2024 Success Checklist
Get Ready For The New Year!
For everyone with a business right now, the next few months are crucial. This guide will give you EVERYTHING you need to get your journey started. By the end, you'll have an online store, products, integrations, and a solid understanding of how to market your product.
The Checklist
Everything you need to prepare for the upcoming sales season is below.
Note: This is just the timeline and each step will have an in depth explanation.
The First Step:
An Online Store
The most important part of starting your eCommerce journey is an online store. Without one, we won't have a place to share our products or sell them to the world.
When it comes to starting this journey, shopify is the most beginner friendly place. With hundreds of apps (we'll tell you which ones to get), minimalistic templates, web hosting, & more, you can easily get started in less than a day.
Creating Our Inventory
Products To Sell
Now that we've established that we are gonna have an online store, it begs the question of "What am I gonna sell?"
Well, with PLR it makes selling products online a breeze. Save this page and simply navigate throughout the site and save some products that you like. Once you've picked out a few, created your online store, it's time to add these to your store.
Making Our Site Unique
Design & Integrations
So now that we have a website with products on it, it's time to optimize for conversions and add necessary apps to it.
We'll go over this later on this page more in depth, but just keep in mind that we want minimalism and to keep the attention of our customers. This is where psychology plays a huge role.
When it comes to app, we'll provide a more in depth description of what to add in the section of step 3.
Getting Our Website Out to The World
Marketing & SEO
In step 4, we'll focus on marketing & SEO. By this point, our site will be basically ready to go. It then becomes a matter of getting our platform out to the right people so we can start getting conversions!
Getting Insight On Our Marketing
Data Analysis
A common misconception and thing that people seem to miss is that you can buy advertisements and they will convert. It's actually the opposite!
Data analysis can be a very powerful thing to utilize and a lot of platforms actually allow us to do this. The goal is to find out who is clicking on our ads, who isn't clicking on our ads, why they are clicking on them, why they aren't clicking on them, why they are purchasing, and why they aren't purchasing.
With this in mind, we can begin to optimize who we target with these advertisements.
Time For Success!
Let's Get To Work
By this point, if you have followed along with the guide, you will be at this step and have set yourself up in a tenth of the time most people say it takes to start an online store.
Remember, this is just the timeline and below this will be an in depth explanation of each step. Regardless, with these 5 simple steps you will be in a place to start earning online.
Step 1: An Online Store
Short & Sweet
Shopify
This step is very easy and should take you less than half an hour to do. Simply click the button below, activate your free trial, follow the instructions, and by the end you will have a shopify store ready to be worked on.
Go To ShopifyWhy Shopify & Some Notes
Web Hosting
You don't necessarily need a domain yet but when you do, it is very easy to get through shopify. In the settings of your admin panel, just go over to the "Domain" settings and you can get one there. Additionally, you want your domain to be short and resemble what you are selling. When it comes to the ending (.co, .com, etc) stick to what people know. If a domain title is taken in the .com, try .co. It's typically reccomended to stick to .co and .com as people trust these & recognize them.
Choosing a Theme & Design
We'll go more in depth on the design later but one of the first things you will be asked is to pick a theme. Take a look at the previews and then choose the one that resonates with you the most. There are paid themes, and these can be worth it, but for now we can just use a free one and then migrate it to the paid one later. We recommend a minimalistic theme that won't be too overbearing and will be nice to look at.
Integrations & Apps
One of the unique things about using shopify as our platform is how we can integrate apps into it. It is as simple as clicking "Add App to Store" and then you can begin to use it. For example, for our Digital Products we will be using a file delivery system named "Filemonk" which is in the app store on shopify. Another nice thing to note is that these apps transfer store to store, so if you ever do decide to change your theme, it will not be a hassle.
After we have our platform, it's time to get some products to sell on it.
On plrze.com, we have an amazing collection of digital products you can start selling. These range from Planners, eBooks, Calendars, Journals, & more! You only need to buy them once and you get an unlimited use license so the return on investment is unlimited. Take a look around our site or view some of our reccomended products below.
