Panel details:

• Link to join the Clubhouse session.
• Sunday Feb 6, 11 AM PST

Panelists and their brand:

• Sharon Tseung – Digital Nomad Quest
• Jade Darmawangsa – Jade Darmawangsa
• Nate O’Brien – Nate O’Brien
• Alex Nerney – Create and Go
• JJ Buckner – JJ Buckner
• Sean Pan – EverythingREI
• Charlie Chang – Charlie Chang
• Marko – Whiteboard Finance
• TJ Lee – Cup of TJ
• Sandy Lin – Small Business Tips
• Brandon – Investment Joy
• Denis – TruFinancials
• Kelly – Freedom in a Budget
• Chris Winter – Chris Winter
• Suzanne – Arvabelle
• Mary – Pennies Not Perfection

Everyone listed has grown their brands beyond just a single YouTube channel or singular platform. These panelists make money from their brands via courses, podcasts, websites, digital products, affiliate marketing, Patreon, startup companies and more.

Resources mentioned:

• Memberful.com (creating and packaging products)
• Beacons (mobile website builder similar to linktree)
• Teachable (courses and membership sales)
• Tailwind (scheduling for Pinterest)
• Planoly (scheduling for Pinterest & Instagram)
• Mix Max (email)
• Social Rank (evaluate influencers)

Questions and Answers:

I own a digital marketing agency and we are trying to add passive income streams like DIY, DIWY and still keep the done for you. Are there any resources to help create these DIY and passive income products? How can we package and develop the curriculum of what we offer our clients into a DIY system with things like courses and access to our team?

Jade: Most people have too many platforms and it can get really confusing so packaging should bring people to your website so there are not too many segmented places. 

If you already have a site, check out Memberful.com that connects all the platforms and your paid email list. Memberful allows payment processing for all the platforms so you aren’t utilizing multiple platforms.  It could connect to the future products you create from courses to paid newsletter and so many other features.

Sandy: Also check out Beacons, similar too Linktree but offers payments and works with Stripe.

Sharon: Check out Teachable, it hosts courses and also membership options as well.

I would like to know about marketing courses. What do you recommend to try for the first time?

Sharon: We recently launched a course successfully and we used email blasts, Instagram and Facebook groups. We focused on delivering a lot of free content around our topic to deliver value and then if people wanted the step by step they could buy the course. Building the relationship with the audience came first and then that led to course sales.

Once you have sales then you can reach out to customers for testimonials and share those along with answering frequently asked questions and refining your sales page. Then once you’ve got that done just announcing it on your multiple platforms to your existing audience.

Sean: We also did a lot of lives and let people see we were real people and get to know us. This let people know more about us to encourage them to buy from real people doing this and answering their questions. We got sales during each live we did.

Is anyone on Pinterest? I’ve had some brands reach out and I know it’s been good for mommy bloggers long term.

Sandy: Pinterest is great for video and they are pushing it so definitely repurpose your reels and tiktoks as content for Pinterest.

Sharon: I use Tailwind to schedule for Pinterest for my site.

Other notes: Use creator studio and official partner platforms like Planoly for scheduling otherwise sites like Pinterest will lower your reach and cause potential problems. 

What would you suggest for a YouTuber who just reached 100,000 and is ready to reach the next level? We’ve hit the goal of making our income from home but ready for the next level. Next goal is to ratchet that up. We have an MLM business, Youtube, and we are looking for the next income stream to create stability if one income stream disappears. Another group suggested making something I own since I don’t own the other streams. I have home improvement type content with 145k subs on YouTube and 6k followers on Instagram.

Nadya: I feel like Instagram is a missed opportunity here if you aren’t utilizing short form content for your home related content. You can lean into the short form content on all of these platforms (YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat). I’ve seen an influencer with a more engaged audience on Instagram has potential for higher brand sponsorships. 

Other easy ways would be to white label into a brand including the tools you need to do home improvement at home since that’s your topic.

Jade: I would reframe this and look at creator longevity. You are a media company that also has a product. We are building a community and making sure you are on the right platforms to build community long term is important. If you don’t want to clog up your main channel then you can start a second for short form content but definitely focus on the audience cultivation and then work on the product.

Create a newsletter or an email or even Facebook messenger (which could be an email replacement with a better open rate since email is not the only option). Creating this will flesh out your overall funnel and help with the multiple platforms leading to a product.

I recommend having multiple platforms at 100k, evening out your followings on all platforms to hit this will lead to a better overall stable income.

There are 3 ways to monetize as a creator – sponsored, affiliate, or white label and be the owner of the brand. Looking into creating your own brand and supply chain by doing something like raising money to create a branded product in the home improvement field.

Recommendations: first even out platforms, even out email list, and then create product and merchandise to grow your brand.

I’m starting out now as an artist and my focus is an Etsy art business. I’ve also wanted to do YouTube and have so many interests. How do you decide the best platform for your business? Is there a way to figure out the best platform for what content?

Mary: Filtering in people from different areas is great as long as you are doing content that makes sense on each platform. I’ve had success on YouTube showing my products being used in videos since they are printables meant to be used. Seeing the product in use or being created always generates curiousity in potential buyers.

