitor the statistics and determine the following:

How many subscribers opened the emails/messages
Who bought your products
What revenue you made from each email

This information will help you determine which emails resonate best with your followers.

Adding products onto the platform

With Clickfunnels, you don’t need a third-party tool to sell your products. To add your products, use these steps:

Step 1: Go to the ‘Products’ tab and select ‘Add Product’.

Step 2: Fill in the fields for Product Description, Price and Payment Gateway

Within a few minutes, you can add products, price them and start selling. You can add digital products or physical products. For digital products, when a subscriber makes a purchase, it can provide access to a membership site. This works best if you sell courses and training or if you’re a coach. It can also direct them to a ‘thank you’ page to download the product.

For physical products, once a customer has ordered, you can export the product to a fulfillment company like ShipStation which ships the order.

How will ShipStation work with your funnel?

Step 1: Integration – ShipStation and Clickfunnels

Go to your Clickfunnels dashboard and click ‘Integrations’ then ‘Add New Integration’. Now click on the ShipStation image and then type in a name for the integration. Type in your API key and you’re done.

Step 2: Connect ShipStation to the funnel

When ShipStation is connected to your funnel, you can easily access several other ecommerce and drop shipping sites.

Step 3: Add products in your funnel

After adding your products, ShipStation will do the rest for you until your product reaches your customer.

A/B Split tests for higher conversions

Optimize your funnel for maximum leads and sales by running split tests. With Clickfunnels, you can set up A/B tests for anything including headlines, images, videos, pages and copy.

Your funnel goes live

Within a few minutes, your funnel is ready to go live to generate leads and sales.

For your funnel to go live, ensure that you have done the following;

Gone through each step in the Clickfunnels checklist
Made a test purchase
Set the correct domain for traffic to hit the first page when your funnel goes live

Monitor Your Numbers

Your Clickfunnels dashboard will show you the performance of your funnel. You can compare sales, opt-ins and page views for various funnels. You can also see how many leads you have and where they are coming from.

The stats will also show you which funnels are converting the most leads so that you can focus there. You can see your business growth by selecting sales over a particular period of time. For example over the past 30 days or over the past 2 weeks.

Etison Editor

Clickfunnels designed this page editor so that you can easily pick a template, point and click then drag and drop. You can also create attractive pages that convert visitors into customers. It also enables you to customize a page design for your specific brand.

How does this page editor work?

Step 1: Choose Your Favorite Design and Customize

Clickfunnels has dozens of amazing high converting templates which you can use for free with your account. First decide what type of page you want, then select it, edit it and customize. Inside Clickfunnels, you can create the following pages:

Opt-in Pages

All opt-in pages are already engineered to generate leads. You can create op-tin pages within a few minutes, collect leads and start building a list immediately. All you have to do is choose your favorite op-tin page template, then add your opt-in information and branding.

Order Form Pages

These are used to collect payments. They make the purchasing and check-out process easy for your customers. To create your order form, fill in your product description, price and merchant account. Now you’re ready to collect payments from your customers.

Sales Pages

You have several sales page templates to choose from and they are already designed to convert your leads into customers. You simply have to choose the template you like best, then drag and drop the sales options you want on your page and replace them with your unique branding.

Upsell Pages

The page editor helps you create an additional high converting offer page which increases your cart value. All you have to do is choose your desired upsell page template. Then you’ll simply replace the page elements with your own branding.

Webinar Event Pages

The Clickfunnels webinar event page templates are built to maximize webinar registrants and boost attendance. After selecting your favorite registration page templates, replace the elements with your webinar information.

Step 2: Understand the Page Structure to Tailor-Make it For Your Brand

The webpages use color-coded building blocks to help you customize. The four basic building blocks are:

Sections: These appear in the color green in the page editor and are the base for the page.
Rows and Columns: These appear in the color blue and are placed in the various sections on the page.
Elements: Elements appear in orange and bring your page layout to life. They are placed in the rows or columns on the page.

Step 3: Add Page Elements

After designing the page structure, you can personalize it by choosing from over 50 elements. Simply drag and drop to the page and switch them around until you have the page you want.

The element library includes text elements, media elements, form elements, advanced form elements, countdown elements, content blocks, miscellaneous elements, order forms, affiliate elements, membership elements and webinar elements.

Step 4: Use Advanced Tools to Create Perfect Pages

You can have more control over your pages by using advanced tools within the Etison Editor. Such tools include:

Custom CSS
Color Adjustment
Padding Adjustment

Step 5: Go Live

When your funnel looks as good as you want, it’s time to go live. Ensure that you’ve followed all the steps and test the pages in your funnel to make sure they’re working correctly.

Step 6: Customize for MobileEnsure that your customers have a flawless experience on any device. You can optimize your mobile experience by:

Setting a custom desirable text size for mobile
Setting any section, row or element to appear in desktop only or mobile only or both
Previewing the page in mobile

Backpack

Create your affiliate program easily with Backpack. You don’t have to pay anything until a sale is made. You only need a few affiliates to multiply your income. With Backpack, you can add an affiliate program to your funnel seamlessly.

Backpack uses ‘sticky cookies’ to keep your affiliates happy, committed and sending you more traffic. When a customer makes a purchase with your affiliate’s ID link, not only do they earn a commission on that purchase but also on any additional purchase the customer makes after that.

The customer’s information ‘sticks’ to the affiliate after the purchase even if they never use the ID link again. Your affiliate will send tons of traffic to you because the financial gain is worth it.

How does Backpack work?

Backpack works in four steps:

Decide on a percentage for your affiliates then create a commission plan
Add your affiliate program to any sales funnel by adding two simple pages
Create an affiliate center for affiliates to easily promote your products
Track your ‘affiliate dashboard’ statistics and make payments

Actionetics MD

With Actionetics MD, you can create, schedule and deliver emails easily but it’s more than that. It acts as a follow-up funnel. You can use it to easily communicate with leads based on who they are, where they’re from and their behavior in the funnel. This ensures that you send them the right message at the right time and not treat all visitors the same.

Integrations

Take your sales funnel to the next level by integrating some of your favorite powerful tools. Clickfunnels can be integrated with several tools including Aweber, Converkit, Facebook, HubSpot, MailChimp, Kajabi, InfusionSoft, Zapier and others.

Price

Clickfunnels offers a free 14-day trial. If you’re happy with the product and want to upgrade, you can sign up for the basic plan which costs $97 per month. If you want to add Backpack and Actionetics for a full Clickfunnels Suite, it will cost you $297 per month and you get unlimited funnels, more payment gateways, and domains.

Support

Clickfunnels support is available from Monday to Friday between 9 am and 5 pm. You can click the ‘Get Help’ icon at the bottom right corner of the screen. To get help from your account, click the help menu. Enter your query and click ‘Continue’. Review the articles recommended to you. Then click ‘solved’ or ‘I still need help’ as required. Select an option from the menu and submit your ticket.

How Market Hero and Clickfunnels Can Work Together

If a lead/subscriber did not buy your upsell, no worries. You’ll simply send them a few emails to help them make a few purchases. And what if they actually bought your upsell? Fantastic! Move them to a list where they will receive specific emails at the right time and based on the behavior in the funnel.

That said, you can still use Clickfunnels on its own because it already has an email autoresponder feature. Market Hero on its own would work well for businesses geared towards email marketing and would like to establish the worth of their leads to determine the ROI.

What’s Your Decision?

Market Hero is majorly focused on email autoresponder services and is heavily sales-centric. This tool is ideal if your business is looking to drive sales of your products and services via email. The email templates may be limited with basic designs but the platform guarantees deliverability of your emails. Generally, this platform has good potential.

Clickfunnels on the other hand has a reputation for building high converting sales funnel. With over 90,000 entrepreneurs currently using the platform, it’s safe to say their product has the credibility that every business owner looks out for. Also, they provide a much wider range of services. So, does your business need a sleek email autoresponder platform? Or do you need a sales funnel designed to turn visitors into customers? Or will you use them both? You decide.

How to Create Product Pages in Magento (Beautiful Pages That Sell)

Product pages are the unspoken heroes of e-commerce. They serve as the stage where the most crucial purchase decision takes place on your online store.

A visitor could decide to either abandon their cart or check out because of the influence of your Magento website product page. Unfortunately, many business owners are caught in the race for web traffic and forget to optimize these very crucial pages.

Magento has also not been easy to configure in the past forcing website owners to hire expensive Magento developers to do the job. The platform does require knowledge of coding to set it. Fortunately, Magento 2.3 has an easy to use Page Builder for easy page creation. There are also excellent extensions out there that make product page design easy.

The platform is a gem for B2B businesses that require robust, configurable, and customizable e-commerce solutions. It is especially beneficial for retailers with extensive product catalogs. It provides customizable features such as quick ordering portals and merchandising and onsite marketing. It also utilizes layered attributes and navigation that make fantastic product attributes and type definitions.

Why you need optimized Magento product pages

If a website visitor gets to your product pages, then they are interested in what you have to offer. They might have come across your store via an ad, social media campaign, or through search. Your efficient site navigation then takes them to your product pages. They are now just a clock away from making a purchase.

If your pages are not optimized, your visitor will most possibly click away or abandon the cart. Unoptimized product pages are the bane of many an e-commerce store. If you want better sales results than your ordinary e-commerce shop owner, below are some tactics that you can use to create and optimize your Magento webpage.

Parts of a Magento product page

First, you need to understand what the components of a product page are. Every product page should have;

Branding on every product page

Your visitors might bypass your homepage and miss your logo. To ensure that you are easily recognizable, place your branding elements on your interior pages as well.

A product at the center of the page’s attention

Do not place it as an afterthought.

Fantastic copy

Ensure that your text flows with other elements of your product page to give everything a harmonious feel.

Design

This is a crucial element of your pages, and you can use it to create harmony amongst all items. Let your design be user-friendly and functional.

Tips on how to optimize your product pages

Clarify your product page’s call to actions (CTAs)

Do not place your buy button out of sight. Your visitors should not have to look for it. Make your buy button colorful, bold, and big. Ensure that it is the only text on your page that has a background or fill color.

If you have other CTAs on your page, place them away from your buy button. Let them not steal the thunder from your moneymaker. As for the button’s text, let it be as simple as possible.

Use high quality and creative images

An e-commerce store is very dependent on images. Nevertheless, not all photos are created equal. Do not take your product pictures using your Smartphone. You need professional photography to impress your visitors. So, pay a little more for professional photo shoots or take a photography class and buy proper photography equipment.

Have good shots at all angles and put them in the context of use where possible. Pair your product image with its accessory image. Data shows that well-placed accessories can increase your conversions by 271%

Use social proof

Data shows that a consumer is more likely to purchase a product or service from your e-commerce store if other consumers recommend it. Consequently, 84% of all online buyers trust online reviews as much as they believe word of mouth recommendations from their friends.

You, therefore, need to encourage reviews on your website or blog by making follow-ups for reviews after purchase are made. Do not place long review sentences on your product page. Instead, place minute information such as several reviews and ratings above the fold, then place the reviews further down the page.

Videos

Did you know that 90% of all online buyers say that videos assist them when they are making their final purchase decisions? A video can display your product much better than multiple images can.

This is why 70% of all marketers agree that a video converts buyers better than other types of content if your products require more explanation that text or images can use a “how-to” video instead.

Create killer product descriptions

If you can infuse your product descriptions with imagination and emotions, you will attract more buyers. The description should be short and direct so as not to bore your buyers. Ensure that the language that you use on your descriptions fits your target audience.

Put trust signals on the pages

Trust signals are features that help increase your shopper’s comfort and trust when they are making their purchase decisions. Place yourself in your shopper’s shoes and understand their worry when checking out your product pages. It could be the cost or duration of shipping.

Ensure that you have links next to your call to action that address these questions. Enable wish lists for those visitors that are not ready to purchase immediately so that you can eliminate every obstacle to sales.

At times, simple additions such as live support option for buyers can give your buyers the privacy and comfort they need to contact you easily and fast with their product questions.

Make your Magento product pages printer friendly

Some of your customers might need to print a product page to show it to another possible buyer or to buy it later on larger screen sizes. You, therefore, do not want to constrain their access to information. Enable printing of pages to ensure that anyone can have the information on the go.

Perform A/B tests

It is impossible to tell how optimized your e-commerce pages are if you do not try various layout, copy, design, image, CTA, or video approaches. A/B testing is an ongoing process, so you will never be done with it because you will need to keep up with Magento e-commerce development requirements.

How to create product pages in Magento 2

Magento has various product type fields with different configurations and properties. You can, therefore, use this platform to sell all types of goods and services. Want to know how to create a product page via Magento admin? Here is the process;

If you already have a Magento installation, go to your Magento backend and access the admin section. To enter your first product, go to the Catalog tab then click Products.
On Products, click the Add Product tab to access its drop-down menu. Click the option of Simple Product to access the page’s general configurations tab. To configure your product, enable it, which should give you access to configurations such as;
- The stock keeping unit or SKU. The platform recognizes that a product should have a stock keeping unit or individual number, so it will assign one to your product. You can, however, edit it if necessary.
- Product name
- A drop-down custom attribute set menu
- A product taxation tab for your product’s tax class
- A price tab where you can set simple prices or access advanced settings for complex pricing requirements such as group prices suggested manufacturer price or special prices
- The dimension of a product and its weight
- The quantity in stock, which can be edited in advanced inventory
- Visibility attributes
- Product category
- Country of manufacture
Once you have chosen and edit the attributes of the products from their drop-down menus, click Save to continue.
Below these attributes, you will find the Content tab. Here you can add product descriptions. This tab also has the store view’s Short Description.
Add other content on the Images and Videos tab to attract your customers.
Take the next step to improve the rankings of your product page. On the Search Engine Optimization tab, set up your product’s Meta Description, URL key, Meta Keywords, and Meta Title.
Once that is done, you can now move to the target-marketing tab under Related Products, Up-Sells, and Cross-Sells. Here add product settings that target your e-commerce store’s customers.
Under Customizable Options, add any other configurations on offer to increase conversions.
If you have any other websites connected to your Magento admin panel, use the Product in Websites tab to assign them your product.
After the configurations, now move to the Design tab of the product page. Under design, you can select the layout and its type of block product display
Once you are all set in design, go to Gift options and enable it if you wish to
Save the changes.

Brilliant! Your product is ready to sell on your e-commerce platform.

Other product creation options in Magento

In Magento 2, you can also create products with different configurations beyond the simple product option. These include;

The Configurable Product tab that ensures that each product has a set of configurable SKUs that can be tracked in the inventory. You can access this tab from the Add Product menu then follow the same process that configures simple products.

In the Configurations section, you will find the Create Configurations tab with options such as Select Attributes, Attribute Values, Bulk Images, and Price and Summary. Set these options as desired, then click Generate Products.

There is also a Grouped Product option in Magento 2. You can use it to sell thematically related goods that can be purchased together. This is especially important for products that sold with their accessories. Simply select Catalog, Products then choose the Grouped Product option.

Add product’s general attributes then save. Scroll down and choose the Add Products button, choose the products that you would like to group then click Add Selected Products. In the next menu, indicate factors such as quantity, then activate the grouped products and save.

Other product page options include virtual, bundle, and downloadable product page creation, all under the Add Product drop-down menu.

Creating product pages using Magento 2 extensions

You can also use a Magento extension such as the Shogun’s drag and drop editor to build your product pages. Shogun Page Builder works with Magento 2 and is a more cost-effective product page building option for Magento developers. You can use it to create fantastic product pages, with zero code use.

To use Shogun Page Builder, install it on your latest version of Magento. How do you do that?

Access your Magento admin page, and then go to the System, then the Web Setup Wizard.
Select your site’s Extension Manager and Sign In. Input the Shogun page builder’s Private Access Key and Public Access Key and submit it.
Navigate to the Extensions Ready to Install tab and choose the Shogun Page Builder extension. Click install.
After the installation, perform a Readiness Check to verify compatibility, then a store backup.
After the backup, go to Setup, System Configuration, and then click Reset. Flush the cache too at Cache Management.
Go to the Shogun extension via your Admin bar, Stores, Configurations, and Settings.
Use your extension to create custom product pages or design new layouts using its intuitive visual builder.

Benefits of Shogun Page Builder

Unlike the Magento 2 Page builder, this extension has an A/B testing feature to increase conversions. The app also has robust page analytics and reporting features.
You do not need to learn Magento code to design beautiful product pages on it. This app is straightforward and easy to use.
It creates mobile-responsive pages that can be previewed on your editor
It has a wide range of customizable product page styling options and drag and drop elements as well.
You can use the Shogun Page Builder to publish content across multiple stores.

FAQs

What is the Magento page builder?

The Magento Page Builder is a visual drag and drop content creator inbuilt into the Magento Commerce 2 platform. It has features such as live preview, creation of new content pages, and form editors.

Can I edit my page’s product details with the Magento 2 Page Builder?

Yes, you can. Go to Content > Pages then select your product page. Choose Edit Page, perform your changes, then click Save. Go to Store View, located at the top left corner, and ensure that you have the right Store View selected.
Afterward, flush your Magento store’s cache to ensure that the changes are displayed on your front end. Simply go to System, then Cache Management, and select Flush. Refresh your site.

How can I display my featured products on my Magento store’s homepage?

Go to Content > Page. Select your page and then Edit. Go to the Catalog Products list to choose your Category. Choose the Insert button and Save.

How can I display “New Products” on my Magento 2 home page?

Access your store’s admin panel, and then go to Product > Inventory, and then Catalog. Click on your new product to edit it then choose the Set Product as New From feature. Tap the calendar; select the product’s display period. Click Save.

Conclusion

Create optimized product pages to ensure high conversion on your Magento website. Do not lose any of your customers to poorly thought out product pages.

You can use the Magento product page builder, third party extensions such as Shogun Page Builder, or hire a Magento developer to design your product pages. However, ensure that your pages follow the guidelines that we have listed above for increased sales.

Further read:

How to Build a Blog in Magento (Even if You’re a Beginner)

Magento is a powerful and flexible ecommerce platform loved by many startups and large businesses alike.

On it, you will find a wide range of payment portals, such as Checkout by Amazon, PayPal, or Google. It also very mobile-friendly, critical success features for any Magento ecommerce website. Data shows that almost half of all online shoppers use mobile phones for purchases.

The Magento platform has a wide variety of SEO tools to ensure that your online store ranks high on search engines. What most business owners love about the platform is that it makes it very easy for them to manage their online shops because it is very expandable.

You can, therefore, use it to oversee thousands of product sales without much hassle. Unlike many other ecommerce platforms, Magento is highly customizable, making it easy for you to add useful ecommerce functions such as blogging features.

Why your ecommerce platform needs a blog

In the past, many online shops overlooked the importance of blogs and only focused on their product pages.

With time, the truth has dawned on many such retailers. You might have the best product or services online but have very few customers. Blogs are one method that can enhance the performance of your online store.

Blogging can create an effective content marketing strategy for your Magento ecommerce website. This mode of online marketing has become so vital for business success that 91% of all B2B online marketers use it to attract customers. More data shows that 60% of their counterparts in B2C marketing are ardent content marketers.

Benefits of a Magento blog extension

Your blog’s content will give answers to the questions that your customers might have. Every buyer out there is looking for answers, which is why Google Search processes close to 40,000 queries each second. This search engine processes 3.5 billion searches daily.

If your blog content delivers the answers to these questions, without forcefully marketing your products, you will build confidence and trust with your blog’s visitors. These visitors will eventually purchase from you.

Blogs can bring in more traffic to your ecommerce store. Data shows that an online shop with a blog gets 434% more of their pages indexed by Google than those that do not have a blog. An increase in crawled and indexed pages will bring you more organic traffic.
Blogs have become vital in the customer’s purchase making process such that 46% of customers in a UK consumer study, said that they visit blogs as part of their product or service investigation. The information in your blog can inspire your visitors to reach for the e-wallets.
An excellent blog’s return on investment can last for years, driving continuous traffic to your Magento site, nurturing profitable leads to your site passively.

How to install Magento blogs

Unfortunately, this robust ecommerce platform does not have its native blog functionality. Nevertheless, worries not; there are ways that you can implement blog features on your Magento ecommerce website. There are two main ways of integrating a blog to your Magento installation.

One is via the use of a custom Magento module or extension. The other option is via Magento to WordPress integration. Both options are not difficult to implement, as shown below.

Installing a Magento blog extension

The Magento marketplace has a wide range of blog extensions that you can use to add blog features to your online store. They provide attractive and unique blog design and marketing features that may not be as rich as those of a WordPress blog may, but very useful nonetheless.

When you have integrated these extensions through your Magento admin, the blog feature will appear on your dashboard for you to manage it.

Below is a simple process for installing a Magento blog extension.

Log in into your Magento backend as an admin and activate Cron to run every minute. On the sidebar, access the Web Setup Wizard by clicking on System then Tools.
On the Web Setup Wizard, choose the Extension Manager and Sign In. You will need to input and submit the extension’s Private Access Key and Public Access Key as received from the Magento marketplace.
Go to Extensions Ready to Install tab and choose the latest version of the Magento blog extension that you would like to install. Click Install then perform a Readiness Check to verify compatibility.
Do not forget to Create a Backup of your store, which will automatically be in Maintenance Mode till the backup is done.
Once the backup is done, your store will go offline to prevent any shopping disruptions as you add the new module. Click Install, and when it is complete, go back to the Setup Tool, then System Configuration. Click the Reset tab at the upper right corner.
Flush Caches at Cache Management. You can access this via System > Tools.
Go back to your Admin sidebar and access Configuration via Stores, then Settings. You will find your extension in the left-hand side panel. Follow any other instructions from the module’s developers to wind the process up.

When the extension is fully installed, you will see the Blog tab on the Magento admin’s top menu.

Best Magento blog extensions

Mirasvit Blog MX

Mirasvit is a free and powerful Magento blog solution that you can use to build a blog in your online store. It has beneficial blog features such as;

URLs and SEO friendly posts
Posts preview before a blog goes live
RSS feeds
Multiple level categories
Tag Cloud and Tags
Disqus comments
Pin posting features at the top of the page
Featured pictures for blog posts

Mirasvit Blog MX is fully responsive and easy to use due to its intuitive WYSIWYG editor. Through this custom Magento module, you will build enjoyable and easy to use blogs that avail customized content viewing such as latest entries, featured posts, or content categories.

It has an All Posts grid that allows you to edit blog characteristics such as status, header, author, Meta description, and Meta title. Through its WYSIWYG editor, you can edit the blog code to add your custom HTML code, images, or video rolls. This extension has a 90-day free support period, comprehensive documentation, and is open source to ensure that its users can customize it to fit their blogging demands.

Shogun Page Builder

Shogun Page Builder is one of the most popular ecommerce page builders out there. It is made to enhance your page’s conversion rates and create an enjoyable shopping experience for your online store customers.

This extension has a wide range of customizable drag and drop elements that enable the building of pages such as landing pages, blogs, or product pages.

You do not need to learn Magento coding practices to use Shogun. The module has an easy to use user interface that creates mobile-responsive pages. You can use the module to build new blog layouts or use it pre-designed templates to ease your work.

Some of its fantastic blog features include;

Robust statistics that you can use to gauge the number of blog visitors, bounce rates, and other useful metrics.
On Shogun, you can design page variants with minimal differences such as the positioning of elements of colors then perform A/B tests. These tests will identify the pages or content that your visitors love best as a guide for your content creation strategy.
You can use the Shogun Page Builder to launch your blog’s SEO audit to ensure that it is well optimized for search engines
You can also use the extension to perform programmed posting so that you do not have to update your blog pages when there is too much web traffic.

WordPress Magento blog integration

WordPress is one of the most popular blog content management systems in the world. The CMS powers over 60 million of all the 500 million blogs that exist worldwide. Its influence, however, is more considerable because it runs 60.2% of the world’s content market.

The CMS has a wide variety of blogging plugins, themes, sliders, galleries, and widgets to give you complete freedom in blog customization and creativity. WordPress has a low learning curve with a very easy to use user interface.

If you choose to create a WordPress blog to supplement the blogging needs of your Magento store, you will face the problem of maintaining two separate websites. You will, therefore, pay more for additional modules and have the inconvenience of hopping from one platform’s backend to the other.

You can, however, use Magento plugins that integrate WordPress to your Magento installation. Extensions such as the free FishPig module will allow you to use one single theme or dual themes on both CMSs. It also has useful modules such as a single sign-on module or one that groups both your blog’s and store search results.

Alternatively, you can use WordPress as a standalone blog for your Magento store. A WordPress blog on a separate domain can be linked to your Magento shop via a WordPress blog link. Consequently, you will have blog links on your header or footer. You can also integrate the website and blog via the cart to the blog module.

There are, however, many disadvantages to this practice. First, your visitors will not access your cart on the header while scrolling the blog. They will always have to click back to the Magento to make a purchase.

This can force some of your visitors out of the sales funnel. There are also other disadvantages for users, such as dual sign-ups to both websites and lesser search capabilities. This option will also deny your Magento store, the SEO benefits of an excellent blog.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I customize my blog’s layout in Magento 2?

Go to System > Configuration > Layout. Edit your design or content features then click Save. Go to System > Cache Management. Select Flush and refresh your site.

How can I create blog categories on my Magento site?

Access your admin panel then navigate to Content > Blog > Categories. Add a new Category using the available button, then click Enable Category.

How can I add my blog’s link to my Magento store’s top navigation menu?

Go to your Magento store’s backend, then select Stores > Configuration > Blog. Choose the Category Top Navigation tab, then navigate to the Display Blog Link. Indicate your blog link in the Link Text tab, and then select the Include Blog Categories field to enable blog categories.

Conclusion

The benefits of a Magento blog extension or a WordPress blog are endless for your online store. Choose the method that will help you to post better content consistently to increase traffic to your ecommerce store. Study the practices of blog building to ensure that your business is reaping all the benefits of content marketing.

Related Posts:

How to Create Landing Pages in Magento (2021 Update)

Magento is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms for growth-oriented retailers, entrepreneurs, and business owners. Magento works for all store sizes, be they small business startups, large existing organizations, or e-commerce shops migrating into its ecosystem for its many benefits. It is undeniable, however, that Magento has a steeper learning curve than you would find in other platforms such as Shopify.

In the past, it was challenging to make sense of Magento without the help of a Magento developer. Luckily for you, with the platform’s many readymade themes and extensions, you can have a Magento store up and running much faster. The platform has a large community rallying around it, so it is quite easy to have just about any e-commerce feature you would like on your Magento store. One of those must-have features are landing pages.

What is a landing page?

A landing page is designed with a specific advertising or marketing purpose. These pages give the visitor the information that they need fast. It should also provide details on how to contact the visitor. A good landing page encourages action that will improve conversions. Home pages, product pages, and their categories cannot be substitutes for landing pages.

These pages work independently, stand-alone, and have their unique elements. The importance of landing pages has come to the forefront in the new customer satisfaction oriented retail culture. They offer the customer customized and targeted products in contrast to most other web pages that have diverse options for different customers.

Landing pages are therefore used to counter the “paradox of choice.” This is a phenomenon that makes it difficult for people to make a choice when the options presented to them are too diverse.

Main differences between Homepages and Landing pages

The Main Differences between Homepages and Landing Pages are:

Homepages have a multitude of links placed on their content, footers, and navigation menu, whereas Landing Pages have minimal connections to increase conversion rates.
Homepages are a hub that enables users to navigate to the broadest parts of your website and rarely focus on calls to action (CTAs), whereas Landing Pages are made to convey a specific CTA.
Homepages receive visitors at the top of the sales funnel; they are undecided about their choices, whereas Landing Pages receive visitors that are more likely to move deeper into your sales funnel since they are sure about what they want.

5 reasons why you need a landing page

They’re great for conversions: You direct your leads to a page with a single focus where they can only take a specific desired action. If you’re able to convince them with high-quality landing page copy, you can get many subscribers.
Landing pages support ads: Once you have an ad out there, it’s easier to convert leads through a landing page dedicated to giving more information on what the ad was all about.
You get to distinguish your services: If your site has a ton of products and services, it may easily confuse your target audience. Landing pages will be only about that one thing that your prospect is looking for.
They’re perfect for testing: You can easily conduct different types of tests on a well-crafted landing page.
Excellent user experience: Since it’s a dedicated page that has one specific call to action, your reader is not confused or distracted by any other page elements.

Different types of landing pages

Your Magento website can have two main types of landing pages

Lead generation or lead capture pages that are data collection tools. They will collect information on your engaged customers, so they have a lead capture form. Here your customers are subtly asked to input their phone numbers, email addresses, names, job titles, or age range. This information can help you to tailor customized offers, ads, and email marketing campaigns.
Click through pages with CTA buttons that guide your visitors to a page where they can complete the desired action. You will find this type of landing page more on a Magento e-commerce site or any other site with a sales bent.

How to use the Magento 2 page builder

Magento 2.3 has a robust page builder that you can use to create and edit your Magento e-commerce store dynamic blocks, blocks, and CMS pages. The tool has a visual drag and drop builder as well as some beneficial content management features.

It will make it easy for you to create and configure the design and layout of your categories and product pages as well as any dynamic elements you might want to add to them. You need Magento Commerce 2.3.1 to access this useful feature. If you have not upgraded your Magento Commerce version, now would be a good time to do so.

Unfortunately, the other Magento variants, Open Source 2.3.1does not have this feature. If you are using open-source Magento, you will need to install third-party page builder extensions. They work perfectly, too, and will display your page’s front-end interface inside your website’s backend, making it very easy for you to drag and drop elements as desired.

Inside the Magento Page Builder

The Page Builder offers a clear field to give ample space to drag and drop your page elements as you deem fit. It has several tool sets on your left t hand side, which include;

Layout sets that place rows and columns on your pages. It can also build tabs.
Elements set that adds buttons, headings, and text
Media set that will add maps, videos or pictures onto your page
Content set that adds dynamic or static content blocks

Landing page design on Magento page builder

The Page Builder makes it especially easy for you to create a fantastic landing page from the admin panel. You do not need to procure expensive Magento developer services for regular landing pages creation. To create a landing page using this useful tool, simply follow the instructions below;

Log into your Magento admin, then go to the Content tab, choose Elements, then Pages. Press the Add New Page link, and name your page. Enable it to make it active.
To view more design options, expand the Content tab then add the landing page’s heading into its field. Drag and drop all the landing page elements you would prefer on the clear canvas, via the Media, Elements, Layout, and Content toolsets. To edit your chosen components, expand the little gear sign to access their settings.
When the landing page is set, you now need to work on SEO for Magento landing pages. Move to the Search Engine Optimization tab and infill the Meta Title, URL Key, Meta Description, and Meta Keywords fields.
Now, your page is almost ready to go live on your Magento shop, but you need to define its view on the Websites tab. In the Hierarchy section, specify the ranking of your landing page.
If you have any new landing page templates or themes that you would like to set up, do so in the Design tab and input the Layout Update XML. Save the page, and you are ready to start marketing with your new landing page.

