If you are into marketing like I am, you probably love to find new and interesting ways to market your business. Here are my best marketing resources all in one place! Please email me if you have any needs I haven't covered here! [email protected]
Table of Contents
Affiliate Disclosure: Please note that I do receive compensation for recommending some of these products. That said, I have negotiated discounts for my readers when possible and you will never pay more than you would by going to the websites themselves.
Courses & Worksheets
Setting Up Your Website
Most websites are WordPress blogs at this point! Here are some of the things that you will need to get yours going.
Hosting
Nothing works without hosting. I use Agathon for my hosting now that my site is bigger and generating revenue. I used Godaddy when I first started out (I KNOW everyone but me hates them, but they are huge and have phone support and my site is wicked fast so I am happy!)
Site Theme
I KNOW, there are a million free themes out there, but if you are trying to make your life easier use a Genesis theme with a fancy addon. Genesis makes your site act like Microsoft Word so even non-techy people can do things without hiring a programmer!
Email Newsletter
The very first thing you should do after you get your website set up is put a newsletter signup form on there. I have tried a bunch of different ones over the years and use ConvertKit now (I am so freaking happy!) They are not the cheapest or most expensive, but it really does make a different to have a paid version if you are serious about marketing. If you really, really need free, go with MailChimp and move over later!
WordPress Plugins
Okay, next you need to add plugins to make your WordPress work! Don't forget, you add these in from inside your WordPress. Here are the ones that I recommend kind of in order from basic to advanced…
- Yoast SEO – This is the industry standard plugin for helping make sure your post is SEO'd right
- Social Pug– I use the free version of this to do my social media counts and icons
- Pretty Links – This lets you take a long URL and make it “Pretty” and short
- Rel Nofollow Checkbox – When you do a link you can say “no follow” if it is an affiliate link
- Short Pixel – Makes your photos smaller (super important if your site is slow!) – Paid
- Tasty Pins – Can hide tall Pinterest pins at the bottom of your posts & have special Pinterest descriptions
- OneSignal Push – Does that thing at the top where people can sign up to get notifications
- Elementor – Makes super fancy pages! Great if you want to customize your own pages.
- Create By Mediavine – SOOO cool, maybe my favorite… good for adding how tos and affiliate links into your blog posts … additional resource 5 Creative Ways To Use The Create WordPress Plugin
- Milotree – The EASIEST WordPress Popup Plugin ever and it is super affordable! So awesome.
Getting Help with Your Blog/Website
- Of course I recommend using my Blogging Planner to keep you organized!
- How to do an SEO Sandwich (my way of explaining SEO easily)
- Traffic Transformation Ebook – 21 Strategies I Used to Increase My Monthly Page Views from 17k to 400k+ in 10 Months… I found this super helpful when I was trying to get more traffic to my website!
Email Marketing
If you are doing any kind of marketing, you HAVE to have an email list! I know, it can be overwhelming and confusing, but never fear, Tara's here (to help!)
ESP – Email Service Provider
This is just a fancy way of saying what you use to send your newsletters and autoresponders out!
I recommend ConvertKit (it's what I use) because it is easy and if you have over 5K subscribers they will move you from your old service for free… what?!?! If you have to have free, then Mailchimp would be okay to start with until you get a little further along.
Getting Help with Your Emails
- If you are confused about autoresponders, check out my How To Build An Email Marketing Campaign Mini Course
VIDEO
Video marketing can be fun when you think about it as a way to help your people learn how to do something!
- Tube Buddy– Amazing Youtube program for finding tags for your videos and figuring out what to make videos of.
- Lumen5 – A super cool way to make free videos from your blog posts.
Getting Help With Your Videos
- All the tools I use to make my videos – Best Accessories & Tools For Making Videos
- Video Creator Form – Planner worksheet to plan and track your video creation calendar and recordings. Easy to use and helpful for YouTube and video creators.
Affiliate Marketing
Understanding affiliate marketing can be hard! It is about more than just throwing up some links and raking in the cash!
Join An Affiliate Program
The first step is to join an affiliate program. This can be a single product that you love or a program that has lots of different products or services that you can recommend.
- Share A Sale. Share A Sale is great because they have a wide range of programs and having all your sales and banners and reports in one place makes things super easy!
