TechLatte: Cheryl Marquez

Digital Marketing Can Be Hard, It Doesn't Need to Be

Building an Email List from ZERO Subscribers

When you are building a business, whether you are a new health coach or small business owner, you need have to have a way to connect with your clients. You’ve read that you need to create an email list, no one tells you how to get started from scratch. They tell you how to promote your email newsletter via social media or how to build your existing email list. What if you don’t have anyone on your email list, how do you find people?

When I started an email newsletter for my food and fitness blog. I had ZERO subscribers and I didn’t know how to get started.

WHAT PROBLEM ARE YOU SOLVING?
Before you get subscribers or even start writing your newsletter, you need to plan what you will be sharing. As someone who loves food and struggles with weight, my biggest challenge is balancing eating well with fitness goals. After talking to friends and family, I realized I wasn’t the only one who struggled. Then I asked, what has prevented you from reaching your fitness goals? Their answers influenced the articles I write for my blog and share in the newsletter, both address the roadblocks, along with recipes I’ve tested and enjoyed.

Identifying the problem you are solving, helps you find out who you will be serving. What do I mean by serving? These are potential clients who could use your help. They are the people who will appreciate getting the answers or solutions you are sharing.

HOW TO GET YOUR FIRST 25 SUBSCRIBERS
The first 25 subscribers are your friends, colleagues, and family. The first 100 subscribers will be high touch, you will get in touch personally and start a conversation. They will help you shape the content you share. I went through my contacts in the phone and I sent a text to everyone who might be interested. Here’s a template of what I sent to them, you will need to customize what you will be sharing, then your call to action is “do you want it?” or “do you want to be part of it?”

YOU: “Hey __, I’m starting a newsletter where I’ll be sharing tips on how to balance being a foodie with fitness goals. Do you want it?”

FRIEND: “Sounds cool, send it to me.”

YOU: “What’s the best email address for you?”

After they said yes, I added their name and email address to a Google Sheet that I later uploaded to Mailchimp. You can simplify this by writing their name and email address into a notebook, then later type the contact information into the email marketing tool of your choice. You don’t want to use Gmail because you could be flagged for SPAM and have your account locked as your email list grows larger.

I stopped sending text message after the first 25 people said “yes” to test the initial newsletters with a smaller group to make sure I ironed out the technical issues. I also wanted to be able to text or email my friends to get feedback on what they liked and didn’t like. Each week, I would add another 25 subscribers in the same way.

Next up, importing the Google Doc email list into Mailchimp.

I am Not a Developer Even Though I Build Websites

One of my favorite events to attend are the Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners. Even though, I’m not a developer or a software engineer, these events are always exciting because you get to learn about how people use technology to solve problems and network with other women in tech. One of the best parts about attending is you get a sneak peek at the culture in the companies that host these dinners.  Every time, I leave one of these gatherings, I have a feeling of inspiration coupled with a tinge of imposter syndrome.

Feeling Imposter Syndrome

Being in a room full of smart, women engineers/developers is inspiring, intimidating and sometimes disheartening when their reaction when you don’t have an engineering or developer title is “oh…”. I’m curious to learn about their journey, what were their biggest problems, how they solved them and what tools they used. I can appreciate how they attacked a problem because I can use those approaches to solve issues I’m having in one of my passion projects. Even without a developer title, I could build a website by hacking together a WordPress theme with the right framework and combination of plugins with some customizations to create the features my clients need. While some people’s passion is to “be a developer”, my goal is to be a creator, and what I lack in technical skills, I make up for in resourcefulness.

Don’t Let Titles Hold You Back

As a creator and future entrepreneur, I will continue to attend these gatherings to learn from more technical counterparts to figure out how to make what I want using the tools and resources created by developers and software engineers. When I started writing this post, it was because I thought I should stop attending the girl geek dinners because I wasn’t “technical” enough. By the time I finished, I realized the reason to go is to keep up with technology because that is what excites me. Labels and titles shouldn’t be a reason avoid going to events you are passionate about and you should never let imposter syndrome hold you back from learning.

Configure My iPhone

After a year of peer pressure, I’m finally caving in and getting an iPhone. What?!? While I still love my Samsung Note 4 and really want the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, I am getting an iPhone 6s Plus. It will be my “work” phone so no one can say that I’ve broken the group chats with my Samsung.