Tiktok is a great platform for Etsy sellers right now especially for art since people enjoy timelapses in addition to behind the scenes content. People love watching these and the extra views can grow your audience and bring in potential buyers who will head to your shop and purchase. Showing off how your product is used on YouTube can be done in a similar way and you can even create longer form content showing the product creation.

Another thing to note is Etsy is it’s own platform that is search based and it’s own beast to learn beyond any of the social platforms. That’s great because it can bring you traffic and potential buyers as well. Definitely learn about the SEO and ways Etsy can bring in traffic to your art for you. There are lots of ways to get your art seen on the Etsy platform itself when you are correctly utilizing SEO, tags, and participating in groups that have sprung up around Etsy with your type of art or style.

How can I use get content creators to use my original music that I’m creating?  

Jade: I see you are doing inspired beats and for the jazz type beats so you need to link people by remixing it. Ask yourself how can I make my content link to a relative audience by including things like an artist name and remixing to pull in that audience who is relevant. Doing a Billie Eilish remix with your own music for example.

Also I highly recommend using TikTok and using duets so you make a track for someone to duet that enables them to share your content. Also using stitching when you mesh a popular track with your own beat. So picking a trending song and putting your music in to remix so you tap into the trends and reach more people.  

I created a product that has nothing to do with what I do for a living or what I’m known for widely. I’m not sure where the connection is and how to connect with the audience on clubhouse or other platforms that would want this product. How do I reach people when it’s not what I do full time?

Denis: Sometimes you curate a different audience on different platforms. I offer financial videos on YouTube but share about the aspects of making money on YouTube on clubhouse. So it’s ok to work on different audiences in different places.

Jade: Agreed, you can have different audiences on different platforms. On TikTok I have a large audience that loves surfing even though that’s not my main topic elsewhere. It’s brought me sponsorships and new audiences and built my overall business even though it’s not my main topic. It’s helpful to grow an audience and doing something different can bring in new opportunities.

Denis: Shifting your style can help you keep growing and learning because you are trying something new. Nate O’Brien is a great example of this to break through plateaus because he changed up his content in order to keep growing and get to 1 million subscribers.

I’m a new realtor and I thought it would be great to share my journey so I create content about how to do this and how I created a referral business. I have been on TikTok for about a month and made a discord community but my reels are not doing well. There is no engagement beyond my followers and it’s not reaching out. I’ve been posting daily for two months. How can I reach a larger audience with reels on Instagram?

Sean: I did 30 days of short form content and reels did the best but I don’t know why.

Sandy: Don’t give up. It takes reels 3 weeks to a month to catch up on the content you’re creating and start sharing your content.

I suggest posting less on reels instead of every day. Posting every day or posting too much can lose you followers. Sometimes if people see your content too much they get annoyed and unfollow. Post 3-4 times a week and only post content you know will do well. Tiktok and Instagram are very different;

Jade: If people scroll by because you are posting too much they won’t show it to larger groups. Tiktok is different and doesn’t show to the existing audience first but instead pushes it out beyond your followers, so use it to test. Also test different things because it’s all about patience and figuring out what works. It’s just about timing sometimes. Sometimes we see people go viral but there can be years of work behind it.

With Facebook, if you are not advertising and just making posts with your links are they not allowing people to view your content? If you don’t advertise will you get less views? If you share with links will they throttle your views and engagement? What are some tips and work arounds?

Suzanne: Make sure you are posting from your business page to make sure you are getting that reach. Facebook isn’t suppressing posts but they push out organic content rather than links off the site. Facebook doesn’t want to push content that pushes people off the platform. Some people instead directly upload their content to the platform like uploading their Youtube video to Facebook rather than sending people to YouTube.

Sean: Links on my personal page do ok but when I do the same links on my business page they only get 1-2 likes unless I advertise.

Mary: Suzanne is right. Like all platforms, Facebook wants to keep users on their site. You will notice that any of these sites from Facebook to Instagram to YouTube focus on keeping users on their platform for the longest period possible. So they aren’t going to promote things that take people off platform to another site.

I personally don’t have a brand but would like to become an affiliate marketer. What are you looking for when you reach out to people to promote your products? What have you noticed that makes your affiliates successful?

Sharon: You don’t need a huge platform if you create long form content where you are trying to rank for keywords that encourage someone to make a purchase. Creating a bunch of informational content that will rank and encourage someone to buy tends to be successful. Also the most successful are people who actually use and love the product, not just promote things that they can make money from. It’s also easier to make content around this.

Denis: You don’t have to have a big following. I went full time on Youtube with 10,000 subs because of affiliate marketing. The key is you have to give value to people in order to get them to click through and purchase. If you are getting started, get started with things that you are using and once you are better and understand the audience you can move on to things that you don’t use. This is what I’ve done and now I promote things I don’t personally use as long as I know the product is good. 

Also keep it relatively the same niche with the products you are promoting. It won’t make sense to an audience if you are promoting all different things from beauty to home to finance and are all over the place.

Nate: You can also have a company make an affiliate program for you if you have the traffic. I’d start with building traffic and use that to go to companies with products if you want to promote.

