31 Days of Family Activities (Part 5)

Family Video Games


 

A lot of modern video games and systems have awesome multiplayer options that make family fun super easy! The Wii in particular has some of the best games and features for this, but you can use any system if you take turns playing one single player game. Keep it pressure free and have fun! Games are meant to be played to have FUN, not just to win.

 

Check Out Old Photo Albums


 

Learning about family history is a great way to keep memories and traditions alive. Great grandma’s cookie recipe will mean that much more if your kids have a face to place with the stories. Pictures are worth a thousand words, and they also preserve the memories of the past.

 

Make A Scrapbook With New Photos


 

To make your own memories for your family’s future, take pictures and add them to a new album! You can even try out scrapbooking to make it even more meaningful and organized. Everyone can fill out a page in their own style and write their own little memory notes next to each picture.

 

Life Sized Drawings


 

Get a big piece of poster board and have someone lay down on it. Then you can trace around their body so you have a template. Once that is done, everyone can work together to fill in the template and make a life-sized drawing of the family member!

 

Karaoke


 

Karaoke is a lot of fun, and making it a family affair is sure to get lots of laughs. You can even hold a contest for silliest song/voice combo… Bonus points for interpretive dance!

 

31 Days of Family Activities (Part 4)

Fashion Show


 

Let the kids try on some old clothes from your closet, and make the craziest outfits they can think of… Then, the parents can pretend to be fashion show judges and score everyone’s costumes. The judges can even have their own eccentric outfits on for extra fun! 

 

Write A Story


 

This can be done in a lot of ways. You can use a white/chalk board to add words while everyone takes turns adding one word at a time. You can also write one all together and put it on paper you can bind together into a homemade book. This also works with filling in mad-libs if you need a starting point to get your creativity rolling!

 

Tie Dye


 

Tie dye is a lot of fun, and is also a great outlet for creativity! You can tie dye just about any article of clothing, and there are a million ways to tie and dye them! Once they are all finished, you will have a great memory every time you wear whatever you made! Check out “5 easy tie-dye instructions — plus, 4 tie-dye patterns to try” here: https://www.care.com/c/stories/3341/5-easy-tie-dye-instructions-and-4-tie-dye-pat/

 

Learn To Sew


 

Sewing is a skill that always comes in handy at one time or another. Even knowing how to sew on a button can be the difference between an awkward situation and a quick fix with no fuss. Basic stitches are also good to know in any future fashion emergencies.

 

Build Models


 

Order a model airplane, building, robot, car, etc. and build it together as a family. Model building is an awesome way to learn about how things go together, and how to work together as a team.

31 Days of Family Activities (Part 3)

Film For A Day 


 

Use your phones, or an old camcorder to document a whole day with your family. Then you can watch it back and even edit it into a fun family movie if you want to! As the years go by, it will be fun to look back and remember what a fun day you had, and how you lived at that time.

 

Dance Party 


 

Make a playlist with everyone’s favorite songs, and have big dance party! Go crazy and have fun just shaking out all your troubles. You will get a great workout for it, too!

 

Yoga/Pilates

 

Speaking of workouts, Pilates and Yoga are fantastic ways to help with flexibility and fitness. Start with beginner positions, and practice daily until everyone is super comfortable with learning gradually more complex positions. Never overdo these exercises, and they can be a really amazing way to promote a healthy body and mind. This site might be helpful if you are a beginner: https://www.yogabasics.com/practice/yoga-for-beginners/

 

Picnic


 

This can be indoor or outdoor, depending on your situation. Pack up some food, drinks, snacks, pillows, and blankets. Then set up a nice little picnic spot in your house or backyard! Picnics are always a lot of fun and much more relaxing than a typical formal meal at a table.

 

Make Cards/Write Letters


 

Letters and cards can mean so much to elderly in nursing homes and troops overseas. Make some handmade cards with happy messages, or write some kind letters, and send them out to senior homes and military bases. This is a wonderful way to boost morale and spread love to people who may be lonely and discouraged. You can use these links to send your cards: https://supportourtroops.org/cards-letters AND https://www.operationgratitude.com/express-your-thanks/write-letters/

 

31 Days of Family Activities (Part 2)

Craft Day


 

Coloring, collages, slime making, painting, etc. are all examples of super fun crafts you can do with your family. Art is something that can be therapeutic, so make sure this is a positive experience with no bad ideas or critiques. Art styles are all different, and there is no wrong way to be creative. Just have fun! Need inspiration? Visit Pinterest, or you can go to: https://funfamilycrafts.com for one great ideas.