I need help in choosing the color and specs for my new device. Looking forward to trying the iPhone 6s Plus for my cooking demos, Periscopes and #ootd Instagram posts.

Take this poll or let me know your thoughts in the comments by March 31, 2016.
[socialpoll id=”2158376″ type=”set”]

Building a Super Productive Work from Home Routine | TechLatte Eps 00

Working from home can rock or you can totally suck at it, depending on how disciplined you are with the time you save from commuting. In the podcast, I describe how I get ready to work from home. Unfortunately, I cut off some of the tips towards the end, it’s all included below.

GET READY

You’re probably thinking, “Oh hell no, I’m NOT planning to get ready, I’m working from home, no one will even see me. It’s no pants day.” Relax, you can stay in pajamas or sweats if that’s your preference. Get up at your normal time, then workout it’s no excuses on work from home days, make it happen! Then shower and put on your favorite comfy outfit to get ready to work. Working from home gets you a pass to workout, so you don’t have to worry about it the rest of the day. Take care of you; workout, eat a great breakfast, make your to do list, all before checking email or social media. No social media, until you take care of you!

MAKE A LIST

I love lists, it keeps me organized, and it doesn’t take long to write. I use Reminders on the Mac or Evernote on the phone. You can add everything you need to do, from personal errands, work tasks, long-term projects, grocery items, anything that needs to get done. Get it out of your head so you have a visual of everything you need to do.

  1. Make a list of everything that needs to get done
  2. Categorize your sticky notes or tasks
    • Personal
    • Professional
    • Side Projects
    • Groceries
    • Errands, etc.
  3. Prioritize
    • Prioritize the top 3 things that need to get done today and do those first
    • Next figure out which errands can be grouped together then schedule those on your calendar. Type in the errands, place and what you need to do or buy directly into the calendar notice.
    • Schedule the other items on your calendar
  4. Take pictures of your sticky notes or sync the newly organized list with due dates to your phone.

WORK

I recently read about the pomodoro technique where you set a timer to stay focused on a task for 25 minute increments, then you take a 5 minute break to do non-work related things. If you suddenly realize you have something else you need to do, write the task in your To Do List. For the “work” intervals, you don’t go on  Facebook, email, Twitter, Snapchat, Periscope or whatever your distraction of choice is until after the timer goes off.

After you complete a pomodoro (25 minute “work” interval), make a tick mark on a sticky note. After you complete 4 pomodoro’s, you can take a longer break of 20 minutes. For a procrastinator, this technique is a dream because working for 25 minutes doesn’t seem daunting, so you can get to work pretty quickly.

RELAX

Since you’re not sitting around watching reality TV or talk shows or cleaning to procrastinate from doing work, you’ll have time to relax. Personally, the Pomodoro Technique was a game changer. It helped my mind stop procrastinating because  anyone can stay away from social media for 25 minutes, right?

P.S.

I’m challenging myself to creating 1 minute Periscope videos daily. Then repurposing these videos into blog posts, YouTube videos and podcasts. The brilliant idea I had this morning was to turn the Periscope into a podcast, which morphed into this blog post because I realized there were a few points I missed during the podcast. What do you think of my first podcast? What would you like to hear about in the future? Let me know in the comments.

RESOURCES:

Pomodoro Technique

Follow 1 a Day, 1 Minute Video Challenge

Periscope: LifeHacks, Social Media & Business for daily 1 minute videos on life hacks, social media and business. I’m sharing tips, tricks and epiphanies.

 

How to Lower Your Cellphone Bill to $30

With the holidays approaching, I was looking for ways to cut or eliminate bills so I could spend more money on gifts for my family. The biggest bill after rent and the car payment is the hundreds of dollars I’ve spent on Verizon. It’s averaged around $175 or more per month for mine and my daughter’s phones. My iPad is on AT&T and I spend $30/month for 3 GB of data per month.

Then I thought, what if I use the SIM card from the iPad in the Verizon Samsung Note 4. I suspended Verizon service*, then I looked up the Access Point Name (APN) Settings and entered them into my phone. My phone isn’t jailbroken and since I use a Google Voice phone number, I could get text messages through Google Hangout and make phone calls using the Hangouts Dialer. If you expect to use your phone number, this solution may not work for you. A SIM card from a different carrier will have a different phone number.