I’m a personal trainer who created a physical product. How do I continue the success I had with in person events selling products where I sold out in person? I want to reach new customers and clients and I want to build further. Should I send products to influencers? What advice do you have? 

Denis: You’re more like the advertiser looking for publishers to create content. As a creator we get a ton of emails asking for promotion from brands with products. I’d look at smaller influencers who usually have more engaged audiences on every platform. Finding those creators with 1,000-10,000 follower audiences will lead to sales and provide a much easier path. 

Jade: I would go very local based. Emailing 100 random influencers won’t stand out because tons of companies are doing that so doing something different and local based would stand out. Or going to colleges where college students are becoming influencers and giving them product and they do a once a month zoom workout or something. Doing something different that stands out or is fun and unique or be very hyper specific in location where you work with just influencers from a certain college or city.

Sharon: We are doing influencer outreach right now and we had out interns find accounts they resonate with so it’s not a random list of people. We use a tool Mix Max to automate the outreach and follow up with influencers.

Jade: Use calendly to schedule times for bootcamps so people can give input on times they can make a live class. Build up your email list before hand to make sure you aren’t doing bootcamps or workouts for two people. 

Where can you find influencers to help promote your brand? I sent my product to an influencer and go no traction and sales.

Jade: That happens to all of use. She might have fake followers but it actually happens to all of us. Sometimes you share something and no one swipes up. That’s why brands do long term relationships with year long contracts or 4-5 posts because the first few campaigns might not provide much. Longer basis is better. You can also look into YouTubers because it’s harder to fake followings on YouTube.

If you want to see if they have a true following you can check on Social Rank.

Denis: Also consider some people are great at engagement but not great at being a salesman. Not all influencers have this so it is important to make sure you are evaluating whether or not the influencer can sell, not just if they get engagement.

Big brands reached out to me to sponsor a fireside chat after I created a successful ClubHouse community. I haven’t seen anyone monetize here so how would I price it?

Jade: My question would be to find out what their goal is and what their intention is to achieve. Shoot for the stars and then let the negotiation happen until it’s something you can accept. Shoot your shot.

Suzanne: Definitely overshoot on whatever price you think you should get. Ask for more when it’s big companies because they will definitely pay for that. 

Sean: Also remember you are setting a standard for everyone on Clubhouse and future monetization. 

I have a job, a wedding photography business, podcast, and I made $12 from blogging in December which was the best $12 I’ve ever made. What do you think can help becoming a thought leader and grow this without killing my limited free time? Tips and strategies without spending too much time. I’m overwhelmed with options and feel limited time.

Sharon: It’s about what your are interested in like if you enjoy writing then do blogging. The platform matters less because you don’t need a huge audience to earn money with affiliate marketing. If you are giving a lot of value to the audience then the platform matters less.

Denis: The biggest thing with affiliates is that there are products you need to recommend that you don’t need but can help your audience. I also feel good when I make a sale because I know that will help people long term. 

Mary: Double down on what is already working. It’s super easy to get caught up in shiny object syndrome and always start new outlets. But if something like blogging is working for you or your podcast is you main thing, double down on that. You don’t have to be everywhere especially if you have limited time and capacity.

I’m documenting my journey as a 20 year old building a business and want to build a sustainable audience that connects with me. I’m getting lost in between when I’m building the operations of the business versus when I’m creating content. I feel like when I’m doing one I can’t do the other as well and would like to know how to manage this?

Jade: You have to manage both. It helps to outsource things where you don’t have to spend the time to do things like editing. Also, ask yourself what kind of entrepreneur you want to be in five years. If you love the talking and videos then maybe you want to be more of the creator type business.

When things get hard and you have less time, when you know who you are and what you want to be then you know which you’ll want to focus on. It’s imperative to do both so delegating can help with accomplishing that. 

Also try to use platforms with short form content because that is a lot easier than making long form Youtube content.

TJ: One thing I do is dedicate one day to all the content creation where I film everything and then have that delegated for editing and then the rest of the month you can work on your business. You can do everything but need to be able to focus.

How did you outsource your editing and where did you find those people?

Jade: They are people I know or people that reached out to me. It’s about the culture you want to build. Do you want to be friends with them and in person a lot? I personally choose local and aligned values. 

TJ: Ditto about vibes with the person. I have tried upwork and agencies but I feel like the editor should understand your brand and vibes and humor and that’s great. 

I feel like the instagram algorithm has changed for me and I’m getting less engagement. How do I improve it? Should I diversify to other platforms? 

TJ: REELS!

Sharon: Reels changed it for me, I grew from 3k to 50k because of reels mainly. 

TJ: Reels has great organic reach. I’d focus on that and pump that. You don’t have to post daily and if you great good content it will help grow your views.

For the main Instagram platform would hashtags help? 

TJ: yes hashtags help but be careful because anything basic will be very saturated. If you choose hashtags with 100,000 posts or less it has a better chance to be seen.

I started my brand and reached out to 30 influencers and 10 responded. What are some creative offers to offer influencers besides money? I’d like to work with influences that care about me and my brand not just people in it for the money.

