Essential Tools and Platforms to Launch Your Online Business

Tune in or read the blog version below!

Today, I want to dedicate an entire episode to the tech that goes in behind powering a successful online business, and we are going to be talking about essential tools and platforms that you need to launch your online business.

I’ve worked with so many clients, so many students through the Start Your Business Intensive and Wanderlover Business Academy who come into the programs so overwhelmed with tech, so overwhelmed with what they need to set up to make money online.

So overwhelmed with so many software companies trying to persuade them that they really need this tool in order to be successful!

Personally, I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on tools and platforms over the years, testing them out.

And after having worked with so many clients and students, I really know which ones are the essential ones that you are going to need in order to be successful and make money.

Whether you are just starting out or whether you have been in business for a few years and you want to optimize your setup, you want to be more efficient and more diligent, then this episode will give you a roadmap to make sure that your online business has the foundations for success!

Online Business Model

Before I dive into what exactly is needed and start listing out the platforms, I want to first approach this by explaining what I teach as a typical online business model.

If you were to take any physical business, let’s say a restaurant or even a physical products business, let’s say a jewelry line, and you were to bring that online, it would all follow the same four steps.

1. Lead Generation – How do you get more people to find out about you?
2. Nurture – How do you get people to know, like, and trust you and your brand and your business?
3. Online products and services
4. Closing and retention. – How do you get people to pay you and how do you retain those clients and customers?

These four pillars are crucial at any stage in a business because you are always trying to optimize them and they guide every aspect of your customer journey.

From someone who has never heard about you or your business or your restaurant or your jewelry line, to then converting them into paying clients and customers.

This doesn’t just take one day. Sometimes it takes months or even years for the timing to align for them to need what it is that you’re offering and for them to be sold on it.

So the point with all of these platforms is so that you can capture the interest and nurture them through the sequence. Introduce them to your online products and services and then close them with ease.

All of the tech that I mentioned going forward is going to support one of these four pillars.

Without one of these pillars, it’s impossible for you to make money online. In full, we are going to build a streamlined system that supports this online business model.

Tried & Tested Tech Tools

So I’m going to be now listing the essential tools and platforms you need to launch and scale your online business effectively.

Keep in mind that these are tools that I personally use and recommend and definitely vouch for. They are the ones I have not ever unsubscribed from. But also every online business is different.

Every business owner is different. So obviously take these recommendations, but also do your own research before signing up as well!

Storefronts

ThriveCart and Stan store are my two top recommendations for creating a seamless high converting storefront. This is for you if you are selling digital products, digital services, courses, and you want a seamless platform for you to be able to create sales pages, connected to checkout and have people buy and sign up.

ThriveCart

ThriveCart is what I have been using for years and it’s amazing if you sell memberships, if you sell digital product services, and it offers a simple intuitive checkout experience for your customers and allows you to track sales, manage affiliates, and offer upsells and downsells so easily.

The only thing with ThriveCart is if you are starting from scratch, you’re going to need a website as well.

We will get into web hosting later in this episode, but if you are in it for the long run, if you have time on your hands, ThriveCart is a great option to have your storefront on.

Read my ThriveCart review here.

Stan Store

If you don’t have the time and you want to get your business up and running ASAP, I recommend Stan Store. It’s another great option, especially if you are getting started from scratch.

It’s super simple to use and integrates with all of your social media platforms and it just connects your leads to your storefront and check out so seamlessly.

You could literally pop in a digital product or service and have it up and running, have the link to go and start selling on your stories or your Instagram today.

I work with clients who use both and both tools make it super easy to just list your products and services, collect payments and track your sales metrics.

And what I find with online business owners who are new to this whole thing is as soon as you get your storefront up, so your sales page up, it’s very clear what it is that you’re offering and what you’re in business for.

So if you are at a point where you’re like, I have no idea what I’m selling or how I’m going to make money from all of this. Sign up for a storefront sign up for Stan Store because it has everything. All the plug and play templates you need to start collecting emails to start offering paid digital products or paid digital services.

And once you can wrap your mind around that, put a price on it and then start selling and start making sales, you are in business.