Third-party Magento 2 landing page templates

If you are using Magento Open Source, or are unsure of your Magento web design expertise, you can download a third-party landing page template for use. Below are two of the best models available for Magento landing pages.

Shogun Page Builder

The Shogun Page Builder App is perfect for extra Magento Page Builder customizations. You can use it to control the features of your content, elements, and page layout. With the Shogun page builder, you do not need to edit any Magento code. Simply use its intuitive drag and drop builder, which integrates perfectly with Magento 2 to create a stellar landing page in minutes.

Start by installing the Shogun extension into your Magento shop through the admin panel. Create your new page or use its pre-made templates. From the Shogun editor, access a variety of creatively designed email capture forms, sliders, countdown times, social icons, and other useful elements that will make your page as effective as possible.

Users love this extension all over the world because it does build not only great SEO landing pages but also has analytics reporting features to help you gauge your landing page’s performance. It also allows the running of A/B tests to assist in page optimization.

The Shogun landing page builder has a variety of SEO tools that include a responsive design, automatic image compression, and easy editing of image ALT, Meta titles, and Meta descriptions. It is used by thousands of businesses around the world, including MVMT Watches, K-Swiss, Chubbies, and Leesa Mattresses

MageWorx Landing Pages

MageWorx is perfect for the fast creation of SEO friendly and customizable landing pages for your Magento e-commerce shop. This Magento extension will help you to add copy, images, videos, and content blocks at the top or bottom of your landing pages.

You can also use the extension to specify page metadata and URLs for all your website’s Store Views. MageWorx is compatible with the Magento 2 and integrates with the platform’s SEO extension to create user and search engine friendly landing pages.

6 Benefits of good landing pages

They will give your website an SEO boost

While landing pages are meant for conversions, functional landing page design calls for SEO optimized landing pages. If your Magento landing page is SEO optimized, it will rank higher in Google. This page will, therefore, attract more visitors to your website. An SEO friendly landing page will not only enhance your visitor’s user experience but will also make your website rank higher on Google since the search engine favors organic content.

They increase conversion rates

Since landing pages are optimized for conversions, they make the purchase process easier for visitors, increasing your sales. They also increase the engagement rates for advertising campaigns because they are tailored to address your buyer’s needs.

They will enhance your online credibility

Since a landing page is designed for a specific task and has a clear course of action, your visitors will recognize that you do understand what it is that they need. They also will see that beyond you understanding their problems, you have even thought about the best way to fix them. Besides, you can use testimonials on them as social proof.

They will increase brand awareness

Some of the most crucial elements of a landing page, such as its feel, style, copy, and content, are creatively crafted to ensure maximum effectiveness. As a result, landing pages are lovely and can go a long way in increasing your brand’s recognition amongst customers.

The strong brand identity of landing pages can make you memorable to users meaning that they will visit your Magento website more often or recommend you to other users.

They attract new website users

Landing pages will attract new visitors to your website from search engines and social networks. They can, however, do much more by collecting demographic data via capture or contact forms. Your marketing team can access this information, segment it, and use it to target these new leads.

They provide fantastic analytics data

Your Magento shop can use your landing pages to track and analyze the actual and wholesome data that they are capable of collecting. You can, for instance, collect data that informs you about the success of your marketing strategy. Use the information gleaned from these pages to optimize and improve your e-commerce marketing strategy.

Elements of an effective Magento landing page

Having an attractive landing page templates is one thing while having an effective lead page is quite another. There is no manual out there that can detail the creation of a high converting landing page. Why? Every e-commerce platform has a unique selling point.

Nevertheless, there are some core elements or building blocks that can guide you in crafting the perfect Magento marketplace landing page.

Main headline

A lot of thought should go into your landing page’s headline. Perhaps you have not heard about it, but there is a 15-second span that dictates whether a visitor will stick on and read more from your webpage, or leave in a huff. Online visitors generally stay on one webpage for less than 15 seconds.

If your landing page has not caught their attention within that time, you will lose them to your competitor. To reduce your Magento website’s bounce rates, you need to ensure that your visitors find what it is that they are looking for in a glance.

A fantastic page header should, therefore, capture the attention, interest of a user and should be easy to comprehend. Your visitor should understand what it is that you are selling in a single phrase. A good headline should not have more than 20 words, and the shorter and sweeter, the better.

Supporting headers

A good headline might capture the attention of its audience, but it needs a persuasive subheading to engage them. The subtitle should be under the main header and should be more detailed than its predecessor should.

The basic rule of thumb with your subheadings also is the shorter, the better. There are Magento templates that break these rules by flipping the subheads with the headline. They, of course, will give the main heading a differentiating attribute such as large fonts or central positioning.

Reinforcing statements

These are optional, but you can use them to strengthen your unique product or service-selling proposition. They will give your visitors additional chances to convert. There should, therefore, offer any other information amiss from the main headers and inject a level of urgency of the call to action in place.

The hero image or video

In the war between text and images, images win out most of the time. Why? The human brain loves pictures. Did you know that the brain can process an entire image in less than 13 seconds? It loves this information mode so much that people will only remember 10% of what they read three days later.

They will, however, recall 65% of what they saw after three days. Your landing page users will be influenced faster and more effectively by the images on the page. For this reason, use high quality, relevant and large images to make the best impression.

A unique selling proposition (USP)

What is it that sets your service or product apart from your competitors? You should, at a glance, ensure that your visitors understand what it is that makes the offer on your Magento landing page unique. Let your explanation be benefit-oriented and transparent. This unique selling proposition will satiate the curiosity raised by your compelling headlines.

The explanation can target human psychology by working on the avoidance of pain or the pursuance of pleasure. Humans subconsciously seek to alleviate or to avoid loss or pain, and every product or service is meant to meet this purpose. You should, for instance, mention that your visitor would lose something of value if they resist your offer.

The theory of loss aversion supports this selling point meaning that your visitor will be willing to pay to avoid loss. You can also use genuine pain references as testimonials to prove your offering’s ability to alleviate this discomfort. You can moreover pursue pleasure in your explanation by showing how your product induces pleasure or how it could meet an emotional need.

Social proof

To increase your Magento e-commerce store’s conversion rates, use social proof to influence your buyer’s decision positively. You can use case studies, logos of your buyer’s businesses, reviews from major e-commerce platforms, video testimonials, or interviews, and genuine quotes from your clients.

Contact details

To strengthen trust, place multiple contact points on your landing page or contact form to reassure your buyers that you are a legitimate trader.

A promise

People love to feel reassured, so use this attribute on your landing page to improve conversion rates. Coin a pledge that works for service or product and position it close to your CTA.

A call to action

The call to action feature is the most critical part of landing page design. Every other element on your page is there to ensure that your buyers pay attention to your CTA. Some of the best practices of CTA design include a large CTA with persuasive, explosive, and exciting compelling copy.

Online buyers are also very used to CTA buttons so, use them too. Use a color that contrasts your webpage’s background color to attract the eye.

Negative space

Your landing page should not be cluttered to ensure that your page elements and their relationship to each other are evident. Leave a significant amount of negative space to guide your visitors to your call to action. Exclude additional navigation or exit link that might cause your users to abandon the landing page.

FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions

How can I edit a landing page on Magento?

Go to Content, Pages then select your landing page. Choose Edit Page, perform your changes, then choose Save. Go to Store View, located at the top left corner, and ensure that you have the right Store View selected.
Afterward, flush your Magento store’s cache to ensure that the changes are displayed on your frontend. Simply go to System, then Cache Management, select Flush. Refresh your site.

How can I display items from different product categories on my landing page?

Yes, assign your landing page’s preferred store view from the General settings tab.
Access the Conditions tab, and select your preferred product categories or subcategories that you would like on your landing pages.

Can I have different landing pages for each of my store views?

Yes, assign your landing page’s preferred store view from the General settings tab.

Can I import landing pages into my Magento site?

The Magento Page Builder has very flexible design settings and allows you to export or import landing pages via CSV. Simply go to navigate to the Admin Panel, System, and then Configuration. Access the Landing Pages tab and shift your site’s configuration scope to the website. This action should enable the import feature. Move to the Content tab, then navigate to Pages and select Import to upload your preferred landing page.

Conclusion

This tutorial on how to create landing pages in Magento is crucial to your e-commerce marketing strategy. Use it to build phenomenal Magento e-commerce landing pages and watch your business scale to new heights. Use the Magento Page Builder feature or the third party extensions featured, and landing pages creation will be a breeze for you.

Further read:

The Best Clickfunnels Alternatives: Better Options are Out There! [Updated Picks 2021]

Building a sales funnel that converts from scratch can be a huge time pit. That’s time you likely don’t have, especially in a competitive sales pipeline market as in 2020. Clickfunnels is a solid tool that a lot of people love, but there are some solid Clickfunnels alternatives that you need to know about. Here are 10 just-as-good, if not better choices (we added a couple today too).

Fortunately, you don’t have to. There’s ClickFunnels, the popular website and sales funnel builder for entrepreneurs. And shocking to some ClickFunnels diehards as it is, there also about a dozen best ClickFunnels alternatives.

So, can what ClickFunnels does all ClickFunnels alternatives do better?

Here’s the thing:

ClickFunnels not only markets itself as an all-in-one sales and marketing funnel software, but it also packs enough tools to back up its claims. That makes it a top funnels builder to beat for many small and medium businesses.

Some of the best ClickFunnels features include the ability to:

Use its top-notch drag-and-drop page builder. No coding required.
Take advantage of some of the most powerful marketing funnel automation tools around, including Facebook marketing automation, without giving away too much control
A/B test your pages
Build membership site funnels
Create your own affiliate program
Host your site on ClickFunnels so you can manage almost all your sales and marketing in one place
Use myriad integrations including with most email marketing platforms and Zapier
Convert webinar attendees to warm leads and then buying customers
Select from over 20 ready-to-use templates—from landing pages to capture pages to sales pages to thank you pages, among others, so you don’t have to waste time starting from scratch
Use its power-packed shopping cart and billing page optimization tools optimized to reduce cart abandonment
Create product launch funnels and run entire product-based online businesses
Test it out against top ClickFunnels alternatives with its free 14-day trial

On the flipside, ClickFunnels tends to overdeliver for some small businesses. That means its versatility, huge catalog of features, and customization options can feel overwhelming.

All that sales funnel power also comes at a price.

And while you own the data as a ClickFunnels user, if you decided ClickFunnels is not for you, later on, you’d not be able to access your valuable data anymore.

But you can download a CSV file of your contacts before deleting your ClickFunnels account.

If you are looking for a more powerful, truly all-in-one sales and digital marketing platform, you’d also want to consider elsewhere.

So, what other sites like ClickFunnels compare when it comes to building sales funnels that convert?

Here are 10 ClickFunnels alternatives to consider right away.

Convertri

Unlike most other ClickFunnels alternatives here, Convertri may not be very well-known to you. That’s probably because it is one of the newer sales funnel platforms on the block. And that reason could be its greatest advantage.

Convertri has had time to study the competition, gather intel on some of the crucial conversion optimization techniques, and implement them in the fabric of their SaaS offering.

Special Convertri Features Include:

Free-form drag and drop funnel builder; while most platforms’ editors require users to first enter rows and then columns, Convertri is a true drag and drop builder. That means it’ll let you drag and drop any element into the desired page. No clunky rows, sections, and columns required. Depending on your funnel-building experience, that may make it easier to use.
That also means you are not limited to linear flows. You can also just click on an arrow and drag it in the direction of the subsequent funnel stage you want your leads to follow.
Share funnels with partners in a few clicks
A/B testing
Form validation
Supports custom HTML code and element cloning so you don’t have to create twice

Convertri vs ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels offers mobile-friendly sales funnels and web pages but Convertri goes further. Convertri comes with built-in, adjustable image compression technology, shortens unnecessarily long codes, and structures HTML best. And it does all that automatically, immediately a user hits the publish button.

Like ClickFunnels, it offers a 2-step click so you can capture all-important lead or customer data for later—say upsells, reminders, and personalized offers.

Appearances matter and Convertri will also let you build unlimited layers on any page for the best effects.

Also, while ClickFunnels will limit you to 20,000 visitors/month, Convertri allows up to 25,000 for the basic plan. And in addition to a custom domain, free hosting, and free SSL, it also provides a WordPress plugin so you can add a Convertri page to your WP website or blog.

But you have to use Chrome while in the Funnel Editor.

Overall, Convertri is built for speed, breezy funnel building, and conversion optimization at checkout. ClickFunnels still offers a host of more in-built features and better capability for selling physical products that the more digital-products-focused Convertri.

But the ClickFunnels alternative offers an API you can use to integrate only the tools you need and can afford than working with “bloatware”.

Convertri Pricing:

After a 14-day, $0.1 trial, Convertri will let you use the tools and up to 50 funnels, 45 templates and 500 pages for $59/month.

For $10 more, you’d be empowered to handle up to 100,000 visitors/month, 250 funnels, 2,500 pages, and about 200 templates. The Pro plan also lets teams collaborate within Convertri and use page importers.

Agencies get 4X the Pro plan benefits and 25 sub-accounts for your clients for $199/month.

Simvoly

This modern ClickFunnels alternative makes it to this list for a bunch of reasons the contemporary sales pipeline builder wants to see and use.

Unlike any other sales funnel software here, Simvoly can be your own white-label site and sales funnel builder. Simply choose that option and it’s all under your branding, custom CSS, pricing, templates, and offers.

Simvoly also offers free website hosting, domain, and, on top of the free templates, you can build your own to truly make the funnels yours at every stage.

Special Simvoly Features Include:

Easy-to-use drag-and-drop funnel builder
Build ecommerce sites as you wish—with zero transaction fees
Simvoly’s CRM works with every website or funnel you build
Generous templates that look elegant than the likes of LeadPages
Supports selling memberships, subscriptions, and recurring charges
Like ClickFunnels, it supports one-click upsells and downsells. Bump offers work especially great for upselling efforts
To help reduce cart abandonment, Simvoly will let you use its unique one-step checkout sales funnel tool
A/B test your efforts so you can optimize conversions and sales

ClickFunnels vs Simvoly

Compared to the base, $99/month ClickFunnels plan, Simvoly supports three websites, up to 33 domain connections (vs. 3), unlimited pages (vs. 100 pages), 30 funnels (vs. 20), and over 115,000 visitors per month (vs. 20,000).

So, if you don’t need advanced sales funnels, want a white-label solution that’s optimized for ecommerce, don’t need sophisticated sales pipeline automation or need to keep costs on the low, Simvoly can help.

However, you’ll be limited to not just much fewer in-built features, but also the number of integrations compatible with Simvoly—it doesn’t support Zapier, either.

Simvoly Pricing

This ClickFunnels comparison costs $59/month after a 14-day trial for full-blown features. But if you are just starting out and only need one site and funnel, the company lets you start out with both for $12/month.

Then you can advance to the $24/month plan if you have bigger projects that’d benefit from the power of 5 funnels and 3 sites.

Keap (Formerly Infusionsoft)

Infusionsoft is one of the most powerful comparisons to ClickFunnels and is actually one of the most powerful online marketing toolkits available. It is ideal for mid-sized businesses that require more features, customization, and power functions.

Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) Features:

Highly extensive landing page designs: With Infusionsoft, there is a strong landing page and opt-in form builder that allows you to create engaging and high-quality content pretty quickly. The landing page builder has a wide array of features, and it is pretty intuitive.
Comprehensive A/B testing
Effective customer management (CRM)
Email marketing automation: It is easy to create campaigns with a few canvas-style work areas, and there are also automation tools for a wide array of situations.

Infusionsoft vs ClickFunnels

Is Infusionsoft by Keap better than ClickFunnels?

If you want to upgrade to a truly all-in-one sales and marketing platform, have the cash to back your wishes, and a moving product already, go for Keap.

It’s powerful marketing automation tools come into play in its sales pipeline product as well. Expect to set up custom sales funnels that you can integrate with your marketing campaigns to see all sales and marketing activities in one place.

Keap also has an elaborate CRM tool that’ll let you see all your leads and current customers in one place.

You can use the CRM to automatically capture leads, track their online activity so you can nurture them along the funnel, and know when’s best to send them an offer, so you can finally convert them to buying customers.

Yet, ClickFunnels packs more comprehensive sales funnel building tools than Keap, costs less, and has a comparably less steep learning curve.

Keap Pricing

The price for Infusionsoft is about $99 per month, and this will include up to 2,500 Emails per month as well as a list size of about 50 contacts.

However, the Complete Plan can be bought for $379 a month, and this plan includes 10,000 contacts and well up to 50,000 Emails. Check out the latest pricing structures, or get an online demo of what Infusionsoft can really do here!

SamCart

While the major focus of SamCart is not on building landing pages, most small business owners consider it one of the full-packed shopping cart and checkout page platforms today. Anyone who wants to buy a membership site will definitely find SamCart useful, too.

SamCart Features Include:

SamCart’s One-Page Funnel is ideal if you don’t need a catalog store but want to sell many products on one page
Over 24 checkout page templates optimized to boost conversions
Integrates with the popular shopping cart and payments processing tools such as Stripe, PayPal, and major credit cards
You can make use of it to create funnels
Sales pages, upsell, and downsell are all customized
You get a sweet gateway between WordPress sales pages and checkout success pages.
It also has seamless integration with major utilities like Stripe, Drip, Zapier, HubSpot, PayPal, and Ontraport
Risk-free 14-day trial

SamCart vs ClickFunnels

SamCart is ideal for people who will like to sell e-books, physical products, and digital downloads.

Own a membership site and need to have robust payment plans or subscriptions?

SamCart offers those, as well, on top of order bumps, upsells, and downsells to help you make more sales and reduce cart abandonment.

Again, ClickFunnels offers more advanced sales pipeline tools and funnel automations than SamCart.

SamCart feels like a close ClickFunnels alternative because despite not having solid sales funnel capability, it does pack a decent slew of conversion optimization tools specifically for the sales page.

That’s unlike some competitors that are much more marketing and lead capture focused than sales page optimizers.

SamCart Pricing

When the free trial is done, you can choose one of the three monthly tiers or just purchase an annual plan for a discount SamCart offers the Basic Plan ($199 a month), the Pro Plan ($99 a month), and the Premium Plan ($199 a month) However, if you’ll like to make use of upselling features, you will have to start from the Pro Plan. You can always check out the free trial here!

10 Minute Funnels

10 Minute Funnels is a platform dedicated to meeting the needs of people who will like an easy way to make web pages, websites, and marketing funnels. It makes it easy for individuals or business organizations to create effective marketing systems and professional websites easily and affordably.

Apart from being an easy website and marketing funnel builder, there is a lot that users of 10 Minute Funnels stand to gain.

10 Minute Funnels Features Include:

Simply and instantly integrated drag-and-drop building.
You don’t have a limit on the number of pages you can create on your website
You can create quite a lot; live event pages, video pages, “thank you” pages, opt-in lead generation pages, sales pages, and much more.
You don’t need any technical skills to set it up
It is also mobile-responsive
24-hour support
Full hosting services even for secure websites that move fast
Inbuilt tools for SEO, split testing, a shopping cart, social media links, analytics, and more widgets

10-Minute Funnels vs ClickFunnels

Like its name suggests, 10-Minute Funnels will feel easy to start with—having a less-steep learning curve and demanding of technical skills to use daily than with ClickFunnels.

Like with ClickFunnels, you can use 10-Minute Funnels as a part of your larger sales and marketing strategy seeing it offers seamless marketing, CRM, and landing page optimization tools.

But you’d have to make do with not being able to create more thorough sales pipelines for more complex campaigns. 10-Minutes Funnels is ideal for solopreneurs or small businesses that want to do it themselves rather than have to hire a technician to build a simple funnel for them.

10-Minute Funnels Pricing

If you pay a dollar, you can easily try a free any-price plan for 14 days. However, after this free plan, you have both the premium and Enterprise Plans to choose from.

The Premium Plan is $97 per month (or $997 per year) while the Enterprise Plan is $197 a month (or $1,997 per year). Slightly high prices, but definitely worth all the features you’re going to get.

Check out the latest packages here.

Watch this FAQ video to learn if 10 Minute Funnels might be for you.

LeadPages

Being one of the first to do it, makes LeadPages a seasoned player in the sales pipeline solutions market. LeadPages developers show out their experience and evolving skill by helping users create stunning landing pages.

And therein is the biggest ClickFunnels and LeadPages comparison.

LeadPages is more of a landing pages platform than a comprehensive sales funnel service. That’s not to mean you can’t create converting sales funnels on LeadPages. But you may have to put in a little more work.

Expect over 130 different templates. Feel like going custom? If none works for you, you can also create yours.

LeadPages also lets users spend an extra 10-30 bucks to grab over 120 more templates by ThemeForest.

LeadPages Features Include:

Webinar hosting
Two different landing page editors: There’s one for beginners, and another for advanced users. The basic edition has more guides and help, while the advanced edition provides the ability to customize however you’ll like
Host webinars, capture leads and turn them into buyers
Create pop-ups to build your list
Powerful integration ability with Email providers, webinar platforms, and shopping cart tools to help lead more browsers to become leads and customers
14-day free trial to compare what you need and what LeadPages has to offer

LeadPages vs ClickFunnels

Overall, choose LeadPages over ClickFunnels if your business emphasizes the need for essential landing pages rather than advanced online sales funnel tools.

Grab LeadPages if your landing page copy can guide leads down to the “Buy Now” button. You’d save a lot of monthly costs that way.

In fact, you’d have to buy the $79 Pro plan to get A/B testing, online sales, and payments, as well as email sequencing links capabilities.

With LeadPages, you’d have to purchase separate integrations, including Stripe, Checkout, and more advanced sales funnel tools to build a basic funnel.

LeadPages Pricing

On LeadPages, there are 3 pricing tiers; Standard, Pro, and Advanced. The Standard goes for $37 per month, the Pro goes for $79 per month, and the Advanced is $199 per month.

Instapage

Instapage is known for having a better level of sophistication than many other landing page builders, and it offers members the freedom to create their own funnels on the group.

While Instapage has issues with integrating with membership platforms, it has a web-based editor that beats many other funnel builders.

There are over 200 sophisticated templates on Instapage, and its drag-and-drop editor is both easy to use and provides fluid customizability.

Instapage Features Include:

Heatmaps. The most unique Instapage benefit is the ability to monitor potential customers’ activity on your landing pages. That means you can track visitors and optimize your landing page, to know what they really click on and how far down pages they scroll.
Build unlimited pages and host 200,000 potential customers per month
Robust in-built analytics tool. Makes it easy for you to analyze the performance of your pages
A/B testing available
Huge library of templates and over 5,000 web fonts to further customize the templates to your brands best

Instapage vs ClickFunnels

Like Converti, Instapage also offers a full free-form page editor. That means, unlike ClickFunnels you don’t have to first enter rows, sections, and columns before creating attractive landing pages.

That makes it much easier to use than ClickFunnels, and even LeadPages, for some people. It helps to have

Like ClickFunnels, you can integrate Instapage with a host of favorite marketing, CRM, and ad stacks, including Salesforce, Infusionsoft, HubSpot, WordPress, Zoho, and more apps using Zapier.

Instapage also offers a sales team collaboration tool to help reps brainstorm and follow up on potential customers fast and easy.

Instapage Pricing

Just as it is with LeadPages, Instapage has three pricing tiers; the Core Plan, which costs $68 a month; the Optimizer Plan, which costs $113 a month; and the Team ad Agency Plan, which costs $203 a month.

Check out which plan works best for you here

Unbounce

The focus of Unbounce has always been on helping with the creation of landing pages that will enhance the marketing efforts of users. It has definitely been a driving force behind the revolutionization of page building experiences.

Unbounce Features Include:

Unbounce has a wide array of features that make it easy for users to build, integrate, and optimize their landing pages.

The Unbounce Builder: This is a drag-and-drop builder that is mile accessible, with targeted convertibles and text replacement.
Unbounce Convertables: With these, you will be able to target landing page visitors, integrate with basically anything, and set custom templates
Templates: You have the freedom to create custom convertibles from over 100 templates, or just create one from scratch by yourself.
Conversion Tools: You get an unlimited amount of A/B testing tries, tools for lead generation and conversion optimization. Lead notifications, and lightbox forms
You can easily integrate Unbounce with Email and analytics tools like WordPress, HubSpot, Zapier, Salesforce, MailChimp and Marketo

Unbounce vs ClickFunnels

Unbounce has a reputation for helping discerning sales teams and individuals create stunning-looking landing pages than make it easy for potential customers to make a purchase.

Still, Unbounce is more landing page focused than sales funnel ready. You do get over 100 landing page templates to kick-start your sales page creation process in minutes. You can be up and live in no time.

Be sure to use each dedicated landing page for each product you plan to sell to better focus visitors on just one goal; to convert on the page.

But if you plan on having to automate more complex sales funnel efforts, you may want to look elsewhere. Or stick with ClickFunnels.

Unbounce Pricing

There are three packages on Unbounce that are priced depending on whether you’ll like to make payments on a monthly or a yearly basis.

The Essential package comes with a $99 monthly charge, and it allows for the creation of 75 landing pages and 8 convertables.

With the Premium package, you pay $199 a month. You can build 150 landing pages, 16 convertables, and you get better conversion tools as well as sub-accounts.

On the Enterprise package, the starting point if $499 a month. However, this cost is determined by what you need.

Members get all the features of the Essential and Premium packages, as well as their Launch Specialist and Success Manager that will help you maximize ROI. On this package, you get over 375 landing pages and at least 40 convertibles.

Thrive Themes

ThriveThemes is a WordPress plugin that got acclaim for possessing the most understandable drag-and-drop landing page builder available anywhere on the internet. It is also loved for its affordability.

ThriveThemes gives its users access to more than 160 templates, therefore making it an awesome option for entrepreneurs and small businesses that are either just starting or are at the intermediate points of their businesses.

Thrive Themes Features Include:

On-page payments system
Affordable platform
With Thrive Leads, users can create opt-in forms.
There is also the Thrive Content Builder, which makes it easy for users to easily create catchy and engaging content
The Thrive Ultimatum allows for users to build scarcity campaigns that will make for easy conversion boosting.
With Thrive Themes, you can also easily publish landing pages on your WordPress site.
The Thrive Headline Optimizer allows users to optimize their sites’ content
Cleaver widgets help for the creation of widget-targeted content

ThriveThemes vs ClickFunnels

Like some other ClickFunnels alternatives here, ThriveThemes is ideal for salespeople looking for a simple conversion optimization solution. If you plan on selling digital products, ThriveThemes may be ideal. It even offers scarcity marketing tools such as countdown timers, and also displays credit card icons. But ThriveThemes doesn’t provide in-built payment processing functionality, so you’d have to grab an integration such as Stripe and PayPal.

ThriveThemes is actually a collection of WordPress plugins that come together to make a good funnel building solution, especially for WordPress sites.

ThriveThemes Pricing

Check out this side-by-side price comparison between ThriveThemes and ClickFunnels for a start:

ThriveThemes provides unlimited pages, 25 sites, unlimited simple funnels, and supports an unlimited number of visitors for under $20/month. A similar, unlimited package with ClickFunnels pricing would cost $299. But then again, that compares an apple and an orange as far as sales funnel capabilities matter.

Note that while ThriveThemes doesn’t offer a 14-day free trial like the rest here, it’s 30-day Moneyback Guarantee is a risk-free incentive to try the platform and see how well it matches your specific needs.

OptimizePress

OptimizePress, just like ThriveThemes, is a WordPress plugin. However, it differs in the fact that it was built for helping people create membership sites, landing pages, and sales pages for WordPress. Simple sales funnels directly on WordPress websites and blogs for optimal conversions.

OptimizePress Features Include:

Create webinar pages, product launch funnels, Thank You pages, and simple landing pages on your WordPress site
Marketing Page Builder: This is an innovative LiveEditor system that can help to create layouts and build pages.
Element Browser: This provides users with all the elements that are needed for the building of marketing sites and landing pages.
Membership Sites and Custom Product Delivery Sites: With these, you can create secure areas for some of your custom members.
WordPress Themes and Plugins: OptimizePress works seamlessly with all WordPress sites, and it enables users to create landing pages and design sales pages that can be added to their blogs on WordPress.
LaunchSuite: With this, users will be able to create funnels for the launches of their products

OptimizePress vs ClickFunnels

That also means you’d have a higher level of control over how you implement your sales pipeline because you own the WordPress pages the funnels are based on.

Many small businesses find they need fewer automations and more control to make their online sales processes truly theirs and scalable as they like. OptimizePress can help with that.

Like hosted services such as Unbounce and Instapage, OptimizePress offers checkout page tools such as countdown timers and a selection of 40 landing pages and 12 sales page templates.

One of the advantages of OptimizePress is its affordability; the platform is more affordable than most other landing page builders, and on it, you can either choose the Core, Publisher or Pro Plan.

OptimizePress Pricing

All these plans come with one full year of updates and various support. If you’ll still like to make use of it then you’ll have to pay $39 per year to keep your updates and support.

The Core package has a one-time fee of $97, and members get up to three sites. The publisher package has a one-time fee of $197, and it includes all the features of the Core package and more.

The Pro package is targeted at small businesses, advanced marketers, and enterprises who will like to own more than 10 websites. It costs a one-time fee of $297, and it comes with the features of both other packages and more.

11. Wishpond

You may have heard about Wishpond from their popular social promotions apps. What you may not know (until now), is that Wishpond also has all the tools you need to build a complete sales funnel. And the best part? Wishpond’s prices are affordable for businesses of all sizes.

Wishpond’s Features:

Integrated, powerful marketing automation, email marketing, lead management & lead generation tools. Wishpond allows you to optimize all areas of your sales funnel in one place.
400+ fully customized landing page and website popup templates, and 100+ industry-specific premade campaigns that make it easy to launch sales funnels in no time.
10 different contest apps, including viral contests, Instagram hashtag competitions, and sweepstakes that help you generate engagement and grow your email list.
A marketing team that helps you every step of the way. From getting your sales funnels up & running to ongoing optimization for guaranteed performance.

Wishpond vs ClickFunnels

How does Wishpond compare to ClickFunnels?

Wishpond was built to make simple and powerful sales funnels for an affordable price. That is why it’s ideal for small to medium-sized businesses who want to kickstart or scale their online marketing.