Jade: Flatter their ego. If you can’t offer money then flatter their ego, by doing interviews or a creative content series where they are an exclusive guest. As an example a brand reached out to me but couldn’t pay but they offered for me to be in a fashion show and that seemed cool.

Aim for smaller creators below 100k following because bigger creators are going to expect larger payments.

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There are a lot of reasons to leave Robinhood and move to another investing platform. In the last week or two the reasons have increased and more and more people are abandoning Robinhood for good reasons.

Reasons To Leave Robinhood

When I previously posted about starting a dividend portfolio on Robinhood, I was very excited about a platform that made investing feel so fun. However, over time I’ve discovered a lot of reasons why Robinhood App is subpar for investing as well as personal reasons too.

Some reasons to leave Robinhood based on their failures:

• Outages on days with big volume which have led to people losing hundreds and thousands of dollars
• Lots of bugs and glitches in what shows especially on days where trading volume is very high
• Customer service is very limited and if you have a problem you can’t get someone on the phone or email (you can just yell into the void on Twitter)
• There have been issues with users being hacked and accounts looted
• Robinhood has been sued and will be sued again
• There is a lack of transparency on how they operate and make money off of the users which does not match their stated company ethos
• During the Gamestop / short selling debacle of January 2021, they took action limiting what users could purchase which manipulated the price of stocks in a downward manner
• The lack of transparency and disclosures from Robinhood in multiple cases pits them agains their users which means you aren’t getting the best deal or service

Some reasons to leave Robinhood based on my investing style as a long term investor:

• They don’t offer many beneficial investing account types including IRAs, HSAs, 529s etc
• Because they don’t offer those account types you can only open a taxable brokerage account meaning you will pay more taxes on gains unnecessarily
• They don’t offer access to buy mutual funds or bonds or several other asset types that you may want in a portfolio to diversify
• Focus is on stock picking, options, and other riskier investing styles which can lead beginners into trouble

Those are reasons to leave Robinhood as your investing platform. Luckily it is easy to transfer your stocks out of Robinhood and move to a better brokerage that offers more account types, asset options, and superior customer service.

How To Transfer Stocks Out Of Robinhood

Leaving Robinhood is easy and can be done by opening another account at a different brokerage and then trasnferring your stocks.

You do not have to sell your stocks to leave Robinhood!

You can sell some if you want, but remember that for any profits / gains you will need to pay capital gains taxes. If you’ve held the stock less than a year that tax rate can be substantial.

Robinhood even has a guide to how to transfer stocks out of your Robinhood Account.

Some important things to note about transferring your stocks out of Robinhood:

• Robinhood supports partial and full outbound transfers of your stocks.
• Once you transfer all assets out of Robinhood, they will close your account.
• There is a $75 fee to transfer assets out of Robinhood to another brokerage.

The process is pretty simple and most major brokerages can help you walk through it as well. The instructions on how to initiate the transfer from Robinhood are quite simple since the new brokerage handles most of the actual work:

To begin the process, you’ll need to contact your other brokerage and have them initiate the transfer. They’ll submit the transfer instructions to our clearing partner to transfer over your assets and funds.

If you transfer all of your assets to another brokerage, we’ll close your account.

Please make sure you initiate an ACATS (Automated Customer Account Transfer Service) transfer. Please don’t request stock delivery using any method other than ACATS, including DTC and transfer agent transfers.

You might need to give the other brokerage your Robinhood Securities (RHS) account number. You can find this information in your mobile app

1. Tap the Account icon in the bottom right corner.
2. Tap Investing.
3. Your account number will be at the top of your screen.

You may need to reference a DTC number for your transfer. Robinhood’s DTC number is 6769.

After you initiate a full transfer, your account will be restricted to ensure the transfer is processed smoothly. You won’t be able to make any trades on the assets being requested, including options in the underlying asset, while the transfer is in process, but keep in mind that you’ll still own the securities or positions during this time, and they’ll update in the app to reflect their current market value.

You can use any brokerage and many have advantaged above Robinhood. The three brokerages I personally use and like to recommend to people are:

• Vanguard
• Fidelity
• M1 Finance (referral link. you’ll get a bonus signing up)

Those are the platforms I’ve ended up with and plan to stick with long term. Of note, if you are trading then M1 Finance will not be for you since it is geared toward long term investing rather than trading.

Why I Left Robinhood

I decided to leave Robinhood as an investing platform in November 2019.

I left for several personal reasons and issues with the platform as well. As time has gone on Robinhood has only revealed even more negative issues for users.

Personally I left Robinhood for a several reasons:

• Has outages on big volume investing days
• Has lots of bugs and glitches especially when things get busy
• Customer service there is almost non-existent and you can’t call them
• You can email but you can’t expect an answer
• Users have had issues with hacking and looting of accounts
• I’m not a trader and the app encourages moves that aren’t the best and can be based on emotion
• The gamification of investing on the app is fun but also encouraged me to act too quickly and not make the best decision

I originally downloaded Robinhood to open an account to buy stocks because it looked fun, it’s easy to use, and a lot of other YouTubers used and loved it. Yes, even I buy or subscribe to things because of channels I watch.