Online Coaching

Now, if you are a coach and your main offer is coaching (or any other online service), you don’t necessarily need something as elaborate as Thrivecart, where you can track affiliates, where you can have upsells and downsells.

Zoom Or Google Meets

What you’re going to need at this point is to sign up for either Zoom or get familiar with Google Meets.

This is how you’re going to coach people online. This is how you’re going to generate links for people to sign on to their coaching session.

If you are a new coach, once you have your calendar set up, once you have either Google Meets or Zoom integrated with your calendar, you also feel like you’re in business.

Now you’re just like, I need to get people booked, right? So make sure you have the storefront and the delivery options available so that you can start accepting clients and customers.

Payment Gateways

Next, let’s talk about getting paid online because this is also a non negotiable if you want to make money online. I recommend using Stripe and or PayPal depending on what is available in your country.

Personally, I’ve found that Stripe has slightly lower fees than PayPal, but PayPal is more internationally and widely accepted, so signing up for both if you’re able to won’t hurt.

These are two of the most popular and secure payment gateways.

Stripe

Stripe allows you to accept credit card payments seamlessly, whether it’s a one time purchase or recurring payments for subscriptions and memberships. It also integrates really well with ThriveCart and Stan Store.

PayPal

PayPal is another option because it is trusted worldwide. So many more customers feel comfortable using it, especially for international purchases. That is what I found in many countries around the world.

People will prefer to pay via PayPal with both ThriveCart and Stan Store and both integrate with PayPal and Stripe. So both are really easy to set up and to make sure your customers can pay you without any friction or difficulties.

You want to make it as easy as possible. So offering both, that is a great way to go.

Think of this as your online cash register. You’re going to have analytics, you’re going to have tracking in both of your dashboards, and you want to make sure people who are entering your shop, your storefront, are able to then check out and get paid.

Both of them also link directly to your bank account so you can have the money deposited from PayPal or Stripe into your checking or savings account for your business.

Website Hosting

Next, what you’re going to want to look into on the back end. This does not have to be perfect when you go live with your business because you’re going to have the other systems in place, but it’s going to help your online brand so much, and that is having a website.

So the web hosting provider that I use and recommend is called Bluehost. It is super easy to set up. It’s user friendly, affordable, and provides everything you need to build a professional website that represents you and your brand.

If you want to start a blog, it has the option to, if you want to build a quick landing page to your coaching services, you are able to.

What I personally love is that they have 24/7 customers support who are like, so great. They really go above and beyond to make sure that your problems are solved.

I’ve been on chat support and phone support with them many times just when I was trying to figure out all of the tech in the beginning of setting up a website.

It can get frustrating, so it’s so helpful to have a dedicated team there whenever you need it.

Having a website and just having a place where you’re talking about your story, who you are, what you offer, and for someone to kind learn exactly what it is that you do. That is really important because it’s often the first impression customers have of your business.

Check out this blog post for tips on building your website.

So you want it to be fast, secure, and professional, I personally have used and loved my WordPress website from the beginning, and that is what I will always recommend.

If you go to thewanderlover.com, you can see how I have all of my pages and blog posts on my website. But then when someone wants to check out and pay for one of the products or services, they are then directed to the storefront, which is on ThriveCart.

So you can see how it kind of works together, but you don’t necessarily need a website to begin with because people can just check out straight from ThriveCart.

People can click on your link on your social media platforms and be directed straight to checkout. 

Social Media

The next platform that is a no brainer, but it is the one that I get the most questions about is social media.

I personally use and recommend Instagram, but if you want to tackle another platform to generate leads, feel free to do so. You can check out Threads, you can check out TikTok or YouTube or podcasting.

You want to make sure you remember social media, especially for lead generation and brand visibility.

Instagram is where many businesses have historically thrived, and it is an essential part of your strategy for building an engaged audience.

You can share updates, engage directly with new followers, and even sell products directly on Instagram. So you can link your Stan Store or link your ThriveCart, checkout link, or link your website.

It’s not just a marketing tool. It’s where you can build a community around your brand.

