How do other entrepreneurs make it look so simple to grow your visibility, attract leads and grow their business, when you feel like you’re on a marketing treadmill and not seeing the results you’re working so hard for?

If you’ve been asking yourself this question, you’re going to love this episode of The She Means Business Show!

This week I’m joined by online business consultant and digital marketing strategist, Gemma Went!

Gemma previously created two incredible masterclasses for us inside the Members’ Club, all about social media and creating an automated marketing system and her strategies are amazing!

Find out more about the Members’ Club and Gemma’s masterclasses right here >>>

In this episode she’s sharing more about her evergreen ecosystem, that will help you grow your visibility and attract more leads, without having to constantly hustle!

• In this episode we talk about:
  Gemma’s favourite sources for marketing inspiration and her best recommendations to help spark ideas.
• How signing her first client when she was 4 months pregnant made her realise she needed an automated marketing system.
• Gemma’s evergreen ecosystem and how she creates online journeys that turn leads into customers.
• How she plans her content and balances automation with human connection and building trust.
• Gemma’s top tips for increasing visibility and conversions.

If you would like to find out more about Gemma, head over to www.gemmawent.co.uk

Links & Resources:

• Gemma Went’s masterclasses, exclusively for the Members’ Club
• Neil Patel’s Digital Marketing blog
• Social Media Examiner

I hope you love this episode and before you leave…

If you’re a coach or run a service-based business, I have an invitation especially for you!

We’re running a free challenge in collaboration with the incredible Gina DeVee called Package Your Brilliance!

Find out more right here >>>

Gina will be giving 5 live training sessions inside our pop-up Facebook Group and helping you understand where you can get started with packages, how to get to $10k months, how to know what to charge and how to find your ideal clients.

Claim your spot now before we kick the challenge off on September 14th >>>

The post How To Grow Your Visibility, Attract Leads And Convert Customers On Autopilot With Gemma Went appeared first on Female Entrepreneur Association.

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by Laura McLoughlin

It is easy to feel daunted by the competition. You are one among hundreds, maybe thousands, of
Shopify and other eCommerce stores. Although you are pleased with your site and your products
convince you, you must find some way of standing out in the crowd.

Encouraging a regular footfall is at the heart of selling. It will help if you were visible if you want to
be successful. Here we guide you through some of the essentials of driving traffic to your Shopify
store. At the heart of these ideas is that the more people who visit, the higher the number of
customers that click “complete purchase”.

Search Engine Optimisation

SEO is mainstream now across the internet. Most successful sites understand that Google has a set
of criteria that you must employ to be visible on search engines and so on the internet. These
criteria aim to provide the user of Google with the best experience as possible, as only the most
relevant sites with the most significant authority are listed on that first page.

While this can feel threatening and exclusive, it is also an opportunity. If you research your keywords
and phrases, those that your customers would type into a search engine, and litter these through
your site, then you have a chance to be seen. Your SEO keywords should be in your product
descriptions, in your headings and the backend of your website – so don’t forget the alt text for your
images and the meta descriptions.

You might also want to include a well-written paragraph at the bottom of each of your product
pages. While your customer is unlikely to read this paragraph, you will have an opportunity to
include the key phrases some more. Be aware; keyword stuffing draws penalties that drops you
down the list. Make sure everything on your site is high-quality and of apparent worth to your
reader. Just think: would the customer want to read this?

Improve your ranking some more

There are other ways to improve your ranking on search engines. Imagine your realistic target is to
get on the first page of a list of results, as you realise nobody clicks on that “see more” at the bottom of the
page. Your ambition is to be in the top three, as these are the sites that get a significant proportion
of the clicks.

However, you are up against a lot of competition for this prime internet real estate.

Option 1: you can pay for your place. If you know your target market and can clearly define the
demographics, you can opt to pay for Google AdWords. This service places you at the top of the
page for the people you define and for the search terms you identify.