I also had the idea of using this portfolio of making it public and sharing what stocks I’ve bought and why. However, after months of use I realize … I just don’t want to do that. I’m not great at picking stocks, I’m not confident enough to recommend them. 

I can talk all day about index funds and ETFs but individual stocks still trip me up. I’m not great and analysis and honestly I’m too emotional about buying stocks.

Robinhood has a ton of bugs and outages. Any time there is high volume traffic during a day the app gets glitchy and has hiccups and sometimes just doesn’t work at all. On the biggest days of the past year with stocks Robinhood basically just shut down and screwed over a lot of people and Robinhood did not seem to care about those people.

Yes, its a new app and they are going to figure it out but I’ve decided if I want to put a lot of money into a platform, it’s not one that feels like it is still working out the kinks.

So while there are some benefits to Robinhood and I love a lot of the little features and how easy it is to use… it’s just not enough for me to stick with them long term and build a large portfolio there. Since I’m planning to invest heavily after paying off debt I wanted something more stable that better fits the style of investing I actually like to do. 

I also personally just want to consolidate. I have multiple accounts at multiple companies and frankly I don’t have time or desire to keep checking multiple portfolios and making sure nothing is on fire or needs to be adjusted. Robinhood is only a small percent of my overall investments yet it’s still something that I feel like I have to give too much attention. This whole experience has confirmed that I’m truly a hands off inventory who likes to make things easy and passive. That means I like buying index funds and ETFs where someone else I trust is doing the stock picking not me. 
With that investing strategy in mind, I don’t need an app like Robinhood in order to consistently invest in those types of investments. I don’t regret using Robinhood or regret recommending it to people because in many ways it’s still a great option and really did change the investing landscape with no commission fees. But for this point in time.. it’s not right for what I want to do.

I decided to consolidate and to sell those stocks where I’d made a poor choice and had lost money. I also sold some where I didn’t want to hold the stock long term but the gains were not that high and were cancelled out by the losses on others. This money was used to help me pay down debt and get closer to debt freedom. I planned to move the remaining stocks I wanted to hold long term out of Robinhood to another account at a more reputable broker.

Sometimes you want to try out new things and investigate what is seemingly working for others and that is totally ok! It’s not a bad thing to stray from what you know and learn and see if you like another strategy or plan with your money.

In this case, I didn’t like it as much and I’m going to go back to the strategy and investing plan I’m comfortable with and honestly, love the most. I’ll be sticking to my plan and sharing more details with you in the future especially as I start to pour more money into investments to hopefully build a future or financial freedom for our family.

As always, thanks for watching, reading, and supporting!

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Using Etsy sales and coupons can help you make more sales and earn more money on Etsy.

In this tutorial I’m going over all the things you need to know about sales and coupons on Etsy so you can start running sales and make more money with your Etsy shop.

This video tutorial will definitely help you use these sales and coupon features in order to increase your sales. It covers:

• the different sales and coupons you can create on Etsy
• the targeted offers you can use to make more sales on Etsy
• how to create a coupon code for more sales on Etsy

In my Etsy shop for digital products I’ve made more money by running percentage off sales each month and think it’s an exceptional way to make more sales especially for digital products.

How to Create & Run Etsy Sales

Setting up a sale on Etsy is simple and it can definitely increase your shop sales and income. When you run a sale you can offer free shipping or take a percentage off the total or listing price. Shoppers see your items on sale in searches and in your shop.

Here’s how to create an Etsy sale:

1. Sign in to Etsy and click the Your Account icon.
2. Click Shop Manager and go to your shop backend.
3. Click the Marketing link in the left side menu.
4. Click the Sales and Coupons link that pops up in the secondary menu.
5. Click the Run Sale button in the pop up screen.
6. In the new screen you’ll select all your Discount Details.
7. Choose a discount – for free shipping you can select to only offer free domestic shipping.
8. Choose a discount – you can offer anywhere from 10% to 70% off the price of items in your shop.
9. Choose where it’s valid – you can select whether the sale is available in all countries or just one specific country.
10. Choose minimum order to qualify – select whether there is a minimum number of items to buy (quantity), a minimum amount to spend (order total) or no minimum to qualify for the sale.
11. Choose duration – you can select the duration of the sale beginning with the start date and the end date up to 30 days later.
12. Write your terms and conditions – in this optional step you can inform your shoppers or any restrictions, limitations or others. terms that apply to the sale you are running.
13. Name your sale – you can create a unique name for the sale that shoppers won’t see but will allow you to track sales performance.

If you do not set a minimum order to qualify for a. sale then you will be able to select specific listings for your sale. In this situation you can edit the sale to include new listings later.

If you do select a minimum order to qualify, then your sale will include your entire shop and you can not select items to exclude. If you have items you don’t want to go on sale then you should not select this option.

How to Create Etsy Coupon Codes

Creating an Etsy coupon code also follows a similar method. When you create a coupon for your Etsy shop you can share it with specific shoppers or with your email list or social media accounts to drive sales.

