The absolute Essential Software Tools you need

There so many softwares and services out there that promise the world. For some people and businesses, yes, many tools will be very needed.

But the question here is what do you need as a online Start-up or New Blogger?

Firstly, lets determine what the goal is for when your starting out?

1. Are you trying to build an audience and community but not selling anything?
2. Are you a business and do have something(s) to sell?
3. Or are you both of the above?

In many cases the answer will be both. As you cannot keep doing what you love if you cannot fund it.

The main problem in both cases is getting Traffic or the lack of. This simple point will help you decide what you need and what to spend money on.

We are not going to discuss optional plugins for WordPress or some Add-ons, that’s for another post. Here I am going to only discuss the raw essentials you need to put in place straight away to help you focus on growth and creating amazing content.

I am going summarise my weeks of research and my conclusion on what to use. If you have any better suggestions or you think I have missed anything let me know in the comments.

Let’s crack on now 😁

Tools Mentioned in this post:

Phase 1: Start-up’s or New Bloggers

In this article I will breakdown key essentials you need to implement, to purely save you time, headache and pain in the future as you grow. To get started correctly so you can focus on content and your visitors and members.

Initially, in most cases, you have little content and zero to little traffic to your website and social media.

So unless you are one of the lucky few who have already built a large following, in which case you can skip this Phase and go straight to Phase 2: Growth Stage.

Your initial goal at the beginning is to create useful valuable content for your blog and social media. As mentioned in other posts, write what you know, what you passionate about, what can help others. If its purely a personal blog, just have fun and write what you want to share.

Then focus on increasing traffic. So you can add value to people and encourage people to trust, like and follow you.

Only then will your paid services, eBooks, courses and products convert to sales.

Note Physical Products are a different thing altogether For that you also need:

• A good eCommerce platform
• Great product page with videos and imagery + Bundle offer is what sells as a startup

What is important in this early Phase 1 and even more so in later growth Phase 2, is setting up your email collection with automation methods.

As building up the contacts of your followers and those who like your content. It is important to remind them through email to come back in a systematic way. Also helps grow your social media and eventually market to your subscribers for products that can help them.

The tool for this is called an Autoresponder.

These are software’s that manage your email list, run campaigns and automate the process. There are far too many of these out there to mention here, and it is not this posts focus.

What I will focus on is the few that you should look into if you want to keep the cost low at the early days. DO NOT use the WordPress inbuilt software or a free service like Gmail. It is unprofessional and it may even get you blocked.

My recommendations are:

1. Mailerlite
2. Sendinblue
3. GetResponse
4. ConvertKit

Mailerlite

This my first recommendation for start-ups and new bloggers. You get allot for free as they have a free plan for the first 1000 users, with allot of automation and marketing features that other email services charge for.

Mailerlite is ideal for new bloggers and start-ups who have 0 – 5000 subscribers. Even over 5000 subscribers their pricing is still very competitive, and not many providers can match.

Alternatively, if your list gets significantly big over time you can then consider Sendinblue which I will discuss next.

Mailerlite Key features you get in the Free plan:

• Build Optin forms
• Visually create your Automations
• Run Campaigns
• Create Hosted Landing Pages
• Email Templates
• Drag and Drop Editor
• Giphy integrations
• A/B testing
• Its Free for the first 1000 people (enough to create your 1000 true fans!)

As you grow, Mailerlite affordability grows with you. Their pricing as more users increase are very competitive. Trust me I have searched (except that of Sendinblue discussed below)

Main reason why I suggest Mailerlite for new bloggers and Start-ups is simply due to their FREE powerful Visual Automation and segmentation features included even in their Free Package which is a premium feature in many email providers which they charge allot for. You can learn and get familiar how to use this type of functionality which will be of use later on, for free.

So Mailerlite is what I have researched, to be the best solution for new bloggers and start-up brands who are newly creating content. As you grow their prices are still competitive all the way to 10,000 users.

As soon as you get to scale of 5000 subscribers or more you can stay and grow with Mailerlite if your needs are simply to manage your subscribers, automate email campaigns to promote a few product sales in each campaign. When your list becomes bigger, i.e. larger than 5,000 – 10,000 then other service providers will be better in pricing and features. At which point you will need to export your list and move over to other services like Sendinblue.

