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Welcome Back & Happy New Year Creator!

The start of a new year often brings a sense of renewal and the opportunity to set fresh goals. Setting goals is crucial as it provides clear direction and focus, allowing individuals to channel their efforts toward meaningful achievements.

Goals act as roadmaps, guiding us toward our desired destination. They help prioritize activities, ensuring we spend our time and resources effectively.

This process enhances motivation and fosters personal growth by pushing us out of our comfort zones. Moreover, goals serve as a benchmark for progress, offering a way to measure and celebrate achievements. They keep us accountable and can increase our persistence in facing challenges.

Ultimately, goal-setting in the new year is a powerful tool for personal development, enabling us to envision our ideal future and work systematically towards making it a reality.

That being said, you must build your Creator business the right way. In this newsletter, we settle the debate of Funnels vs. Stan Stores!

Trivia Question: What social media platform recently changed its monetization requirements for creators, making it more accessible for emerging talents?  (Answer at the end of the newsletter).

TODAY’S MENU

• We Settle The Debate, Funnels vs. Stan Store: Which platform should Creators use to launch, grow, and monetize your internet business.

• How Stanley 10X Their Water Bottle Business: In 2016, with the launch of their Quencher, they attracted a new audience, propelling the 110-year-old company to seemingly overnight success.

• AI Traffic Growth By The Numbers: Over the last 12 months, the AI industry has been one of the most significant tech developments we’ve seen in a long time.

NEWS

Lead Vortex vs. Stan Stores

If you want to build and scale your Creator business in 2024 correctly, you need the facts. So below, you will find the FACTS for two CRMs that Creators leverage to build their online business. You can interchange any funnel builder, but we will discuss our recommended CRM for creators, Lead Vortex and Stan Stores.

Stan Store:

• Target Audience: Beginners, affiliate marketers

• Features: Customizable templates, landing/sales/squeeze page tools, built-in email marketing, funnel builder

• Customization: Limited

• Complexity: Best for straightforward product sales

• Pricing: $29 to $99/month, no transaction fees

• Product Management: Manages digital-physical products and services

• Sales Funnels: User-friendly interface, order bump, upsells, downsells, one-click upsells, upgraded plan-only

• Marketing Tools: Custom link-in-bio pages, built-in affiliate marketing tools

• Customer Support: Excellent with onboarding videos

• User Experience: User-friendly, less intuitive for new users

Lead Vortex:

• Target Audience: Online entrepreneurs, Creators and most brick and mortar Businesses

• Features: Extensive customizable templates, tools for upsells/downsells/order bumps, built-in email marketing, A/B testing, managing conversations across a multitude of platforms, calendar booking, unlimited contacts, pipelines, and much more…

• Customization: Extensive

• Complexity: Suitable for complex sales funnels of all types

• Pricing: Basic: $97/month

• Product Management: Focus on digital products, courses, and services

• Sales Funnels: Drag-and-drop editor, A/B testing, one-click upsells, order bumps

• Marketing Tools: Custom Email campaigns, smart marketing automation, affiliate program management, communities

• Customer Support: Excellent, always available team

• User Experience: Intuitive and user-friendly, especially for affiliate marketers and content creators

So, both have a lot of pros going for them. However, we’re a little biased. Funnels are better. Lead Vortex is better. But this is because we collectively, as the Digital Marketing Misfits and as Creators, have earned well over $2M in the last couple of years using funnels and a more comprehensive CRM.

THEY WORK.

There is no debate. They allow you to build assets that you own (email lists!), nurture leads on autopilot, offer extensive customization, facilitate upselling/cross-selling, optimize conversions, and integrate automated marketing systems for efficiency. Do they take more time to learn? Of course! But you maximize your LCV, or lifetime customer value, which means more money in your pocket.

CREATOR MONETIZATION STRATEGIES

How Stanley Went 10X

This YouTube video delves into how Stanley, a 110-year-old company, turned their water bottle, the Quencher, into a $750 million business. The Quencher initially struggled to gain popularity but experienced a surge in success after a key pivot in 2020.

The Buy Guide, a site run by three mothers, played a crucial role in the viral success of the Quencher through influencer marketing and introducing new colors. Stanley adapted to consumer demands, released new colors and sizes, collaborated with other brands, and implemented design upgrades to fuel their growth.

With a dedicated TikTok agency and innovative strategies, Stanley's revenue reached $402 million in 2022 and is projected to hit $750 million in 2023. While excitement surrounds the Quencher, the speaker emphasizes that Stanley has a range of categories contributing to its future growth.

AI FOR CREATORS

AI Traffic Growth By The Numbers

Over the last 12 months, the AI industry has been one of the most significant tech developments we’ve seen in a long time. During the starting month of our study, September 2022, the tools we analyzed generated 241.8 million visits. 

CURRENT TRENDS FOR CREATORS

Leverage This TikTok Trend In December/January 2024

@lara_bsmnn

Outfit rotation 🤍🤍 #ootweek #fashionblogger #style #fyp #fyy Inspo: @Katie

Trend Recap: New transition alert!

Clink your drink to the camera and use the accompanying photo in your camera roll to flip to the next clip seamlessly.

This trend requires a friend to help, but you'll have TikTok movie magic once you nail it down.

Audio: Original sound - Jvliozzz

2023 CONTENT CREATOR ECONOMY REPORT

1. TikTok and YouTube are the top favored and top-earning platforms at a relatively even rate in 2023. For both TikTok and YouTube, 26% of creators say they are their favorite platforms, and 26% say they earn the most on either platform.

2. More than 40% of users tip creators an average of $5 to $10 on social media in 2023, a dramatic increase from only 17% in 2021.

3. Most content creators interviewed make between $50K and $100K per year.

4. Only 4.8% of creators interviewed with more than 5M+ of followers reported earning more than $1M per year in 2023.

5. Most content creators interviewed make between $50K and $100K per year.

Trivia Answer: YouTube recently changed its monetization requirements, making accessing monetization tools easier for emerging creators.

Catch you on the next edition of THE CREATOR REPORT!

Happy New Year!!!

Let’s Crush 2024!!!

The Misfits

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