Here’s how to set up an Etsy coupon code:

1. Sign in to Etsy and click the Your Account icon.
2. Click Shop Manager and go to your shop backend.
3. Click the Marketing link in the left side menu.
4. Click the Sales and Coupons link that pops up in the secondary menu.
5. Click the Create coupon button in the pop up screen.
6. Select the coupon type you’d like to offer shoppers: free standard shipping, percentage off, or fixed amount off.
7. For percentage off you can offer any percentage off the price of items in your shop.
8. For fixed amount off you can offer a fixed dollar amount off the price of items in your shop.
9. For free standard shipping, you can offer free shipping so the buyer won’t pay a shipping fee. This type of coupon is shop wide automatically but you can choose to offer it only on domestic orders.
10. Choose minimum order to qualify – select whether there is a minimum number of items to buy (quantity), a minimum amount to spend (order total) or no minimum to qualify for the sale.
11. Select whether the coupon will be sent as a thank you to existing buyers or not once orders are complete.
12. Choose duration – you can select the duration of the coupon code beginning with the start date and this type of sale does not require an end date.
13. Customize your coupon code – give your coupon code a name that shoppers can use to enter to get the discount. You’ll also get a URL with this code name included that you can share to automatically apply the discount.

How to Create Targeted Offers On Etsy

You can also created targeted offers that will send discounts to very specific Etsy users who have taken an action. These offers go out to interested shoppers who have either added your item to their cart but have not purchased or who have favorited an item from your shop.

Here’s how to set up a targeted offer:

1. Sign in to Etsy and click the Your Account icon.
2. Click Shop Manager and go to your shop backend.
3. Click the Marketing link in the left side menu.
4. Click the Sales and Coupons link that pops up in the secondary menu.
5. Click the Set up offer button in the pop up screen.
6. Select who you would like to send the offer to:
   Abandoned cart shoppers —people who‘ve left items from your shop in their cart
   Recently favorited shoppers —people who‘ve favorited something from your shop
7. Choose coupon type – select the type of discount from percentage off the price of items in your shop, fixed amount off the price of items in your shop, or free standard shipping.
8. Choose a coupon code – enter a coupon code that will be sent to customers that they can enter at checkout to get the discount. This code will also be used to generate a URL for customers to use.

Targeted offers on Etsy used to cost $0.10 to send to each individual but they removed that fee and they are now free to use. It’s highly recommended you use these types of sales to reach out to already interested buyers.

How Sales Can Create More Etsy Income

Creating your Etsy sales and coupons is the first step of increasing your Etsy sales. Once you have your sales and coupons running you need to monitor their success and then adjust as necessary.

You can track the performance and success of your sales offers in the Sales and Coupons sections of your Shop Manager.

In this area yoou will be able to see:

• how long your sales and offers have been running
• number of orders per offer
• items sold per offer
• average order value per offer
• revenue per offer

Seeing these numbers for each offer will allow you to determine whether or not your offer is effective. If you are growing sales then stick with it but it. nothing is happening then play around with the offers you put out there until things start working.

How To Start An Etsy Shop

If you’re not on Etsy yet, it’s a great platform to start on and learn how to sell digital products.

If you want to start an Etsy shop in order to earn part time or full time income then this tutorial for beginners will help you get started! I know a lot of people who have never sold online before can feel intimidated which is why I created this tutorial on how to set up an Etsy shop step by step. It is very easy and seeing someone else do it makes it feel much easier!

You can start your shop with this link for 40 free listings to jumpstart your shop without having to waste money on those first listings.

Additionally, here are some posts about starting and growing an Etsy shop that may help you:

• How To Start An Etsy Shop
• Do You Need A Business License To Sell On Etsy?
• Digital Product Ideas To Sell On Etsy

How To Get More Sales On Etsy

If you have tried out sales or don’t want to sacrifice any profits, you can do other things to get more sales on Etsy.

This video shares many lessons about getting more sales on Etsy that can help you grow your sales especially as a new seller.

For more posts about growing your sales on Etsy try out these posts:

• How To Get Sales on Etsy For New Sellers
• What I Wish I Knew Before Starting An Etsy Shop

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Sinking funds are savings accounts where you save up a small amount at a time for a big expense.

They can be used for large one time purchases, annual or semi-annual bills, yearly expected expenses, or unexpected expenses. People save sinking funds in multiple ways, from cash envelopes to multiple savings accounts to one big savings account with detailed tracking.

Sinking funds can change your life. They radically transformed our budgeting life once we started using them. It truly makes sticking to a budget much easier because you eliminate the large expenses that wreck most people’s budgets.

Setting Up Our Yearly Sinking Funds

Setting up my sinking funds for the year will keep us on track with our budgeting and hitting financial goals in 2021. I’m using my sinking funds trackers to keep myself on track with my balances and how I’m saving to hit spending goals and paying annual bills.

Our Sinking Fund Categories

For 2021 our sinking fund categories include the following things:

• Birthdays
• Christmas
• Car Insurance
• Life Insurance
• Car Repair
• House (+ New Fridge!)
• Pet Expenses

There may be more sinking funds that we add later on in the year or we may end up cash flowing things as they come along since we do have a major online income source that can help cash flow extra monthly expenses.