The nice thing about Wishpond is that it combines (and expands) the power of other landing page builders such as Instapage and Unbounce, with the ability to run advanced email marketing campaigns, like MailChimp and Sendinblue.

If social media is a key piece of your marketing strategy, Wishpond also allows marketers to grow their audience with a powerful suite of social contest apps.

While Wishpond has a lot of positive qualities, the one downside is that you still need to set up your funnels to start. ClickFunnels walks you through the funnel building process as one cohesive step, so overall I’d say Wishpond has a steeper learning curve than its competitors.

Wishpond Pricing

You can use Wishpond free for 14 days. It’s important to mention that every plan includes full use of Wishpond’s lead generation and email marketing apps. The main difference is the number of contacts you can store in your account at any given time.

Starting Out Plan:

$75/month or $588/year
1,000 contacts

Everything You Need Plan:

$149/month or $1,188/year
2,500 contacts

Rapid Growth 10k Plan:

$199/month or $2,388/year
10,000 contacts

If you need more contacts or would like to know more about Wishpond’s pricing options, you can choose the higher tier Rapid Growth plans on their plans page.

The best part? You can get their monthly Basic plan for only $25/month using Change Creator Mag’s gift code. Click here to snag the deal.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is better than Clickfunnels?

It depends on what you want to accomplish, Leadpages is a great tool that can help you create some amazing sales pages, but to create your online funnel, you will have to put in a bit more work.

Do I need a website to use Clickfunnels?

A solid WordPress website, when used with Clickfunnels can get you the best of both worlds, sales funnel creation and a solid brand presence. You can start with your website first, then capitalize on organic traffic from search engines and make them an offer and upsell using Clickfunnels.

Is Clickfunnels worth it?

Russel Brunson built this tool to solve a specific problem (to create scalable digital sales funnels) and anybody can use it. It works if you have a great offer, but there are other tools that can do what Clickfunnels can do for less cost and are just as easy to use.

Conclusion: Which is the Best ClickFunnels Alternative?

Deciding on a ClickFunnels alternative isn’t easy. Your choice will always depend on your business goals, technical know-how, and of course budgets. If you are still on the fence about which to choose, here’s a comparison chart.

PRODUCT	COSTS	FEATURES	INTEGRATIONS	EASE OF USE
Clickfunnels	Free 14-day trial, then either $97 per month, $297 per month	Use templates to create landing pages, great online customer service	Clickfunnels integrates with 1000 + apps with Zapier	Easy to use for the non-techie
Convertri	Convertri's plans costs from $59/month up to $199/month for Agencies- Pro Plan	Some of the features apart from it's drag-and-drop funnel builder are A/B testing, form validation and supports custom HTML code.	Convertri has built-in integration with a long list of top services, and anything that is not on the list, you can use HTML form integration.	Yes! Convertri has a true drag-and-drop funnel builder making it fun and easy to use.
Simvoly	They claim to be the most affordable funnel building program on the market starting at $12/month up to $149/month for their Pro Plan.	Features include: funnel builder, build ecommerce sites, elegant templates, supports selling memberships, A/B testing and adding one-click upsells, as well as one-click checkouts.	Simvoly doesn't support Zapier and has overall less integration options than Clickfunnel. It does integrate with GetResponse, ActiveCampaign, MailChimp, etc...	Simvoly is quite easy to use and also includes drag-and-drop features, but if you feel too overwhelmed you can always just get their Magic Website Wizard to use AI technology to build a website based on your keywords.
Keap (InfusionSoft)	Starting at 99 per month Complete Plan is $379 a month	Highly extensive landing page designs A/B testing Effective customer management Automation for Email features, including Email marketing	Integrates with Gmail, Outlook, other programs with Zapier	InfusionSoft takes a lot of technical knowledge, takes time to learn how to use
SamCart	Basic Plan ($199 a month), the Pro Plan ($99 a month), and the Premium Plan ($199 a month)	You can make use of it to create funnels. Sales pages, upsell, and downsell are al customized You get a sweet gateway between WordPress sales pages and checkout success ages. It also has seamless integration with major utilities like Stripe, Drip, Zapier, Hubspot, PayPal, and OntraPort. You also get a free 14-day trial	SamCart integrates with all the main email marketing tools, as well as Zapier	Users claim that this program is super easy to use but there is a learning curve. It is known as one of the easiest shopping cart integrations out there.
10 Minute Funnels	Premium Plan is $97 per month (or $997 per year) while the Enterprise Plan is $197 a month (or $1,997 per year)	You don’t need any technical skills to set it up It is also mobile-responsive 24-hour support Full hosting services even for secure websites that move fast Inbuilt tools for SEO, split testing, a shopping cart, social media links, analytics, and more widgets	Integrates with Aweber, Mailchimp, will have to contact support for certain integrations	With the drag and drop options, plus templates, this is one of the easier programs to use
Leadpages	There are 3 pricing tiers; the Standard, Pro, and Advanced. The Standard goes for $37 per month, the Pro goes for $79 per month, and the Advanced is $199 per month.	Two different landing page editors Webinars Create pop-up windows You also get a 14-day free trial to explore the platform’s offerings	Leadpages works best with Hubspot, but can also be integrated with other programs via Zapier	Leadpages takes some technical know-how, but there are over 130 templates to use to get started
InstaPage	InstaPage has three pricing tiers; the Core Plan, which costs $68 a month; the Optimizer Plan, which costs $113 a month; and the Team ad Agency Plan, which costs $203 a month.	A built-in analytics tool that makes it easy for you to analyze the performance of your pages. The dashboard has A/B testing results available It also has heatmaps	There are many integrations, Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, Mixpanels, as well as Zapier	There are templates, drag and drop options but software is relatively easy to use.
Unbounce	Essential package, $99 monthly Premium package, $199 monthly Enterprise package, $499 monthly	A drag-and-drop builder that is mile accessible, with targeted covertables and text replacement. Unbounce Convertables Over 100 templates, or just create one from scratch by yourself. Conversion Tools A/B testing	You can easily integrate Unbounce with Email and analytics tools like WordPress, Hubspot, Zapier, Salesforce, MailChimp and Marketo	Unbounce takes some technical know-how, but there are many templates, you will have to understand basic design principles, and A/B testing.
Thrive Themes	Single sites, the fee is $67, $97 for multiple sites.	Users have the ability to create opt-in forms. Thrive Content Builder Thrive Headline Optimizer	There are many integrations for Thrive Themes.	You won't need to learn how to code, but there is a learning curve depending on what you want to do.
OptimizePress	Core package, $97, Publisher package has a one-time fee of $197 Enterprise, one-time fee of $297	Marketing Page Builder Element Browser: Membership Sites and Custom Product Delivery Sites WordPress Themes and Plugins	Many integrations available, including Shopify, Gumroad, Madrill, and more	There is a learning curve to this, but there is good online support to walk you through it. Not as easy as other programs.
Wishpond	Starting Out Plan: $75/month Everything You Need Plan: $149/month Rapid Growth 10k Plan: $199/month	Market automation, landing pages, lead management, email marketing	Integrates with many apps including Infusionsoft, Salesforce and MailChimp.	Pretty easy to use and the marketing team is available to help you with any questions.

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Infusionsoft vs ActiveCampaign: Which is The Best CRM? [2021 Comparison]

The Infusionsoft vs ActiveCampaign debate has a deep-running history ever since the two small business sales and marketing software companies were founded in 2001 and 2003 respectively. Since then both have combined and curated CRM, email marketing, marketing automation and e-commerce features into powerful platforms for all things automated sales and marketing for small business.

In this Infusionsoft vs ActiveCampaign review, we are only going to focus on the important differences between both offerings, so you can decide which automated marketing/CRM tool is right for your business or clients in advance.

11 Powerful Differences Between Infusionsoft and ActiveCampaign

When comparing between CRMs, you cannot be too choosy. It can be tough to decide which one is best. Before you decide on which one is best between Infusionsoft vs ActiveCampaign, take a few minutes to get to know your own business goals. Do you want to build out landing pages? B2B campaigns? Is email marketing going to drive business? The online sales and marketing funnels you create are going to determine what CRM you should be choosing.

1. ActiveCampaign vs Infusionsoft: Target Audience

Both platforms predominantly market their CRM tools/email marketing/marketing automation to small businesses.

Infusionsoft is on record stating its sales, marketing, and CRM software service is meant for small businesses with less than 100 people. More specifically, they have said before that the effectiveness of their marketing automation software becomes hazy as it packs on more than 25 users.

ActiveCampaign, on the other hand, markets its services to a wider target audience. Whether you are a blogger, email marketing expert with own clients, a small business owner or an enterprise setting, the Infusionsoft alternative is scalable to meet dynamic needs for several reasons—the main being its pricing model, which we look at later on this Infusionsoft vs ActiveCampaign comparison.

2. Differences in Business-Essential Features

The first thing you will easily notice upon signing up and comparing ActiveCampaign and Infusionsoft is how feature-packed the latter is. Infusionsoft runs deep—perhaps too deep for many users to appreciate its depth, and instead get confused and overwhelmed by the ton of things you can do with Infusionsoft beyond the basic stuff.

Here is a comparison screenshot of Infusionsoft vs ActiveCampaign side-by-side; while seemingly fewer on the surface, Infusionsoft features a stack of subcategories and even more analytics under the main category item:

ActiveCampaign	Infusionsoft
Marketing automation	CRM
Smart auto responders	Marketing automation
Built-in integrations with over 200 external services	Ecommerce
Drag and drop email designer	Multimedia marketing management
Track your contacts onsite and in your apps	Web forms
Campaign, contact, as well as list reporting	Social sharing
Track your contacts onsite and in your apps	Built-in metadata keywords fields
Campaign, contact, as well as list reportings	Track orders, sales tools, accounts receivables, etc.
Track where your contacts live or travel	Payment processing
Add live e-commerce data and even videos to your emails	Drag and drop to craft and publish landing pages
SMS marketing	Easy publishing, landing pages
Free phone, live chat, as well as email support	Email marketing, automated campaigns
Send newsletters	Opportunity management
CRM and sales automation	Sales reports
Help with finding contacts based on age, gender, and location	Multimedia marketing
Advanced segmentation and targeting	Marketing reports
Automated series	Scoring tools
Dynamic (as well as conditional) email content	Referral program management
Social media monitoring as well as reaction automation	Lead scoring and distribution
Free email templates	Quotes and orders
Build custom forms for you landing pages	24/7 customer support
Free one-on-one training	Help center with many support materials to get you started

While it shows here that you’ll only be able to send out SMS marketing messages through only ActiveCampaign, Infusionsoft also does support this feature. But you would need to pile on an additional $0-$120 on top of the base $199 Infusionsoft plan to integrate SMS marketing into your marketing campaign using a third-party app for that.

But neither is ActiveCampaign the holy grail of features here, either. While Infusionsoft includes invoicing, sales forecast reports and unlimited landing pages in the base plan pricing, you would need to pay extra to integrate third-party apps with your ActiveCampaign account so you can utilize similar uses. And that might come off as a hidden charge to some buyers.

3. Accounts Setup and Learning Curve

While Infusionsoft might appeal to you for packing more features, that could be the same reason you find it tough to wrap around your arm and get started with little to no specialized training. Add the fact it is primarily meant for some of the smallest businesses around, and it can easily feel overwhelming to learn and master Infusionsoft in a short time.

That is the opposite with ActiveCampaign. The ease of setup and learning curve makes ActiveCampaign a top Infusionsoft alternative. That is especially the case for small businesses wanting a CRM tool cum capable email marketing software but have neither the time or the tech-savvy to master how Infusionsoft works.

They would likely have to hire an Infusionsoft expert to do the job for them—at an extra cost—after shelling out $200/month.

Now here’s an important observation to keep in mind:

Infusionsoft starts tracking your leads details once they subscribe to your offer(s) or buy from you. ActiveCampaign starts pulling that data immediately you register for an account and link your website. And after you do, ActiveCampaign goes back in time to collect and gather together past actions or triggers a lead interacted with before you could register and add those to your CRM as well.

That kind of data-backtracking can be resourceful to understanding what the lead could have been looking for from the first time they looked into you via your website.

4. Infusionsoft vs ActiveCampaign: Support Options

However, Infusionsoft offers expert training in addition to providing some of the best support channels in the marketing automation/CRM world. On top of live chat, training videos, email, and free phone support, you can request for in-person training at a separate fee.

ActiveCampaign support does not offer phone support, which might be a deal-breaker for some. But many clients and marketers agree ActiveCampaign is pretty fast to grasp and run with due to its intuitive and much less cramped user interface.

Your choice.

5. Organizing Tags

Both Infusionsoft and ActiveCampaign use tags to segment audiences into more targeted leads. However, when using Infusionsoft, you can categorize the tags so you have an organized, well-illustrated way to personalize your marketing messaging and nurture a target audience.

That makes managing hundreds of contacts with Infusionsoft easier compared to using ActiveCampaign.

But here’s a big tagging advantage from Infusionsoft:

You can set up a tagging sequence that goes off to let you know of an unpaid or late payment. Since this set up is set up to run through Infusionsoft, it allows you to find payment and invoicing details even though Infusionsoft doesn’t process the payment directly.

This powerful information that ActiveCampaign does not provide.

6. Integrations

On the surface of it, both vendors have a ton of integrations to work with in terms of third-party sales and marketing apps available in the market now. However, when you dig in deeper, you’ll find ActiveCampaign natively supports about 150 apps while Infusionsoft supports 65 more apps with 215.

Should that make you vouch for Infusionsoft right away?

The whole story is that ActiveCampaign works with Zapier to help you integrate only the third-party apps you need right from the start out of over 700+ applicable ones. This could be a reason you might prefer ActiveCampaign’s user interface compared to the more “packed” Infusionsoft UI on many pages.

Yet, Infusionsoft also supports Zapier, but you do not get the choice to choose only the apps you need. This means when using Infusionsoft you could be paying for features/app integrations you do not need.

With ActiveCampaign, you pay a separate fee for the custom app integrations on top of the monthly or yearly charge—and while the cost can add up quite with each add-on, you‘ll still find yourself paying less than you would with a similar number of Infusionsoft integrations.

Another thing…

If you decide to kickstart your marketing automation with any CRM/marketing automation software, hoping to later migrate your CRM to an ideally better CRM tool, Infusionsoft does not offer this option. On the other side, ActiveCampaign would allow you to migrate your valuable data to its ecosystem. Something to keep in mind when choosing the best CRM software for your new business.

7. Site Tracking

This is important if you want detailed information to help build your customer personas as well as use the information to inspire more conversions with personalized messages.

So where do the differences between Infusionsoft and ActiveCampaign show up here?

With ActiveCampaign you can track where your contacts travel or live. And that can get you more accurate insight into the lives and styles of the people contacting you—if they and you are okay with that (that is).

Still here, Infusionsoft sends out all emails at the same time. The issue with that is the emails will reach your contacts at different times, especially when your contacts are based in different time zones. But with ActiveCampaign emails automatically reach your contacts at the same time of day despite time zone differences. In short, if you set an email broadcast to reach your contacts at 12 noon, ActiveCampaign would automatically deliver the emails when it is 12 noon in your contacts’ time zone—not yours.

That way you can use reach leads when they are most likely to open, click and convert as opposed to reaching a section of them at odd hours—probably asleep—and missing out on such conversion chances.

8. Adding Customer Contact List to Your CRM

Still, ActiveCampaign beats Infusionsoft here for almost the same reason; true automation.

Now, when using Infusionsoft to add more information about your contact to the CRM, you have to do it manually, which can be time-consuming.

ActiveCampaign, in contrast, has an inbuilt tool that lets the marketing automation tool search online for details such as social media pages related to the name and email address a contact used to reach you. When found, the ActiveCampaign tool then automatically adds that information to your CRM. It does not get better than that.

9. Affiliate Management System

Right out the sign-up page, Infusionsoft includes a powerful affiliate marketing tool to help small businesses roll out robust affiliate marketing programs. This is a tool you will not find on ActiveCampaign—again unless you pay for a third-party app integration such as AffiliateWP.

With the Infusionsoft Affiliate Center, you can easily track affiliates, orders, returns and more right from one dashboard, which is powerful of Infusionsoft. This is especially important for e-commerce customers who are the most likely to find a solid case for an affiliate program management tool.

10. Reporting

If Infusionsoft’s user interface was a little cleaner, ActiveCampaign would be completely beat here. The former captures a ton of analytics for your breakdown, digestion and decision making. Infusionsoft will you capture details about what’s triggering your leads’ attention and which autoresponder messages to customize for contacts based on how they interact with your website.

And while Infusionsoft gives a good deal of analytics to analyze, ActiveCampaign allows you to view that data in easy to interpret charts and graphs, unlike Infusionsoft. So some Infusionsoft users may not be sure how to interpret and use the ton of data to boost their marketing campaigns.

11. Infusionsoft vs ActiveCampaign Pricing

This is by large the biggest area of comparison between Infusionsoft vs ActiveCampaign.

First, you’ll find ActiveCampaign allows you to ‘test-drive’ the autoresponder for in a 14-day trial period. Infusionsoft doesn’t.

Second, while Infusionsoft will demand you shell out just under $1,000 as a setup fee, ActiveCampaign does not charge any setup fee. So small businesses that would like to try out a marketing automation tool before committing to a full-on subscription might find ActiveCampaign less hefty to start out with.

Third, when you sign up for Infusionsoft, they offer a ‘Kickstart’ coaching for buyers that find they need help understanding how Infusionsoft works. Here’s how they describe the training and how much it costs:

And how much you invest upfront:

When it comes to actual pricing, both provide buyers with scalability options they can upgrade (or downgrade) to when the need arises. Both ActiveCampaign pricing and Infusionsoft pricing are well detailed on their respective pages, so you can take a look and compare the different plans both marketing automation companies have that is right for your business.

For comparison sakes, here is a shot of both companies’ offers for onboarding 500 contacts:

ActiveCampaign pricing for 500 contacts

Infusionsoft pricing for 500 contacts

Conclusion: Infusionsoft vs ActiveCampaign

While both Infusionsoft and ActiveCampaign market themselves as “all-in-one” solutions for small business marketing automation, email marketing, and CRM tools, there are differences that make either option a good fit for your business—or not.

For example, while some users could use Infusionsoft for its ‘completeness’, others might find it overwhelming to understand, pay up for and use efficiently on a day-to-day basis.

On the other hand, while on the surface ActiveCampaign might seem like a much cheaper option to begin with, as you gain more contacts and choose to integrate more third-party apps with it you’ll find you might have to shell out much more on top of the $9/month base subscription that might have initially attracted you to it in the first place.

Over to you…

What is it about Infusionsoft vs ActiveCampaign differences that can make you switch from either to the other?

Still not sure, take a brief tour with an Infusionsoft Expert!

Or attend an Infusionsoft webinar to find out more!

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How to Create a Landing Page On Shopify No Coding [2021 Update]

Looking for solutions to create the best Shopify landing page on the world’s best e-commerce website platform? Great! I’m here to help! I also recommend 6 powerful landing page apps that can help you get started immediately (no coding required!).

Creating a Shopify landing page is a smart sales funnel move that can increase your online store sales fast. Landing pages are gradually taking over the role of the traditional website or e-commerce homepage. More online visitors now arrive on a dedicated landing page than on a homepage.

The top purpose of a landing page is to encourage a target audience to take a specific action. It provides a specific product’s purchase details and removes buying distractions. That means it can help reduce cart abandonment and increase your conversion rate.

As the most popular e-commerce website builder right now, knowing how to create Shopify landing pages for your e-commerce business is critical.

How do you create custom Shopify landing pages?

How do you create a beautiful custom Shopify landing page that’ll boost your online store conversion rate?

If you are like most people, coding may not be your best skill. Not even with Shopify’s e-commerce store Liquid programming language.

So for your conversion optimization plan, you can use good Shopify landing page templates or create from scratch. Later we’ll talk about some great tools to help make this process easy, such as Shogun.

Shopify Landing Page vs Product Detail Page

If you use a product detail page (PDP) as a landing page, you are not alone.

A 2018 Monetate study found nearly 1 in 4 potential customers landed on a PDP online. The study involved about 2 billion global online shopping sessions.

Here’s what Monetate found about product pages vs other landing pages in 2018:

As far as conversion rate goes, visitors that landed on a different landing page converted at nearly 2X (2.9%) those that landed on a PDP (1.5%)
Landing pages also generate 2X more revenue per session that product pages (3.43% vs 1.72%)
Visitors on other landing pages also view 42% more pages than those that land on PDPs (12.5 pages/session vs 8.8 pages/session)

One more thing:

Visitors than land on a landing page other than the product detail page are less likely to bounce. That means fewer cart abandonment and more e-commerce sales for you.

Search-referred visitors bounced 20% on a different landing page compared to a whopping 52% on a PDP
Visitors landing from social media marketing campaigns are 29% more likely to bounce when they find a product detail page compared to finding a different one.

So, if you are considering starting a paid traffic ad campaign on Facebook. You know the smart, profitable thing to do. Create a dedicated landing page on Shopify.

Don’t waste those hard-won clicks and ad dollars on a regular product page.

3 Easy Ways to Create an Amazing Shopify Landing Page

In this post, we are going to show you three ways to do it fast and easy, so you can get to the most important part—selling your stuff on Shopify.

1 – How to Create Shopify Landing Pages Using Collections

Perhaps the easiest way to build a landing page for your Shopify is to use the Collections feature on Shopify’s platform. You can do that by visiting the Collection page when logged on to your Shopify admin area.

What are Shopify Collections?

Here’s a quick video by Shopify explaining what product collections are on Shopify:

Collections empower you to create product groups that make it easier for your customers to discover your stuff by category.

For example:

You can group things like women clothes and women jewelry together. That means if your online store is targeting women when they land from your ad campaign, they can find all these items that go well together on one page.

Doing that is a conversion optimization best practice. You’d be making it super easy for potential customers to find what they want, closely related items such as accessories, and even empower them to explore more purchase items.

You can also create a custom product category on Shopify such as “Gifts for Under $50”, which may even be easier than creating a Shopify page.

In fact, Collections can help you upsell your customers on products related to what they initially came in to purchase—which is a technique Amazon successfully implements likes this:

You can also batch related items together…

Using Shopify Collections to show frequently bought together items such as on Amazon can boost your conversion rate.

So how do you get started with Shopify Collections?

How to Create Shopify Landing Pages Using Product Collections (Step-by-Step Guide)

Whichever Shopify theme you choose, they all support Collections.

Something to note before the step-by-step guide:

You’ll choose between creating a manual or automated Shopify collection.

A manual collection is ideal if you have inconsistent flash sales, a few products, or a specialist collection. It involves curating your items personally. You get to choose the items to add to a collection individually.

For that last reason, it can be too much work if you have multiple products and a constantly changing inventory to update.

That’s where automated collections come in.

With Shopify’s automated collections, you get to set a condition or a set of conditions an item must meet to be automatically added to a collection. Once you select the conditions, up to 60 items will be added.

In the future, items will just need to match the conditions you set for them to be automatically added to your collection, which is massively time-saving as well as ideal for multiple products and rotating inventories.

So how do you actually create a Shopify Collection?

On Menu, click on Products
Select Collections
Choose between adding products automatically or manually
Choose and fill in your page’s title and URL. Match it to your ad copy for SEO, boosting instant recognition, and boosting conversion

There you go.

#Pro Tip: If you want to target pop-ups, web notifications, widgets, and dynamic text to a particular campaign, do make a note of tracking parameters you use for paid ad campaigns.

The good news is all products in the Shopify product collection you create will display together.

The not so good news is using collections can limit how much you can customize your Shopify landing page design and the elements you can use.

Elements such as e-commerce product images, for example, are super crucial to increasing your conversion rate—the more high-quality images you use, the better. People want to know exactly what they are buying by seeing it first.

So consider using a top Shopify add-on such as Pixc to make your product images pop if you feel this method limits you.

Feel like turning product collections into Shopify landing pages is a bit bland or limiting?

Consider using a Shopify landing page app. There are several options in the market today such as Shogun.

2. How to Create Landing Pages for Shopify: Using these 6 Best Shopify Landing Page Apps

New to ecommerce website templates? Or, you just don’t have time or money to hire a Shopify expert to create a custom Shopify landing page with Liquid?

Choose the best Shopify landing page template builder.

You can create landing pages for Shopify stores with dedicated third-party templates like Shogun. These are landing page management tools that integrate directly with the ecommerce website platform.

Note that the apps usually have their own file structures for JavaScript, images, CSS, and so on. So, you’ll want to look around to choose the best setup for your needs.

The best landing page builders for Shopify feature powerful tools such as drag-n-drop functionality, video support, MailChimp compatibility (great for building your ecommerce email list), and use mobile-friendly design.

Here are some of the best Shopify landing page apps to help you create converting e-commerce landing pages hassle-free:

Shogun Landing Page Builder for Shopify

Here’s a simple yet easily the most comprehensive ecommerce landing page app to build, measure, and optimize your Shopify pages. No coding required.

First, Shogun is renowned for its exemplary customer service.

That feels like knowledgeable customer service, doesn’t it?

And then there’s the Shogun Visual Editor PLUS supporting analytics.

Shogun Analytics

Expect an easy-to-use, drag-n-drop landing page builder. You can use it to design coming soon, FAQ, and donations pages as well as contact us forms.

The builder works with any Shopify theme.

You can also import existing pages to edit them in the Shogun editor.

Over 30 landing page templates await, including on the base plan (Build). You can even use the theme editor to customize thank you, collections, and terms & conditions pages, as well as click funnels and to add custom fields.

For SEO optimization, Shogun is mobile responsive and will let you edit meta titles and descriptions to match your keyword strategy like Yoast.

To boost your landing page speed, it comes with an image compressor tool. Plus, you can resize images to offer excellent fits that grab attention.

Have multiple accounts? Shogun allows users to duplicate store elements across multiple accounts.

The Shopify page builder is especially big on conversion optimization tools. They include:

Personalized recommendations
Free shipping bars
Frequently bought together
Countdown timer
Add to cart button
Size charts and product image slides
Product video catalog

It also packs over 20 elements. Take the Section elements, for example. Use it to structure any landing page with vertical segments in any format you prefer—media, content, you name it. From testimonials/reviews to benefits content to hero image, you’ll be able to visually segment information as you like.

Shogun also supports most social media platform integrations and offers a 10-day free trial. You can even schedule when new landing pages get to publish.

Shogun offers a lot and if you’re ready to step up your game more they offer functions like A/B testing for your Shopify landing pages, or the ability to collaborate with a team of 6 or more, for example, but you’d need to upgrade to the $149/month Optimize plan.

Want to see Shogun Landing Page Builder for Shopify in action?

Here’s a handy video:

Check out more about Shogun:

GemPages

GemPages is an affordable, feature-rich, and drag-and-drop landing page builder for Shopify stores. No coding experience required here, either.

Right off the bat, you’ll have a selection of over 50 landing page templates to choose from. More choice can mean you have more design freedom to make your online store truly yours.

Like Shogun, GemPages is also mobile responsive and adapts your online store to your potential customers’ screen sizes.

That way, your customers won’t miss all the important conversion optimization tools such as the buy now button.

And yes, GemPages’ Shopify elements include the crucial add to cart, quantity, image, price, countdown, and related product buttons.

Expect to sync Google Shopping catalog and Facebook Pixel, keep pages even after you uninstall GemPages, and use with any Shopify theme.

It does support MailChimp, Klaviyo, Reviews Importer App, Google Analytics, and Facebook Ad.

See GemPages in action before taking up their 10-day free trial:

PageFly

This Shopify app looks to outdo GemPages and could be your preferred Shogun alternative for building top-notch Shopify landing pages.

PageFly allows you to use a drag-and-drop landing page builder to create and customize elements of your landing page no matter your niche and viewing devices.

You’ll get at least 30 design elements you can use to customize your landing page—and go on to personalize other Shopify pages such as the homepage and thank you pages, if you wish.

However, you might find your most preferred template is locked to the PageFly PRO version which you get 14 days to try out before you need to purchase the full version to continue enjoying the full-featured app version.

They take care of CSS and JavaScript stuff if you do not wish to ache your brains out with programming technicalities. And their customer support is easily one of the best around.

If you are a customization junkie, PageFly could be for you.

Zipify Pages

Zipify may not be the most affordable of the Shopify landing page builder bunch but it packs a bag of features to back up their pricing. They bring what they have learned from their own successful online store for other Shopify merchants to use.

Some of the best Zipify features you will discover include how well it integrates with the Shopify platform, Zipify’s custom Google Analytics dash, and Facebook pixel.

That means you can easily link your leads to your sales messages from many sources including from email clicks and see how many are landing and converting, so you can take the right steps to further boost conversions.

You can also integrate it with one of the seven most powerful CRM and/or market automation software: Ontraport, ActiveCampaign, Infusionsoft, GetResponse, Klaviyo, MailChimp, and Aweber. You will not need any subdomains or plugins to set up your landing page.

That combination makes Zipify a solid mobile-responsive, templates-loaded, drag-and-drop landing page builder for ecommerce on the Shopify apps marketplace. You can see if it works for you by grabbing the 14-day trial they offer to test it.

Hypervisual

Aptly named, Hypervisual is big on making beautiful pages that make your landing page stand out. For example, you can implement different design elements for each page or product you have.

You can even remove your Shopify theme’s header and footer to make fullscreen landing pages to reduce distractions for your visitors—a definite plus in landing page conversion best practices.

To help you add Shopify leads to your email list, Hypervisual integrates with MailChimp and Klaviyo, which is not as resourceful as Zipify but helps.

Like other Shopify landing page builders, you’ll get a responsive design for all device users, Google Analytics and Facebook pixel integrations, and SEO optimization for SERPs visibility.

Also great is their pricing model. After their 14-day trial expires, you have three Hypervisual pricing options to choose from as shown here:

That’s interesting, and you can actually scale up or down depending on your needs.

LeadSlide

LeadSlide is also geared towards helping with your marketing automation campaign with the lowest plan support up to 10,000 emails.

Like Zipify, you’ll get ecommerce-optimized features such as fully customizable video and product landing pages, Klaviyo and MailChimp integrations, Giveaways and discounts functions, and a wholly editable countdown timer to ramp up conversions.

If you want to track important analytics such as abandoned carts, repeat customers and run holiday promotions landing pages, LeadSlide will help you with that as well.

Like the others here, LeadSlide also integrates with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, WordPress, Google Analytics and LinkedIn. You also get a Soundest integration here.

You’ll get a cool 30 days to try out their app before deciding whether to buy their full version or not. And they also include phone support on top of email support if you need their help.