And it’s where people really establish that. trust behind your brand because it gives them the behind the scenes look into your life, what you’re about, and know that there is a real human being on the other end and not just some online scammer.

Email List Manager

The final tool that I am going to recommend that’s really going to close that online business model loop where you can get someone from a cold lead to a paying client and customer is your email list manager.

I use and recommend ActiveCampaign. This is where we take all of those leads from social media and we are going to nurture them.

So once people are in your funnel (learn how to grow your email list here), you really need to stay in touch with them and build relationships.

I love having my audience off of just one social media platform because you own all of their data instead of Instagram owning all of their data. I’ve also found that clients and customers convert a lot higher via your email list than on social media.

So ActiveCampaign, it shines because it is an all in one email marketing platform that lets you set up things like automations.

You can send welcome sequences or nurture emails straight when someone signs up. You can send newsletters to keep your audience updated, and you can also track your leads so you can understand where each customer is on their buying journey.

Email marketing is definitely not dead, and it helps you be top of mind with people when you don’t feel like posting on social media every day.

It’s so nice to have your brand and your face online, but then also have the strategic marketing behind it so that you can nurture all of those leads and convert.

Additional Tools

Every tool and platform that I’ve listed out so far, those are all the ones that I recommend investing in and that you won’t regret.

I am also going to now list a few bonus platforms and tools that you can use to really get your business to the next level. You don’t necessarily need to pay for them.

Many of them have free options that do more than enough, but these are really going to take your brand and your business to the next level if you use them properly. Let’s wrap up with a few bonus tools that I personally love.

Canva

Canva is a game changer when it comes to designing professional looking graphics. Whether it’s social media posts, website banners, or product mock ups, Canva makes graphic design accessible to anyone and it’s super user friendly.

It’s very easy to use even if you have no experience. They have so many templates that you can just pop in your information and it looks really, really professional and it takes less than 10 minutes to do, so it’s really worth getting the hang of.

I have clients who have created entire pitch decks or landing pages or even proposals just using a canvas site. So there are so many ways you can use this platform and make your brand look very aesthetically pleasing.

Google Analytics

The next tool that I use every day is Google Analytics.

Once you have your website up, you need to know what’s working and what’s not. So that’s where Google Analytics comes in.

It tracks your website traffic, shows you where your visitors are coming from, and it really helps you understand how your visitors are interacting with your content.

If you are a blogger, this is something you want to set up from the beginning.

It is so valuable for making data driven decisions. And especially if you rely on traffic to convert, this is how you’re going to track what is working, what strategies are working, and what is not. 

Facebook Advertising

Then the last tool I also use every day is Facebook Advertising. And this is where you set up campaigns in your ads manager dashboard.

Using paid advertising is a great way to grow sort of reverse to organically, where you target exactly which clients, which customers from where in the world, all the demographic details you target them, they follow you.

And then you grow your audience that way, instead of having to start from scratch on Instagram and hoping your ideal clients and customers come to you, you can spend money in the beginning to grow the audience exactly how you want to. And then scale it from there because people consuming your content.

Now your followers and your audience, they’re going to be targeted and Facebook and Instagram are going to be showing your content to more people who are like your followers. Plus, it’s just a great way to get people directly onto your Stan Store or your landing page or your checkout page or your website.

Obviously paid advertising isn’t necessary for you to grow, but it’s going to help you grow so much faster. And getting the hang of Ads Manager on Facebook where you get to set campaigns on both Facebook and Instagram, it’s going to help you and help take things to the next level a lot faster.

You can check out the blog here where I break down how to set up facebook ads.

Final Thoughts

So that’s it for today’s episode. We’ve covered the essential tools and platforms that you need to successfully launch and monetize your online business.

If you found this episode helpful, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, take a screenshot and tag @thewanderlover and @thewanderloverpodcast. So we can repost you. I will see you next week with more tips and strategies to grow your business and travel the world.

Have an amazing week, my loves. I will see you in the next episode.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, it would mean so much if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts. This helps us spread The Wanderlover mission to those who need a dose of inspiration today.

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