High Conversion Products
Using our data over the past year, we've found that these products convert the highest. They apply to the most people, have the best use cases, and are very versatile.
Now you can effortlessly import these PLR products directly into Canva, making customization even easier. Add your branding, tweak the content, and you're ready to go!
Let's talk about the different tools & design methodology we can use for our site.
Design Methodology
In today's day and age, the attention span of people (Ourselves included) can be very short! That's why we must design our website with this in mind. We want minimalism, we want big text highlighting features, and we most importantly don't want to make it difficult for our customers to give us money.
With all of that being said, go to https://apple.com and browse the website for about 10 minutes. Take note of their design and how they approach website design. Take inspiration from this.
Necessary Integrations
Below this we will list all of the apps you should use or think about using for your online store. But the necessary integration we need for digital product stores is a file delivery system. We recommend filemonk.
Unfortunately digital product delivery isn't directly available in shopify so that's why we are using that app. We need a way to get our digital download to our customer after they purchase, and that is why we use filemonk.
Utilizing AI With Our Design
If you haven't heard of it already, chatGPT is the perfect co-pilot when it comes to helping you set up your website.
With chatGPT, we can simply give it a prompt like "I am creating the front page of my website and I need a minimalistic outline of my website that sells digital products. Also write it in a similar way that apple writes their website descriptions and outline"
Using the example above, you can get a very nice outline and description built just by a simple prompt. chatGPT will build it for you.
Optional Apps To Use
Email Marketing is something we want to configure right off the bat. Simply add it to your store and add ways for users to sign up to your email list.
- Gold Standard Of Email Marketing
- Easy to use & Configure
- Good integration w/ Shopify
Nobody likes a slow website. SEO King allows us to set it and forget it. You will notice drastic improvements. Just remember to run this before you start advertising.
- Does everything and also incorporates AI
- Website speed
- Image optimization
- Customs sitemaps
- Connects to google
- Shows you what website pages you have that aren’t indexed
Affiliate programs can be a very easy way for you to get some traffic & conversions, especially if your program is lucrative.
- Simple
- Good configuration
- Lots of ways to get affiliates
- Good communication with affiliates
The term "upselling" refers to adding a deal of some sort to get an additional sale. It's important to utilize this as you can offer heavy discounts with digital products.
- Simple
- Non-intrusive design
Adding LiveChat into our website gives customers a sense of comfort. It makes them feel like they are not alone in their purchase and it gives you brand a face.
- Automates a lot of LiveChat
- Amazing set-up for chatbots
- Can target customers at certain points of the website
- Respond to emails and Instagram DM’s within their UI
Commonly overlooked, FAQ's can be a great way to get returning customers & conversions. Having a good FAQ page is crucial and this app let's you make a pretty one.
- Puts FAQ’s in a very aesthetic manner
- Simple search bar for questions
- Adds story & professionalism to your website
Email Marketing is something we want to configure right off the bat. Simply add it to your store and add ways for users to sign up to your email list.
- Gold Standard Of Email Marketing
- Easy to use & Configure
- Good integration w/ Shopify
Nobody likes a slow website. SEO King allows us to set it and forget it. You will notice drastic improvements. Just remember to run this before you start advertising.
- Does everything and also incorporates AI
- Website speed
- Image optimization
- Customs sitemaps
- Connects to google
- Shows you what website pages you have that aren’t indexed
Affiliate programs can be a very easy way for you to get some traffic & conversions, especially if your program is lucrative.
- Simple
- Good configuration
- Lots of ways to get affiliates
- Good communication with affiliates
The term "upselling" refers to adding a deal of some sort to get an additional sale. It's important to utilize this as you can offer heavy discounts with digital products.
- Simple
- Non-intrusive design
Adding LiveChat into our website gives customers a sense of comfort. It makes them feel like they are not alone in their purchase and it gives you brand a face.
- Automates a lot of LiveChat
- Amazing set-up for chatbots
- Can target customers at certain points of the website
- Respond to emails and Instagram DM’s within their UI
Commonly overlooked, FAQ's can be a great way to get returning customers & conversions. Having a good FAQ page is crucial and this app let's you make a pretty one.