#Landed Shopify app by Lucid used to be a great landing page builder that integrated seamlessly with Shopify. But it is no longer available on the Shopify marketplace for some reason.

3. How to Create Landing Pages on Shopify on Third-Party Websites and Tools

There are other routes to take to create the perfect landing page for your Shopify website.

For instance, Leighton Taylor does a great job of explaining how to set up a landing page for your Shopify site using MailChimp to collect email addresses of your leads and customers.

Here’s a link to the 17-minute-long video. A handy walkthrough.

Considering many people do not buy from you the very first time they land on your product page, the video tutorial is great for helping you set up a Shopify landing page to kickstart your purchase funnel.

You can also use Shopify’s Buy Button feature to easily embed a buy link, shopping cart or collections or a product directly into a third-party website you are using. You will be able to use any tool and create any landing page you want while seamlessly managing your inventory and purchasing funnel directly through Shopify.

The ecommerce store builder offers instructions on how to set this up on WordPress, Squarespace, Tumblr, and Wix.

Still, you can use a third-party landing page builder that integrates with Shopify such as Leadpages or Unbounce.

Let’s take Leadpages, for example:

You can choose from a selection of three Leadpages templates that are optimized for Shopify—works with Shopify carts and Buy Button

Shopify One-Item Landing Page
Shopify Multi-Item Landing Page
Shopify Thank You Page

All three are drag-and-drop landing page builders, so you’ll likely have an easy time setting them up. They explain it all here.

Tips to Increase Your Shopify Landing Page Conversion Rate?

Whichever way you choose to create a landing page on Shopify, here are conversion tips to help you make more ecommerce sales.

Make your landing page design cues appear consistent with your ads or other traffic sources, so potential customers know it’s you
Moreover, ensure your Shopify landing page colors, tone, images, video content, and copy mirror your overall branding. That way, potential customers can recognize and trust the page immediately
Build even more trust by adding customer reviews, partner logos, and security badges. Testimonials provide the proof of value and perception of reduced risk a potential customer needs to complete the purchase—not increase your cart abandonment rate
If you can create video testimonials, even better. Motion pictures not only grab and retain attention on the page but also connect with customers that can relate to the customer’s story emotionally
To further reduce cart abandonment, use Free Delivery, Free Returns, Moneyback Guarantees, and guarantee bars close to the buy button
Use Meta Titles that clearly and concisely state the value you are offering right away
Use only high-quality images and videos in addition to brief text. Avoid fluff, including unnecessary call-to-action buttons and marketing content at this point

Remember to make the landing pages as attractive as possible, with vibrant colors and high-quality images. Blurry images and dull branding reduce customer trust and increase bounce rates.

If you want some inspiration to create a highly-converting Shopify landing page for your e-commerce store, check out some of the best landing page examples.

Feel free to use the modern landing page designs to inspires yours for 2020.

FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions

Can I make a landing page on Shopify?

Yes, you can make a landing page directly on Shopify, but keep in mind there are limitations to what you can do and if you have more than one store or want to scale your online store to a new market, you’ll want to invest in a landing page app or builders, such as Shogun, or Pagefly.

What is a Shopify landing page?

Shopify landing pages are key to the success of your store, they spark interest, let you build know, like, and trust factor and can give you a lot of data on your customers. While most people might come to you to buy your product, the data says that most people will not buy. That’s why having a compelling landing page with a ‘hook’ and your story (with key visuals) is so important to have.

How do I change my landing page on Shopify?

Here are the steps to creating or changing a page on Shopify (from help section of Shopify):

From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Pages.
Click Add page. You will be taken to a new webpage editor.
In the webpage editor, enter a Title and Content in the text boxes provided.

Be descriptive and clear when choosing your webpage title. The webpage title is displayed in the tab or title bar of browsers. It is also used as the title in search engine results. Learn more about website SEO.

In the Visibility field, you can choose whether you want your webpage to be published or not. By default, your new webpage will be visible when you click Save. Select the Hidden option if you want your new webpage to be hidden from your online store, or click Set a specific publish date to control when your webpage is published:

Click Save.
Optional: To make a published webpage appear in your online store navigation, add a link to it in a navigation menu.

Of course, if you use a landing page builder app, such as Shogun, switching out landing pages is much easier and you have a range of templates to choose from that Shopify does not have.

Conclusion: What’s the Best Way to Create a Stunning Landing Page for Shopify?

A highly targeted landing page for your Shopify store will help you increase sales and reduce churn. And there are more ways than one to create beautiful, conversion-focused Shopify landing pages right now with premium tools such as Shogun or Pagefly.

You can choose the best method among the three discussed here for your Shopify needs and convenience to boost sales: using the Shopify Collection page, turning to easy-to-use Shopify landing page apps, and using third-party tools that integrate well with Shopify’s Buy Button and Cart features.

From there, you can decide whether using a Shopify designer and Liquid to create custom landing pages on Shopify stores is worth the HTML code it is written on. Or you are just fine using ready-to-use Shopify page builders without learning to code.

Over to you.

Do you have another way to create a landing page on Shopify you’d love to share?

Let us know in the comments section.

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23 of the Best Leadership Podcasts You’ll Love [New 2022 Picks]

As a leader, the success of your organization greatly depends on your personal qualities.

You need to keep improving yourself continuously so that you can be in a position to improve your team as well.

Listening to podcasts is a great way to work on yourself even when you are on the go.

1. Take Command – A Dale Carnegie Podcast

Dale Carnegie is famous for his book, “How to Make Friends and Influence People”. It’s legendary. Now, you can listen in on A Dale Carnegie Podcast, where they uncover what leadership means in today’s world. Hosted by Joe Hart, CEO of Dale Carnegie, they will be talking to diverse leaders across various industries to help unlock your potential for success. Sharing real-life insights into leadership—which in turn can help spark the next level of your growth as a leader.

2. At The Table – Patrick Lencioni

Any book you read by Patrick Lencioni will make you a better business person. Books like Getting Naked, 5 Temptation of a CEO and so many more are absolute game-changers. You don’t want to miss this podcast.

Hear real conversations and practical advice for everyday leaders. Sit across the table from one of the foremost experts in leadership and business. In his simple and approachable style, Lencioni tackles every topic related to the world of work (and some that aren’t). From culture to teamwork to building world-class organizations, he brings his wisdom, humor, and insight together to provide actionable advice for leaders everywhere.

3. Coaching for Leaders – Dave Stachowiak

Dave believes that nobody is born a leader. In this podcast, he teaches leaders teaches the basics of leadership, leading by example, and how to bring the best out of the people you lead.

4. Dose of Leadership – Richard Rierson

Dose of leadership has interviews with leaders from all areas of life including military, business, and even faith-based leaders. The show aims to teach leaders and aspiring leaders how to develop themselves and the organization they lead.

5. Engaging Leader – Jesse Lahey

As the name suggests, the show centers on communication as the basis of modern leadership. Jesse and his interviewees discuss the various tactics you can use to communicate with your team effectively for improved productivity.

6. Accelerate – Andy Paul

Paul started off quite badly as a salesperson but he managed to turn his fortunes around and become a leader in the field of sales. In Accelerate, he combines his experience and that of his guests to teach you how to become build successful teams for your organization to prosper.

7. The LEADx Show – Kevin Kruse

Kruse’s guests include some of the best leadership and business experts in the world. They will share with you tips on how to manage your team successfully and also how to advance yourself in different at your workplace each day.

8. Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast – Carey Nieuwhof

Carey wants to help you move from an average leader to a great leader by embracing change and personal growth. Although many of the interviews may be faith-based, the content will help you become a better leader even in your business organization.

9. This Is Your Life with Michael Hyatt – Michael Hyatt

Hyatt wants you to lead your life with passion and focus and his podcast teaches just that. He will also talk you to on how to harness that passion and apply it in your area of work to become a focused and influential leader.

10. The Entreleadership Podcast – Ken Coleman

Some of the best entrepreneurial minds in the world have been Coleman’s guests. They discuss tips that will help you achieve success as a leader and business person.

11. Women’s Leadership Podcast – Sabrina Braham

The podcast’s prime target is women but anyone can benefit from the tips. It discusses ways you can achieve success and become a leader in your niche by living to your potential.

12. Awesome Office – Sean Kelly and Sean Spear

Awesome office interviews great leaders from whom you can learn how to create a strong culture in your organization.

13. Leadership Biz Café – Tanveer Naseer

Your organization and the employees need you to be a strong and influential leader. If you can become that leader it becomes much easier to achieve the organization’s goals. Naseer and his guests will guide you on how you can become the leader that your team can look up to.

14. Eternal Leadership – John Ramstead

In this faith-based show, the discussion focuses on building your legacy in the organization you lead. You will learn how to ensure your legacy in leadership outlives in business you while following God’s teachings.

15. The Look & Sound of Leadership – Tom Henschel

If you wish the people you lead to perceive you in a certain way, this is the podcast for you. It teaches you to project the leader that you want your team to perceive in you.

16. The Go-Giver Podcast – Bob Burg

Based on an international best-seller, The GO-Giver, the show discusses ideas you can use to become an influential leader and lead a fruitful life.

17. Beyond the To-Do-List – Erik Fisher

This is a show for business leaders who have tried to lead by the book but the productivity does not reflect the effort. Erik and his guests will discuss how you can boost your personal productivity as well as your team’s productivity.

18. The ONE Thing – Geoff Woods

Learn how successful people approach various aspects of their lives such as productivity, time management, business, health and habits to achieve extraordinary success.

19. The Tony Robbins Podcast – Tony Robbins

Listen to this Tony Robbins as he teaches how you can become an extraordinary leader. The show also discusses how you can let go off what is holding you back, nurture your team and manage your most important resource – time.

20. Achieve Your Goals – Hal Elrod

Achieve Your Goals is all about taking your life to the next level. Elrod will sometimes host guests while other times he does a solo show. Either way, the show will help you set goals for your team and strategize on how to reach them.

21. Authentic Brand Mastery Podcast – Adam Force

Ready to take a lead on building a meaningful brand that sells? The Authentic Brand Mastery Podcast is brought to you by Change Creator and is hosted by branding and design expert, Adam G. Force. Listen in on these compelling discussions to learn how you can build an authentic brand that people love and drive more online sales with smart design.

Great podcast for those looking to make a difference

iTunes Review

“Adam covers an important part of the entrepreneurship space – making a positive impact on the world through our business. I really like how the interviews get into real-life struggles and cover the moral or ethical decisions that owners have to weigh against business performance. I also enjoy learning about other cultures, the challenges of creating lasting social change, and even the unexpected negative effects that we can contribute to as we seek this change.”

22. Master of Scale — Reid Hoffman

From the co-founder of LinkedIn comes this informative, yet zany and fun podcast that will set your 2019 on fire! One of our favorites is Tristan Walker’s Beauty of a Bad Idea episode — who hasn’t had one of those? As leaders, it’s up to us to take the ‘bad idea’ risks and attempt the impossible, even when those around us think we’re crazy!

23. Without Fail — Gimlet Media

When we asked our audiences what they needed more of from our content, we got a lot of responses about ‘failure stories’ — people that have failed (and lived to tell us about it). It can be so tough when you’re in the weeds of your business, on the ground building something of value and face failure. Yes, lots of people talk about failure as a nicety, but so many people gloss over these lessons in their past! Well, we recommend listening to these truly inspirational podcasts from Gimlet Media — all with a focus on failure. Hey, we can learn from others’ failures too!

We’ll keep updating the list when we find more 2019 that we fall in love with!

Frequently Asked Questions

Can podcasts make you smarter?

Yes, listening to any kind of podcast will help make you smarter in the same way that reading does! However, you can also expand your knowledge on history, science, entrepreneurship or any other topic that you are interested in.

How can podcasts make you a better leader?

Above you can find a bunch of podcasts that will present to you, and help you develop, the skills and tools that a leader needs. As well as inspire you towards a healthier life and being a more empathetic leader by listening to the words of other leaders.

Conclusion

As a leader, you are often expected to know your way around but sometimes you get stuck. Or you are in new territory with challenges that you are finding hard to overcome.

During such times or when you want to move your leadership skills to a new level, a talk show or two might do the trick.

With this list, you have a variety of shows to choose from to learn more about leadership and lead your team to greater success.

You might also enjoy:

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Best Shopify Stores in 2021: Best Sites to Learn from and Start Selling More Now

Sugar. Spice. And everything nice. These are the ingredients the following online stores choose to create some of the best Shopify stores. There’s no shortage of top ecommerce website examples and strategies to attract, engage, and convert online buyers from what we saw scouring through hundreds of Shopify sites for this guide.

Now, consider this: The Shopify ecommerce platform now runs 800,000+ ecommerce stores worldwide, powers 430,000+ websites, and is the third-largest ecommerce platform on the planet.

It is clear why you need to create a unique ecommerce store to attract and keep interested customers and wade out the competition in 2020 (and beyond).

Like a high-converting physical store, you’ll want to create online experiences that highlight your brand personality and make your online store memorable. The reward: Buyers can find you by name again and again.

The best converting Shopify stores of 2020 will almost certainly take up the largest piece of the retail sales cake.

And that cake is predicted to grow to about $3.9 trillion in 2020 and 17% of all U.S. retail sales by 2022.

That’s one cake party you don’t want to miss.

Also, keep in mind that more and more customers are willing and able to buy stuff from overseas. So, you can target those markets as well instead of worrying-sick that your local market share could be charmed off your Shopify cart and checkout page.

From stunning UX design to on-point copy to bold branding to seizing storytelling, these Shopify online stores will inspire your new store or next ecommerce website redesign.

And that can mean attracting and keeping a community of loyal buyers that rally even more highly qualified prospects with sweet referrals to you.

Sounds like something you’d rather do right now?

Here are the best Shopify store examples to inspire action, creative success, and the competitive gene in you.

Not Pot

When you know your target audience may have some reservations about trying new hemp gummies, what do you do?

Joke about it and assure them it is not what it looks like. That’s what.

Tell them you sell lab-tested CBD gummies, the kind they can enjoy stress-free, knowing they’d pass any drug test after chewing a boatload of those.

Go as far as naming yourself accordingly. And adopt an unmistakable slogan.

Then design your vegan CBD gummies to look like harmless polar bears, complete with strawberry and apple pectin in them.

And square it all off by revealing why CBD gummies are everything they’ve been missing in their life.

It is no wonder Not Pot is a top Shopify store to take cues from.

2. So Worth Loving

What better way to instantly connect emotionally with visitors than to instill that sense right from the homepage?

But it can feel like So Worth Loving is trying too hard to some. So, the big “sincerely” in the middle works well to assure the visitor that they mean it.

It’s a simple, every-day design that feels like a personal friend recommending the best rather than a profit-churning machine out to get your cash.

To top it all off, each product has its own short story followed by a clear call-to-action. And look at how they capture emails:

So worth loving!

3. Beardbrand

Grooming facial hair can be a pain.

Beardbrand knows so and chooses to offer value upfront.

By offering a quiz to find out the best beard style for their visitors, right on the homepage, Beardbrand smoothly grooms the visitor to the recommended style and products with a clear call-to-action button to view beard products.

And then tons of beard grooming wisdom:

The navigation buttons drop down to reveal neat categories and insights on kits, tools, and products.

You get the vibe they know their stuff, and that’s the kind of place to buy.

4. Haus

Home goods seller, haus, blends clear navigation tabs with a clean, modern look to match the contemporary look and feel of their products.

Shoppers can go straight to a category, such as brand, from the menu on the left, and even search a favorite product from there — no complicated paths to nurturing visitors here.

It helps that the furniture and accessories show out in big, beautiful photography—some in their ideal setting.

5. Kylie Cosmetics

Super-influencer, Kylie Jenner, knows her strongest suit, her lips.

Kylie makes it vivid how good the eye, face, and lip colors would look and feel by displaying stunning pictures of herself wearing the different colors available. Just hover on a product, and it flips to reveal Kylie wearing it.

The gorgeous colors, easy-to-browse, and candy-like illustrations make it all the easier to buy and keep coming back to check what’s new.

And which fan won’t want to email with Kylie Jenner?

6. Studio Proper

There’s a quote on their site by one Mark Parker; “Everything starts with design.” That is exactly what Steve Jobs would say.

And boy, doesn’t it fit for a store that’s designed with simplicity and elegance cues from Apple’s store and website. So, when Apple die-hards get here, the store feels extremely familiar.

They feel at home.

From the sleek, aluminum-finish iPad mounts to the iPhone cases to its wireless charging hubs, they all look Apple-ish.

Add to that Studio Proper’s 12-month warranty, free delivery, ability to “pre-order”, and clean layout and it’s hard not to convert.

7. Ksubi

Apparel store, Ksubi, keeps it minimal and clean. No endless categories to distract visitors. Just a clear call to click on either Shop Mens or Shop Womens.

Instead of displaying a grid of apparel photos, the store uses high-quality photos of models donning Ksubi’s collection, making you imagine how the outfit would look on you, too. That’s a good start.

At the very top of the homepage, Ksubi declares they do offer free global shipping—so anyone anywhere can buy on Ksubi. A huge market right there.

8. Tluxe

Unlike Ksubi, Tluxe adds a lead generation twist by offering a bunch of benefits right when visitors land on the homepage:

Clean, easy-to-navigate store
Free shipping on international orders over $300
20% off your first order over $200
And they give the impression you’ll get all that plus timely updates on new arrivals when you submit your email address

Now that’s how you build an email list to nurture casual browsers into repeat customers.

9. Quad Lock

It doesn’t take four seconds before you know what the store is all about. There’s a GIF video background to demonstrate how to fix their smartphone mounting gear to your cash dash, motorbike, bike, and limbs.

Immediately after, Quad Lock manages to sneak in some high-quality use-case photos right above the fold so visitors know exactly what to do next before they can even scroll down.

Scroll down once, and the store convinces you they know their stuff with social—the top publications they’ve featured in, including Engadget, Mashable, The New York Times, and Forbes.

That’s when FOMO strikes hard if you don’t hit that “Get 10% off” tab.

10. Chaos

Chaos manages the chaos many stores find themselves in when they attempt to use splashes of color and big, bold fonts while exuding unmistakable individuality—all on one page.

It’s playful, unique, and creative, which rhymes perfectly with its personalized accessories theme.

Talking of playful…

11. The Candi Factory

The Candy Factory homepage lets you know they don’t take themselves too seriously as they sell custom leggings and underwear.

Well, and perhaps their patriotism to Canada, which we think is a nod to selling high-quality products.

The store is clean and exudes a fun aura to boost.

Every click leads visitors deeper and deeper into the sales funnel. It’s tough to recover and bounce away after a few.

12. Tessemae’s All Natural

Tessemae’s All Natural is top Shopify store for 2020 for a bunch of delightful reasons:

Stunning food photos that’ll make anyone drool—and reach for the Buy Now button
Offers value upfront by providing weekly, monthly, and keto meal plans
15% off for joining the Tessemae’s email list
Featured recipes mean fans keep coming back for more—and buy recommended products while at it
The five slides plus the vivid drop-down menu tabs make it easy to navigate the store from the homepage
Maintains a variety of products that feel exciting instead of overwhelming
Tessemae’s All Natural publishes fan photos, which helps make the community feel recognized and develop loyalty

We love the entire structure, color scheme, and fan engagement going on here. Definitely one of the best food stores on the Shopify app.

13. Biko

Biko takes the noble cause route right on the front page by letting visitors know 20% of each pair sold is donated to fight breast cancer through RETHINK.

It feels like joining a movement against a life-threatening, common enemy of Biko’s target audience; women.

And right below the fold, Biko lets visitors know it’s not all gloom and doom by showcasing “Trending Now” jewelry they can spoil themselves to right away.

To boost engagement, Biko suggests featuring customers who tag them on Instagram.

Then it lets you know how chic you’d also look in your new pair by displaying quality photos of models sporting the goods. You just have to click “Shop Now”.

14. Hiut Denim Co.

The store’s homepage doesn’t feel even a bit salesy. Rather, it gives off a classic, print magazine vibe.

Close shots display the brand’s denim in three different use scenarios, so you know they are made to complement your preferred life and style.

Scroll under the fold to meet this:

“Denim Fit for A Duchess”.

The bold statement subsides to reveal a 4-minute video, showing you how Hiut Denim Co. turns materials into denim masterpieces.

Click the “shop” buttons on the menu bar, and you are off to catch lots of photos with models stunting different styles.

That helps show how a pair would fit, so buyers that are uncomfortable with making returns are more likely to shun their inhibitions and click “Buy Now”.

15. WP+Standard

Why make noise when you can make a statement, huh?

The WP Standard landing page exudes dignity and sophistication, wrapped up in a clean, minimalist, and succinct charm.

Buttons are limited to just five with lots of free space all over to ensure the main focus is on clicking that centered “Shop Now” button.

The brand engages fans and secret admirers alike by integrating their Instagram feed at the bottom.

16. Hardgraft

The personality-filled statement declares Hardgraft is the place to be for contemporary, luxurious accessories that don’t go over-the-top.

And no matter where you are, the brand says you’ll receive your order as if it came from the town down the road.

The colors marry the down to Earth mantra. Products are displayed right on the homepage so you can get to what you want in a click or two.

Hover your mouse on an item, and more details will show out.

Simple does it on this top fashion Shopify store in 2020.

Yet, a clever mind knew how to ask you to sign up to their mailing list while assuring everyone Hardgraft doesn’t do spam.

17. Happiness Abscissa

Ha gives visitors the sense they are on a cheerful page that’s easily contagious.

Happy Abscissa doesn’t play it safe with straight lines and conventional image placement on the front page. And still, it works to jolt curiosity among visitors.

There are no more than four clickable buttons to distract, with lots of white space. This is one minimalist approach to conveying a cheery vibe. It works to make Ha one of the best Shopify stores for perfume lovers.

18. Tattly Temporary Tattoos

Permanent tattoos are forever. Fun, except you don’t get to see how a tattoo will look on a real person in advance.

Tattly’s approach to tattooing gets some crucial conversion killers right:

Click on a product to see how it looks on a real person before risking the purchase
Video tutorials show you how to apply the tattoo on yourself like a pro even if you are a complete beginner
Temp tattoos mean you can Themefy an event or party and still get rid of the “ink” look hassle-free (especially convenient for kids)
Email signup form encourages repeat purchases with a “20% off next purchase” promise

Just click the drop-down icon next to the Shop tab and access everything right from the homepage.

19. Frank Body

Frank Body wins a podium finish in the best cosmetics Shopify store contest for its delightful, personal, and “for ordinary-people” vibe.

It is written in first-person, building rapport between the brand and potential customers.

The beautiful pink color scheme, cute packaging, and tongue-in-cheek marketing convey a charming feminine feel that’s sure to keep the target audience looking in all the right places.

There’s more:

Beautiful photos of next-door women happy to use Frank Body coffee scrubs encourage the hesitant browser
A loyalty program to encourage repeat customers
A limited-time “Win-a-Bedroom” contest to boost conversion goals

No doubting that Frank Body goes all the way!

20. Chubbies

Chubbies lets you know what they are about in an 8-word statement on top of a pile of colorful, reversible fleece jackets.

And you’ll know the trunks and bathing suits they sell are meant for men because they say so right above the fold—and in their interesting mantra below the fold:

It also manages to keep the menu lean enough not to overwhelm, considering the boatload of products they have on there.

Last but not least, Chubbies manages to charm with high-quality photos of their shorts and outerwear, which flip into pics of models wearing them when you hover on each.

21. Revival

Instead of a typical hero shot, Revival Rugs shows you a video background, taking you on a Moroccan journey to reveal the dedicated process each rug has to pass through to get to your doorstep.

Each piece is hand-crafted.

Revival is also so confident you’ll love their rugs that it supports free returns—the 700+ positive customer reviews notwithstanding.

Visitors just need to hover on the drop-down navigational buttons to see everything and get to what they want in a click or two.

We also love how Revival demonstrates rug sizes and how it’ll look in a room with illustrations and real photos, so buyers have fewer objections to converting.

22. Destination Towels

What happens when a professional photographer decides to help people take their destinations to their favorite destinations?

Destination Towels happens.

Choose among 61 destinations and have your favorites infused into your custom, sand-repellant, quick-drying beach towel.

Each piece has its destination’s unique coordinates printed on it.

Plus, the towel ships internationally, complete with a lightweight backpack to carry it with you wherever you go.

To emphasize the personalized experience, Anthony Glick, the Shopify owner and photographer, replies to queries himself.

Now that’s how to do personal touch in 2020.

23. Veestro

This health-conscious meal subscription service uses stunning organic food photography and visual language to get you hungry.

“Imagine devouring delicious, healthy meals daily without as much as lifting a pot”.

That’s a yummy proposal a whole lot of people are ready to make happen in real life. And especially so when the meals are chef-prepped, restaurant-quality, and come in at under $10 a pack.

Veestro then goes ahead to offer a selection of three meal plans, in case you are not sure what to pick right away.

Or, in case you are the adventurous type, want to try something different for a change.

24. Boon Supply

Boon Supply has a fresh take on fundraising.

Instead of laying out your palm for donations, the brand takes on a sustainable ecommerce approach to giving or raising funds for a worthy cause. That’s up to 40% off all merch purchases sent to your choicest course.

The CTA on the homepage makes it crisp clear where you are, what the brand does, and why it does it.

They explain how the process works right below the fold, followed by acres of white and pink space. Not sure whether that’s intentional or if it’s because there isn’t much else to show out.

But the store looks and feels and clean, easy-to-navigate, and to take the right action—whether you are a fundraiser or shopping to help.

25. Twelve Saturdays

Twelve Saturdays is a clothing Shopify store that dresses college football fans for the big days.

Instead of sporting the ole shirts and all, the brand’s copywriters cheerfully encourage fans to spot custom apparel to support their favorite teams in style.

It also employs a gray background, which they overlay with gorgeous, colored photos of models in their products. The result is a simple yet beautiful play on texture.

Shots of cheery young fellows in pairs, supposedly headed to a game, soothe the message in with precision.

And to find out the size of a cloth item, zoom in and out, as well as see back-shots of the same, just hover your mouse on a model’s picture, and the site will do its thing.

Fast. Fluid. Easy.

26. Pipcorn

Pipcorn recently rebranded.

So, their current USP reassures loyal and potential customers who’ve heard about them that they are the same crunchy, munchy snacks store they love and trust.

It adds high-res photos of their different flavors, happy people enjoying Pipcorn, and social proof about how five celebrities swear by Pipcorn snacks.

You’d think the product is not made out of normal corn.

Well, it’s actually non-GMO, gluten-free, vegan, and whole-grain popcorn. Only Pipcorn chose to prioritize how it tastes, a conversion prompt that works for them.

27. Cuppow

Fresh and clean like the food they carry, canning jar brand, Cuppow, goes all out to redefine the meaning of full-package.

That, while striking a clean and minimalist store, so buyers only see what matters: the sustainable canning jars.

You can turn the glass travel mug into a lunch box, clean it up, and refill with fresh juice on the go.

When you receive your order, you’ll get a brochure letting you know just how important your purchase was in the fight against environmental destruction.

That and more makes Cuppow canning jars undeniably memorable and rallies environmental conservation buffs onto the repeat customers log.

28. Litter

Litter knows a photo speaks a thousand words. So, they’ve dedicated the entire homepage to close-up shots of models wearing the store’s custom accessories.

It gets other things right, too:

Just three menu items guide potential customers to the right pages to boost chances of a conversion
Lots and lots of stunning photos of models sporting the jewelry so you can see yourself wearing the goodies as well
Hover on a model’s photo to see the name and price of the worn accessory. Click for more details and to purchase.
Gift cards and exclusive deals for subscribed fans

29. Sugarfina

Sugarfina comes through as playful, thoughtful, and sweet—just like you’d imagine a candy store to be. And all without overdoing it given their serve an adults’ market, too.

It also uses thematic selling, including offering a special discount, free shipping, and special flavors for your theme if you order by their recommended time.

See?

The store also earns points for engaging potential buyers by offering the option to create a custom candy box and see how it’ll look when it ships and the option to visit their physical store for that Chocolate Factory feel.

30. Henkaa

If you sell convertible dresses online, Henkaa is a top fashion store on Shopify to learn the tricks of the trade from.

Here are some things that work in its favor:

Gallery of elegant model shoots bring out the best in the dresses and make it easy to see how a dress style, color, and accessories can fit you too
A “Mystery Bag” tab nurtures curiosity among first-time and repeat visitors
The shop gifts “Under $100” CTA can help boost multiple item purchases
Elegant store design blends perfectly with the content

Henkaa is determined to grow an engaged community of loyal customers, too. The “Try It On” menu button lets visitors find a local store to try the dresses on.

Potential customers can even find events they can attend that are ideal for the Henkaa brand of sophisticated dresses.

Henkaa also goes full-throttle on content marketing, updating its blog with posts their target audience loves, such as the Henkaa 2020 Wedding Trend Report.

That’s going the extra mile right there.

31. BioLite

At first glance, BioLite does three things right:

The USP, “Try A Campfire Without the Smoke”, is spot-on—for people who prefer a more modern campfire solution than the classic wood, smoke, and ash experience.
Highlights the BioLite Mission, complete with photos of power projects they run in sub-Saharan Africa. A worthy course.
All products are accessible from the drop-down menu
BioLite manages to include its “Shop…” CTA buttons above the store’s fold. So, visitors don’t have to scroll down, unsure where to click to buy an item they love.

Well, maybe that’s four things that BioLite gets right.

32. Socco Designs

Witty copy. That readily available reviews tab inspires trust. And the powerful call-to-action in the form of the help popup on the bottom-right corner pulls visitors in with a 10% off promo code for new customers.

The site’s colors look and feel soothing and exotic, a smart design that blends beautifully with its products.

Also, you’ve got to love the crisp photos of the leather products; it makes them look so real that you can see yourself having one, a powerful buying motivator.

33. Spacing

The minimalist space above the fold says all you need to know about Spacing.

It chooses clarity over everything; to make a statement by stating the basics.

We love the drop-down style navigational buttons. Just hit the icon and choose which category you want to shop.

Or, if you prefer to shop at the physical store, scroll down. There’s a map you can use to find your way to the nearest Spacing store. Open and close times are displayed on the right.

Notice how Spacing uses the store’s header to announce new products as they come out. You can grab that idea and implement it on your Shopify store by updating your community about new arrivals, what’s restocked, and so on.

34. Nectar Bath Treats

This creative brand makes bathroom products that it packages to look and feel like sweet treats.

From almond oil bath bombs to milkshake bath soak to cupcake soaps, everything looks yummy except that it is supposed to go into the bathtub—not in a mouth.