But if your list grows that big, then who to go with is a good problems to have, unless you already have a following or know you will be increasing the email list quickly then start with a more scalable provider from day 1.

Sendinblue

This is currently one of the best email autoresponders service options on the market for new bloggers and start-ups. I use the word “best” loosely, as your requirements maybe different due to the growth plans you may have. (see Getresponse and Clickfunnels below).

Pricing: They have a Free Plan of unlimited user!!

BUT there is a daily limit of 300 emails/per day! That 300 limit is in the small print that can catch many out. That to me is not good practice, just be transparent people, let us decide who we like.

The one you will most likely need is the Premium £39 version.

The main advantage with Sendinblue over Mailerlite is they have ZERO user limits instead they work on how many email per month you are sending.

So as your popularity grows Sendinblue can scale and grow with you. As you can use their internal automation which are price competitive. It has built-in Visual marketing automation feature like Mailerlite which is essential.

The automation feature is included in their Free plan, again it is frankly useless as there is a daily sending limit of 300. Mailerlite does not have daily sending limits.

Like Mailerlite they too have Landing Page creator and Sign-up forms.

In addition to their email automation feature, Sendinblue has 2 Noteworthy features:

• CRM system, used to track and manage your interaction and relationships you’re your contacts and
• Facebook ads management

These features, Mailerlite and other many autoresponders do not have

Summery

Sendinblue is like a Frankenstein solution. It’s a hybrid of a dedicated SMTP service, an autoresponder with marketing automation combined with some features of full marketing Software solution like Getresponse, Clickfunnels, Active Campaign and Keap (know previously as Infusionsoft).

Who is Sendinblue it for?

If all you need is a email autoresponder which can do campaigns, visual automation and marketing then for £39 for unlimited users for sending up to 120,000 emails then Sendinblue is a great platform.

Their main pricing advantage over services like Mailerlite is they have NO user limits, so you can grow your list as big as you need. So if you already know you will be scaling up your subscribers quickly then you can start with Sendinblue over Mailerlite.  

However for new bloggers and start-up businesses who are just starting content marketing Sendinblue is not my recommendation.

What you should do is in two steps:

• Step 1: Start with Mailerlite and benefit from their unlimited sending and Visual Automation builder which all comes free and build up your email list as you increase your list their pricing will remain very competitive.
• Step 2: At 5000+ Subscribers move over to Sendinblue on their £39 Premium Package and keep growing your list without User limits and utilise now their CRM and Facebook ads feature. At this point you will save money as you scale up compared to staying with Mailerlite.

PLEASE NOTE:

Mailerlite and Sendinblue prices level out on pricing is when you start to send over 300,000 emails a month. Which is like sending 3 email a week to 25,000 subscribers.

Who is Sendinblue Not for:

Sendinblue is not suited, in my opinion, for blogger and businesses who:

1. Are very new and do not know when you will get more than 5000 subscribers in which case start with Mailerlite
2. Those who require email automation on lower price packages without daily sending limits
3. Advanced user who need an all in one solution such as Clickfunnels, Getresponse, Active Campaign or Keap (Infusionsoft)
4. If your Marketing Automation is done by another software like the above all in one solutions mentioned, and you only need an SMTP provider to connect to and your automation is done via another software. Sendinblue is not suited (they allow transactional SMTP seems not to allow marketing SMTP), instead go use Mailgun, Sparkpost or Sendgrid.

What Sendinblue does not have that advanced users need?

Sendinblue does not have Sales-funnel builder, or checkout and card processing feature on landing pages. It is simply an email autoresponder.

So if you are serious about full online marketing and need sales pages, tracking, funnel builder integration sendinblue wont do it.

Like many email providers used by new bloggers and startups, it is purely for managing your email list and sending out campaigns to external ecommerce (shopify) or sales landing page cart solutions.

GetResponse

Now that we have covered my recommended email automation services. We now look at all-in-one solutions. If you are serious about growing, selling and providing quality to your audience, you will require these software.

There are a few, and some cost allot of money for example Keap (aka Infusionsoft), costs $199 for only 500 users.