Even if you’re not super tech-savvy, you should be able to test this out by following the instructions below. This setup works because I’ve been using Google Voice for years. The Google Voice integration with Google Hangouts and the addition of MMS/group messaging made this an attractive solution since I wouldn’t need to change the way I communicate. My phone battery died pretty quickly on Verizon, so I would take the SIM card out of the phone and put it in my tablet so I can stay connected while my phone charged.

How to Get a Verizon Phone Working with an AT&T Data SIM Card (no jailbreak required)

Before you get started, take the back cover off your phone and remove the Verizon SIM, then replace it with the AT&T SIM card. Make sure you don’t lose the Verizon SIM card, put this in a safe place, if you plan to use it again. I usually put the Verizon SIM in between the battery and the back cover so it’s always there if I need it.

  1. Go to Settings → Mobile Networks  → Network mode
  2. Select GLOBAL
    1. Once you click on GLOBAL, you will be brought back to the Mobile Networks screen
  3. Go to Access Point Names (APN)
  4. Click on + to add a new APN
    • Name: ATT Broadband (use this setting if you are using a SIM card for a tablet)
    • APN: broadband
    • Proxy: not set
    • Port: not set
    • Username: not set
    • Password: not set
    • Server: not set
    • MMSC: not set
    • Multimedia message proxy:  not set
    • Multimedia message port:  80
    • MCC: 310
    • MNC:  410
    • Authentication type:  Not set
    • APN Type: default, sup, mms, hip, fota
    • APN protocol:  IPv4
    • APN roaming protocol:  IPv4
    • Bearer: Unspecified
    • Mobile virtual network operator type:  None
  5. Click on the 3 dots in the upper right hand, Select Save
  6. Turn off your phone, then turn it back on
  7. To test your phone, turn off WiFi, then use the browser to go to a web page.
  8. Launch Hangouts Dialer and make a phone call
  9. Launch Google Hangouts to send a text message

This solution allows you use your data connection to make phone calls and text messages. If you use Skype, you can use Skype to dial phone numbers and you can go online to set your mobile number as the caller ID for when you make phone calls from Skype.

*Don’t suspend your cell phone service until you are sure you can make this work. My backup plan was to use my tablet to stay connected, that is why I suspended service until I could pay off the device charges.

Resources:

Manually Set APN Settings for US Network Providers
AT&T APN Settings

Twitter is My Book Club

Once upon a time, I had dreams of joining a book club. I wanted to meet at a locally owned coffee shop to drink fancy pants coffee, dissect the motivations of characters or uncover the themes hidden in the book. Then life happened and I couldn’t commit to reading the right chapter each week or prepare my thoughts for the book club questions because it felt like homework and seemed overwhelming and I quit before joining. As an introverted bookworm, I continued to read books and hoped to follow along online but that wasn’t a thing until I realized I could use social media.

Being obsessed with Twitter and every other social media platform, I decided to Buffer the quotes I was reading while using a hashtag for each book quote I posted. I started doing this while reading #Girlboss by Sophia Amoroso, founder of Nasty Gal, the new and vintage online boutique. Having a hashtag as the title of the book, made it a natural for me to tweet quotes which inspired my inner entrepreneur. What I didn’t foresee was the conversations it would ignite on Twitter or Linkedin about startups, being entrepreneurial or branding.

If you are reading a business book, it could help you connect with people to discuss ideas. If you are reading fiction it could help you connect to other fans. While it might be taboo to discuss the 50 Shades of Grey series on Twitter, you can search for private Facebook groups to discuss the book and your favorite redroom activities. Whatever your interests, searching for a book’s hashtag or keywords on your social networks will help you find conversations where you can participate on your on time, without the pressure of an in person book club.

Book/Idea Discussion
Be creative, post a meme with your favorite quote and a question for discussion as the caption on Instagram. You can record a video talking about the book on Snapchat, YouTube or Periscope. You post quotes with the hashtag from the book on Twitter. You can search Facebook for groups discussing the book you are reading.

Where do you have book 📚 discussions? Leave it in the comments along with book recommendations.