It doesn’t help that the bath treats come in edibles form and flavors, too. So, you can grab a Donut soap or Herbal Bath Tea. Macaron soap, anyone?

There’s more:

Products are hand-made with plant-based ingredients
All bath treats are sulfate-free and paraben-free
Stunning visuals that’ll make any grown human drool

The brand’s Instagram feed, which you can view at the bottom of the page, rivals that of the best cupcakes store on Shopify.

From the store colors to product packaging, Nectar Bath Treats is a wonder of the Shopify stores world.

What’s not to like!

35. Wine Wholesales

It is not hard to see why Wine Wholesales has won a bunch of awards in its category.

It does manage to get a couple of things right and offer an immersive wine buying experience.

Those include:

The wine-red color scheme adds to the immersive feel of the store
A beautiful background showcasing stacks of classic wooden crates decorated with respected names from the 19^th century
Responsive menu tabs that help visitors get what they want in a click
Despite stocking over 1,500 wine selections, complete with quality photos, the store loads fast, which ensures potential customers have fluid experiences and reduce instances of cart abandonment
Latest Products section highlights the newest selection for experimenters
Best Sellers of 2019, Wines Under $30, Trending Now, and Most Popular Searches sections let fans keep up with the latest and greatest in the wine industry right from the homepage.

Wine Wholesales does offer free shipping on purchases over $600, which you can pay for securely on the site.

36. BlackHairandSkinCare.com

The organic haircare store may not seem to have the slickest Shopify store design on this guide.

But what it doesn’t make in site design it more than compensates with conversion-focused widgets and a good understanding of its target customers.

It is a simple store with easy-to-figure-out navigation cues.

Three organic haircare products prominently show out at the center of attention.

It might not immediately seem like it but, that’s not a static hero shot. You can slide to the left to view before and after photos of customers who have used the product to regrow and rejuvenate their hair and scalp.

Another genius touch is the nudging progress bar that popups at the bottom of the screen to encourage you to “Spend $99 to get free shipping”. Neat.

37. Triangl

Swimwear store, Triangl, does a bunch of things right:

A slideshow of vibrant photos right on the homepage grabs and keeps browsers’ attention
Using crisp, real-world photos makes it natural to see yourself enjoying their swimwear with friends
Adding social media handles of their models adds a personal touch that feels authentic and easy to attain—by buying their products
Handy size guide helps visitors get just what they want for their ideal look

The clean interface and close-ups help direct attention where it matters most: the swimwear.

38.The Home Shoppe

The Home Shoppe treats you to indoor and outdoor home furniture and accessories with eye-candy-good photography. It’s hard not to envision the furniture in your own pad or yard vividly.

The “Month’s Specials” and “New Arrivals” tabs help keep customers coming back to find the latest and trendiest. Add to that the uncluttered navigational tabs—for a store with loads of items—and it clear why it’s a top Shopify store to learn from.

39.Norwegian Rain

This fashion brand makes it on this guide for its stunning visuals combined with fast-loading speed, and the promise of top-quality cloth items for the rainy day. Literally.

Like other neat online stores featured here, Norwegian Rain presents an uncluttered homepage with just five navigational tabs.

Its aesthetics and copy appeal to the sophisticated customer, which is what it intends to do. You can tell this is a place to meet high-end tailoring. And the full, pixel-perfect sloths and waterproof shoes’ photos don’t disappoint.

The models range in age, to illustrate Norwegian Rain’s target customers as well, which helps demystify who the brand is looking to serve.

40. Act and Acre

The haircare Shopify store sets itself apart in several ways we couldn’t miss for the world:

The header lets every visitor know there’s free consulting, free returns, and free shipping to take advantage of.
Instead of adding a typical USP, the brand showcases positive mentions in big, respected publications such as Vogue to instantly build credibility
It centers “Our Method” so you can click through to find out what’s so special about their hair care and scalp health products
Each content page ends with a selection of items you can click on to buy, increasing the store’s chances of making a sale without being intrusive

Interested store visitors can click the “Press” tab to learn what’s new and why it matters.

It may also be a good thing that the site doesn’t stock a ton of products. The products’ page looks neat and loads fast, which is great for a page with high-quality photos.

So, what goes into building the best Shopify stores in 2020?

Secrets of the Best Shopify Stores for 2020

Now, you’ve probably noticed how all the top sellers on this inspiring guide have unique ways to attract, engage, enchant, and convert their browsers.

Different target audience tastes and needs mean diverse ways to build your online store with Shopify.

Yet, four factors are consistently based on the top Shopify sites samples featured here:

Shopify store design

Think simple to bold to outrageous ecommerce store designs and elements to having just a few, fast-loading pages to make the buying process less arduous.

Also remember to apply classic and latest online sales tactics such as countdown timers, retargeting, niche-branding, and discount coupons.

Shopify ecommerce Strategy

Some took the influencer route, engaging their active and loyal fans on social media to buy direct from their branded Shopify store.

Others used captivating storytelling to counter the rising cost of ecommerce ads, create relatable brands, and attract customers organically.

Some of the bestselling Shopify stores rally their visitors towards a noble course, such as feeding a hungry child for every item you purchase. Who says charitable can’t make bank?

Copy and Content

You do not want to be forgotten. The best climax witty copy and funny demeanor to build a relatable, memorable, and attention-keeping brand personality.

Yet, others are always updating their inventory with custom, hand-made items, so customers are always visiting to see what’s new.

Lots of white spaces. Less text and more stunning and relevant images. Decluttered product pages.

Best Shopify Store Structure

The pros make navigating their online store so easy that knowing the next step to take and purchase a favorite item is a no-brainer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are Shopify stores successful?

Yes, as seen in the list above, many Shopify stores are successful! Just to give you an idea, last Shopify Black Friday (2019) weekend Shopify merchants sold $2.9 billion in worldwide sales. Also, Shopify provides you the opportunity to access over 1 billion people that buy from Shopify stores. However, you might want to consider using a Shopify page builder so that your store stands out.

What can I sell on Shopify?

You can sell almost everything on Shopify, from pets products, digital products, shoes, services, classes, event tickets, etc. There are many options for you to start your own business but remember finding the right product is only the beginning. After that, you have to find the right tools and figure out how to market to be successful. Take a look at our guide on the Essential Shopify Apps and Integrations for Your Ecommerce Shop!

Which is better: Amazon or Shopify?

Most customers agree that Shopify is one step ahead of Amazon. The main reason is because on Shopify you can create a unique brand/product identity, whereas with Amazon you have tons of competitors (including Amazon). However, be aware that with Shopify you are fully responsible for promoting and building your brand/products.

How to Find the Most Visited Shopify Stores in 2020

We promised to pump the competitive gene at the start of this guide, and we plan on keeping that word so you can create one of the most successful Shopify stores

Here’s a nifty little secret to finding the top Shopify stores to give you ideas for your own store in under 3 minutes:

To create a stunning Shopify store, you can use top page builders such as Shogun – this will make the design work easy for you, even if you’re a beginner.

Now, over to you.

Which top Shopify store examples appeal to you the most? And when are you going to take action and make your ecommerce platform shine and convert better?

Further read:

ActiveCampaign vs GetResponse: Robust Marketing Automation Prowess or Feature-Packed Value?

Every business owner has a marketer in them, dying to see things done efficiently. This is why an email automation tool that gets the work done most effectively excites them. Marketing tools that automate email marketing can increase your conversion rates by 50%. In fact, at least 75% of all revenue generated from email marketing campaigns comes from triggered personalized campaigns rather than a one size fits all campaign.

Email automation tools nevertheless are a dime in a dozen out there. A few of them, however, are stand out tools that can assist your small or medium-sized business evolve to the marketing powerhouse you’d like it to be. ActiveCampaign and GetResponse are amongst two of the best of these tools.

The Main Differences Between ActiveCampaign vs GetResponse

The main differences between ActiveCampaign vs GetResponse are:

ActiveCampaign has 30 free templates while GetResponse’s are in the hundreds, whereas GetResponse has a broader range of email templates.
ActiveCampaign does not have a free trial period, whereas GetResponse has a 30-day free trial period
ActiveCampaign can feel a bit clunky to use and in the field of text editing, whereas GetResponse wins with its easy to use drag and drop editor.
ActiveCampaign sorely focuses on highly effective email marketing automation, whereas GetResponse has a range of other features such as its landing pages creator

ActiveCampaign; A review

Unlike other email marketing tools with tons of other glitzy features, ActiveCampaign’s sore focus is on the creation of automation rules and workflows. The platform’s deal pipelines bring the principles of kanban boards or agile into your sales efforts.

The platform has four main pricing plans; which includes;

Package	Yearly costs
Lite	$9 /mo
Plus	$49 /mo
Professional	$129 /mo
Enterprise	$229 /mo

The power of intelligent automation you will find out is a consistent theme in ActiveCampaign. This review will cover the software’s performance as a standalone tool. Below are some of its most powerful features.

Email campaigns

Email marketing tools differ significantly when it comes to email templates. Some are highly disadvantaged by outdated designs, while others have poorly selected templates. Some other tools will have a difficult to use email editor. ActiveCampaign, however, seems to have all the right email marketing design elements in place.

On their website, ActiveCampaign promises to help you send beautiful emails in a few clicks. Its predesigned email templates cover various industries, with a choice of 30 templates to choose from. This low number is very different from what other tools offer. If you have used more robust builders, you might, therefore, feel a bit underwhelmed.

Nevertheless, the platform has a robust email-marketing arsenal that enables you to build the email automation of your dreams. It has one of the most flexible visual builders out there, supporting a large variety of triggers to automations. The editor has many options that give a lot of design flexibility.

There are design elements with various styling options such as its very cool conditional blocks. With these elements, you can, for instance, adapt your email content to the interest of your subscribers via their associated tags. To enhance this block, what you need to do is to increase its automation through intelligent tagging.

In its powerful, agile fashion of operations, this platform has a systematic approach when it comes to building email marketing campaigns. It is, therefore, very easy to create and send emails to an audience. If you feel that none of the 30 templates suit your campaign, there is the choice of building a custom template from the drag and drop editor. Its image upload, fonts, and color options will aid you in the building of a template that better matches your brand.

The builder’s drag and drop editor can be a bit clunky, especially in the area of text selection and formatting. After several uses, however, you will find its shortcomings much easier to handle. Its image selection tool, too, can be a tad annoying. If you, for instance, upload an image, you are forced to dig through piles of other images to select it. This minor annoyance, of course, does get old with time, but you should be prepared for it, and hope that the software’s development team will get to it.

Some other useful features of the builder are the ability to save content elements for future use. If you have built a footer or header that you would like to apply to other templates and keep a consistent look, you can save it from the builder. The platform also allows you to not only track but also to analyze the performance of your email campaigns.

There is also a mobile device and desktop preview function and a useful spam check feature as well. With ActiveCampaign, you will not only enjoy email automation but also perform other advanced actions such as the posting of a webhook or sending SMSs.

Marketing automation

ActiveCampaign’s selling point is its automation prowess. The features under its marketing automation tab are what makes it a stand out marketing tool. Once more in its agile fashion of function, the platform uses a visual workflow builder to assist you in designing your automation. This makes it much easier for its users to build sophisticated branch out segments using conditional logic. The platforms call this system ‘Actions,’ and there are plenty of choices here to work with.

This intuitive and highly visual marketing automation builder helps you to build sequences with no prior training. Combine this ease of use with the site and intelligent tracking, and the marketing possibilities are endless. You can, for instance, use this feature to design long term and short term marketing sequences. These can be utilized to build a sales qualified leads for your business’s lead scoring system.

There is also a useful email split testing tool that allows you to perform split tests on emails in an automation sequence. You can set up five split tests at a go, to ensure that your email marketing sequences get better with time. The process will refine your emails via the use of the data captured.

The ActiveCampaign reports can also assist you in identifying the best time to send out your emails. By viewing your highest open rates, you will find out which precise days, or hours had the highest open standards. You can then go ahead and add ‘waits’ to your automation sequences to ensure that vital emails are sent out when the open rates are higher. Marketers again love efficiency, and time tracking is one of the best ways you can streamline your workflow.

With the platforms goals feature, you will have the power in your hands to identify the amount of time required to accomplish a specific action. Once your automation sequence is set, you can get valuable data on just how long it takes your customers to perform certain actions in the automation sequence. You can, for instance, trace a customer’s wait period from the sign up to paid customer status.

It is also possible to identify the amount of time your customers take to leave a review. This feature also helps to gauge the time taken for the purchase of other products or an upgrade of a user’s membership.

Another fantastic feature is the ability to share automation that works. You can, for instance, directly import resourceful automation directly into your account. If you would like to share them with your team, you can do using the feature’s Share menu. On it, you will access a share URL that can be imported into another person’s account.

Sales funnels / CRM

This is the other feature where ActiveCampaign’s deal pipelines shine. The fantastic CRM can help you to automate your sales processes and move your valuable leads along your pipeline to bring in more revenue. The CRM has a drag and drop functionality with customizable leads stages.

The kanban boards like feature will assist you in breaking a sales funnel into manageable stages. From this angle, the whole sales cycle ceases to be a confusing mess of a monster through the assistance of visual deal stages. The leads can be inputted manually, but automation increases output.

You can add more leads, prioritize, or move them in your CRM based on specific criteria. The CRM additionally has a scoring component that assigns a score to a lead. This means that you can target your most valuable leads for quicker conversions. Your marketing resources will, therefore, be utilized more efficiently.

Integrations

The platform integrates with over 150 apps, including Shopify, WordPress, Facebook, Stripe, and PayPal. Their extensive library of integrations also has extensive documentation that explains how each app’s integration works.

List management

The platform utilizes tags and lists to manage and segment customer lists. You can, as an illustration, have a record that has multiple tags. You can also have records that have a few unique tags. All your stored business contacts are easily accessible from the platform’s central dashboard. There are filters availed that will help you to apply actions as well as find specific contacts. The software allows you to import contact lists, or add them through the integrated third-party apps.

Reporting

The success of your email marketing campaigns is highly hinged on data. Reports, therefore, are very critical to marketing success. You can analyze metrics and see what actions work and eliminate those that do not work. ActiveCampaign’s data reporting functionality include goals, automation, deals, contacts, and campaigns. The reports section has a bird’s eye view of all the email campaigns you are undertaking as well as the clicks and opens. To view more useful data, you will need to select a campaign. Once a selection is made, metrics on social shares or mentions, location, bounces, or unsubscribes are revealed.

GetResponse; A review

A creation of Simon Grabowski, GetResponse is now two decades old. The platform has a wide range of customers from at least 182 countries worldwide. The software is available in 21 various languages, providing top-notch quality marketing solutions to businesses online.

This all in one marketing solution goes beyond email marketing and provides other fantastic solutions. First, unlike ActiveCampaign, GetResponse has a cool landing pages feature. It also has customer relationship management (CRM) and automated sales funnel functionality.

The platform has four main pricing plans; which includes;

Package	Yearly costs
Basic	$15/mo
Plus	$49/mo
Professional	$99/mo
Enterprise	$1,199/mo

The costs of each package vary according to the number of your subscribers. The more you have, the more you will be required to pay. Below we will review some of the platform’s best features.

Email marketing

GetResponse has a fantastic 99% email deliverability record, one of the highest seen across platforms. The platform is first, is a spam-free solution, a factor that highly contributes to its deliverability success. Its email marketing feature also has the advantage of over 500 predesigned email templates to ensure that you can send attractive emails without breaking a sweat.

The software also has a drag and drop editor that makes email marketing a blast for the novice and the professional marketer alike. Your marketing team is also free to design their templates using the drag and drop editor. There are, however, tons of email templates to choose from, segmented by industry. All you need to do is to select one for your brand and get going.

The drag and drop editor also gives its users the ability to edit HTML code. You can preview your email message before sending, and it has a spam checker tool as well. When you are done with the email template design process, you can either broadcast the message at once or utilize its time travel option, that allows you to send the message later. With GetResponse, you can segment your contacts by their time zones and send emails when they are most likely to open them.

Besides the extensive library of templates, the platform also makes it very easy to tweak layouts, fonts, and imagery. The quality of some of the predesigned templates, however, is of a good enough condition to be used as-is. If you want a higher quality of email templates, you can purchase more from third-party providers such as Theme Forest. If coding is your thing, then go right ahead and make for your business a custom email-marketing template. The drag and drop editor is at hand to assist you in managing the design process.

The platform has stayed ahead of the curve by providing responsive templates that easily optimize for different screen sizes. There nonetheless have been some complaints when it comes to the display of these templates on some mobile apps. Users have also asked the developers to add on a few fonts beyond the usual web-safe fonts such as Georgia or Arial. A slew of new and exciting fonts will shake up the e-newsletters design and give them some pizzazz.

Autoresponders

The platform’s autoresponders are a vital selling point of GetResponse. Through them, you can send to your subscriber’s e-newsletters at intervals when they take individual predetermined decisions on your website. You can, for instance, send a welcome message for all signups and then send a discount offer to these same email addresses, a week later. You can set an autoresponder a few weeks down the line, which has a follow-up message.

This platform has a comprehensive autoresponder feature that enables action based or time-based message sending. Action-based messages can be triggered by customer steps such as;

Clicks
Opens
Change in user data
Subscriptions to lists
Completed goals or transactions
Birthdays

The platform’s marketing automation functionality envelopes its autoresponder feature and includes the automation of workflows. This automation is done through its drag and drop builder, that will assist you in building an automation flowchart. This makes it easy to create a user journey, one that is fully customizable. Automationis a beneficial tool in marketing. Unfortunately, it is only available in the more expensive plans on GetResponse, which is a shame.

Sales funnels / CRM

The GetResponse CRM tools have undergone a useful facelift, which has made them much easier to use. You, for instance, no longer need to export data to CSV format to do your mail outs. The tool has grown from its ability to perform basic functions and is now integrated with the software’s email marketing function.

Now you use it to go beyond the creation of sales pipelines. Through it, you can track activity from phone calls and emails. You can now usher users to your sales pipeline based on actions such as purchases, email opens, and form completions.

The CRM nonetheless lacks email activity tracking as well as task management tools. Without a task management tool, you cannot assign a task to a team member. With GetResponse, the addition of contacts to a pipeline is not as intuitive as it is with ActiveCampaign. The procedure is clunky and time-consuming, making the CRM look a bit half-baked.

The platform’s auto funnel feature provides the means of creating a sales funnel without the input of other apps. There is a wide range of templates available for this function, and if need be, you can work with other platforms such as Etsy or Shopify to enhance functionality.

Analytics

The platform has a good range of reporting and analytics tools. They cover the basics such as click-throughs, open rates, and unsubscribe rates. There are, however, additional nifty features such as their one-click segmentation tools. This feature allows you to identify customers who have not interacted with your emails. You can then segment them and send a different version of the email to capture their attention.

There is a ‘metrics over time’ feature also that pinpoints the best time to send emails. There also are useful email ROI and per-user information features. You can also use the analytics feature to compare the performance of different email campaigns to improve your marketing.

Split testing

An email marketing campaign is a fantastic way to procure repeat and new customers. It is, however, much easier to retain old customers in business than acquire new ones. Data also shows that it is 70% easierto sell a product to a retained customer. However, the probability of selling your products to a new client stands at 5 to 20%.It is therefore imperative to run A/B tests when initiating new formats for an email campaign. The tests will assist you in improving your campaign’s conversion rates which will, in the end, will have a good impact on your marketing efforts.

The platform’s A/B test toolsets up two variations of a campaign and sends them to a small segment of your recipients. Clicks or opens measure the results of the tests, and the version that has received more attention wins the trial.

GetResponse’s split-testing functionality allows you to test at least five messages against each other. You can measure your tests using features such as content, subject headers of a form field. This tool is, however, not that much different from ActiveCampaign’s split testing feature that also allows up to five email tests at a time.

Landing page creator

The conversion of your website’s visitors into leads is the most significant revenue-generating process of your online business. This means that you can never have too many landing pages. Studies have shown that an increase in landing pages leads to a 55% increase in leads.

A landing page does not only capture visitor’s information but converts them into potential buyers. These pages, therefore, have very few distractions on them. GetResponse assists in the building of clean and well-designed landing pages. The lead pages creator is the software’s unique selling point. Most of its competitors lack this functionality. This tool not only builds these useful pages but also tests their conversion rates against each other, in real-time.

ActiveCampaign lacks a landing page creator meaning that you will need to fork out more cash for a third party landing pages creator. The feature is available in GetResponse’s cheaper options, but its full functionality can only be experienced in the more pricey packages.

Nevertheless, third party lead page builders have a hefty fee attached to them so, you will save some good bucks through GetResponse’s lead page builder. The feature’s interface, nonetheless, is a little bit clunky and not very intuitive. You will also have to build separate pages for your mobile and desktop pages, which is a hassle.

Webinars

The platform also has one more feature, which gives makes it a very robust marketing platform. You can create and broadcast webinars from GetResponse, ensuring that you too will engage with your clients on a more personal channel. Webinars are excellent lead generation tools, and holding them from a platform that has your email database makes webinar broadcasts much more convenient.

The integrated webinar tool means that you will not have to pay more for a standalone webinar solution. The tool is also very easy to use. Your viewers do not need to install any app to view your videos, and you can do a once click record of these sessions. GetResponse also provides free cloud storage for your playback files as well as useful screen sharing functionality.

ActiveCampaign vs. GetResponse

ActiveCampaign is a critical tool for any entrepreneur in need of an affordable email marketing solution. It has robust marketing automation tools that bring better functionality to email marketing campaigns than those of similarly priced peers. Its ability to run a multitude of sales funnels from multiple products is a big plus of the platform.

With it’s easy to use agile like process, you can rest assured that you will not send irrelevant emails to a target audience. The software’s main strength is the management of multiple and sophisticated sales funnels. It also makes it very easy for you to work with a team due to the ease of assigning tasks.

These two advantages place ActiveCampaign ahead of the curve when compared to GetResponse. If your business has multiple email campaigns or products, you will enjoy the ease of use that ActiveCampaign’s platform brings.

GetResponse, on the other hand, can be a bit underwhelming to a user with a sophisticated email marketing strategy. The platform nevertheless has rich features that go beyond the email list. It, for example, has a landing pages builder. It is also better priced than its competitor is, when it comes to its higher feature packages. GetResponse, has a 30-day free trial, meaning that you can take it for a test run, without giving out your credit card details.

Why compare GetResponse to ActiveCampaign?

These two tools are highly functional in email marketing. We’re comparing them so that you can get the best lead generation ROI.

You do not need both of them for this function. ActiveCampaign’s CRM, however, is hands down one of the best platforms for automated marketing, especially for businesses with multiple products. GetResponse has an efficient CRM tool, as well as other extra features such as a landing page builder. ActiveCampaign can do for your business, if you do not mind paying more for its feature-packed package. If you, however, want to do more for your business, GetResponse is your answer.

ActiveCampaign pros

Use of tags and lists for subscriber management
Advanced automation features that include customizable workflows and triggers
A functional and robust CRM platform
An easy to use and attractive user interface for campaign building
Thorough split testing tools
A fantastic list on integrations
Responsive support
Tracking and reporting tools
Great for multiple email campaigns management

Cons

Its higher-priced package is expensive
A clunky drag and drop builder
Harder to manage contacts on the platform
Few predesigned email templates
A limited form builder on cheaper plans
No free trial
GetResponse pros
One month no commitment-free trial for a 250 subscriber list
Easy to import contacts from other apps into the platform
Easy to use analytics and tracker features
Award-winning customer support
Useful inbuilt landing page creator
A robust list of management tools
The more affordable option
Webinar broadcasting features
Wide range of predesigned email templates

Cons

No refund policy
Poor email activity tracking

Over to you

If you are still unsure of which platform is best for you, perhaps this quick summary will show you the way. ActiveCampaign is perfect for B2B businesses with longer sales cycles. If you are heavily invested in B2B sales, you should have ActiveCampaign working for you. However, if your company sells directly to its customers, GetResponse makes it very easy to manage your campaigns. If your business deals with B2C emails, get GetResponse.

Supermetrics Review: The Good, the Bad and Everything in Between

Gone are the days when marketers struggled with reporting, analyzing and monitoring data. There was a time when, moving the data from marketing platforms to wherever they wanted to use it, was overwhelming. Supermetrics solved all these issues by bringing all your marketing metrics in one place and making analysis easy.

When Mikael Thuneberg was still working as a web analyst in 2009, he entered an online competition to connect the newly released Google Analytics API to Excel. The grand prize for the 1st successful contestant? A Google t-shirt. Motivated by his own struggle with manually copying and pasting data from Google Analytics to Excel, he worked through many nights to solve this puzzle. He won.

Mikael then founded Supermetrics as a way to help not only Google Analytics users, but other marketers around the globe. The Supermetrics mission is to help marketers report, analyze and monitor their data better by connecting the marketing platforms to wherever they want to use the data.

Why Consider Supermetrics?

The process of gathering data from various sources and bringing it together to create reports for clients is exhausting. So, what makes Supermetrics helpful to online marketers and other businesses with managing their challenges?

PPC Reporting

The connection Supermetrics has with various ad platforms makes it a breeze to automate reports for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Bing, and others.

Social Media Reporting

Supermetrics can collect social media data from Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Reddit, Pinterest, Tumblr, and other platforms. With these metrics, you can create a personalized social media report that includes engagement statistics and follower growth.

SEO Reporting

Create your own SEO report with Supermetrics. SEO reporting connects with Searchmetrics, Google Search Console, Moz, and other SEO tools. Supermetrics combines the results over time which sorts out the search console problem of limiting reports to 90 days.

Analytics Reporting

You can automate analytics reporting with Supermetrics. It connects with Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics. With Supermetrics, you’re able to create more customized reports than with just Google Analytics.

Analysis and Optimization

The majority of businesses use Supermetrics for report automation. However, it provides powerful optimization and analysis too. For instance, you can obtain deep insights from Analytics and Adwords than from the usual Google reports.

Other Benefits of Supermetrics

No More Importing CSV Files or Manual Copy/Paste

Some marketers spend too much time logging into each platform to collect data. The more channels you adopt, the more time you’ll spend. Instead, you should spend this time adding value to clients and their businesses.

Supermetrics solves this problem with a flexible sidebar which makes it easy to obtain metrics for several sites within a few seconds. All you need to do is enter the necessary information and Supermetrics will automatically generate your data. Not only does this shorten the time you use, but it also provides good quality presentation of the data.

Integration with Several Marketing Platforms

Supermetrics can be integrated with almost 50 platforms. This allows you to connect to your data no matter where it is. Some of these platforms include; Google Analytics, Google Ads, Google Search Console, MailChimp, LinkedIn Ads, Twitter Ads, and YouTube.

Integration makes analysis easier for marketers. You can collect data from various sources into a single view. For comparison purposes, you can also collect data from various accounts related to the same source. This is quite useful when one client (business) has several accounts for various locations. They can easily track performance for each location based on particular metrics.

Supermetrics is so committed to helping you easily connect to your data that in case your data source is not available, they can build it for you. You simply have to fill in a request form with your email address and the data source you’re voting for.

Monitor Daily Ad Spend

Monitoring the daily ad spend for clients is important, but it can be a pain. Online advertisers can easily track ad spends with this dynamic platform. When Supermetrics has collected all the required data on a spreadsheet, you can simply use ‘data validation’ to create drop-down menus. At this point, it’s easy to see each client’s ad spend and compare it with the expected daily spend.

By selecting the client account from the drop-down menu, you can easily and quickly monitor all the clients’ accounts.

Reduce PPC Reporting Time

The expansion of your client base and marketing channels can make data reporting and visualization daunting and timewasting. Collecting and updating data from various advertising sources into one excel sheet, then comparing the findings is tiring.

For instance, you may have several accounts for Google Ads and also use other platforms like LinkedIn Ads and Facebook Ads. The difficulty and time spent in creating daily reports can make your head spin. Supermetrics sorts this issue out by using its Google Data Studio Integration and Google Sheets Add-On feature.

It builds an excel report with all comparisons, charts and PPC channel information in the same place. Advertising data comparison and analysis made easy.

Monitor Performance with Automated Dashboards

It’s your job to ensure that your clients earn a high return on investment. You can do this with Supermetrics by setting dashboards and automating alerts that notify you when performance declines below the expected level. This eliminates human error while satisfying your clients. The alerts allow you to take the necessary action as soon as possible.

Supermetrics Products and Features

Supermetrics provides a variety of products to automate reporting for SEO, PPC, social media and web analytics. The platform features the following products.

Supermetrics for Google Sheets

This product is the most popular on the platform. You can automate reports by collecting data from various sources like Twitter, Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, Bing Ads, etc. using your preferred metrics onto one single spreadsheet.

The visualization, data-crunching and sharing abilities of Google Sheets, combined with the data fetching power of Supermetrics will take your marketing game to the next level.

The Hobby (Free) version is simply for you to test the product and only connects with one data source, Google Analytics. The Pro Version connects with a number of data sources and costs $69 per month.

The Super Pro version (which is the most popular) connects with all data sources on the platform and goes for $149 per month. It allows integration with all data sources and provides an hourly scheduled refresh. The Enterprise version is customizable to your particular requirements.

You can test the product to determine how well it will work by taking advantage of the 14 days free trial including all features. If you make annual payments for whichever version, a 22% discount applies.

Google Data Studio

This product is great for data visualization and creating reports. In the past, to visualize data and create reports, you had to first organize data from non-Google sources in Google Sheets and then import to Data Studio.

Supermetrics makes this easy with connectors like Twitter Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Bing Ads, MailChimp, and others. It becomes a breeze to collect data and visualize it on Google Data Studio. The connectors collect data from various accounts from the same source into one report. When creating a data source on Google Data Studio, simply select all accounts.

To test drive this product, you can use the 14 days free trial (no credit card required). After that, you can choose a plan depending on your desired features and choice of connectors.

The Individual Connector plan costs $19 per month. For the popular Pro plan, you’ll part with $99 per month. The Super Pro plan goes for $299 per month.

Supermetrics API

This product provides a hassle-free way to analyze, report and store your online marketing data in data warehouse and BI tools. This is how it works:

Connect to a Supermetrics data source with a seamless interface.
Feed any marketing data into BI tools or data warehouse.
Just like that, your data is ready to use.

Supermetrics Uploader

This product helps you measure advertising ROI by combining your ad cost data with Google Analytics Ecommerce and goal conversion metrics. It also saves you time because you no longer need to log in to various platforms to check the figures.

The cost of the Supermetrics Uploader starts at $39 per month for each advertising channel for 5 daily uploads.