- Amazon Affiliate Program. I feel like everyone knows about the Amazon Affiliate Program by now, but it is a great way to make a little bit of money for recommending products people can buy on Amazon. I don't feel like this would be my first stop as they don't have great commissions and they do not really support their affiliates that much, but it is easy to find and include their links!
- Awin. Great program that lets you make global links on your site (awesome if you have recommended a bunch of Etsy products in the past and don't want to have to go back and relink them all again with affiliate links!)
Getting Help With Your Affiliate Marketing
- Traffic and Monetization Mini Challenge – Five days of simple tasks to increase your traffic & income!
Product Photography
- The Best Product Photography Courses – These are the top photography courses that I recommend! I am obsessed with the fact that taking better pictures makes things sell better!
Etsy Marketing
- Marmalead – My all time favorite Etsy SEO tool for handmade, vintage, digital and supplies.
- Etsy SEO Course – FREE on Skillshare if you haven't had an account yet (if you have email me and I will send you a different link!)
- Etsy Shipping Course – FREE on Skillshare if you haven't had an account yet (if you have email me and I will send you a different link!)
- Etsy Seller Planner – Using this planner will help streamline your systems and (as one gal put it) make sure that important things don’t get lost in your “bermuda desk”!
- FREE Vintage Sellers Ebook – A guide to getting your vintage Etsy store up & selling!
Real Estate Marketing
- All my best Real Estate Marketing resources in one place! https://marketingartfully.com/real-estate-agents-resources/
- Real Estate Business Planner. Get your time under control and your business more profitable!
- Real Estate Agent Marketing Forms and Worksheets. From listings to SEO, find out how to make your life manageable
Author Marketing
- Marketing For Authors. Check out all my Author resources in one place including the tools and resources that I use daily.
- KindleSpy Pro. How to research keywords, categories and tags for your Amazon book listings.
- KDRoi. How to submit your books to free promotion sites. I have used his software before and it is generally awesome!
- Author Marketing Club. Put out by Jim Kukral, this is a great resource for authors. The free Sell More Books With Awesome Amazon Descriptions guide is the best.
Productivity, Calendar and Marketing Worksheets
Business Planner Printables (BEST SELLERS) – Check out all of my AMAZING marketing worksheets! I have dedicated my life to creating worksheets and systems that will help my Author, Blogger, Real Estate Agent and Etsy friends get more effective so that they can make more money. All of my printable planner pages have come about because I needed to be able to do something in a better way. Visit the Marketing Artfully Shop
SEO
- SEMRush – A little pricey but the BEST SEO tool out there!
- Keyword Hero – Put keywords back into your Google analytics!
- Wincher I have tested a couple of different kinds of software for tracking my keywords and this is by far my favorite. (free limited account, I pay like $15 for two sites… SO worth it!)
- Uber Suggest – Great free site from Neil Patel for keyword research
Social Media
- Tailwind. Awesome for scheduling Pinterest posts! An approved Pinterest partner.
- Buffer. I used the business Buffer to schedule social media posts for our clients. Great tool!
- Interact Quiz Maker. I used this to make a quiz about marketing on my website! It was SO easy to use and I got some great data from the people who took the quiz!
- Later. I used this for a while for an Instagram scheduler. Maybe the best free option out there.
Direct Sales
- Direct Sales Planner. Direct Sales Business Planner for Network Marketing, Party Plan and MLMs.
Graphics
- BoxShot King. Here is how I make all the snazzy 3D book cover and web example graphics.
- Canva. The paid version of this tool is AMAZING (and like $10 a month). Make sure you check out the magic resize tool!
- Company Folders – Printing a beautifully designed presentation folder with your branding can set you apart from your competition! They also have binders and envelopes (and you know I love me some binders!)
Stickers
- StickerMule. I have super fun stickers for sale that feature the “Bee Brave” bee and more!
Administration
- Square Payroll – I use this to pay myself and remit my unemployment taxes. Pretty easy to set up and now it just works!
About my list…
As with most of what is so very popular on my website, this list started out just for me to remember the products that I recommend so that when I answer a marketing question in my email, I had a handy-dandy link to share. Well it has turned into much more than that, it is now a go-to page where I can tell you about new amazing things that I find and which I think could help your business!