Our sinking funds are split into two types

• Date based, where we need to save up a certain amount of money to spend or pay a bill by a certain date
• Ongoing, where we need to save up money continually for eventual unexpected expenses where we don’t know the exact amount

Between all of those things we have our yearly sinking funds set up like this:

• Birthdays – $125 per paycheck or $250 per month
• Christmas – $25 per paycheck or $50 per month
• Car Insurance – $40 per paycheck or $80 per month
• Life Insurance – $20 per paycheck or $40 per month
• Car Repairs – $50 per month (will increase)
• House Repairs (Fridge!) – $200 per month (big chunks too)
• Pet Expenses – $50 per month

We broke down our goals from how much we needed by certain dates in order to determine how much we needed to save per paycheck and per month.

What are sinking funds?

Sinking funds are accounts with a purpose.

They are accounts you save into regularly for spending on expenses that are irregular expense, non-monthly expenses, unpredictable or big one time expenses.

It’s a mini savings account for an expense you know you’ll have in the future.

Sinking funds make saving for these hard to budget items strategic and stress free. You set a little bit aside each month until you hit your goal… and then you spend it!

So if you’re saving up for an event 6 months from now, you put a smaller amount aside into the sinking fund each month until the event where you spend it all. Sinking funds are designed to let you spend without stress or worry.

Common Sinking Fund Categories

Below are some of the most common and often most helpful sinking funds that you can add to your budget.

This list can help you with a starting point on what types of sinking funds you might want to try in your own budget.

1. Car Repairs Sinking Fund – Car repairs will eventually happen. Every car needs repairs at some point even if it’s just general tire rotations or oil changes. Maintenance on cars is a necessary expenses if you own a car.
2. Car Replacement Sinking Fund – Cars don’t last forever unfortunately. This means you’ll eventually need to replace your current car. Saving up a little bit every month into a car replacement fund will make the purchase of a new car much less painful and will prevent you from going into debt to get a new car when the time comes.
3. Home Repairs Sinking Fund – Just like a car, you know your home will eventually need repairs. Because this is an expense that is inevitable, you need to be saving up for home repairs that will come along when you own a home.
4. Water Bill Sinking Fund – Many areas have annual or quarterly water bills where several months add up before payment is due. When these big, irregular water bills hit it is helpful to have the money in a sinking fund ready to pay the bill.
5. Pet Expenses Sinking Fund – Your pet may require regular grooming, special medicines for health issues, special diets and foods, and of course regular vet care. That’s not to mention anything like toys, doggy daycare, beds, clothing or any fun pet expenses. Add in an expensive emergency vet visit and you’ll definitely be glad you have a pet expense sinking fund.
6. Christmas Sinking Fund – Christmas happens every year so it should not catch you by surprise and lead you into debt. Your Christmas sinking fund can be for gifts but also for things like decor, Christmas cards, foods for special dinners or anything else for the holidays. 
7. Gifts Sinking Fund – Throughout the year we buy gifts for birthdays, weddings, holidays, baby showers, house warmings and more special occasions. While we love gifting those around us with things they will treasure, it can definitely add up and ruin the budget if we don’t plan for it! We put a little bit into our gifts sinking fund each month and it usually builds up so we can buy gifts when they are needed.
8. Clothing Sinking Fund – You might not buy clothes every month, but you will eventually need to buy clothing or shoes as items wear out. You can save up a little each month and then eventually buy a higher quality item when you are ready to shop and replace items.
9. Travel Sinking Fund – Travel is generally a high price tag item which is why many people create a travel sinking fund to save up for trips. If you save just $100 a month into a travel sinking fund then you can take a $1,200 vacation each year. If you want to travel more or go on better trips then you can increase the amount you save monthly.
10. Car & Life Insurance Bill Sinking Funds – Many life insurance bills and car insurance bills are due every 6 months, quarterly or yearly. We pay our car insurance every six months, so we put money monthly into a car insurance sinking fund. Then when the payment is due we withdraw the amount, pay the bill, and start over again!
11. Medical Bills Sinking Fund – Unfortunately medical bills can be a huge financial problem in the United States. A sinking fund (or a medical FSA or HSA) can help make these irregular costs more manageable when they come along. If you have a very high deductible you need to be saving each month into a sinking fund for medical expenses that could come up. Your life will be much less stressful if you have the money saved when a medical emergency strikes.
12. Back To School Expenses Sinking Fund – If you have kids, then you probably want a “back to school” sinking fund. You’ll need clothes and school supplies when school season rolls around. Kids also have a lot of expenses for signing up for extracurricular activities at the start of the school year.
13. Yearly Renewal Sinking Funds – If you have memberships or subscriptions that renew yearly like Amazon Prime or a Costco membership, they can be put into a yearly sinking funds account. You can create individual sinking funds for each yearly expense item or you can create a “yearly expenses” account where you add up the amount of all items, divide by 12, and save that amount each month.

More Sinking Fund Ideas

While those 13 sinking funds are common ones many people use, there are lots of other options that might work for your budget.