Supermetrics Functions

This product provides the easiest way to collect your marketing metrics into Google Sheets and Excel. It is used by skilled spreadsheet users. You don’t need any programming skills. You can easily type a custom function into the spreadsheet cells, for example, ‘SUM’ or ‘COUNT’.

Supermetrics Data Grabber for Excel

With this tool, you can import data from various sources into an Excel Spreadsheet and still access all features. You’ll be able to create reliable reports efficiently. You can use it with Mac Excel 2011 or Windows Excel 2003 and subsequent versions.

How does it work?

Download the trial version and open it in Excel.
Log in to any data source.
Run your first report in three steps.

Pick an account from your list.
Choose metrics under ‘split by’.
Click ‘Run the report’.

Each data source integration comes with a different price tag, most of them costing $39 per month and others costing $29 per month.

Supermetrics for BigQuery

This is a new tool on the platform that showcases the processing power of the Google Cloud. You can link advertising data with CRM data or web analytics. You can also compare paid campaigns across all networks. This product includes an exclusive Data Studio Connector.

For one data source and one account, the price is $199 per month. For one data source and five accounts, you’ll pay $499 per month. If you need multiple accounts or data sources, volume discounts are available. You can try it out for free for 14 days before you decide or book a demo.

The Upside of Supermetrics

Usability

Supermetrics features a seamless interface with handy features. It’s easier to use for marketers that enjoy data analysis. It provides several drop down menus that give you several options to choose from. You don’t have to remember their names.

Speed

You can’t argue with Supermetrics’ speed. Marketers can quickly and easily collect the data they need at that exact time. You can easily access any field from a particular data source.

Cost

Entry level costs are low and a 14-day free trial is available. For more data sources, however, you’ll have to pay more.

Ownership of Historical Data

Previously, Supermetrics did not store data. It was easy to determine recent events on the platform. However, it did not provide you with sufficient data to determine long-term trends. Marketers had to buy, set up and maintain the required warehouse which will be more costly. With the new product BigQuery, you can store all your data.

The Downside of Supermetrics

Not Newbie-Friendly

Beginners on this platform can get a little bit lost. Their tools are easier to use for slightly experienced data nerds.

No Depth or Scalability

Supermetrics is speedy, no doubt. However, if you want to analyze minute details, you may have to go slower especially if your project contains millions of rows of data. For better efficiency, it might be better to use a data warehouse where your data already structure.

Is Supermetrics the Right Fit For Your Business?

Supermetrics definitely saves precious time with automation and makes data analysis a breeze for online marketers. However, it is not the best choice for complete newbies. It helps if you have experience with using spreadsheets. But even with experience, be careful not to put data in the wrong columns.

The benefits of Supermetrics definitely outweigh the downsides. What makes it a must-have tool for marketers is the seamless integration with various data sources, real-time data analysis, and easy data visualization.

The frequent updates and flexibility of Supermetrics give you the edge required to take your organization to the next level. If you spend a lot of time getting your hands dirty with data and creating reports, this platform will make your work easy.

If you’re still undecided, it won’t cost you anything to start with the 14-day free trial and familiarize yourself with the platform before spending on a paid plan.

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2 of the Best Shopify Alternatives for Your Online Store (We’ve Narrowed it Down for You!)

The challenging and evolving economic environment has spurred on what is known as the gig economy. Today, people are approaching work differently. The purchase of goods and services is also transforming and thriving with the great strides in technology circles.

There are well-known large businesses behind this trend. Shopify, in contrast, is not as famed but the once tiny Canadian company has done its share in uplifting the e-commerce environment. Based in Ontario, Canada, the highly successful startup has seen its shares climb by 136% in 2019.

Its overall market cap now stands at the $36.6 billion mark. The business started out as an online store for Snowdevil, its founder’s snowboarding equipment shop. Tobias Lütke, its founder and CEO, utilized his computer programming skills to cobble up what today is a force to reckon with in e-commerce.

The platform is now a darling of venture capitalist investments, netting over $122 million in such funding. By 2014, it had over 100,000 retailers selling on it from over 150 countries. In 2017, Shopify set up an Amazon Sales Channel. This avenue would assist its merchants to list their products on Amazon.com simultaneously. Today, Shopify has over 800,000 stores on it and over a million active users.

What is Shopify?

It is a cloud-based e-commerce platform, with various channels. On it, you can monitor your online shop, as well as mobile, social media and brick and mortar sales as well. You can also access your product inventory, process all your orders, and ship them out. Shopify also makes it very easy for its users to build relationships with their customers.

To guide its merchants and help them improve, innovate, and grow, the platform also has a robust data analytics feature. Through it, you can access data and reporting functions. Should you be in need of financing, Shopify features will also hold your hand.

In June 2019, the platform added 11 new languages and a fulfillment network. Amongst its other updates, is enhanced customer-facing software features. There are also easier to use software developer kits that will help users to build and embed deployable apps.

On Shopify, you will find a wide range of templates that are easy to customize. The platform has a low learning curve. Consequently, you do not need enhanced coding or design skills to build a stellar store. A little knowledge of CSS and HTML will, however, be very handy for ease of control.

As mentioned, it is a cloud-based platform and therefore, a hosted solution. This means that you will not need to pay for web hosting or software installations elsewhere. All you need to start out happens ‘out of the box.’

A platform is a software as a service (‘Saas’) tool. It has a monthly subscription, which ranges from lows of $9 to highs of $2000 for Shopify Plus.

Shopify Pricing Plans

Plan	Cost per month	Staff accounts
Shopify Lite	$9
Basic Shopify	$29	2
Shopify	$79	5
Advanced Shopify	$299	15
Shopify Plus	$2000

Shopify Lite, the cheapest of the Shopify plans do not come with a functional store. It allows you to market products through a Facebook page. Additionally, you can use it to manage inventory in a brick and mortar store. You can alternatively use Shopify’s ‘Buy Button’ to sell products on your blog.

Key Differentiators Between the Shopify Plans:

Reporting: only accessible from the $79 and above plans.
Advanced report builder: only available on the $299 and $2000 plans.
Gift cards: can be accessed on the $79 and above plans.
Real-time carrier shipping: only on $299 plan.
Point of sale functionality: available on $79 and higher plans.

Shopify Pros

1. Ease of use

Users love this platform because they do not have to worry about anything else but their sales. You do not have to spend your precious time fussing over technology or other time-wasting administrative tasks. The platform has a clean, easy to use interface and offers excellent assistance well in-store management.

Your customers, for instance, can access your store from various platforms with a simple click. A self-hosted online shop would require a lot of coding to give the same ease of access. On Shopify, your products are accessible from Facebook, WordPress, Pinterest, Tumblr, or Instagram.

2. Customer support

Most Shopify diehards love its quality customer care features. If you start your online store on WooCommerce or WordPress, you will have no one holding your hands, should you encounter a technical hitch. You can access developers, but they do not come cheap.

At times, your query in the forums could go unnoticed, leaving you high and dry. Shopify has a ton of FAQs, as well as phone, email and chats support. The safety net of knowing that you have help on your side at all times is worth the plan’s price alone.

3. Security

A fast and attractive website is excellent, but all that effort does not amount to much if there is little or no protection from malware and hacks. This is especially true if you have a credit card using the clientele. Shopify websites are not only fast but also very secure.

The security of the platform deters hackers and enforces compliance. The platform also has enhanced caching, which is excellent for online stores. To ensure that their security features are constantly tested, Shopify pays experts to hack-proof their features.

4. Storefront Themes

The platform has built a name for itself due to its professional and modern themes. The websites they create have a dash of elegance, which not only attracts but retains customers as well. There are templates for all types of themes for businesses.These include; art and photography, jewelry and accessories, Food and beverage, furniture and technology. Each theme is designed with the end customer in mind.

5. The Shopify app store

If you love access to tons of features, you are more for a Shopify person. You, nevertheless, need to know how to use them, because some do come at a cost. Various plugins can assist you in building a personalized store that caters to your business’s unique needs. Some of Shopify’s most popular features include:

OptinMaster that increases sales and generates leads.
Referral Candy, which is a marketing application with top-notch sales tools.
Plugin SEO, for search engine, optimized online stores.
Printfful for designing store merchandise on the go.
Chimpify for business marketing.

Shopify Cons

1. They have a unique PHP language

Shopify uses Liquid as a coding language for its themes. This could make it hard for you to customize the themes if you are not versed with the programming language.

2. High price for advanced features

The basic plans are very bare of features. There are no reports, gift cards, or fraud analysis features.

3. Costly apps

Most useful apps on the Shopify app store come at a price.

Nevertheless, there are other e-commerce platforms that have become Shopify rivals in terms of performance and use. The best Shopify alternative so far is BigCommerce. Here are two Shopify alternatives for you, starting with my first pick, BigCommerce

Below is an in-depth review of this fantastic platform.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is Shopify’s closest competitor. The Texas-based startup claims that it has more than 95,000 businesses running on it. The platform is excellent for high volume businesses and has fantastic features. It has great retailers on it as well, such as Travelpro, Toyota and Gibson guitars.

The Saas product has a monthly charge, and in matters pricing, it does lie in the same range as Shopify. It is also a hosted solution, meaning that you do not have to pay for further web hosting fees.

You can build an online store on BigCommerce using its various customizable templates or use it for your physical store. The platform also has marketing tools for your store. The software is easy to use, so you do not need to be tech-savvy to build a stellar store.

However, with some CSS and HTML, you can tweak your online store for some much-needed personality. If you are not up to the hassle of running your very own website, then BigCommerce is a good way to go.

BigCommerce Plans: What Do They Cost?

Plan	Cost per month	Staff accounts	Sales limit
BigCommerce Standard	$29.95	unlimited	$50,000
BigCommerce Plus	$79.95	unlimited	$150,000
BigCommerce Pro	$249.95	unlimited	$400,000
BigCommerce Enterprise	Varies on business requirements	unlimited	Negotiable

Users that pay for the plus and pro packages annually receive a 10% discount.

The Main Differences Between the BigCommerce Plans

Bigcommerce Standard

This is the cheapest of the platform’s plans, and it goes for $29.95. Its price equals that of Basic Shopify plan, the comprehensive starter kit in the Shopify platform. The plan is pretty much the bang for your buck offer with all key ingredients needed to get you started.

It, however, does not have an abandoned cart saving feature, which notifies you when shoppers leave their purchases midway through the process. It is this feature that also sends them a reminder encouraging them to complete the purchase process. The basic Shopify plan has this feature.

The plan’s other features include:

A functional e-commerce store.
Unlimited storage for files as well as bandwidth.
Gift cards.
Reporting.
Reviews and rating functionality.
Automated image optimization.

BigCommerce Plus

This plan has some significant perks that include:

Abandoned cart saver feature.
Credit cards storage.
Persistent cart feature that saves carts irrespective of devices used to shop.
Shopper segmentation and grouping, to assist in the design of reward or loyalty programs.

BigCommerce Pro

The significant difference between the Pro and Plus packages is their online sales limits. While it has a $400,000 threshold, you can increase it by $200,000 for an extra $150 per month. It also has a Google Customer Reviews feature that collects and displays user feedback on your e-commerce store.

Other additional features include:

Advanced product filters.
Third-party custom SSL.
BigCommerce Enterprise.

There is no designated charge for this plan. The costs will reflect the needs and size of your business. This plan is designed for large companies with a high turnover of over $1,000,000. It has features unique to it, which includes:

Advanced product filters that work through custom field searches.
Varied price lists for different customer groups.
API support and priority management support.
Limitless API calls.

BigCommerce core features common to all its plans:

A minimum of 10 free design templates.
Paypal integration and other payment gateways.
SEO and full CMS functionality.
Akamai Image Manger’s automatic image optimization for improved rankings.
Integration with various email marketing solutions such as MailChimp, iContact, and Constant Contact.
Gift vouchers and discount coupons.
HTML and CSS tweaking.
Ability to do product reviews.
Professional data reporting.

Notable BigCommerce features

Availability of a payment gateway. Third-party payment gateways integrated on a website can add additional charges that will eat into your bottom-line. Some take a percentage of your payments or charge a monthly fee. Some apply both charges. Other payment gateways are not also easy to integrate. They can take some effort when it comes to configurations.

BigCommerce, fortunately, has a working Paypal and Braintree powered payment gateway integrated. This feature also gives you a preferential rate for card transactions from Paypal. Nevertheless, the platform can work with 40 other payment gateways. Shopify, in contrast, integrates with over 100 different payment gateways.

Templates

The platform has ten free templates and 130 other paid themes, with variant features. The price range for paid themes ranges from $145 to $235. The major complaint there is about BigCommerce’s free themes is that they are quite alike in design. Their major differentiator is their colors. Shopify also has ten free that have the advantage of having two or three variants each. Some other platforms, like Squarespace, provide up to 100 free themes.

Abandoned cart feature

BigCommerce’s abandoned cart feature is awe-inspiring. With it, you can design three emails that automatically go to visitors who leave the purchase funnel midway. The feature, unlike that of other e-commerce platforms, allows three autoresponders, while Shopify limits theirs to one. It, however, is not available on BigCommerce’s cheapest plan while it is available on Basic Shopify.

Product categories

Shopify allows you to present your shoppers with three product variants. You will need third-party apps or workarounds to have a wider product presentation choice. BigCommerce, on the other hand, allows up to 250 product options. This makes the platform perfect for merchants with products that have a wide range of formats. The platform, however, does not automatically categorize products as Shopify does. Nevertheless, it has a bulk edit feature that speeds the manual product categorization.

Interface

BigCommerce has a reasonably easy to use and intuitive interface. It is in many ways similar to Shopify’s. All the critical features required to build your online store are placed on a vertical menu on your left-hand side. These features will help you to edit the store once selected.

BigCommerce SEO

Their SEO game is also solid, and the necessary tools are very easy to edit. The platform also allows you to easily edit product-specific URLs, unlike Shopify. You can build short URLs, which are great for SEO. The platform’s mobile website is very fast on Google, which gives it a Google indexing advantage.

BigCommerce also leads in Accelerated Mobile Pages features, which increase your SEO advantage. With this feature, fewer users will leave your mobile site due to slow loading pages. The search engines algorithms could reward a low drop off rate.

Automatic image optimization

Appropriately, sized images do load faster, which increases page speeds. Google will, therefore, accord these pages five-star treatments. BigCommerce uses the Akamai Image Manager. The feature will optimize all images, and as per BigCommerce data, the image optimization could increase load times by up to 70%. The useful tool is available in all of the platform’s plans, unlike other e-commerce builders that require a third-party app for this feature.

App integrations

BigCommerce offers integrations with over 650 apps, which is less than what Shopify has. However, the combinations required for significant uses such as marketing shipping, accounting, or CRM are available. They’re also useful Saas apps you can pay for such as Zendesk, Salesforce, or MailChimp. If you have to use MailChimp, you will need to work with BigCommerce instead of Shopify. Shopify has had a fallout with MailChimp over data protection problems.

Android and iOS apps

Many e-commerce platforms today have mobile apps that assist merchants with in-store management. BigCommerce seems to be missing this functionality; however, you can acquire third-party apps if you wish to. These, nonetheless, are not supported by the platform perchance there is a technical hitch. Shopify, on the other hand, does have this functionality.

Support

The platform does have a lot of useful handholding for all its plans. It is, therefore, easy to set up an online store. There is a 24 hour, live agent customer support for plans, though they are not clear if that support involves phone calls.

Analytics

You will have access to a wide range of standard reports such as marketing, customer, search data, abandoned carts, and finance reports. If you want further insights, you will need to pay an additional charge.

However, it is noteworthy that the reporting bulk comes free with all plans. What you might need to pay for is detailed data on products, customers, and abandoned carts. In contrast, Shopify avails these reports to its $79 plan and above users.

BigCommerce Pros

Lack of transaction fees:
BigCommerce has an integrated, Paypal powered payment gateway. The platform also does not charge any extra costs for transactions. You can, nevertheless, integrate third party payment gateways from 65 other providers. These gateways will, however, charge a premium for their services.
Unlimited staff accounts:
BigCommerce is very generous with its staff accounts. It allows for unlimited staff accounts on all its plans while Shopify for two on its cheaper package and a maximum of 15 on its most expensive plan.
Reporting and gift cards:
If you want to access professional reports and the gift card features affordably, you will need to use BigCommerce. With Shopify, you will need to pay for its higher tire plans to access these tools. BigCommerce has these feature integrated free in all its plans.
Easy checkout:
A single page checkout feature is excellent at hindering cart abandonment. BigCommerce has this feature in all its packages. To enjoy this feature on Shopify, you will need to acquire an add-on.

BigCommerce Cons

Abandoned cart saver:
Unlike Shopify, the platform does not have this recovery tool in its more affordable plans. Shopify has inbuilt it in every package.
Sales limits:
BigCommerce and 3dcart have set sales limits for their plans. Shopify does not have this limit, meaning that it is easy to scale your online shop on their platform without much worry.
Integration options:
There is a wide range of apps available in their app store. Shopify, however, has a more extensive selection in comparison.

Shopify vs. BigCommerce

Costs

The price range of the plans for the two platforms does not have much of a difference. The cheapest Shopify plan with a fully functional CMS costs $29, which equals the BigCommerce Standard plan.

Shopify and BigCommerce plan price comparison:

BigCommerce Plan	Cost per month	Shopify Plan	Cost per month
BigCommerce Standard	$29.95	Shopify Lite	$9
BigCommerce Plus	$79.95	Basic Shopify	$29
BigCommerce Pro	$249.95	Shopify	$79
BigCommerce Enterprise	Varies on business requirements	Advanced Shopify	$299
		Shopify Plus	$2000

Ease of use

Shopify has been made very easy to use and is perfect for all beginner merchants. BigCommerce has features that have a steeper learning curve.

Features

Bigcommerce has free reporting features in all its plans. These tools are however available in Shopify’s more expensive plans. Shopify nonetheless has the abandoned cart retriever tool in all its plans, unlike BigCommerce. Shopify also has a more extensive app store, which is a useful feature to advanced sellers.

Design

Shopify has over a large selection of paid themes as well as ten free themes. Their design is professional and modern and allow for a great deal of customization. They are also responsive and look great in every device. BigCommerce has seven free layouts and a large selection of paid themes. They, nonetheless, look a bit dated unlike that of Shopify.

3dcart: Another Shopify Alternative

Founded in 1997, the well-known online shop builder had more than 17,500 merchants globally by 2014. 3dcart has very competitive packages segmented according to an online shop’s traffic. The platform is not optimized for merchants with high traffic, but it is a fantastic solution for startups.

It has enough functionality and features to get you moving, especially with your mobile shoppers. 3dcart’s features, however, are not as comprehensive as those of Shopify or BigCommerce. It is also an affordable hosted Saas platform, which does not charge transaction fees for its features and services.

The platform offers access to newsletters, a blog, email, and its CRM and has social media selling tools. Its backend is not complicated, and its dashboard is responsive, making it easy to update your online shop on the go. Of greater value is the robust API that makes it very easy to integrate third-party tools and apps onto your online shop. You can also connect your store to Shopzilla, Amazon, or eBay quite easily.

3dcart Platform Plans at a Glance

Plan	Cost per month	Annual costs per month	Staff accounts	Sales limit
Startup Store	$19.00	$17.10	1	$50,000
Basic Store	$29.00	$26.10	2	$100,000
Plus Store	$79.00	$71.10	5	$500,000
Pro Store	$229.00	$206.10	15	$1,000,000

The platform has a 15-day free trial if you would like to test drive it. All its plans enjoy features such as:

Zero transaction fees.
A shopping cart.
24/7 technical support.
Access to a Facebook store.
Unlimited bandwidth.
Zero transaction fees.
Built-in blog.
Over 100 payment gateways.
Unlimited orders.
Product reviews.
API access.
POS support.
Over 50 responsive themes.

Key Differences Between the 3dcart Plans

The significant differences in the 3dcart plan’s features are most significant at the $79.99 and the $229.00 plans. The lower packages, for instance, do not have an abandoned cart saver feature or access to the reward loyalty tool or a gift registry.

You also cannot send email-marketing newsletters on the package. The Plus Store package also allows for customer groups and segmentation as well as leads generation. The Pro Store package at $229.00 has additional features such as 3dcart’s email marketing autoresponder feature. This tool sends personalized emails to shoppers that place orders.

These emails can also be customized to, for instance, thank the shopper or to ask them to review their shopping experience with you. The package also has a back in stock and waiting list notification feature. The sales rep commission tracker available on this package will keep you up to date with your reps earnings.

With it, you can create a list of your sales reps that shows their commissions. You can also use the feature to assign orders to a specific salesperson in your shop. At the end of the sales period, you can also use the feature to create reports that highlight sales from an individual sales rep or a comprehensive report for all sales done.

3dcart Features Review

Templates

3dcart has over 100 free optimized templates available that look good on mobile devices. Unlike Shopify’s or BigCommerce’s, the 3dcart’s templates vary in design and color pallets. They also have specific models for different industries.

Marketing and SEO

3dcart has all its tools placed in its marketing tab for ease of access. The SEO settings will, however, be a bit daunting for the uninitiated. Yet, the platform has most of the required checkboxes checked off. You therefore only need to change the settings you are most sure about. To learn more on what’s most needful for your online shop, research on shopping cart SEO software dos and don’ts.

Payments

The 3dcart payment systems accept split payments, money orders, credit cards, checks, or cash. You can also integrate the system into your brick and mortar store. You, still, have access to over 160 other payment gateways if you wish to pay for them. The platform is Paypal payments integrated.

3dcart Pros

Unlimited storage:
No matter the size of your online shop’s catalog, 3dcart will not charge you extra storage fees. With unlimited storage space, you can scale as necessary, which is perfect for small startups with exponential growth patterns.
Access to multiple payment gateways:
You can give your users flexibility during checkout by availing different payment options.
Fantastic support:
If you are frustrated with 3dcart’s somewhat steep learning curve, you can access their support features easily. All 3dcart plans have access to 24/7 online support, while all but the Start-Up Store have 24×7 phone support.

3dcart Cons

Steep learning curve for merchants:
The 3dcart back-office interface is clunkier and not as intuitive as Shopify’s or BigCommerce’s. The front end, however, is easy to use for the shopper, which should increase your sales and conversions.
CSS/ HTML editing:
With 3dcart, you might need to learn a few basic HTML or CSS moves to edit the themes. This could keep away merchants who are less tech-savvy or those with no extra money to pay to developers.
Theme designs:
While they have a wide range of themes, they are not as modern or as professional as those on Shopify.
Advanced features and Add-ons:
While 3dcart has one of the most robust feature sets, it also puts its abandoned cart, email newsletters, and loyalty programs from its more affordable package plans. It also does not have as many integration options as Shopify.

Shopify vs. 3DCart

Pricing

Both platforms have very similar pricing plans. However, the more affordable Start Up Store $19 plan is more affordable than the Basic Shopify equivalent as $29. The other more expensive packages are on the same price range.

Shopify plans	Cost per month	3dcart plans	Cost per month
Shopify Lite	$9	Start up Store	$19.00
Basic Shopify	$29	Basic Store	$29.00
Shopify	$79	Plus Store	$79.00
Advanced Shopify	$299	Pro Store	$229.00
Shopify Plus	$2000

Inventory management

3dcart will allow you to sell more products on its Start up Store plan while the Basic Shopify plan limits your inventory to 25 products.

Coupons and discount codes

3dcart will allow you to create and calculate promo/discount codes, on all its packages. In contrast, Shopify does not have this option on its cheaper Lite package.

Payment gateways

3dcart has over 200 payment gateways while Shopify is limited to 70.

Templates and themes

Shopify has fewer free themes but hundreds of paid themes. 3dcart has lots of free themes, but they are not as modern looking as Shopify’s.

SEO capabilities

Both 3dcart and Shopify have a robust arsenal of SEO tools. These will go a long way in directing traffic to your store. Shopify’s tools are, nonetheless, vouched as the best of all its alternatives.

Transaction fees

3dcart does not charge any transaction fees on any of its packages. If you go for other payment gateways, you will pay them their charges as required. Shopify also does not have a transaction charge, but it has a transparent fee structure for third party payment gateway charges.

The Final Word: Which Shopify Alternative is for You?

Shopify is awesome and you can use it as it is. It has some fantastic pros. Not everyone is okay with the cons, though. And that’s why you’re reading this. You’re looking for reputable alternatives.

3dcart and BigCommerce are amazing alternatives. Each platform has its strong points as well as drawbacks. And that’s the good thing with options, you can easily spot which one works for your unique situation. Use the in-depth research in this post to make an informed choice.

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B2B Website Best Practices: Why Your B2B Site Might Not Be Working for You

If you are running a B2B website then you are looking to convert browsers to leads then to buyers. Despite digitizing your business in this way, your business website could be slacking in generating you the business it should. If your conversion rate is lower than you think it should be, it might be time to evaluate if these 5 key areas of your website could be letting you down. Listen. If you want to learn more about B2B website best practices, it starts with what you are not doing well. That’s why we are going to talk about why your B2B site might not be working for you first.

In 2018, we are not going to rehash the importance of creating responsive websites, landing pages that convert, or how to optimize your B2B website’s SEO.

Instead, we look at 5 critical aspects of B2B website performance that could be hampering your overall inbound marketing ROI.

Your Content is Attracting the Wrong Target Audience

Content is king only if it is targeted to address solutions to the right audience. If you are struggling to get views, likes, comments, and so on, then your content may be irrelevant to the people reading it.

That can mean two things:

Your B2B website content is reaching the wrong audience
Your business content strategy is not optimized to attract your core audience

Are you addressing your prospects’ pain points?

Does your B2B website design incorporate content elements that your target audience easily identifies? Can they easily understand your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) without much explanation?

Also, you’ll want to strike a good balance with your content strategy using the 80/20 rule.

You’ll want to create 80% of quality content that is targeted to your core audience’s pain points and relevant solutions. Then you’ll want 20% of your content addressing a wider audience to allow you to onboard and network with other industry players that might have connections to your niche.

This way, you can become an authority in your niche as well as remain open to welcoming players and clientele from other sectors.

If you are wondering if you are creating the right content for your B2B website, start by re-evaluating your buyer personas. See if your B2B content strategy is properly aligned. Then you can use feedback-gathering tools such as Feedbackify, Hively, and Qualaroo to find out from your readers on different online platforms.

You Have Inconsistent Website Design Elements

You do not need to create a B2B website design elements list to get a crisp idea of whether your website design elements are inconsistent or not.

Keep in mind that website design elements speak volumes about your brand. They tell leads about you. Like whether you understand your buyer persona biases about branding. Whether you are informational or functional, serious or fun, and so on.

Inconsistent typography, calls to action, brand voice and colors tell you are not sure what you mean, and that can kill trust and make you look amateurish. It is off-putting to potential customers looking for credible brand authority, hence increases bounce rates.

Ensure your website design elements such as typography, H1 tags, meta tags, and color scheme are matching across different web pages of your B2B website to boost trust and increase conversions.

Your B2B Website Layout is Adding to Bounce Rates

You not only want your website layout to transition visitors to next pages seamlessly, you also want it to encourage visitors to move from awareness to purchase stages of your buyer journey.

Is your B2B website buyer journey clear and fluid through the different pages? Is your home-page chockful of blocks of text that make it hard for potential customers to follow your buyer journey?

Is your website’s navigation clear and easy to follow? Even for a complete stranger? For example, a Hamburger Menu was initially assumed to help boost your conversion rate compared to a visible menu. However, with time this has not turned out to be true since the Hamburger Menu assumes the user already knows what the three overlaying lines mean—when they might not.

Even Apple and Spotify have since ditched the Hamburger Menu UX, and the latter has gone on to experience a 30% jump in navigation clicks as people know exactly where to tap on to navigate the Spotify site.

If you have doubts about these questions, you have a new assignment in your in-tray. You can use Google’s Webmaster Tool to check for these and more.

While at it…

You’ll want to ensure you do not have 404 error pages on your site, which could be rudely crashing your conversion rates by interrupting user experiences along your customer journey. The 404 errors could also hamper on-page and off-page SEO optimization for your B2B website.

You also do not want your footer links mistaken for trying to manipulate PageRank on SERPS. Important too, is ensuring you submit your sitemap to Google through your Google Search Console account for indexing.

If you are still wondering what your searchers want while attracting search engines to your online platform, check out the Search Quality Rating Guidelines that Google released sometime back.

You’ll find a July 27, 2017 PDF document detailing how Google, through human testers, sets the criteria for awarding different page ranking scores based on what Google thinks searchers want to find online. You can use the valuable information contained therein to improve your website layout and copy based on searchers’ intents.

Your Website is Not Optimized for Local SEO

While you may have done the right thing by avoiding black hat SEO techniques in your content strategy and SEO optimization plan, you may innocently miss the smaller picture.

As much as the web empowers your business to market to the entire global market, you are likely to sell to everyone. The key, again, is to re-evaluate your target audience and align your SEO and SEM marketing to that core audience for better SEM returns.

For example:

If you are a digital marketing agency, the assumption is you can afford to market to a global market. But there are tons of different buyer personas across multiple regions and it might be tough to address all their pain points to increase conversion.

This is even more highlighted for B2B websites supporting a local store or brick and mortar premises.

Most buyers first check online to find a local business to buy from—instead of walking or driving around looking for billboards or knocking various doors. So improving your local SEO index will help you attract business to your local premises or store.

Your Website Has Unclear Calls to Action

A B2B website without clear, compelling CTAs is an unnecessary bog for your inbound marketing dollars.

Creating a good CTA for your B2B website is all about creating a direct instruction that encourages your visitors to take the next immediate or important action you want them to take.

You’ll want to use CTAs on relevant content pages and context, otherwise, you’ll confuse your visitors and risk losing them to a competitor with clearer and compelling calls to action sections on every page.

Your visitor is likely to be bombarded by a ton of information online that can easily feel overwhelming. One effective way to drive engagement and boost the attractiveness and effectiveness of your CTAs is to apply them in your content mix—especially with video.

Inc. Magazine found that 92% of B2B customers watch online videos. More importantly, though, 43% of B2B customers do so when researching services and products for their businesses.

By creating clear and compelling CTAs, you empower the reader to know what to do next to find the solution they seek while encouraging them to move along your customer journey towards your purchase page.

Some B2B Website Best Practice Tips

Think about your brand at every touchpoint of your website, logo, color choices, your call to actions — don’t confuse your buyer with conflicting brands along the way
Think about the buyer journey — what do you want your buyer to do?
Always think mobile first — If your site is not responsive, it should be.
Do have specific landing pages for offers and promote directly to them
Do make the sign in processes easier.
Offer some valuable free gifts to your audience. Give your audience some kind of information they will use over and over again, a reference material of some kind, a checklist.
Have clear Call to Actions on every page.

