Do you want to start a profitable store, but just do not know where to start? Are you overwhelmed by all the information out there, and want clear, actionable, step-by-step instructions? If you are willing put in the work, this 21-Day Challenge is what you need. Learn how Amanda started her first store and got her first sale in 3 weeks, coached by pro Tim Kock. Your customers are waiting! Are you ready for this?
Throughout this course, we’re going to follow my friend Amanda – a new dropshipping entrepreneur who asked me for some help starting her first store. She’s agreed to share her process with you so you can see how attainable it really is. Along the way, she asked me lots of awesome questions that I'm excited to share with you. And I think they'll answer a lot of your questions too.
When you’re marketing to a niche audience, it will be way easier to find and reach your best customers, because they’ll share super-specific traits and habits. Generally, the more narrow your niche, the less competition you’ll have. Learn how to choose a dropshipping niche and validate it, so you can source products from categories that stand a better chance of generating sales than standard product listings.
Every day leading up to your launch, you want to be posting something, somewhere to help build excitement for when the store actually launches. (But not spamming anyone, of course.) And the key to building these connections is through having authentic engagements with influencers, groups, and potential customers in your niche. Let’s look at how to identify and use these ‘e-friends’ to hype up your store’s launch.
What do you hope to accomplish with dropshipping in the short-term? I encourage you to dream big and set some long-term goals too, but for now, we’re just going to set one short-term goal. Goal-setting keeps you accountable, and it gives you something clear and defined to work toward. It also tells you if you’re succeeding (duh). Learn how to set a S.M.A.R.T. ecommerce goal today better understanding of what you’ll need to spend, and what that money will get you.
You’ve set a goal that you’ll be working toward throughout our 3 weeks together. Now it’s time to choose the specific items you’d like in your store – preferably from Oberlo Verified suppliers. Since you don’t have time to test your products before selling them, it’s critical that you find quality products, which is what we’ll do today.
By now, you’ve read all the descriptions for your products. And you’ve seen how terribly unexciting some of them are. That’s why it’s 100% necessary for you to write your own product descriptions. Learn how to set your store apart from the rest and really communicate value to your visitors. And of course, I’ll show you how to find a good price to sell them at so you can still make a profit.
You’re going to want some contacts to email once you launch your store. A giveaway is a perfect way to do that. We’re going to use an awesome free tool called KingSumo. It will let you give away whatever you want, for however long you want. People enter your giveaway by typing in their email only. Also, we’ll look at how to choose the right product for the giveaway.
A brand encourages people to take action by highlighting the unique aspects of a business. It also gives depth to your online presence and tells your audience that they can trust your company. Think about Best Buy and Amazon for a moment. What attracts people to those websites? Personality. Branding. So if you want to succeed in ecommerce, you need to create a memorable brand – that’s what we’ll do today.
Yesterday, you laid the foundation of your ecommerce brand by creating a logo and telling your company’s story. Today, you’re going to learn how to speak your customer’s language – to engage your target audience more effectively and increase the appeal of your brand. We’ll also look at the steps you need to take to set up Facebook and Instagram accounts for your store.
The time has come. Today we’re going to start building your store! There are two main parts of a store that need to be addressed thoroughly before you can launch: the backend and the frontend. The backend is the ‘internal workings’ of the store – the settings, apps, things like this. The frontend is the shoppable part that your customers see when they go to www.[yourstore].com. We’ll look at how to make the backend function smoothly.
You’ve already set up the backend of your store so everything runs smoothly for you. Now, we’re going to work on the frontend – the part that everyone sees when they visit. It’s critical to have a nice-looking, functional, easy-to-navigate store or else you simply won’t make many sales. Luckily, Shopify makes it incredibly easy to build an awesome store in less than a day. And that’s exactly what we’ll do today.
You know that old saying: ‘Apps make the world go ‘round.’ Okay, that’s not a real saying. But there are lots of awesome Shopify apps out there that can help take your store’s performance to the next level. So today, we’ll look at a list of apps which I believe would help your business. We’ll also go through the steps you need to take to get some feedback on your store.
On Day 8, you built your Facebook and Instagram accounts and started engaging with these people so they’re familiar with your name. Now, it’s time to build out your pages and start approaching your micro-influencers. Today, we’ll learn some tips and best practices for posting on social media (especially Instagram). We’ll also look at how to approach micro-influencers to ask for ‘shoutouts’ for your store.
It’s almost here. Are you ready for your launch? Hopefully, you’re feeling confident and prepared – minus a few finishing touches, of course. You might be getting stressed about little details here and there that don’t quite feel right just yet. I always say that I try my best not to ‘fall in love with the details,’ because then you find yourself falling down all kinds of rabbit holes and wasting all kinds of time. We’re going to get it done today, then worry about falling in love with the details later.
I remember the feeling of launching my first store. To be honest, it was probably 50% excitement and 50% stress. I was overthinking things a lot, and worried that other people would blame me if I failed. But the truth is: that didn’t matter in the end. Because I learned that people remember your success and they forget your failure. Even if they do remember your failure… it doesn’t last long. So hopefully you’re hanging in there. Let’s march onward and make your store live.
Today is your first full day as an ecommerce store owner. How do you feel? I’ll go ahead and assume you feel an immense amount of relief that it’s launched. Even better, the world didn’t explode. Phew. But don’t let that sense of relief keep you idle. It’s the end of your store-building journey, but the beginning of a whole new, never-ending journey of maintaining, promoting, and killing it with your new business. Let’s keep promoting your store as much as possible using the resources you’ve built up so far.
Now, once you’ve launched a store and gotten the word out, it’s time to knock on your potential customers’ door. There are multiple ways to do this, but perhaps the most effective option is to use Facebook Ads. However, a Facebook ad won’t do anything on its own – it needs an audience to work. Let’s look at how to choose the right audience to target with Facebook ads.
Now that you’re familiar with your audience’s interests and potential targeting ideas, it’s time to make your first ads. There’s one very important thing to keep in mind here: In your first several rounds of ads, you’re essentially buying data on your potential customers. Do not expect to make a boatload of sales immediately. You have to be patient. With that in mind, let’s install the Facebook Pixel so we can track ad performance.
Ah, analytics. There’s no better way to see how your store is performing. After all, it’s cold hard data that shows you how visitors (and hopefully customers) are interacting with your store. Shopify has some great analytics tools, like how the ‘Home’ screen of your dashboard shows you things like your sales, sessions, top product breakdowns, top pages, and more. On top of that, we’ll learn how to use Google Analytics, which gives you some pretty amazing details.
While channels like Instagram and Facebook are great for distributing content and reminding people of your existence, they’re also noisy and your message may not reach everyone when you post an update. A newsletter, in comparison, stands a better chance of being seen and read as it goes out in a person’s email – 58% of people first check emails at the start of their day. Let’s learn how to set up a newsletter directly within Gmail.
Can you believe we’re almost done? If you’re not quite elated by your performance so far – don’t be stressed. This is all part of the process. I had to remind Amanda of this on more than one occasion. Another part of the process is digging into what you’ve got so far. You may have noticed that I’m big on performance and results data. I think it’s pretty self-explanatory why that’s the case. So today, we’re going to – you guessed it – look at your data to see how you’re doing.
Have you gotten a sale yet?! If you did, woohoo! If you didn’t, there’s still more time to apply everything you’ve learned. Today, we’re going to evaluate the performance of your first round of Facebook Ads. We’ll then run a second round of ads, working off the data from the first. Meanwhile, let’s keep plugging away at the promotional strategies we’ve discussed throughout these few weeks.