Option 2: you can improve your domain authority even more by posting to other sites. Writing guest
posts and including an internal link acts as a testimonial for the reliability and quality of your
website. The most links to your site from other quality content providers, the better your ranking. If
you are someone who sells garden benches and you are guested on Home and Country Garden
website, then that link is going to be unbelievably valuable.

Gain traction on social media

Social media is a great way to build a following. Regularly posting the blogs that you write and the
products you sell, as well as other updates, will help gather some traffic. However, getting noticed
on social media is as challenging as drawing traffic to your Shopify store. Therefore, you are going to
have to do more than setting up a page on Facebook and Instagram. And, you certainly can’t follow
your way to a broad audience.

One way to gain some traction on social media and boost your profile is through an influencer. A
social media influencer has worked to achieve a following from the thousands through to the
millions. While you might not be able to afford someone with tens of millions of followers, you could
get someone specialising in your niche with a few thousand friends to start to spread the word.
Studies suggest that these followers will not only encourage visits to your store but also prompt a
more significant proportion of conversions. It could offer genuine value for money.

Once you start to get noticed on social media, you need to be a consistent presence. You need to
stay relevant by posting regularly and at the same time. Again, think about your audience. When will
they be browsing through social media? Is it when they are lining up for coffee in the morning? Is it
in the hour just after the kids have gone to bed? Whatever the perfect time, always post at this time
of day. Social media is a powerful marketing tool, but it doesn’t work by magic. Be sure to maintain
your profiles and be a regular contributor.

What does all this mean?

To encourage footfall to your eCommerce store you have to work hard to make it visible on the
internet. Using search engines and social media you can direct customers to the start of sales funnel
and from there your talent for selling will drive purchases.

The post Driving traffic to your Shopify Store appeared first on She Owns It.

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“I gotta say it was a good day.”

I’m so fricking pumped today. Really, truly. Yeah, Valence announced > $5 million in funding led by GGV and Upfront. That IS a big deal, but I’ll get to that. But Kamala Harris was picked to be the Vice Presidential candidate for the Democratic Party. That means she’ll be the first female Vice President of the United States, the first female Black Vice President and the first Indian-American Vice President. I don’t take this for granted, be ready for a fight. But let’s be clear. WE WILL WIN. We might have to fight for it after the votes go our way but let’s get ready for the fight.

So let’s get it.

Valence. It is a company with a mission to create better access and more funding for Black entrepreneurs and executives. Valence is led by a talented CEO, Guy Primus and was the brainchild of my partner, Kobie Fuller. If you want to follow two great Black executives who work at the intersection of technology and venture capital make sure to click on those links and follow them on Twitter.

So what exactly is Valence and why does it matter?

18 months ago, my partner Kobie Fuller was inspired to build a solution for a problem he faced regularly: as one of the few Black partners at a VC firm (an estimated 3% of GPs in venture are Black vs 14% of the US population), he was consistently asked for warm intros to Black professionals, to Black VCs, and to talented Black operators and entrepreneurs.

Venture firms wanted to meet talented Black founders but didn’t know where to start to find them. And Black entrepreneurs wanted access to decision makers but didn’t always have the easy connections. In fact, one of the biggest criticisms I personally get when I suggest that founders should “get introductions to VCs” is that this might reinforce existing racial imbalances by providing easier access to White professionals than people of color.

An imbalance clearly exists in access and networks that has resulted in a tech industry where an estimated only 1% of venture dollars go to Black founders and only 3% of the workforce is Black and a country where Black individuals hold a disproportionately low amount of the wealth — only 3%. As Kobie says, he didn’t have a “magical database” of great Black talent, so he set out to build a solution not just for himself, but also for the community.

Personally I believe that to fund more people of color you need to put check-writing authority in their hands the same way that if you want to see more women funded you need more women GPs. My greatest criticism of our industry is that women and people of color feel the need to leave larger VCs to create their own firms. We have a responsibility to help propel them to the top ranks of our biggest firms to make our check writers more representative of our society overall.

