The tools and tech I use to run my funnel, besides Clickfunnels, because you can’t always start with Clickfunnels.

I started running my funnels with Leadpages, Email Marketing Software and Member Vault. I love all of these programs and honestly, while Clickfunnels is pretty amazing, so are each of these platforms.

(note affiliate links included in this post. While I share affiliate links I only recommend and become an affiliate of products I use and love).

Landing Page Software

Leadpages

Why I love it: Used for all landing pages, thank you pages, optin boxes (aka Leadboxes), Countdown timer and some delivery of my lead magnets.

Other than Clickfunnels, I have tried other landing page resources and haven’t found one I like better. None were as robust and easy to use as Leadpages. The pre-made pages are important to me because I don’t want to have to design anything. I want a page made and tested so I know it’s a good converting page. I am not good at building landing pages from the ground up. Nor do I even care to spend the time on building a page with resources like Leadpages.

Clickfunnels

Why I love it

Pretty easy to use, plug and play funnels and lots of people create and share funnels for exactly what you do.

What I do not love

The price is spending for newbies and small businesses with smaller budgets. But the price is well worth it. Their email piece is very difficult to get up and running even if you are tech savvy.

Email Marketing Software (aka Email CRM)  

Mailchimp

A great free starting point.

What I love

You can export your list in a .csv format for when you decide to step up. You will eventually want to step up to something that has more options. The platform is very easy to use.

What I do not love

It’s great for a simple starter list. It is not for more robust lists that you want to segment. There came a point where I needed more.

GetResponse 

A good middle ground software.

What I love

Great templates, easy to segment lists and easy to create automated sequences. The analytics are great and easy to follow. There is a good

What I do not love

GetResponse’s platform is cumbersome compared to creating segments in Convertkit. I do love the integration and ease of use for segmenting lists, it just seems more simple than Mailchimp and GetResponse

ConvertKit

What I love

My current favorite.

Just “converted” (pun intended) to Convertkit and was blown away by how easy it was to create an email sequence. There was no hopping back and forth and in and out of other emails (which was my biggest complaint about GetResponse).

In Converkit I could create an entire email sequence from the same screen and switch back and forth between the emails easily.

List segmentation is robust there are so many options and I can see some really great uses for the future.

What I do not love

Landing pages are ok, good if you cannot afford Leadpages, better than GetResponses’ landing pages.

The list set up and segmentation is not as simple as GetResponse, but it works great probably better it just takes a second to wrap your head around it.

Membership Software

Member Vault

What I love

Simple set up, easy for customers to use and their support is beyond amazing! Such a great group and they are relatively new so you can get in with a great team and be part of the ground up. You will get very personalized help and experience.

The platform is pleasing to the eyes, super easy to navigate and they are crushing it.

The best part is you can house all your products – free and paid.

“A way to showcase your best free/paid content to turn subscribers into buyers” – Member Vault

Host all of your free and paid content here. Send ALL of your subscribers to Member Vault to grab their opt-in/freebie, and while they are on this platform they will see all the other offerings available to them. And guess what that does? It sells things without having to sell!

Showcase and increase sales before they are even done going through the rest of your Funnel.

What I do not love

Integrating my Convertkit was not available, but Member Vault support was able to fix it right up for me. They are not in full control of all the integrations since they have to work with other companies’ platforms. So I would say, they just nee more integrations without a need for Zapier. And great news…they are working on working with companies on better integrations. Really this is not a downfall because they are new and listening to their customer’s input and feedback, and their support is rock star! 

Paid Membership Pro

What I love

Great cost.

What I do not love

Complex set up. I had someone help me with this and I am very tech savvy. Not a big fan.

Other Tools

Zapier

What I love

That you can integrate most any platform that doesn’t have an integration in their set up. For example Paypal and Convertkit did not integrate (I needed to add buyers to a ConvertKit list) but I was able to accomplish this with Zapier. Their support videos are super helpful.

What I do not love

It can be complicated to use and setup. But considering it is the missing link between software that does not yet have any integration, this is a really helpful tool. I have had to watch a lot of their support videos and instructions. It takes some getting used to. I wish I didn’t have to use this and that programs would just have integrations – but I guess we can’t have it all.

Buffer

What I love

Ease of use. You can get away with using the free or $10 plan for most of your needs when you are just starting.

Buffer supports most all of your social media media accounts. You can post to all platforms at once or select one or more accounts to post to at a time. A lot of the other post schedulers don’t include Instagram and Pinterest, which is not convenient. I can post to my FB Pages, Groups, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Google+.

Buffer analytics are good, you can see your posts in order of most popular which helps me figure out future content and what people are loving. Buffer is intuitive to your page and knows the best times to post to different platforms. You can recycle content easily.

What I do not love

Buffer has not yet reached the level of Meet Edgar where it automatically recycles content for you on an ongoing basis, but you can still go back in and manually select content that was popular and recycle it easily. It’s just not automatic. And this is not so much of a downfall because by manually choosing posts to recycle, you get to select the most popular content to repost, versus everything that is in your library.

(I have not used MeetEdgar, I have looked into it but the lack of platforms and the cost prevented me from taking the plunge).

Tailwind

What I love

I love using Tailwind for Pinterest. It has great tracking and insight tools. Tailwind chooses times to post pins based on your account activity or you can choose your own times. Tailwind is really simple to use. I really love the visual calendar of your scheduled pins, it’s easier to see where you need more content to post and how much you have scheduled.

What I do not love

It is only for Pinterest, but in a way I think that is why it’s a great tool for Pinterest. I use this over Buffer for Pinterest.

PostPlanner

What I love

Unlike Tailwind and Buffer, PostPlanner provides terrific content curation. The other two platforms are great for collecting content you find or run into and tossing it into your scheduling too. PostPlanner takes it all a step further and allows you to browse content based on industries, types of posts (quotes, images, articles) and even shows you which are most popular.

I just started to use PostPlanner and I love it. At $36 a year you cannot beat it!

What I do not love

There is no “share” widget like Tailwind and Buffer. So to save an article or other content, you have to actually copy and paste the link and open post planner to schedule a post.

So I use Buffer for when I find something interesting I want to add to my social media, and I use Tailwind for Pinterest.

An all in one would be great so I can see my overall posting calendar and make sure I’m not missing any days, track everything in one place, but I noticed when tools are all in one, they tend to be more costly and they don’t excel in each platform like some of these tools do.

Obviously this is not an exhaustive list of options out there. These are tools I use or have used and liked, and wanted to share with you. There is lots of information out there on tools for small businesses and you should look at other options, some may work better for your type of business.

Hopefully this article helps you in your search for great tools, whether you choose to use what I recommend, or whether you want to go look at other tools and use some of the criteria I mention.

Knowing what features you need, like or just knowing where to start can be overwhelming in itself.

That is why I created this list, to get you started easily! Most of these programs have free trials or free account levels so you can test and see if it fits your needs before committing to any cost. Try a few different options out to see if you even like the platform.

Let me know in the comments what your favorite tools are, and how you use them.

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