- Puts FAQ’s in a very aesthetic manner
- Simple search bar for questions
- Adds story & professionalism to your website
Everyone talks about it, but here's what you actually need to know.
Marketing
When it comes to marketing, shopify has a lot of built in features we can utilize. If you go to the "Sales Channels" section of your store, you can add Instagram, snapchat, TikTok, and Facebook to your store. After adding them, follow the instructions and you should be able to directly advertise to the platforms right from your store.
SEO
SEO is one of the most misunderstood things in online eCommerce. NEVER hire an agency. This is a waste of money. To optimize for SEO, simply utilize a mix of SEO King, chatGPT for descriptions on your site, niche specific blogs, and google indexing.
Advertising Tips
When it comes to your marketing style, think about psychology and get a good understanding of it. Empathy is extremely important and if we cannot understand what customers think when they see our ads, how can we expect them to want to buy our products?
Just look at successful companies and their advertisements and take inspiration from them. Don't copy but follow the same messaging and style they are going for.
Influencer Advertising & Organic
Paying influencers to promote your products can be a rather expensive task and is in most cases, not worth it. There is a lot of decieving that's done and sometimes the influencer with 100,000 "followers" will give you nothing but a hole in your wallet. It is much better to utilize your friends (ask them to help you promote), make your own videos, and use branded advertising. The impressions you get from branded advertising are targeted, meaning, you decide what interests get to see it.
We aren't meaning to say all influencers are bad, but when starting out we want to be cost effective. It's a risk we don't want to take with limited funds.
When it comes to marketing, shopify has a lot of built in features we can utilize. If you go to the "Sales Channels" section of your store, you can add Instagram, snapchat, TikTok, and Facebook to your store. After adding them, follow the instructions and you should be able to directly advertise to the platforms right from your store.
SEO is one of the most misunderstood things in online eCommerce. NEVER hire an agency. This is a waste of money. To optimize for SEO, simply utilize a mix of SEO King, chatGPT for descriptions on your site, niche specific blogs, and google indexing.
When it comes to your marketing style, think about psychology and get a good understanding of it. Empathy is extremely important and if we cannot understand what customers think when they see our ads, how can we expect them to want to buy our products?
Just look at successful companies and their advertisements and take inspiration from them. Don't copy but follow the same messaging and style they are going for.
Paying influencers to promote your products can be a rather expensive task and is in most cases, not worth it. There is a lot of decieving that's done and sometimes the influencer with 100,000 "followers" will give you nothing but a hole in your wallet. It is much better to utilize your friends (ask them to help you promote), make your own videos, and use branded advertising. The impressions you get from branded advertising are targeted, meaning, you decide what interests get to see it.
We aren't meaning to say all influencers are bad, but when starting out we want to be cost effective. It's a risk we don't want to take with limited funds.
Understanding how others perceive our content is crucial for conversions.
What Exactly is Data?
When we say Data, we mean Data that comes from our advertisements. With any marketing suite or branded advertising we use, we will get access to reports. Reports will show us a broad range of details all about our advertisements and how viewers interact with it.
Understanding My Data
Our reports will contain a varying amount of data. Analyze carefully.
These reports will show us things like:
- Who is watching our ads
- Who is skipping our ads
- Who is engaging with our ads
- Who is clicking our ads
- Where they are from & more
Note: It won't show you exactly who the person is, but it will show you varying details about them as a consumer.
Optimizing Advertisements
Once we know what data is, understand it, it's now time to optimize our advertisements and do a round 2 of them.
We can optimize our advertisements by understanding the issues within our data.
For example, if you notice that users are not watching them or just skipping, create a better hook or more attention grabbing video. If you notice people are watching but not clicking, create a better CTA (Call To Action), if you notice people are watching and clicking, this is ideally what you want, but now it's time to change things up on your website.
90%
Of people who go on this won't see it, but if you are apart of the 10%, congratulations.
You are well on your way to success and if you follow this guide step by step, you will have accomplished everything in the timeline. From here, continue working towards your dreams and you will get there!