Conclusion

While B2B website design elements such as mobile-friendliness and fast-loading pages will help retain more visitors, the above 5 key areas your B2B website could be letting you down will help convert that precious traffic to more quality leads and increase conversion and grow your business. Using a few of our B2B website best practice tips will get you off and running, making more money sooner than later!

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Ontraport vs ActiveCampaign: Find the Best Solution for Your Business

Ontraport vs ActiveCampaign, which is the best marketing automation solution for your business based on their differences?

An Ontraport vs ActiveCampaign comparison attracts a sizable chunk of similarities and differences. But it is in the differences that the two marketing automation software suites really tell they are not made equal—at least as far as your business needs go.

Whether you are a blogger with informational products to sell or an e-commerce business with affiliates under an affiliate management tool, this review of ActiveCampaign vs Ontraport comparison aims to help you choose the best choice for your specific needs.

So without much storying, why don’t we compare Ontraport to ActiveCampaign in a battle of the best marketing automation solutions in the market right now?

Ontraport vs ActiveCampaign: Target Audience

Ontraport and ActiveCampaign were established in 2006 and 2003, respectively. That means they have been around for a stretch, proving they must be doing something right to persist thus far in a now-crowded market of basic, intermediary and advanced sales CRM, email marketing and marketing automation providers.

But while ActiveCampaign’s features and focus are targeted at the small to medium business segment, Ontraport is in good with an established business that’s been around for a while and needs the ton of advanced marketing automation the vendor provides—beyond basic email marketing solutions that the likes of Aweber, MailChimp, and Constant Contact can handle.

To spearhead their target audiences’ intents, both have affordable pricing packages that new and small businesses can find attractive and practical enough to sign up for. ActiveCampaign’s basic plan will start you out at $9/month while Ontraport welcomes you to their fold for $29/month. Find more pricing information below in the pricing section of this Ontraport vs ActiveCampaign review.

Differences in Business Essential Features and Benefits

Having said that, Ontraport takes its targeting up to a whole staircase by appealing to businesses in e-commerce, affiliate marketing and those with huge contact databases in their CRM.

E-commerce Features

Ontraport integrates e-commerce into its tagging system. What that does is it empowers you to have an e-commerce management area where you can create product listings, integrate them into your listings, as well as track sales. This could be a deal maker or deal breaker for you—or not if e-commerce and shopping carts are not as integral to your business.

With the Ontraport e-commerce features (which are supported by the premium pricing plan), you can easily track crucial e-commerce metrics and utilize resourceful tools such as:

Order processing
Payment processing (built-in)
Credit-card decline follow-ups
One-click upsells
Follow up on abandoned carts
Power free trials, subscriptions and coupon codes, as well as
Help compute your taxes based on the payment processing tool built into Ontraport

ActiveCampaign, on the other hand, does not support e-commerce features like these. But they do offer follow-ups on abandoned carts and shopping cart integration. However, you will need to integrate with a third-party app such as Zapier to seamlessly add-on the likes of Woocommerce, Stripe, BigCommerce, Shopify, and payments processing apps such as PayPal.

In fact, Ontraport even blows Infusionsoft out of the water here. For example, while Infusionsoft will allow you to view payment details like who has or has not paid, it does not offer payment processing in-built.

Ontraport has the feature built-in (although the actual funds’ transfers are handled differently). Nonetheless, you can still integrate a third-party payment processing app of your choice such as PayPal.

Check out Ontraport — risk-free for 90 days here!

All-in-One Marketing Automation Software

The similarities between Ontraport and Infusionsoft run much deeper than with ActiveCampaign, too. You will find Ontraport hosts a ton of advanced sales CRM, email and marketing automation features that make it function as an all-in-one marketing automation service—pretty similar to the “completeness” of Infusionsoft but without as much bloatware and user experience woes.

Ontraport goes further to provide membership site tools and postcard marketing that are excellent for businesses with a membership-style platform and who want to boost engagement and monetization of their growing audience/membership. In this regard Ontraport offers more than the WordPress Plugin that ActiveCampaign offers and adds on multiple membership levels support, member management and page-by-page content encryption—all of these are automated to save you time and boost your customers’ user experiences.

Another thing…

Ontraport also includes a Predictive Intelligence feature to their offer. What that does is allow you to virtually tinker with different campaign inputs to get a forecast of the kind of results you could expect if you implemented your campaign with the new changes.

It is a handy tool that can help you get the big picture. But you might not find it super helpful since business does operate differently in “reality”. It is still a handy feature to have, though.

Tagging

Again, like Infusionsoft, Ontraport allows users to group tagged contacts in an orderly, organized manner, which ActiveCampaign does not. With ActiveCampaign you have to manually search a contact by name using the inbuilt search tool in their CRM’s top right corner.

Yet if you have hundreds of contacts you will find Ontraport’s organized tags much easier to work with and save time.

Quick Comparision ActiveCampaign vs Ontraport:

ActiveCampaign	Ontraport
Marketing automation	Publish Ontrapages
Smart auto responders	Publish Ontraforms
Built-in integrations with over 200 external services	Publish Ontraport Marketplace
Drag and drop email designer	Webforms
Track your contacts onsite and in your apps	WordPress Integration
Campaign, contact, as well as list reporting	Membership sites
Track your contacts onsite and in your apps	Facebook Integration
Campaign, contact, as well as list reportings	Split testing
made, where your contacts live or travel Marketing automation,
Add live ecommerce data and even videos to your emails	Email marketing
SMS marketing	2-way SMS messaging
Free phone, live chat, as well as email support	Postcard marketing
Send newsletters	Partner programs
CRM and sales automation	Marketing tracking and analytics
Help with finding contacts based on age, gender, and location	PURLs
Advanced segmentation and targeting	Order forms
Automated series	Trials, subscriptions, coupons and payment plans
Dynamic (as well as conditional) email content	One-click upsells
Social media monitoring, as well as reaction automations,	Lead management and scoring
Free email templates	Task management
Build custom forms for you landing pages	Abandoned cart follow-up
Free one-on-one training	Powerful CRM
	Business Automation
	Custom Objects
	Metrics Dashboard
	Ontraport Mobile
	Secure open API
	Ontraport projects
	Award-winning customer service

Credit: Finances Online

Affiliate Management Tool

To complete the highlighting Ontraport e-commerce features, Ontraport works with partners to provide a seamless affiliate management tool for its referral program support feature.

You can get automated partner tracking, payments, referral-tracking links, and partner management from Ontraport’s Partner Center. You can even get promo tools for promotions and receive earnings reports to see how you and your partnerships are bearing fruits.

This is a feature that ActiveCampaign is conspicuously missing unless you integrated it with AffiliateWP.

What else ActiveCampaign is missing is an in-built landing page creator, which Ontraport does come with and more. The latter avails a landing page template marketplace where you can find the tools to personalize your landing pages so you can peak your leads’ interest to encourage increased conversion.

So if you sell online and have (or plan to have) an affiliate program running, Ontraport might have what you need to help you engage leads, tag to segment them based on their interactions with your site, follow them up, and engage them further to inspire them to convert to buyers than you would with ActiveCampaign.

Set Up and Ease of Use

While both Ontraport and ActiveCampaign are easy to set and run with little training, ActiveCampaign is decidedly the easier platform to get up and running on. This could very well be because Ontraport packs more features that might add up to extra learning curve time.

However, Ontraport is way dimmer compared to the complexity that Infusionsoft presents to many of its new users. With both, you get a visual, drag-and-drop sequence builder to help automate your email marketing process. However, if you are keen on striking email images and templates, Constant Contact packs more impressive email templates to help create more eye-catching emails.

Yet, while Ontraport packs a stack of resourceful features for all businesses, not being able to view these stats right from one page can wreck a little havoc as you try to figure out where to get that information.

For example:

With Ontraport, you can tell at what stage of your funnel your leads are converting to customers, where they are unsubscribing, whether they are receiving and opening your emails, as well as how much money you are making and how much you owe in taxes. Finding where all these information is stacked could be the slap in the butt, though.

That might mean you will need to hire an Ontraport specialist to consult with and from whom to learn how Ontraport works. Does that sound like a “hidden charge” to you?

Still on “hidden charges”, to gain a similar level of built-in Ontraport functionality with ActiveCampaign, you would need to turn to third-party applications integration—at a surcharge.

ActiveCampaign vs Ontraport: Support

Both marketing automation providers and Infusionsoft alternatives offer excellent customer support via multiple channels. If you are stuck, you can reach either via a certified online community consulting, phone, live chat and email on top of arranged online training—although ActiveCampaign offers phone support to Enterprise Plan members only.

Ontraport, like Infusionsoft, offers to train users in real-time coaching sessions on top of the helpful articles, “normal” training, phone, email and live chat options—for a fee. They also have a “Deliverability Consulting” offer where they claim to offer handy advice on how to optimize your email marketing deliverability to increase your email marketing ROI.

Tracking & Reporting

One of the sleekest tracking features of ActiveCampaign is that it starts to track customer behavior on your site immediately you set up your account—not after a customer completes an action such as subscribing to your newsletter to buying your product (which is what you’d find while using Infusionsoft).

In fact, after you are all set up, ActiveCampaign goes back in time to track and log your leads’ interactions with your site, helping you understand how they got to where they are on your funnel and what exactly they might be looking for so you can help them solve their problem.

With both Ontraport and ActiveCampaign you can implement site tracking on the go and mobile traffic, but ActiveCampaign goes further to track where your leads have been so you can learn their interests and craft your marketing material to appeal to those interests.

Overall though, both sales CRM, email marketing, and marketing automation platforms display detailed reports in visually-attractive pages, making it easy for users to interpret the dash data and inform marketing decisions.

Ontraport Pricing vs ActiveCampaign Pricing

As mentioned before, both ActiveCampaign and Ontraport keep their pricing models targeted at their target markets. Neither marketing automation vendor demands any setup fees to onboard customers—unlike the sub $1,000 setup fee Infusionsoft users have to part with.

However, while Ontraport pricing starts at $79 per month, ActiveCampaign offers the more affordable subscription at $9 per month. With ActiveCampaign, however, the fees add up as you grow your contact list—this is precisely why it has a 5-tier pricing model.

Ontraport pricing

ActiveCampaign pricing

If you prefer to test out the different marketing automation services before signing on the dotted line to warrant a long-term commitment, ActiveCampaign offers a 14-day trial period. Ontraport, on the flip side, makes ActiveCampaign’s trial period seem like a joke because they offer a 90-day money back guarantee—a 60-day jump over Constant Contact, too.

This is a good thing for businesses still deciding whether Ontraport is the best marketing automation software, sales CRM, and email marketing provider for their marketing needs in 2018.

But as you gain more contacts, you’ll notice that the pricing almost levels out at above 100,000 contacts, by which time your business would have graduated to an enterprise—where Ontraport’s bevy of features can actually shine brightest.

ActiveCampaign vs Ontraport: Who wins?

While both Ontraport and ActiveCampaign offer advanced sales CRM, marketing automation, and email marketing tools, they are not made equal.

The more advanced (and numerous) features of Ontraport make it an ideal marketing automation platform for medium-to-enterprise business users. ActiveCampaign, in contrast, primarily offers an ideal marketing software solution for solopreneurs and small-to-medium businesses.

In fact, many small business users would find it easier to start out with ActiveCampaign due to its user-friendliness, affordability, resourceful customer support and enough marketing automation features and benefits to last for a stretch of time.

But established businesses in need of an advanced marketing automation provider, with far fewer complexities than Infusionsoft, would find Ontraport to be a top-notch solution they can grow and scale with for the long haul and at an affordable monthly charge.

Therefore to choose the best marketing automation software in the Ontraport vs ActiveCampaign debate, you would do best to consider both the short-term and long-term needs of your business. If you have the tech-savviness to handle Ontraport, you can start out with it when you foresee your business growing past 10,000 contacts. Or you can opt to start out with ActiveCampaign’s enchanting UI and ease of use until you can outgrow it.

My final recommendation:

If I had to choose, right this moment on which of these is best, I would have to say Ontraport.

Here’s why:

Advanced marketing features — Ontraport.

Affordability and Value — Activecampaign is cheaper to start, but Ontraport comes out on top as you scale and grow.

Ability to scale beyond 10K users — Ontraport.

Integrations and ease of use — Activecampaign is more user-friendly.

Overall winner — Ontraport

Check out Ontraport — risk-free for 90 days here!

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ActiveCampaign vs Constant Contact: Which is Best? [2021 Comparison]

Find out the differences between ActiveCampaign vs Constant Contact to help you decide which one is the best email marketing platform for you.

ActiveCampaign vs Constant Contact: The Comparison

While Constant Contact vs ActiveCampaign are great email automation solutions, they are not made equal. To decide which is the best email marketing services provider between ActiveCampaign and Constant Contact, it is important to understand where one excels and the other doesn’t.

And if the difference works best for your specific business, then you would have your ideal marketing and email automation software.

In this post, we focus on the differences that make either choice a great option for your business no matter its size and industry.

ActiveCampaign vs Constant Contact: Target Audience

Both online marketing solutions market their services to businesses of all sizes, from freelancers to enterprise clients.

But when it comes to actual use, it is clear ActiveCampaign is a more sophisticated marketing automation tool compared to the principal email marketing service offered by Constant Contact—which it refers to as “email automation”, meaning a sweet spot between all-out marketing automation and superb email marketing service provision.

In fact, ActiveCampaign would be a better-used tool in the hands of a business that has both the time and starting knowledge of operating a marketing automation software suite. On the other hand, Constant Contact is quite easy to get started on mainly because there are fewer tools to learn. CC is clearly an email marketing tool rather than an all-inclusive marketing automation tool such as Infusionsoft, HubSpot, and ActiveCampaign.

So if you plan on using a marketing software service for a scaling business, ActiveCampaign might be a better option while Constant Content could be better for freelancers and small businesses learning the loops of email marketing before engaging in all-out internet marketing campaigns that could use wide-ranging marketing automation solutions.

Set Up and Ease of Use

Constant Content was built for ease of use. Its uncluttered dashboard screams that out loud, which augers well with its target audience.

In fact, as we’ve discussed before, CC is a good option to start with for a business that needs to learn the ins and outs of email marketing before getting to a full-on marketing automation tool that might be a tad too complex to start out with.

Constant Content offers a ton of email templates to help you set up a campaign in no time—much more generous than ActiveCampaign. You likely won’t be needing any special training to use them, either. You even get an image editor with a chunk of stock images and image editing options inbuilt, so you can inject visual delight to your emails and encourage engagement and conversion with contacts.

To create your subscriber list, you can import your contacts from other CRM tools for small businesses including Gmail and Outlook contacts hassle-free. Akin to ActiveCampaign, you can upload them as a CSV/XLS/TXT/XLSX file, copy/paste and/or manually enter contacts in your database.

Yet, ActiveCampaign takes it further by automatically searching for and adding to your list the social media contacts of the people that interact with your website, especially when they sign up for your newsletter, email, subscriber list or make a purchase outright.

This can be resourceful when you need to understand more about your target audience so you can fine-tune your marketing messaging to address their needs and book more business.

Differences in Business Essential Features and Benefits

One of the best things about both is that they integrate with over 700 third-party apps. If you find a function missing with your subscription, you can easily supplement it by using a third-party app such as Zapier. You can also embed essential applications such as Woocommerce and Shopify form ecommerce users.

However, if you host events and need an email marketing service that will help you register event attendees, Constant Contact has a splendid tool for this. It allows you to easily create events, spread the word around and then capture interested people’s details. It will even create a separate list for an event, different from your mail email list.

That is important because you can target that group with only the content that is relevant to your event and nothing else. That way you can ideally increase attendance for the event by encouraging curiosity, likes, shares, and registration.

In the Plus package, you also get a survey and donations-enabling tools integrated with your emails, in case you need them. It recently added Action Blocks to power polls, where recipients no longer need to leave their email inbox to fill out a poll on a web page. They can do that within with one click.

ActiveCampaign does not offer a similar tool. What it does offer, though, is the ability to segment your contacts and tag them. But with Constant Contact segmenting and tagging gets better. As opposed to ActiveCampaign, with CC (and in a similar fashion to Infusionsoft) you can organize tags so you have it easy when segmenting hundreds of contacts.

However, since CC is not a comprehensive marketing automation tool, it has limited autoresponder capabilities. For example, you would not be able to customize your emails based on what action/trigger a lead engages in such as clicking a link in the body of an email—which you can with ActiveCampaign.

Still, Constant Content has a remarkably developed email builder than ActiveCampaign, hence if creating beautiful emails in a breeze is your main concern, CC would probably make the best option.

Constant Contact Features	ActiveCampaign Features
Contact management	Marketing automation
List-building tools	Smart autoresponders
Tracking and reporting	Built-in integrations with over 200 external services
Social media sharing tools	Drag and drop email designer
Image library	Track your contacts onsite and in your apps
Many apps and integrations	Campaign, contact, as well as list reporting
Automation	Track where your contacts live or travel
Facebook fan promotion	Add live ecommerce data even videos to your emails
Events registration and management	SMS marketing tools
Opens and click tracking	Free phone, live chat, email support
Deliverability	CRM and sales automation
Mobile email marketing	Advanced segmentation and targeting
Email templates	Dynamic email content
	Social media monitoring
	Free email templates

Credit: Finances Online

ActiveCampaign vs Constant Contact: Support Options

To match its more complex marketing automation tools, ActiveCampaign offers optional training to businesses or freelancers that want to get a head-start with their sales and marketing automation software. Additionally, you can reach them via live chat and email support channels.

However, you are going to need to subscribe to the Enterprise package to get phone support, but you can get satisfactory live support when subscribed to their Lite package.

Constant Contact also offers phone support in addition to email, live chat and ticketing system support in case you need hand-holding to learn how to use powerful email marketing software for your small business. They also have a decent collection of DIY, how to articles on their site for your information—including information buttons next to certain menu options to explain what they are.

What’s special though, is they will sometimes call you back after a chat to ensure you got what you wanted and are doing alright.

Reporting

Under the Reports tab, you’ll find one of the best features of Constant Contact. You get to view how your contacts are engaging with your emails. You’ll see email opens, clicks, subscriptions and unsubscribe rates on one, easy to understand page. Clicking on “Refresh” will even have you looking at real-time statistics. You can also get performance reports from social media channels you have linked as well.

Moreover, you get a bar graph that shows you your email open rates and a chart that helps you compare performance across several marketing drives. Still, you can use up to five emails to compare performance side by side.

Another jewel in the email marketing service’s crown is its uncanny capability to surpass through Gmail’s stringent spam filter. It is one of the few services that manage to not have your emails junked in the spam folder, where supposed recipients are likely to ignore your messages—and make your marketing efforts suck.

ActiveCampaign takes reporting to another level, though.

In addition to charts and bar graphs, you also get advanced lead scoring. With this feature, the reports you get are automatically used in Event Tracking to create personalized follow-up campaigns to further nurture and qualify a lead based on the actions they take on your online platforms or mobile app.

Tracking

You can set up your Constant Content account to follow up on new contacts after certain they take certain actions or when it’s their birthday. A unique feature of CC is when your contacts unsubscribe from your newsletter, you still get to keep them in your contacts but no more emails will be sent to them. That way, you can decide whether to get back to them after some time or manually delete them from your list if not.

However, tracking is clearly an ActiveCampaign zone. Powerful tracking features you’ll get here include Event Tracking, Site Tracking, Advanced Lead Scoring, and advanced email split-testing. Site tracking empowers you to know where your contacts spend the most time, when, and where they travel.

You can then use that data to create even more personalized marketing messages based on what your contacts’ interests are. Still, ActiveCampaign allows you to schedule email blasts to reach your contacts at the same time of day or night all across the globe. So if you want all emails to reach them at 1 PM to encourage open rates during lunch break, you can have the messages delivered at your contact’s 1 PM despite time zone differences—even if the software has to delay some deliveries to hit the contact’s inbox during their 1 PM.

With lead scoring, you can set unlimited criteria that different leads need to meet before your sales team can reach out to them with an offer. All these make up the powerful sales CRM and marketing automation tools ActiveCampaign offers.

ActiveCampaign Pricing Vs Constant Contact Pricing

While you only get 14 days to have a run with ActiveCampaign, you’ll have a whole 60 days to test-drive Constant Content.

Not only that, you get a 30-day, money back guarantee offer from the latter, which is unheard of in the industry—and is great news for all size businesses looking to find the best email automation service provider in the market now by utilizing a full-version package for a while.

Nevertheless, both email automation solutions provide scalable pricing models, so you can start out and grow with your choice—instead of later wanting to migrate your plumped up CRM to a suitable email marketing platform for your growing business.

Here are shots of pricing packages offered by both:

ActiveCampaign vs Constant Contact: Conclusion

Both email automation services are ideal for freelancers, small business, and even medium enterprise clients. Both do not have a setup fee like Infusionsoft. Yet are also affordable to start out and scale with.

But while ActiveCampaign offers a powerful combination of sales CRM, email marketing, and marketing automation technology, Constant Content has focused on excelling in email marketing services—where it does a great job, too. On one hand, new businesses might find the “all-in-one” aspect of ActiveCampaign a bit overwhelming. On the other hand, businesses looking to scale their digital marketing drives, are likely to outgrow what Constant Contact currently offers.

Depending on your specific business marketing goals, you can then decide which, between advanced marketing automation and powerful email marketing services, will work in your best interests.

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Spark MicroGrant’s Strategies for Driving Human Impact

As a little girl, Sasha Fisher always wondered why the world she lived in was unequal. A world where some people were unable to meet their basic needs and couldn’t afford to live in dignity.

She always knew she wanted to change that — thus she decided to work with non-profit organizations.

Why non-profits?

Fisher explains that there are three ways of addressing world inequality.

These include:

businesses,
governments
and non-profits.

The non-profit sector hasn’t matured as much as it needs to. She states, “Non-profits are all focused around human impact and that’s what I care about primarily. The question is the vehicle to get there.

Non-profits focus on human impact. Their mission is to impact the world’s population in a positive way. They don’t model the organization to have an income stream. They are people- and impact-motivated. She explains, “There is an opportunity to be as clear as possible about your mission and the impact you want to create without muddying it with compromise.”

Don’t be afraid to start young

In high school, Fisher became involved in fundraising for a non-profit organization with projects in Sierra Leone. In University, during her sophomore year, she joined a team of volunteers to South Sudan. Working with this international non-profit organization gave her first-hand experience dealing with critical development issues. She started young and was determined to make it at all costs.

Fisher realized that she had no way of knowing what type of aid was more or less effective. She asked herself, “What’s the difference between donating to one aid organization and another?” She had no clue. She believed this South Sudan opportunity would help her understand more about impact.

“There are some ratings online on Charity Navigator about a handful non-profit companies. But they don’t tell much about impact,” she adds.

It was an exciting opportunity for her because she would travel with the team to the field. The country director taught her a lot about the context and the region. She was shown around to other aid projects as well. She felt they were not being used effectively in an area that received a lot of aid money.

In South Sudan, Fisher realized that most non-profit organizations were not able to measure project impact.

Most of the aid projects were not being effectively utilized. Several aid organizations were letting the South Sudanese people sit on the sidelines. They did not involve them in the conversation on what was being built. Local communities had no ownership of the projects.

Give communities control over their own future

Fisher felt that, considering the South Sudanese had fought for their freedom for more than two decades, they ought to be given control over their future.

They had the fundamental human right to define what the future held for them and their families, a quality that was lacking.

By the end of her volunteer period, she had one big question lingering in her mind, “Who was making the decisions on getting power to the hands of local communities and families?”

When Fisher graduated, she felt obligated to go to Rwanda, even though she had never been there.

She needed to go to a region that required foreign aid and Rwanda seemed like the perfect place for her.

Moving to the country was the least scary. Instead, she couldn’t stop thinking about how they could use their foreign aid money better. She couldn’t figure this out unless she was in the area receiving the aid money.

Her first steps involved locating a region with an operational local CBO. She started by learning from the organization, then piloted a project within the community. She deeply felt that local community had to drive and own local projects.

She says, “I didn’t want to be an expert at anything because the whole point was this: Whatever happens should be owned and driven by local communities.”

In the Rwandan villages, Fisher brainstormed with local partners to identify how best to support, launch, and implement their development programs.

After a lot of consultation and deliberation with government, businesse,s and non-profits, Spark MicroGrants was established in 2010

Support pre-existing non-profits

Fisher felt that Spark’s role should be supportive of the non-profits already on the ground. They could also act as a bridge between the villages and their government. The organization came up with a facilitation process paired with a seed grant provided directly to villages. This process is fully inclusive of gender and age. Community members make decisions about their welfare.

This furthers the main goal of helping the local community learn how to control their future. Helping them tap into their potential is a strong way to bring long-term change.

Spark works in collaboration with the Rwandan government to strengthen village leadership. Building community village elders that take charge of these projects is one of the main keys of Spark’s success. Spark goes into a village for only two years, so implementing the process correctly is the key to the long-term success of the village.

Focus on the process of your project if you want to succeed

The core process – from Spark first getting involved to finding seed funding — takes 6 months, after which implementation begins. This can last three to six months and Spark management support is always provided.

The focus is to bring the project to life, but an income earning component is often attached. This depends on the type of project the community selects.

Some of the projects that have been done include:

Starting a mill where villagers pay to mill their cereals
Sale of surplus crops from farming

Ninety percent of Spark-funded projects are still sustaining two years after launching

So, what’s the process?

MONTH 1

Within the first month, Spark MicroGrants goes into a village and conducts discussions for community building. The community identifies the right people, the direction to take, and problems to address.

MONTHS 2 & 3

Next is two months of goal setting. In the first month, the village discusses their history and enumerates their existing assets. It also addresses past projects.

In the second month, they identify the village they foresee and set goals to achieve it. They then brainstorm find pathways to reach the goals.

MONTHS 4 & 5

After that, proposal development starts, which takes two months. It includes a financial sustainment strategy in which the organization offers basic training on cash flow. The financial literacy includes skills that are kept simple and basic to ensure everyone understands.

Spark MicroGrants then explains the amount of funding provided to begin the project and how much is required to sustain it over time. Community members elect a village committee to manage the program and assign roles.

Transparency is imperative with Sparks as they are continually held accountable to their donors. In each village, the leaders have a responsibility to report fully on project finances. The report includes the specific amount of money received and the amount spent in the project. Transparency within the organization and villages enhances visibility on how money is spent and for what purpose.

MONTHS 6, 7, & 8

In the next three months, there is a technical review, management support, and future visioning.

The technical review process includes some training and technical specifications to address the set goals.

Future visioning involves building partnerships with local organizations and government officials. The whole idea here is to have a smooth process that enables the set goals to be carried out successfully.

The last step before the implementation is the disbursement of the village fund — $8,000 per village — with which to implement the project of their choice. The community is physically involved in the actual building of projects. The media, businesses, and local government personalities are invited to create awareness.

When dealing with projects that involve money and development, it’s all about the process. Therefore, Sparks puts in a lot of work into ensuring everything is done well, with pinpoint precision. This enables them to leave a long-lasting mark in a community.

Seventy-three percent of villages advocated for external support after working with Spark

Meet Gracie

On passion, learning, and raising money

When Fisher founded Spark MicroGrants, she knew very little about making money. All she knew was that she needed more money to reach more villages. She was so passionate about this.

In the initial years, there was a lot of learning to do because the fundraising experience she had was during high school and university. See, even if you have passion for something, you need to learn about ways to make it happen.

While in her senior year of university, Fisher asked several people to help out with funds. She wrote emails to several groups, which seemed like a crazy idea. To her surprise, two foundations based in New Jersey actually responded and donated some money. This was a big break for her, finally getting first donations to the organization. One of the foundations has grown with Spark MicroGrants and still funds them to over $100,000 to date.

In the first year of the organization’s operation, it started with $10,000. By 2016, they were able to raise $1.5 million which they leveraged for programs and other organization uses. Currently, the organization obtains funding from individuals, foundations, and corporates, among other donors. They have a huge group of sponsors willing to chip in and sponsor villages.

It costs $10,000 to fund a village through this process. From this amount, a village chooses its own project. For every project the organization institutes, a second project is launched independently.

From deep passion and learning, Spark was able to beat the odds and raise the cash needed to get going.

Setting out to be different and to keep growing

From the beginning, Spark MicroGrants set out to be different.

It designed a new approach that moved away from the traditional problem-solving framework to focus on goals. In the beginning, the grants were based on projects but the company has now streamlined the grant to a village grant.

Every village receives the same amount of money so there is no competition to get more.

In the first village in Rwanda, the Spark’s core process took three months. This period has changed, evolved with feedback from families. It has currently grown to a six-month process with a two-year follow on support. This includes quarterly check-ins per village.

How do they make decisions?

Decision making is based on impact. To avoid corruption, Spark establishes clear accountability to the villages they serve. Its mission is to support communities and improve local conditions. It has an efficient system, designed to achieve that in the best way possible.

There is a lot of prescriptive aid and Spark MicroGrants seeks to change this. Its model pushes the limit on how much ownership and decisions the people being served can be left with. It believes that all the decisions should belong to the people.

The project process is cyclical. Every year, there is something new to tackle within the village. The village goes through strategic planning on the future, which is reviewed every year. This process ensures the village is leaping back while looking forward.

From Rwanda, Spark MicroGrants has grown to Burundi, Congo, Ghana, and DRC. In these countries, they have partnered with more than 150 villages. Of all the village projects facilitated by Spark, 94 percent are self-sustaining and 77 percent have birthed other projects without Spark’s support. Over 90 percent of these continue to meet regularly and discuss important community issues.

Helping people to achieve the future they want

Spark MicroGrants has been working in Rwanda for seven years now. Over 56 community partners have been facilitated with Spark staff. The organization has helped villagers create a system of agreeing on ideas, building a plan for execution, and managing their own projects.

Collective weekly meetings are held where village families in the communities plan for the future they want. The project ideas originate from the families, who then work on them together.

Spark was founded to get resources to the hands of families they sought to support. They do this without viewing them as beneficiaries. This approach is different because they encourage communities to seek their own solutions. It trusts people with their own future.

This shows how organizations can support community members better. There has been great feedback from families in the supported villages. This include progress in goal setting and government advocacy. Spark constantly listens to feedback from villages on how to improve the system.

