It is strongly recommended to have a business email (e.g. name@yourdomain.com).

Sometimes you can get an email address with your domain, depending on where your website is hosted you may also get a free email address with your hosting.

But what if you haven't yet got a website but want to start email marketing?

If you are a Microsoft kind of person then you might want to get your email via Office 365 (this is often an add-on when you buy your domain from places such as Go Daddy).

Personally, I am a Google kind of girl - so I always recommend getting an email address from Google Workspace*. One of the things I love about Google is you can set up alias email addreses (e.g. my main email address is rachel@virtualtechangel.com but I also have hello@ info@ and many others - all of which come into my main inbox!)

*I have a 10% discount code which provides 10% off the first year of either the Google Workspace Business Starter plan or the Google Workspace Business Standard plan. Message me if you'd like the code.

Unless you are using a system with an integrated email system, you will need an Email Marketing system. There are lots to choose from that you ay have heard of such as MailChimp or Active Campaign but my go to recommendation for getting started is:

MailerLite* - this is a great way to get started for free and you only start to pay as your subscriber numbers/numbers of emails sent increases and integrates well with other systems.

There are a number of different options out there to host your course, including Kajabi, Teachable, Thinkific, Podia, MemberVault.

The systems I have most experience with are Kartra, New Zenler* and Go High Level systems such as Easy Peasy Funnels* and Funnel Sketchers* (see all-in-one systems for more info). ThriveCart* also has a Learn platform available free to anyone with a ThriveCart account.

If you use WordPress for your website, you can use paid plugins to build your course platform -two popular and well known ones are LearnDash or MemberPress.

Whatever system you use, you will need to use a payment processer. The most well known ones are PayPal or Stripe.

Many systems will enable you to take payment using either a Stripe or PayPal integration (or both).

A really good stand alone cart system is ThriveCart*. I really rate this system – it is easy to use and it is more than just a checkout – you can build your whole sales page in ThriveCart,  there are lots of different options (such as setting up discount coupons) and you can easily set up Affiliates for your products.

I use Canva Pro* to create graphics and to create professional branded documents, for example a “freebie” or an e-book.

You don’t need the Pro version as there is a lot you can do on the free version – however upgrading to the Pro version has definitely been one of my best investments. This is a tool I could not run my business without!

If you need to record a video presentation, some good options to consider are Zoom and Canva.  On Zoom you can screenshare and deliver a session live to real life people and record the session, or just deliver the session with no participants and record.  Canva is a great way to create a presentation – and then you can also Present and Record from inside Canva to create a video.

I also really like Clideo.com as a way to edit videos. Anything video is really not my zone of genius and I find this system makes it really easy.

Quiz funnels and quizzes as a lead magnet can be incredibly powerful. There are lots of systems out there, and after doing some research on it, the one I settled on is Involve.me*.  It is has an affordable monthly subscription and I think it is a really good and easy to use system.

Other good sytems are ScoreApp and  TryInteract.

I primarily work in WordPress using the Elementor page builder and host my sites on SiteGround*. |

I am also very experienced with Wix. In addition, this website is built in Easy Peasy Funnels.