Evergreen Customer Journey [inside Keap]

Evergreen Customer Journey [inside Keap]

For a few years now we’ve been building the Keap Academy platform and filling it with free and valuable content for Keap users

And recently we crossed 25k enrollments, which is a meaningful milestone for our little team.

So we’re doing a decent job helping people find and access the content we produce, but one improvement we’ve wanted to make is creating an automated process that starts when someone finishes a course and recommends a logical next course to keep the momentum going.

The challenge is that we needed this recommendation process to take into account variables like what courses they have or haven’t already done and what version of Keap they have.

So here’s what we came up with:

This automation is designed for us to help the Keap Academy contacts continue their learning with our free resources, and build momentum that helps their business.

But this same approach could be used in myriad business scenarios where you have multiple products you offer, or competing CTAs; or any other scenario where you have a body of people with different needs to want to be able to help support as they make progress.

Alright – there you have it.

This automation is a micro example of an intentional and evergreen journey.

It starts when someone completes a course (or stalls out in one), and it stops when they start a new course. We’ve currently set it up so that the invites are only sent once, but conceivable we could design a V2 of this campaign with a new branch for repeat visitors that recommends the same set up courses using different language, or makes a completely different set of recommendations.

Where do I learn more?

Keap Academy offers a course all about journey design – Lifecycle Automation. If you’re interested in adding structure and predictability to the experience your leads and customers have, this is for you.

Email Engagement Tracking [inside Keap]

Email Engagement Tracking [inside Keap]

You’ve likely heard about the way Google, Yahoo, and Outlook are evolving, but one aspect if that is the rising importance of engagement.

It’s no longer enough to get email permission once – we need to be maintaining our list, and actively removing the contacts who stop engaging.

If you depend on email as part of your business strategy, either to produce sales, serve your customers, or for any other business function; then this is a critical habit to adopt – and soon.

So, how do we report on engagement?

Inside of Keap there is a report you can use to manually search for contacts who have (or haven’t) engaged in various time frames.

In Keap Ultimate, formerly Max Classic, the report is called the Email Status Search.

In Keap Pro and Max it’s called the Email Engagement Tracker.

But in both versions it has a set of useful filters you can use to assess your database.

Keap Email Status Search

So that sneaky little report might just give you all the information you need.

But running it manually can be a little labor intensive…

Can I automate this?

So thankfully, the answer is yes.

PlusThis has a feature called Email Engagement Triggers that allows you to process the contacts in your database on a recurring schedule, and automatically update their tags to reflect their most recent engagement.

Now, one thing to note is that this checks contacts individually – so it does count as a tool run per contact. If you have unlimited tool runs, no problem. But if you don’t then you might want to look at restricting the audience it runs against using the selector option.

Engagement Tracker Settings

Or, you could also use the HTTP post option and run it against contacts as they hit key steps in your automations.

Moving on – a common question I’ve been getting is “How does this differ from Keap’s native tools…”

Is this better than Keap’s native engagement tracking?

Good question. The PlusThis feature is different from the native tools in a few key ways.

First – it’s much more granular. Keap lets you automate when someone’s email status changes, or change their status when their engagement slips (unengaged marketable, and unengaged nonmarketable).

Native Keap Engagement Features

PlusThis lets you tag contacts when their engagement hits key threshholds. So, if they don’t engage for 31 days, it tags them, then again at 61, or 91, etc.

But, the other way this differs is that it runs on a schedule you can choose, and then it resets the tags. So, if someone re-engages, it’ll automatically remove the unengaged tags as it re-evaluates your database.

Alright – there you have it.

At the very least you can start analyzing your database to segment based off of engagement with the native reports, or if you’re already a PlusThis user you can quickly set up the Email Engagement Triggers and you’ll immediately have new information you can use to improve targeting and segmentation.

Or, if you’re not yet a PlusThis user – check out the plans and start a free trial here.

Where do I learn more?

The Keap Academy platform offers a course covering ways to Supercharge Your Automations using PlusThis, featuring real world examples and use cases from Keap Partners and PlusThis users.

What is the Customer Journey?

What is the Customer Journey?

The phrase “customer journey” is a household term for many small businesses these days, but outside of being a fun buzzword, it’s also a meaningful concept that can actually improve profitability, customer retention, and help small businesses in dozens of other ways.

What is a customer journey?

Simply put, it’s the experience an individual has with your business over time. From their very first interaction, through to the point of transaction, into onboarding, upselling, and everything else.

And so with that framing in mind, an important recognition for small businesses is that your customer journey already exists.

If you have customers, then they have had a journey.

And once we acknowledge that, the conversation starts to shift into challenging the journey, questioning if the aspects of it are intentional, and identifying areas where it could be improved.

Here’s an example of this conversation, and how you can use the Customer Journey lens to examine the experience your customers are having.

The exploration of your customer journey is a complex conversation, where myriad opportunities can emerge.

What do I do next?

My recommendation is to carve out time to have re-examine your customer journey, on your own or with your team, on a recurring basis.

If you’d like to learn more about the framework I use (and recommend) as a resource to formalize this process, check out the Lifecycle Automation course from Keap Academy.

What should I automate?

If you’re on board with the idea of automation but aren’t sure where it would fit – we’ve built a course specifically designed to help you identify opportunities in the customer journey where we’ve seen automation solve problems and create momentum.

ChatGPT for Small Business: Example Use Case

ChatGPT for Small Business: Example Use Case

How about a practical small business example use case for ChatGPT?

ChatGPT buzz is everywhere these days, but if you’re like me, you may be dragging your feet on exploring it.

So when I saw this demo from Grady the other day, I immediately asked him if I could share it.

He graciously say “Go for it”.