Actionable Steps and Takeaways

Be willing to move out of your comfort zone. Traveling and experiencing the world can create powerful inspiration but change also starts where you are. You don’t have to move to Rwanda to find problems worth addressing.
Being entrepreneurial doesn’t always mean building your own organization. You can get your innovations incorporated into existing institutions. “The best teams are full of entrepreneurs working together with complementary skill sets and ways of thinking to build a larger scale movement,” Fisher says.
Every human being has a cause. Something they feel passionately about. Fisher always knew her niche was human impact and that non-profits were the best way to achieve that. What do you have and how can you get it to the people?
Work with the people whom you are serving to solve problems and build long-term solutions into your processes.

Listen to our full interview with Sasha Fisher here

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The Best Inspirational Podcasts You’ll Love – Be Inspired and Informed!

There are times that you have a natural psyche to live and chase your dreams. But then there are also days that you can’t motivate yourself to even get off the bed.

You want to chase your dreams but you lack the courage to get out of your comfort zone.

You want to make a positive change in your life but you need something to give you that first push.

Surrounding yourself with positive thoughts is the first step towards making those positive changes in your life.

Motivation books and seminars are often not available when you need them most.

On the other hand, you can listen to the best inspirational podcasts virtually everywhere.

Here we have made a list of six amazing inspirational podcasts, in no particular order, that will motivate you and build you up:

1. Inspire Nation – Michael Sandler

Michael Sandler hosts some of the top authors, life coaches, spiritual leaders and leaders in other spheres of life to give inspirational talks. Two life-threatening experiences inspired Michael to start the show through which he aims to motivate people to live to the fullest of their potential.

The show’s commitment is to motivate you through the advice of these guests to help you shine brightly in all the aspects of life. To this end, they cover different topics depending on the guest’s area of expertise. The ideas you hear are practical and can be applied together to heal you lead a life of purpose.

Psychologist guests will guide you on how to rewire your life to achieve positivity, mental well-being, and happiness. The show also hosts spiritual leaders and experts to share their wisdom on why we are here and what to do about it. You will also get actionable ideas from Law of Attraction experts on how to live the life of your dreams.

If you are seeking to live a life of holistic excellence you need to add this podcast to your playlist.

2. Tiny Leaps Big Changes – Gregg Clunis

Gregg acknowledges the impact of the tiny things we do daily in our life.

This is the basis of this motivational, self-help and wellness podcast. Many people are unable to improve their lives because they look at the big change they wish to achieve and it seems too hard.

Gregg removes this hurdle by breaking the change you yearn for into smaller portions.

In each episode, he discusses some self-improvement strategies that you can incorporate into your daily habits to achieve the overall improvement in your life. By doing so, the change seems much more achievable and the listeners are inspired to start the strategy.

As far as self-help inspirational podcasts go, Tiny Leaps Big Changes stands out because the strategies that Gregg shares with you are not anecdotal. For each strategy he discusses, he gives the results of scientific studies that have been carried out about the strategy.

The show provides you with practical strategies that have been tested and proven to work.

3. Optimal Living Daily – Justin Malik

In this show, Justin Malik has taken a different approach to podcasting. Rather than interviewing guests, he reads contents by other authors on productivity, minimalism, and self-development. He does this with the permission of the authors.

In each episode, you get to hear inspirational content on strategies you can use to transform your life. His show is a collection of top-quality content that he has sampled and found resourceful in helping you live an optimal life.

Most of the content of the Optimal Living Daily show is from blogs. Justin makes sure to mention the blogs from which he has sourced the content. If you find the content useful, you can follow source for similar content.

Justin does more than just give you amazing content, he also connects you with great authors that you can follow for further tips and ideas.

4. Change Creator Podcast – Adam Force

Get inspired by the best in business, social enterprise, and people on the front lines changing our world for good.

From business leaders such as Guy Kawasaki to Jake Orak, Founder of Ethnotek Bags – a creative social entrepreneur with quite an inspirational story to tell. Intensely curious, Adam asks the questions all of us wish we could. He gets some amazing insights as well!

Learn more than just business models, growth hacks, and productivity tips – get the real deal stories of people like Maggie Doyne, whose compassion to help children become a social enterprise that sustains real change in children’s lives.

“I’ve been listening to the Change Creator podcast off and on since December 2016, when social media from Tonle mentioned your interview with their founder Rachel Faller. Thank you for your recent unedited podcast on authenticity. Though there is discouragement, this episode has bolstered me to pursue the good that can come from producing music that reckons with society’s brokenness and concerts that open people’s minds to new ideas as they meet living composers.”

5. The Chalene Show – Chalene Johnson

Chalene Johnson is not your conventional motivational speaker. She is a health and fitness expert and you will detect her seriousness in the self-improvement process the minute you press play on her content. As your virtual life-coach, her energetic yet friendly voice will guide you through the steps that you need to make to improve your life.

In each episode, Chalene walks with you step by step through the challenges that life may through at you. She addresses topics like healthy living, positivity, and self-motivation.

As you follow Chalene step by step through her talks, you will soon start to pinpoint what areas of your life are holding you back. You will also start to realize that the solution to some of your problems is right in front of you.

You cannot listen to the Chalene Show and fail to change your life. At the end of each show, you will have a different perspective on almost everything in your life. You will also get insight into how other people perceive you thus prompting you to change for better.

6. Happier with Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen is committed to helping you live a life of happiness daily. She has authored a bestseller on how to make achieve happiness daily – The Happiness Project. There are other books by her that also discuss the pursuit of happiness in detail.

The Happier with Gretchen Show gives more insight into happiness as she interviews various experts on what happiness and how to achieve it. Together with her guests, she also discusses the habits that one can adopt on a daily basis in order to achieve the happiness they desire.

Read Gretchen’s books if you can. If you can’t make sure you listen to this show that will help you live a life of satisfaction day by day.

Final Thoughts

Whichever area of your life you wish to improve, you can always use a little inspiration to get you going.

These podcasts are just a sample of the great podcasts that you can easily access online for your self-improvement.

Utilize them to set your personal short term and long term goals and strategize on how to achieve the goals and dig up for even more.

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Why Social Enterprise Matters: An Examination Into the Role of Social Enterprise to Solve Social Problems

Unlike solely for-profit businesses, social enterprises are in the unique position to solve real social problems in this world and make money doing it. Unlike charities that have to continue to raise funds to give back, social business can create lasting and sustainable solutions for social and societal change. In today’s changing landscape, we examine why social enterprise matters — why do we need it? What can we do to support it?

The rise of entrepreneurship has had its fair share of benefits. However, businesses have also brought about some difficult challenges that are affecting us now and can get even worse in future if not controlled.

Due to this, some people started thinking about more than just profits. To them, there’s no need for people to try providing solutions with their businesses, only to end up creating other problems elsewhere. There were just too many social, cultural and environmental issues that needed to be sorted out.

Think about it. Have you heard about factories that mistreat their workers? Don’t you just cringe at the thought of blood diamonds? Or at the fact that some companies have been constantly messing up the environment? You’re not alone, many have been asking themselves the above questions and more.

So, what’s the solution to all this?

Simple. Social entrepreneurship.

This is where for profit social enterprise companies create solutions to the above issues. They mix up profitable and non-profit ventures to ensure they generate a positive return to the society, especially where social, cultural and environmental issues are concerned. Their focus is more on the social impact than their financial gains.

Why exactly does social entrepreneurship matter?

It’s a smart way to solve social problems. It is the only way to solve sustainable, long-lasting social problems.

Let’s face it. The society faces so many problems.

In an interview with Change Creator, Sasha Fisher, the co-founder and executive director of Spark MicroGrants, stated that she grew up wondering why the world she lived in was unequal. There are people and societies that have way more than enough to survive. On the other hand, some local communities can barely afford a decent meal.

Social enterprises smartly solve social problems. Let’s look at Spark MicroGrants, for example.

Smart example #1: Spark MicroGrants

Spark does not focus on giving aid to communities or lording over them with what they’re supposed to do. They actually give communities control over their future.

When Sasha went to Rwanda, she was keen on ensuring that whatever happens was owned by the local communities. They used this as a way to create long-term change. Spark works in conjunction with the Rwandan government to strengthen leadership in the village.

Their business model is simple: The community selects their own projects that have an income component. Spark then focuses on bringing those projects to life. Through this collaboration, they have been able to help communities build businesses where they mill cereals for other villagers and also sell surplus crops from farming.

The village is now more hopeful. They have better family lives. They are not only able to earn an income from this, but they also have immense control of their future.

If you’re thinking of starting an impactful social enterprise like Spark, here are some key things you can learn from Spark MicroGrants:

Empower communities to have control over their own future
Work on positive and sustainable change, where a community doesn’t depend on you but are able to depend on them
Focus on social impact than financial impact – such communities usually need more than just finances
Help people improve their conflict-resolution mechanisms

Spark has done a tremendous job and changed so many lives. It’s now offering solutions to 5 countries – Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, DRC, and Ghana.

Another group of people that need more help across the board is persons with disabilities. And that’s where Accessibility Partners comes in.

Smart example #2: Accessibility Partners

This is a socially aware business that helps in accessibility issues – testing and reviewing products to make sure IT (information technology) is accessible to persons with a number of disabilities.

What makes the Accessibility Partners team unique is that more than 70 percent of its employees are actually individuals with disabilities. This ends up being a smart way to empower this specific important group of individuals – using a team that faces similar challenges. It’s a powerful business model aimed to help those inside and outside of the company.

Founded in 2003, it has now become a strong force to reckon with. It works with private and public information technology companies, organizations of different sizes and federal agencies. This socially aware organization comprises of technologists, subject matter experts, and senior consultants.

Some of the key takeaways that can be derived from this social enterprise business model include:

Social entrepreneurship is also excelling in the tech industry
Persons who are considered disadvantaged can actually become extremely productive when given a chance.
Success kills stigma

When a stigmatized group of people is successful, the world gets to see that they don’t need to stigmatize them. That they’re also human beings who have immense strengths that are useful and important for the society.

The above organizations show us clearly that socially aware businesses smartly solve social issues. Some of these issues are usually left in the hands of governments and non-profits. However, this is all changing because such companies are making the implementation of such projects quicker.

Social entrepreneurship hastens implementation of key projects.

Governments are responsible for taking care of their citizens – at least that’s what people have been thinking for ages.

However, governments can sometimes be spread too thin. They run too many projects at the same time. This means that they prioritize certain projects over others, thus some important projects may take too long to be enacted.

In comes social entrepreneurs. These are keen to meet their set agendas without relying on government processes. The community, therefore, reaps the benefits faster without having to wait for the government to prioritize their issues.

Additionally, and sadly, the governments of some growing countries have not yet gotten to the point where they put the ordinary person first. Others are still oppressive to their citizens. It takes independent social initiatives to bring positive change to the society in these countries that are fast losing hope.

Social aware businesses don’t just hasten projects that would have been done by government. They also do the same for non-profits.

Housing is one of the areas that many people need help on. There are so many homeless people in the world. The numbers are appalling.

When a global survey was done on the homeless back in 2005 by the United Nations, it was found that there were 100 million homeless people. Worse yet, 1.6 billion did not have adequate housing. Lots of people are dying out there due to poorly built houses. Natural disasters like earthquakes even multiply such fatalities to unimaginable levels.

Dr. Elizabeth Hausler, featured on the cover of issue 10 of Change Creator Magazine, is working hard to change this. She actually won the prestigious 2017 Skoll Award. She’s changing lives, one brick at a time.

Here’s how:

How Build Change is literally building change.

Dr. Elizabeth Hausler is the founder the award-winning organization called Build Change.

“It’s not the earthquake that kills people; it’s the collapse of a poorly built building.” – Hausler

According to her, safe housing is a basic human right.

So, what’s Build Change all about?

It’s a social enterprise that saves lives through working with communities in emerging countries to build houses and schools. They do this in a way that these structures don’t collapse when there are occurrences of earthquakes and typhoons.

Their mission is to reduce injuries, deaths and economic losses brought about by these natural disasters.

They first work with governments to develop building standards. This fills a gap in these countries, where the government does not have the capacity, personnel, resources, vehicles, inspection capabilities or even budget required to enforce effective building codes.

Build Change streamlines all this, making it simpler and even using latest information technology tools and apps to make sure things work smoothly. It also provides access to financing; knowing very well that businessmen will need a grant or a loan to build back their businesses after a disaster.

Through such initiatives, Build Change has enhanced the safety of the structures of 230,000 people. It has won numerous awards for its excellent work.

This all started when Hausler decided to leave her comfort zone and fly to India after the 2001 earthquake that killed between 13,000 and 20,000 people. She couldn’t just keep quiet and keep seeing disasters like the one on the figure above. Not if she could do something about it. And now 230,000 people are living in safer conditions.

Some of the key takeaways from this include:

To make a change, many times you need to leave your comfort zone and go help people in another state, country or region
Use technology to streamline your processes
Governments and NGOs do not always have the capacity to solve some problems. Help them when you can.

Social aware enterprises solve business problems, but here’s more.

They offer solutions that cater for people in both social and economic networks. They matter because go above just business. They take it up a notch by making sure that whatever solutions they give do not end up messing up social, cultural and environmental ecosystems – they make it their mission to safeguard these important sectors.

Their functions are nourished by the emotional and informational support. Here entrepreneurs holistically take care of those in need.

As an agent of change that contributes significantly to the global economy, it brings change in ways that governments, businesses, and non-profits don’t. They offer alternative solutions when the administration is not effectively working on the needs of the day.

If you’re such an entrepreneur, you get joys and satisfaction that are way beyond money. Most businesses are out for a profit. But your social enterprises will balance economic and social issues. This is a higher calling which brings lasting change, making the world a better place for now and the future.

The Gallup study, How Millenials Want to Work and Live brought out very important findings. These include:

Millennials don’t just want to focus on a paycheck, they want to serve a purpose
They’re shifting focus from their satisfaction to their development
Instead of working for bosses, millennials are looking for coaches
Their lives are not about annual reviews, but rather ongoing conversations
They don’t focus only on their weaknesses, they put emphasis on their strengths
To millennials, it’s not just a job – it’s their lives

This study shows that millennials don’t just want to do business, they want to leave a social impact. This clearly shows that social entrepreneurship now matters more than ever.

According to Nielsen, global consumers are more willing to reward companies that give back to communities. The giving aspect makes them want to pay more for the products.

For social purpose businesses, this is a huge plus. It will not only increase their bottom line but also give them more resources that they can use to make an even bigger impact on the society.

Let’s look at one entrepreneur who took business as more than just an avenue to make money.

The Dr. Alasdair Harris (Al) example.

Dr. Harris is referred to as simply “Al” in his site, Blue Ventures.

Al founded Blue Ventures, an award-winning social enterprise, in 2003. This was to show that proper marine conservation requires entrepreneurial, pragmatic and locally-led approaches.

Al’s organization has made a huge difference in marine ecosystems and also created a stream of revenues for locals in emerging countries. One of its biggest achievements is that it created the biggest marine-protected, locally-managed areas in the Indian Ocean They also established sustainable ecotourism businesses and aquaculture.

This solves both a business and a social problem.

Successful social entrepreneurs set an example.

Above we talked about Sasha Fisher’s worry when she was growing up. She simply struggled with the fact that there is so much inequality in the world, and that led to her founding Spark MicroGrants a while later.

Sadly, there are many live lives oblivious of the challenges that other people are facing in the world. In their minds, they say, “Those are other people’s problems. Let their governments and non-profits fix them.”

When people actually go out of their way and start changing people’s lives, the whole story changes.

As a social entrepreneur, you inspire others to work on social businesses. You set an example to those who once looked at social, cultural and environmental challenges as “other people’s problems”. Through your initiative, they start believing that they, too, can make a difference.

Since this is a sector that brings in a lot of positive change, the world needs lots of inspirational stories, just like yours. It’s inspiring to see someone considered privileged and comfortable going out of their way to create solutions for those who really need a helping hand.

The world matters and social entrepreneurs bring global solutions to business.

There are so many things happening all over the world. Lots of global changes that need our attention.

Social aware businesses bring in an angle that solves pertinent issues such as health, education, and employment among others. They strengthen economies and deliver efficient public services.

Many social entrepreneurs think globally. Think about the following before starting your social enterprise.

Is your business solving humanity problems?
Are you infringing on any fundamental human rights?
Are the items you use for your business products of factories that mistreat and underpay their workers?
Are you solving any cultural, environmental or social issues?

Nielsen’s sustainability imperative came up with some interesting findings in 2015. These included the following:

Sales of consumer goods from brands that demonstrate a commitment to sustainability grew by over 4% in 2015. Those without grew by less than 1%.
60% of consumers were willing to pay more money for sustainable brands in 2015. This was a remarkable improvement from the previous years – 50% in 2013 and 55% in 2014.

(Source: Nielsen)

This shows that it’s not only brands that are becoming socially aware, consumers are, too. As much as social entrepreneurs focus on social impact, the above study proves that increase in social awareness is also changing how global business is done.

Key takeaways here include:

Your business should not only fix local solutions. Think globally.
Customers are happy if your products are socially aware. There’s a whole market out there for such initiatives.
Focus on social impact, no matter how small it is. When more people implement such projects, the effect will be noticed globally.

They fix problems brought about by business.

Business is not wrong in totality. They need to make a profit, and we need to buy their goods and services. We need their products to solve some of our basic and luxurious needs. Some businesses, even without precisely being social enterprises, still make the world a better place.

However, there are a number of businesses that have brought about some of our biggest global challenges. Social enterprise changes this by marrying for profit and non-profit aspects. This takes care of some of the global challenges that we’re currently facing.

The shocking Rana Plaza tragedy — how tragedy can create change.

The Rana Plaza tragedy made people change their thoughts on who exactly makes their clothes.

This single tragedy led to the deaths of more than 1,100 people and is the worst industrial accident in the world. What now remains is the debris of what was once a factory that made cheap clothing for the west.

On the 23rd April 2013, a television feature showed cracks in the Rana Plaza building. However, Sohel Rana stated in the media that it was safe for workers to return to the building. He reported that it was still safe.

However, on 24th April, at around 8:57 am, the building collapsed with over 3,122 workers still inside. 1100 did not make it out alive.

Sohel was simply trying to make as much profit as possible from his business. However, he didn’t consider the safety and livelihood of his workers, leading to this astronomical tragedy that could have been avoided.

This led to a rise in socially aware businesses that actually make sure that all their processes are done in a way that does not endanger human beings or the environment. Therefore, they’re fixing a huge problem that other businesses have been creating for ages.

Scarcity has brought about marvelous innovations, but false scarcity creates problems.

There are definitely more problems than people who can solve them. Thus social entrepreneurs have used this scarcity of resources to come up with some of the biggest innovations of our times. These are huge innovations since they solve issues such as poverty, poor quality of life and environmental issues among others.

This mixes up a mission and cutting-edge technology.

Solutions brought about by social entrepreneurship.

There are many awesome companies that have been started by social entrepreneurs. Here are a few:

Kiva: Provides loans that change lives
Grameen Bank: Gives banking solutions to the poor in Bangladesh
Teach for America: Learning solutions for Americans
Accessibility Partners: Makes it easy for persons with disabilities to access information technology
Everlane: A socially aware clothing company

Cost-effectiveness in social entrepreneurship.

Social entrepreneurs think about the long-term impact of their initiatives. In their eyes, there’s no need for creating a huge business today that will bring end up causing a disaster in future.

Think about some of these workplaces that give their workers poor working and living conditions, exposing them to numerous expensive health challenges, such as the Rana Plaza tragedy mentioned above.

Social aware entrepreneurs think differently. Their goal is to heighten innovation and impact, not income.

Here profits are not as valuable as social results. No matter how much income is made, a social awareness project fails if it does not have a meaningful social impact. In fact, any social entrepreneur who generates colossal profits and does not convert that into a cost-effective, meaningful social impact has wasted useful resources.

Some of the social impacts they can push for include:

A cleaner environment
Easier access to health care
Improved education
Housing for the homeless
Reduced poverty
Protection of abused children
Improved working conditions

These are done in a cost-effective way. They end up bettering the lives of the disadvantaged. In the long-term, they’re good for the well-being of other human beings and eventually the overall worldwide economy.

Here, cost-effectiveness will not only affect the core services being offered by a company, it also applies in their employee uptake.

The 2016 Cone Communications Employee Engagement Study came up with interesting findings to back up this claim. Their studies showed that:

More than 75% of millennials would accept a pay cut if hired in a responsible company
88% find jobs more fulfilling when provided with opportunities to make a positive impact on environmental and social issues (US average is 74%)
When deciding where to work, 76% consider the social and environmental commitments of a company
64% would decline job offers from companies without strong CSR practices

The key takeaway here is the fact that social entrepreneurs find it easier to hire millennials, thus reducing the costs and time taken to hire experts.

Millenials will soon form more than 50% of the workforce, therefore having practices that appeal to them will greatly increase their chances to work for you. A brilliant, socially conscious, young workforce will be able to help greatly push the agenda of a business, while still ensuring there’s reasonable social impact.

So, does social entrepreneurship matter?

Yes it does.

It solves social problems, hastens implementation of key projects, solves business problems, fixes issues brought about by businesses and is cost-effective in the long run. It changes lives. It makes the world a better place. More people need to follow this model and start creating lasting, effective, sustainable social impact. The world needs it!

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How to Find Entrepreneurial Opportunities in Social Enterprise

Looking for a way to make money — and a difference! Yes! That’s the beauty of being a social entrepreneur but where do you find these entrepreneurial ideas? Let’s explore!

It can be excruciatingly tough to get a new business moving, especially if you’re thinking of doing something that will bring forth a positive change in a community.

You first have to deal with the struggles within self on whether or not the society will take up your idea. After that comes the naysayers who will want you to focus on what they consider conventional. Let’s not even mention the challenges of getting funding.

However, it’s very doable for anyone who wants to make a difference and work hard for it. You simply need to align your values with the different opportunities that are out there.

Who is the social entrepreneur?

The social entrepreneur is a different kind of business person. They are saturated with a burning desire to create sustainable solutions to issues ailing the society. Although the stages of creating a thriving social enterprise can be identical to building a conventional business, they vary in certain aspects.

The inspiration and motivation behind a social enterprise business model arise from the desire to see the community have a better experience. As a result, entrepreneurs embark on a journey to provide facilities and resources that safeguard the interests of the community without seeking to put personal interest first.

That’s the key difference between a normal business and a social business; the fact that instead of solving a problem for financial gain, you focus on using the business as a means to solve pressing matters in a society.

Here, social, economic, and environmental gains are equally important. Below are some examples of entrepreneurial opportunities that exist out there in the social enterprise:

Waste management to make things clean, green and pure in a creative way

Waste management is an important stepping stone to a green and clean neighborhood. An effective model should always be put in place to ensure there is proper solid and liquid waste management.

The conventional methods don’t always work everywhere, and smart social entrepreneurs are now coming up with very creative ways to handle this challenge. Some are using awesome integrated systems that end up killing two birds with one stone.

That pesky hard-to-recycle waste

When agricultural waste is turned into packaging material

For instance, waste has been turned into agricultural inputs. It has also been used to generate power as biofuel. In a nutshell, you need to find something that can be sustainable. Solve a single problem by creating multiple benefits: This stops the struggle with the business model because it creates a model that powers itself to the next level.

Businesses in this sector require the right infrastructure to be efficient. A closer look also reveals that most people and governments have focused on infrastructure-based solutions. To some extent, it has led to the belief that heavy investments in infrastructure are necessary, but this is not necessarily true.

If you take some time to reflect and let your imagination roll, you could come up with a better option rather than trying to catch-up with existing innovations.

One example of a company that has literally been able to convert trash to treasure is Green Collect. Would you consider buying back your own waste? No? Green Collect, a Melbourne social enterprise does exactly that.

Companies pay it to remove waste that’s hard to recycle. Green Collect then hires people who are socially disadvantaged to create something useful from that waste. They then sell those newly created items back to the same companies that had thrown them out. Well, how creative is that?

Renewable energy innovations to counter one of the biggest man-made challenges

With the current debates about climate change becoming a mainstream conversation, the world is waking up to the reality. The population has experienced an exponential growth over the years and this has led to the overstretching of natural resources.

In short, humans have been exploiting the earth’s resources at a higher rate than they can regenerate in nature.

The rampant felling of trees has led to deforestation thanks to the insatiable appetite for wood and its products. As a result, huge tracts of land that had been previously covered by thriving forests and ecosystems have been destroyed.

Today, you’d be surprised to realize some of these areas have either become deserts or are on the verge of desertification. And this is all man-made.

Who doesn’t know the pollution caused by oil and its products? In urban areas, automobiles have contributed to the accumulation of carbon which has an adverse effect on the climate. Similarly, industrial areas are notorious contributors to the carbon menace since many are still powered by combustion engines.

This sector has experienced some innovative ideas that are trying to fix this miserable mess caused by man’s actions. With heavy weight companies like Tesla tapping into the solar power generation, it is a true indication that this is a stable and promising sector.

Although this company may be using a different approach, their participation in the renewable energy sector shows the stability of the industry as well as the potential that can be tapped.

A Renewable Energy Example: d.light scores big with solar power

When we talked with Ned Tozun from d.light a while ago for Change Creator Magazine, we talked about the huge market potential for d.light’s solar-powered lighting solution — a renewable energy source that impacts billions of people.

The market potential for d.light’s solar-powered lighting solutions was massive, with 2 billion people in the developing world without access to reliable energy, and 1.2 billion of those people without electricity at all. As Tozun explains,

“People in these countries were already spending huge amounts of money on kerosene lamps. The market was vast.”

Not only could d.light create an affordable solution for these people, but they were also creating a much safer one as well.

Today, d.light has impacted over 65 million people’s lives with their solution.

Kerosene lamps are potentially dangerous sources of light, as the fumes can be the equivalent of smoking two packs a day, and in India alone, 2.5 million people suffer burns (many of these children) from Kerosene lamps. These are the real market stats that propelled d.light to continue, as Tozun says,

“You’ve got to be absolutely passionate about what you are doing, not just worry about the return on investment.”

As social entrepreneurs, we not only have to find these renewable energy problems to solve, we must also find market opportunities to make money so we can have the greatest impact.

As a social entrepreneur, you might want to join the bandwagon with a business model that has been adjusted and tailored to directly benefit the society. Simply try to match your innermost values with the myriad of opportunities out there.

In communities where deforestation is negatively impacting their lifestyle, a solution that tackles the root cause can work. Providing solar energy not only solves the chief cause of climate change but also deals with clean energy.

Of course, there are many third world countries that still use wood as a source of household energy and this messes up the environment. To people like these, solar energy safeguards their livelihood and provides a better, cleaner alternative.

Social entrepreneurs have also come up with alternatives for third world countries. For example, efficient wood stoves have been introduced to minimize tree felling and occurrence of respiratory diseases.

Using information technology to remove barriers and limits

We are in the information age and the potential that comes with embracing that fact is huge. But there are communities that are disadvantaged because they have no way of tapping into the industry.

With almost every business integrating daily operations with online platforms, some communities are being left out. A remote village with no capacity to provide or access IT infrastructure will have a lower rate of bringing in business when compared to a well-connected area.

Today, innovative social entrepreneurs have developed business models that are set to improve business in remote villages. For instance, custom internet services are being created and owned by the community, with the aim of attracting businesses to the area.

Facebook’s satellite internet

Using tablets with the internet to make teaching effective

How do you discover entrepreneurial opportunities?

Entrepreneurial opportunities are always there. But it takes a keen eye to notice them. Discovering an entrepreneurial opportunity is the first step towards tapping into an exciting and challenging career.

You should have the right mindset; one that helps you dissect the opportunity and determine the best approach to turn it into something that matters.

Some people are said to be born with this quality while others have developed it over time. To both types, practice and constant learning will hone the skills for a better and efficient approach.

Let’s look at some of the ways of discovering profitable opportunities across the industries.

The Technological Evolution: Get Your Ideas Into the World So Much Faster

The most important determinant of an entrepreneurial opportunity is the level of technology in use in the industry.

If you are keen to observe, you will realize that young industries tend to have several undefined needs. Therefore, the opportunities that lie in young markets are more compared to the ones you’d find in well-established markets.

One of the best times to hunt for opportunities in any sector is before any design or way of doing things has become widely accepted. Once your venture dominates the market, you can now focus on scaling and ensuring lean operations.

In addition, industries tend to have lucrative opportunities when a big industry player is involved. The reputation and track record of a respected company works towards improving the public perception of the technology involved.

As such, it is better to venture into an emerging market when a big player is involved because they will validate the business. However, the timing must be perfect because the competition will be stiff as more companies join. For instance, when IBM joined the PC industry people found it easy to trust the innovation and technology used.

Organizational environment of an industry

The number and potential rewards of opportunities will depend on the current structure of an industry.

When you are the first to offer a certain product or service in a market, you face perception problems. In this case, both consumers and investors are not accustomed to your products and may not realize their importance.

The best option is to settle on an industry with operating businesses in the same sector. However, overcrowding will also contribute to business failure for new entries. But if you can identify a sector with complementary businesses, you can benefit from their presence.

Besides profiting from the social relationships established by the businesses, you stand a better chance of building a better service.

For instance, if you are opening a daycare service in a neighborhood with several daycares, you could easily fail. But if you focus on a complimentary daycare service that focuses on a different age bracket, success can come quickly.

Demand: You Better Figure This Out First!

Demand is influenced by two main approaches, the first is conformity and the other is a distinction. Conformity seeks to address the segment that wants standard goods but distinction serves those that seek unique and personalized goods. However, most markets have many segments and there will always be parts that are underserved.

It’s also good to note the trends in the market and realize the changes in demand patterns. Because most of these patterns are predictable, it is easy to anticipate the next move for an industry. As a good entrepreneur, it’s better to play where the ball will be as opposed to where current affairs are.

Understand Legal Frameworks

Most businesses are regulated by the law and all interested players are required to be licensed. Therefore, some alterations in the legal aspects of an industry will affect the opportunities present.

When laws are clear on what an entrepreneur can claim intellectual rights or patents, the approaches to business are different. Most entrepreneurs will dedicate time and resources towards what the legal framework protects because the benefits are guaranteed.

Now It’s Your Time to Join the Mission

Entrepreneurial opportunities can be found in any sector. But it takes determination and courage to make something out of it.

If you are to succeed with any business model, you need to focus on the journey and not the destination.

When you restrain yourself from focusing on a mirage, you can find the energy to take action and experiment with different ideas.

When it comes to social enterprises, never lose your focus. Here, you’re not just another entrepreneur trying to dominate the market. Instead, you’re the light to that society. You’re using your values, intellect, and resources to bring about a greater good to a disadvantaged people.

Go ahead and shine brightly.

The joy, pleasure, and satisfaction of creating real change in people’s lives is something that is just too great to be quantified.

“Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.” (Bill Drayton)

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