1. Homeowners insurance
2. Utilities
3. Landscaping
4. Property taxes
5. Pool maintenance
6. Home improvement projects
7. New vehicle tires
8. Fees and licenses (car registration, etc.)
9. Fees for boats/ campers/ snowmobiles/ motorcycles
10. Dues and subscriptions
11. School and education fees
12. School tuition
13. Summer camp fees
14. Kids sports and activities
15. College savings
16. Electronics replacements
17. Outside decor
18. Dentist visits and bills
19. Medication
20. Eye doctor/ glasses/ contacts
21. Annual gym fees
22. Miscellaneous
23. Weddings
24. Holidays
25. Taxes
26. Emergency fund

If you are looking for ideas this list should help get you started!

How do you set up sinking funds?

Setting up sinking funds with many online bank accounts is very easy and super quick! From start to finish most banks have made the process of setting up sinking fund savings accounts very easy.

If you want to see how we set up our sinking funds originally along with all the info about what sinking funds are then you can see the whole process in the video below.

Setting up sinking funds is a great way to keep your budget together throughout the year so the ups and downs don’t derail you.

If you haven’t tried out sinking funds before then you should definitely try incorporating it into your budgeting routine!

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Selling digital products in a Shopify store can be effective but you have to set up your store in a way that makes sense and gives you the best chance for success. I’m a Shopify affiliate so I get commissions when people sign up through my links but it’s truly one of the best platforms to use for selling any products online.

In this post I’m going over the best, must-have Shopify apps – including free Shopify apps – that will help you sell digital products. Shopify apps allow you to create a Shopify store customized to your needs and all of these amazing apps give you the ability to sell digital downloads and products easily.

If you haven’t started your store yet, try it out with a 14 Day FREE Shopify Trial.

Shopify Apps For Selling Digital Products

When you’re building a Shopify store for digital products there are a number of apps that allow you to upload and sell products passively.

I go over both free and paid Shopify apps in this video. I also cover Shopify apps for selling digital downloads, music downloads, courses, memberships, and more.

Here are the best apps for selling digital products for different types of content.

Digital Downloads – This is the number one free app by Shopify for selling digital products. It’s the one I’ve used most often for selling printable downloads. This app allows customers to download their file immediately upon purchase by receiving a link via email.

SendOwl – This Shopify app provides instant delivery of purchased digital products and have fulfilled over 8 million order on Shopify. It’s also a stand alone company with additional customer service and features. It comes with multiple useful features like automation, expiring links, and auto-generated license keys that can help you to power your products.

Single Music – For musicians selling music as a digital product this app is incredibly valuable since it was made with musicians in mind. It bridges the gap between physical and digital music sales with useful tools like chart reporting, upselling campaigns, and clips for samples.

Thinkific – For course creators the Thinkific Shopify app is the best way to add and sell courses to your Shopify store. The Thinkific app makes it super easy to create a course curriculum by uploading and drag and drop content. There is a free option when is great for beginners that allows you to create and sell up to three courses in your Shopify store.

FetchApp – This delivery app for digital products has more features than. Shopify’s free app but less than the paid SendOwl version making it a good option for people that need to start with a free plan but then grow. You have the ability in this Shopify app to attach multiple files with a digital products which can be useful for larger items with multiple file types.

Sky Pilot – If you’ve been wanting to build a membership program for recurring revenue Sky Pilot is a great option for your Shopify store. You can sell files, video streams and more to your customers in the membership.

Bold Memberships – This app is also a great option for building a membership site with recurring revenue for your business. You can show or hide any piece of content to your members, create tiers of membership, and customize lots of features and functions. This app is $9.99 a month and offers a free trial.

These are some of the best options for selling different types of digital products on Shopify.

Shopify Apps exist to help you build your business by adding extra features to your Shopify admin. Most are created by third party developers, not by Shopify, so you’ll have to keep in mind that custom apps will be serviced by those companies directly. Apps are a great way to add features and create a better store overall, especially if you plan to sell digital products.

How To Start A Digital Products Shopify Store

If you don’t want to sell digital products on a competitive marketplace like Etsy or want to start with your own store from the beginning, then I recommend using Shopify to build a shop on your own website.

The video above is specifically tailored to opening a Shopify store for selling digital products.

Shopify is one of the leading platforms to create your own online store super easily and quickly. It’s also able to scale up as your business grows. The ease of creating a store and immediately beginning to sell your products makes Shopify one of the best platforms for selling online today and there are many ways to make it work for selling digital products.

Additionally, here are some posts and links about Shopify that can help you:

• Shopify For Beginners
• Move From Etsy to Shopify
• 14 Day FREE Shopify Trial

Digital Product Ideas

So maybe you’re set on opening a store to sell digital products but you don’t know what you want to sell. There are lots of possibilities out there so finding the right product to sell is all about finding out what works best for you and your personality and skill level.

Some ideas for digital products to sell:

• Printables
• Spreadsheets
• Music / Songs
• Courses
• Ebooks

Also check out these related posts with useful lists of types of digital products you can sell in your Shopify store:

• 17 Popular Digital Product Ideas
• 6 Profitable Digital Products
• 60+ Digital Product Ideas To Sell Online

Enjoy the passive income that comes from selling your digital products via Shopify!

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