Hey there!
This is the list of recommended resources I referenced in Lesson 10 of the free audio course Get More Clients with Smarter Email Marketing. This page will be updated to reflect any changes to the suggestions, as well as to provide additional educational resources — so feel free to stop by again in the future.
Disclosure: Several of these recommendations are created by my company Rainmaker Digital (and will be noted as such). Third-party recommendations may contain affiliate links, but all are based on quality, not compensation — and there is zero additional cost to you.
Our Way:
What I personally use and recommend first and foremost is our own Rainmaker Platform. Rainmaker is a hosted and heavily customized version of WordPress, integrated with our email service RainMail, enhanced by powerful marketing automation features, plus research tools, content and optimization software, and way more.
The Platform powers this site, plus Copyblogger, Rainmaker.FM, and Digital Commerce Institute. That’s in addition to the thousands of other Rainmaker sites around the world. You can take a free, no obligation 14-day trial here.
Here’s a recent webinar we did for our customers: How to Use RainMail to Engage Prospects and Customers. I’ll be adding more demos and webinars in the future.
The WordPress Way:
We started out as a WordPress-focused company, and a large segment of our 200,000 customers are WordPress users. So if you’re feeling that Rainmaker is not right for you, we’ve still got you covered with some of our other offerings and a few trusted third-party vendors.
Email / Automation
Let’s start with the heart of the matter — email and marketing automation. I recommend ConvertKit, a service that is also an integration partner for Rainmaker Platform. It’s positioned as “Email marketing for professional bloggers,” but don’t let that throw you. ConvertKit has all the tagging and automation features you’ll need to segment, suppress, and adapt to the interests and behaviors of your prospects.
Hosting
We developed our Synthesis Managed WordPress Hosting to be top of the line, because we first created it for our own high-traffic sites (pre-Rainmaker). We host clients ranging from Airbnb to solo professional service providers who understand just how important dependable and secure hosting is to a business.
If you’re strapped for cash and want to work up to managed WordPress hosting, a lot of people start off with Bluehost. Once you’re killing it with your new email strategy, we’ll welcome you over at Synthesis. 🙂
Mobile-Ready Design
By conservative estimates, our Genesis Framework for WordPress powers over a half million WordPress sites. It’s not only the engine under the hood of our mobile-responsive StudioPress themes, it also improves your SEO and allows you to do much more with WordPress without code.
Landing Pages
There are a lot of choices when it comes to landing pages, and that’s because they’re crucial to succeeding online. After a healthy debate within our company and hearing from trusted friends, we’ve come to the conclusion that Beaver Builder is the best landing page plugin for WordPress.
Membership
MemberPress is widely regarded as the best WordPress membership plugin, and it’s backed by solid support. Easy choice on this one.
Online Courses
I asked my friend and WordPress expert Chris Lema what he uses for a learning management system on his non-Rainmaker sites, and he immediately said WP Courseware. Good enough for me.