Follow along as Grady asks ChatGPT to help him produce content for social, an outline for a webinar, copy for an email series, and a few other relatable small business use cases.

One thing to pay attention to is how Grady gives ChatGPT feedback when he’s not getting exactly what he needs:

Watching this ChatGPT small business example unfold was fascinating for me, I hope you enjoyed it too.

It was useful to see how the ideas blended from one medium into another, and how Grady lead the bot to wind up with content he could use, that wasn’t too salesy, and all felt aligned to the original topic.

What to do next?

If you want more on this topic, check out the webinar we hosted discussing AI trends and use cases.

And if you haven’t yet, try it out for yourself.

Here’s a link to ChatGPT >>

Feel free to take it for a spin, and let me know how it goes.

5 Lessons from building an Active Membership

5 Lessons from building an Active Membership

I started the OG Membership in 2015 and it’s been my favorite part of my business ever since.

For a variety of reasons, but first and foremost is the pride I get from serving this group, and the validation that comes from watching them grow their businesses.

5 Membership Lessons

I’d be lying if I said that 8 years I knew exactly where I was going. There has been plenty of turbulence along the way..

I’ve invested thousands of dollars and countless hours in learning about memberships, and the patterns to how and why they work.

Here are a few of most valuable the lessons I’ve learned while running my own membership, and building an engaged community.

1. Create a Success Path

I’ve written about this before, but the concept of a success path remains one of the most important membership lessons I’ve learned.

What is a Success Path? It’s effectively a set of stages that help illustrate the progress your membership helps facilitate.

membership journey

It’s the pathway that helps your members visualize the transformation they’re undergoing, but it’s also the framework for the content you produce, and the underlying north star for your marketing efforts too.

2. People pay for less content, not more

As someone who has a blog, and an active YouTube channel, and generally enjoys creating content – this was a tough lesson for me to learn.

But the reality is that if you have a membership, people aren’t looking for you to bury them in content – that’s a quick path to overwhelm.

Instead, your members are looking for help organizing the information and reducing the noise – and generally figuring out how to move forward with confidence.

3. Plan your Member Journey

I’ve talked about the idea of a customer journey at length, but a similar concept can be applied to your membership.

Here’s an example of what those stages might look like:

membership journey

As useful as that framework can be – each of those stages can represent a weeks or months of a customer journey.

Let’s dig into the “Weclome” stage, and take a look at what a sample membership onboarding might entail.

Membership Onboarding

The onboarding is their introduction to the membership – and the sooner they engage, the likelier they are to see the value in your membership, to forge connections, and to start making progress.

But this same level of detail and planning could be applied to optimizing every stage of their experience.

4. Be the member you want

This lesson wasn’t clear to me initially, but I’ve had enough people point it out now that I feel like I have to embrace it.

This is a little uncomfortable for me to say – but the Monkeypod membership is confusingly helpful. I’m proud of that group, and I put a ton of time and energy into serving it – but the efforts I put into it are a small fraction of what makes it so valuable.

Every day I’m humbled by the way the members show up to help one another. People go out of their way to share their ideas, suggestions, recommendations, and their hard earned expertise.

The way you show up for your members, sets the tone for your membership.

If you’re quiet, your membership will be quiet.

And conversely, if you’re active, helpful, loud, fun, or anything else – it invites your members to be that too.

5. Listen to your members

This one probably seems obvious – but it’s worth saying. Ask your members what they want, and pay attention to the responses you get.

Now, I’m not saying to do everything they ask for – that may not be realistic. But consider what they’re asking, and why – you may find there are some simple changes you can make that address their concerns.

For example – at the core of the OG Membership is our private Facebook group, but it’s a pretty busy group, and not everyone is on Facebook every day – so when members asked us to do a monthly recap email we decided that was an easy win for everyone.

Like I said, I’ve learned these lessons over the past 8 years – mostly through trial and error. But a few years ago I started following Stu McLaren, and he has quickly become the single biggest influence on me for this topic.

What do I do next?

Stu is hosting a free workshop all about Memberships – it starts on April 20th, and you can register here.

It’s probably the most valuable free event I’ve ever seen (and I’ve attended each of the last 4 years).

If you’re a skeptic like me, you’re probably thinking “no one gives away valuable content for free, what’s the catch…”

Here’s the catch: This free workshop is the runway leading up to the launch of Stu’s flagship class, The Membership Experience™.

That’s it.

He way over delivers during the workshop part because it’s his audition – and if you like what he has to say, the natural next step is to sign up for his course.

Do I recommend his course?

I absolutely do.

But you certainly don’t have to sign up if it’s not a fit or you’re not ready – the free workshop is valuable on it’s own.

So, start with that – save your spot here.

Membership Masterclass
How to Update to GA4

How to Update to GA4

So, if you have a website then the odds are pretty good that you also use Google Analytics.

And if you do, then you might have seen some emails like these, telling you it’s time to update to GA4.

Sunset GA4

I ignored an email or two, but Google Analytics kept reminding me that this change was coming and that I needed to update.

I gave it a try – but quickly got frustrated, and so I reached out to two friends, Jade and Paul, for help.

They were kind enough to not only help get me updated to GA4, but they also recorded the entire thing to serve as a guide for anyone else navigating this change.

Here’s part 1:

Now, as you saw, they hit a snag when they didn’t have access to Google Tag Manager – so once I gave them the right permissions they continued on with part two of this process:

I know that sometimes it feels like there’s a never ending list of things to learn, especially for entrepreneurs. So I hope this post, and the videos you just watched, help this process feel clearer, and more manageable.

But, that said, if you would like help with this process don’t hesitate to reach out to Paul or Jade.

Remember, not everything that needs to be done needs to be done by you. You got this.