So the focus of this article is to grow, but not break the bank. This is why I am not going to cover all of them, only the ones I recommend for early stage and growing businesses.

So this brings me onto Getresponse.

Getresponse is a very popular and sophisticated platform. They have all the features of MailerLite, but noteworthy is that they have Extra functions which you will eventually need if your serious about making money at some point.

A much more intuitive and complete Value for money solution is Clickfunnels, which I discuss in Phase 2: Growth Phase (Click the Link to See the Blog post).

I did not include Clickfunnels here because their full feature set to compare with Getresponse is $297 and Getresponse starts at $49. But do not get put off by the $297, there is allot of value there which I discuss in the article.

Getresponse is still a very good option, because of powerful features you get for the money.

These features include:

1. Sales Funnel Builder (which is rare at this price point)
2. Built-in checkout system
3. Webinar hosting and promotions
4. Sell Downloadable eBooks
5. Facebook Ads management

All this is included in their Plus Plan ($49 for up to 1000 subscribers) and some within their Basics Plan ($15 for up to 1000 subscribers). So you get allot for very little.

To know how all of these features work initially is not necessary. Just know that as soon as you are ready these tools are there.

Who is it for?

For those who know they will be seriously pushing their brand and blog. Already have plans to sell products and/or services, and want to manage their sales and marketing within 1 platform.

You may not need all the tools inside GetResponse, but if you already have a solid plan to grow and want to sell then moving your email list, automations and campaigns can be a real pain.

Just pay the little extra and start building the future, and you will get their Salesfunnel feature can really boost your marketing efforts.

What are the negatives of Getresponse?

You do not have, Affiliate management yet.

So if you want other people and affiliates to promote your products, GetResponse cannot do it, you will need to use a 3^rd Party service for that such as Affiliatly

As mentioned before, the competitive alternative all-in-one solution, if you want to run memberships and affiliate programs, is Clickfunnels.

But at the start, you most likely do not need an affiliate or a members system if you’re a blogger or new brand. Businesses however who already have a start-up brand with quality products that want to do influencer marketing should straight away be considering Clickfunnels.

Getresponse can become eventually relatively expensive. As your email list grows which I hope it will GetResponse and most automation software’s will get more and more expensive, as they base their pricing on how many Subscribers you have, which I personally do not like.

Why? Say you are just building an audience but do not weekly email them all. Services like Getresponse which base pricing on subscriber numbers, you will pay them for nothing. Whereas, charging for how many emails you send is more fair, similar to how Mailgun, Sendgrid, Sparkpost and Amazon SES charge.

This is where ClickFunnels wins, as it has one price for unlimited subscribers 🤯. You pay your SMTP provider which connects to Clickfunnels however many emails you send which normally will be much cheaper then other mail automation services.

Again, as a summery. Getresponse is amazing tool and fantastic for starters who want to grow, but will get expensive over time. Compared to Clickfunnels.

All other all-in-one solutions are already too expensive.

Optin Form management Software, Always people!:

This is absolutely essential piece of software to have no matter what stage you are in.

You must have an Opt-in software on your website. Literally all popular Autoresponders have Opt-in forms that you can place on your website and blog to collect emails and engage with an audience.

I personally like and suggest you use Divi Bloom if your using the Divi theme, or an alternative such as OptinMonster.

For WordPress user, most blogger are using WordPress, DIVI Bloom is powerful software and comes Free with your Divi Theme membership, which is another of my recommendations.

If you are not using Divi theme then Optin Monster, and Thrive Leads are good alternatives.

So Divi Bloom as a great solution for Divi users.

Why do you need Optin form management?

1. Because it integrates to 19 of the most popular Email services and automation platforms
2. Because you can manage all your opt-in forms and locations from one single Dash
3. It saves you allot of time and stress in the future
4. Gives you flexibility to change email service providers

This software is so important and will save you hours of headache.

Think about it! You will be placing your opt-in forms all over your websites, landing pages, blog posts. There literally could be hundreds of places you place it after few months of blogging.

Now if you ever need to change something, you will need to go through and find where it is and replace the code.