There is a very clear economic rational and strategic advantage for doing so. There are amazing Black entrepreneurs, Indian entrepreneurs, Chinese entrepreneurs, female entrepreneurs, gay entrepreneurs and so forth. OBVIOUSLY! If 90% of the check writers are White, straight men then it’s clear if you are different than that you’re going to have an advantage. As I always say, being great as an investor is about having “edge” and edge means knowing somebody or something that very few others know. It’s about swimming in lanes where others aren’t present. Being diverse in the VC industry is a VERY LOW bar and a clear differentiator.

At Upfront we believe in improving access for founders and entrepreneurs to networking, professional development, and economic opportunities, and that’s what Kobie set out to do with Valence, which he incubated in our offices. Huge hats off to Kobie for the idea, energy, direction, evening hours and the foresight and salesmanship required to bring on Guy to take the helm.

Building a mission into a business

By the time Valence launched in late 2019, the team had built the necessary systems and technology to seamlessly engage and onboard the community — not just the users, but also some pilot corporate partners who also believed in the mission and opportunity and who wanted to leverage and support this amazing database of talent. It was also important to Valence to not only connect users, but also to celebrate the successes and spotlight great Black leaders through high-quality content and design.

As soon as Valence launched in November 2019, the business quickly had proven demand from the community, not only from senior business leaders but also from so many young, talented professionals who could benefit from the inter-generational networking that Valence supported so seamlessly. Since launch, the Valence platform has supported more than 5,000 micro-mentoring sessions (AKA Boosts)— allowing the kind of invaluable network support that’s so critical to success and advancement for even the most talented founders and operators.

You can hear more about the importance of mentoring from Kobie Fuller, Valence advisor James Lowry, and John Legend — yes, THE John Legend — in this video from the 2020 Upfront Summit.

https://medium.com/media/ca4b009ff76eb6ee18c50cdedd2ae63d/href

So things were going well for Valence in 2020, amazingly even in a pandemic. And then in May the world was galvanized by the tragic murder of George Floyd (and Breonna Taylor. And Ahmaud Arbery. And Rayshard Brooks. And the many Black women and men before them whose lives were taken at the hands of the police.)

When the mission meets a movement

In these months, not only did we see widespread civic protests but so many industries, including ours, faced a reckoning that despite even the best intentions, lip service wasn’t enough. We all needed to take action to address the imbalance of access, and to literally put our money where our mouths are. Suddenly a spotlight was put on everything that the Valence team had been building, and there was even more energy around the business.

I always say that you can judge a startup’s future based on how fast they’re able to execute when it counts. Well, I can tell you that within weeks of the civil unrest, Valence had:

• Introduced the Valence Funding Network, where GPs from more than 30 of the top venture funds representing more than $60B in assets under management joined Valence with the goal of linking Black entrepreneurs on the platform directly to venture decision makers.
• Increased membership by more than 20%
• Hired a CEO, Guy Primus, who was previously the CEO of The Virtual Reality Company as well as the COO of Overbrook Entertainment. He’s been a leader at the intersection of media and tech for many years and we’re grateful to partner with him.
• Announced their Series A funding round, which Upfront participated in and which was led by Hans Tung from GGV. Hans has been a great peer and collaborator on other portfolio boards and we’re excited for him to join Valence at this pivotal time. We have worked closely with GGV for years and they were a natural fit for helping to build a network like this given their investment in Chief (for women) and The Mighty (which helps families with people facing health challenges).

Since day one we have anticipated great things for Valence and with this groundswell of support at the civic level as well as the industry level, we hope to see meaningful improvements in access and dollars for Black professionals. Please join me in congratulating Guy, Kobie and the team for what they’ve built so far, and what’s to come.

How Valence Aims to Provide Better Access and Funding for Black Founders & Executives was originally published in Both Sides of the Table on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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