What is more likely, as you grow, you may want to move email automation providers, or a Sales Funnel software. Again you will need to go back to every post, every page, ever landing page and change the optin form.

With these Opt-in form management software’s. It handles it in one dashboard. So whenever you need to make a change or move providers you just need to change some code in one place and it will change everywhere.

Divi Themes:

Having a good looking and easy to customise blog site is essential.

Not only will it help your new site visitors navigate easily. It will also help simplify design work as you build your content.

Setting up a good quality premium theme from day one, will save you allot of time later when you actually get busy making and scheduling content.

Divi is one of the most powerful WordPress software there is on the market. And it’s not expensive.

Always start with a premium theme. And as mentioned you get the Bloom Opt-in app for free. Monarch Social Media Share App also comes free in addition to excellent support.

URL Link shortness

Another piece of software that is key to saving you time and making your business and blog scale without looking back.

What do link shorteners do?

They shorten website URL links that you share. These links can be links to:

1. Your landing opt-in pages
2. Product pages
3. Affiliate site link
4. Backlinks to other key partner websites

As you grow and link to important pages and websites in your blog posts, pages, emails and social media. It will become an absolute nightmare to track all the links back and one at a time change it.

Having software that tracks and manages your links will help you easily change where your audience lands when they click it.

For example; you have a landing page for your eBook on www.yoursite.com/landingpage

This is ebook you created is helpful so you create a landing page where people can download it and get the page url link and:

• You email it out to all your subscribers,
• Post it on various social media channels,
• Send it to friends and colleagues to share
• Even have affiliates promote it
• Make a YouTube video with the link
• Send the link to other blog sites or news sites
• etc

But later you change the landing page as you have a new landing page creator or moved software as  you start using a Salesfunnel software or change the landing page to another page.

Hope you can already see the problem coming?! 🤔

It may now be www.salessoftware.com/yourname-page or www.yourwebsite.com/OFFERlandingpage

NOW, WHAT DO YOU DO? Can you see the problem?

You have to go back one by one and update all your links and tell everyone it has changed.

So much headache and time lost. You most likely won’t bother and end up losing traffic from old URL links.

Google will also not like people landing on a 404 page.

So similar to the Optin form managing software, Link shortener can help you do the same, and manage all these links in one place.

There are few software out there, some are free others are paid.

The ones I recommend are:

1. PrettyLinks
2. Cuttly (free)
3. Rebrandly
4. Bitly

They all have Free Plans which are fairly generous. So you can get started easily.

PrettyLinks kind of stands out here.

• They have a WordPress plugin that helps you manage your link within your WordPress dashboard.
• Developed by Blair Williams who made another popular plugin Memberpress!
• Highly recommended by popular bloggers like Pat Flynn

Prettylinks has a WordPress Plugin so no need to go to another website to manage your url links like the other services.

So I recommend you save your self-allot of headache, lost traffic and worse loss of money by getting Pretty links from day 1.

Conclusion:

Phase 1: Startup essentials is complete.

You should now have important time saving software and tools in place

Such as

• A beautiful website using Divi,
• Optin form managing software like Bloom by Divi or Optin Monster
• Email Autoresponder like Mailerlite or GetRespone.
• Url Tracking and managing software like PrettyLinks

You fully ready for traffic and collecting emails from your fans. This should be more than enough to get your first 1000 True Fans.

These tools should easily help you grow your audience without too much stress.

Now, simply focus on making your valuable content including anchor content. And share it with the world. It will be a little slow at first, but keep at it and keep refining your strategy you will grow.

Unless you have jumped into Phase 2 software tools, which I discuss next, and gone all in and started also doing sales and marketing automation.

If you have, hats off to you, coz you’re a beast.

Exactly who we love to see at Risingway…, relentless dream chasers.

Next Phase is Phase 2: Growth Phase

Where you will need to put allot of your content creation, sharing, sales and marketing on autopilot. Streamline your operations so you can focus on serving your audience, product development and sales.

Check out Phase 2: Growth Phase and the What Essential Software Tools you need when your blog and business is growing?

Where I cover what to use to create automated sales funnels. Content Scheduling and publishing automations. Planning of content, website speed, competitor research and product, ebook and course sales.