 

Pizza Night


 

All you need is dough, toppings, sauce, and an oven to have your very own family pizzeria! Everyone gets enough dough for a personal sized pizza, and they can top it however they want. Then, you just bake and enjoy! This makes personal pizzas truly personal, and makes for great bonding time with food and fun!

 

Pillow Fort


 

One person can make a pretty awesome pillow fort, but a whole family can make an epic pillow CASTLE! Use cardboard boxes, blankets, couch cushions, pillows, and more to create a huge pillow fort to hang out in. 

 

Movie Marathon


 

(This is a great add-on to pillow fort day) Get comfy and watch a movie series for a day with lots snacks and finger food. Stay in your pajamas for extra coziness! 

 

Learn Sign Language

 

Sign language is a very useful language to know, and it is actually a lot of fun to learn. You can use books and/or online tutorials, help each other practice, and even try going a whole day communicating with just sign! Find more about learning sign language here: https://www.startasl.com/american-sign-language-alphabet/

31 Days of Family Activities (Part 1)

In a world where most of us spend a lot of time looking at screens instead of truly interacting in meaning fun ways, it is important to keep family time a priority. Studies have shown that the simple act of having nightly family dinners does wonders for the emotional, academic, and even physical development of the children in the home. Imagine how much more could be achieved with regular, fun activities that will also help you all bond and become even closer as a family! Below are thirty days of family activities to get you started…

 

Baking


Let everyone choose something they want to bake together as a family. It could be cookies, cake pops, muffins, a pastry—anything yummy and bake-able! Then, you all work together as a family to get the ingredients, and make something super delicious everyone can be proud of being a part of. If you have a big family, you can even do a different baking project every other day until everyone has had a chance to make their favorites!

 

Gardening


Gardening is a very useful skill, and can be a lot of fun to get into. You can start a little vegetable, herb, or flower garden depending on the space you have. If you have a lot of space, everyone can have their own little plot where they can grow what they want as well! Gardening is a great way to show your kids how patience, hard work, and perseverance can pay off in big ways!

 

Story Time


To get the whole family involved in a favorite story, try acting it out instead of just reading it! Everyone will become part of the story, and you will all have an amazing memory to look back on forever. Bonus points for going all in with costumes, funny voices, and homemade props!

Look For Four Leaf Clovers


 

Clovers with four or more leaves are actually very rare. Looking for some in the backyard can pass a lot of time! Finding them is always very rewarding and exciting. You can also choose something else to hunt for; like mole hills, spider webs, or dandelions!

Board Games 

 

Sometimes just a relaxing day of playing board games is a great way to pass the time. If you want to add a little something extra, try making up some new rules and change the same old games up a bit! You can also create your very own games like themed charades, or scavenger hunts! Unleash your creative side, and play by your own rules. 

Putting It All Together And Developing A Routine That Will Keep You On Track

Over the course of the past six blog posts we’ve talked about the importance of consistency and how it can help you grow your traffic, your subscribers, your customers, your product catalogue and most importantly your income. Now it’s time to bring it all together and create a daily, weekly, and monthly routine that will keep you on track to continue to grow your business. 

 

Any online business can be broken down into three different areas that need your effort and attention. They are traffic, list, and offer. You need visitors to your website. Then you need to convert those visitors into subscribers. Finally, you need to make those subscribers an offer so you can make money. Keep this in mind as you build your routine. 

 

Do something every single day to send more traffic your way. This could be content marketing. It could be social media. It could be tweaking your SEO. Or it could be paid ads. Start by making a master list of things you can do to get more traffic. Pick things you can quickly do and rotate through one or more of them on a daily basis. Things that take a bit longer should become part of your weekly and monthly routine. For example, you may choose to learn how to run Facebook ads this month as one of your bigger projects. The most important part is to do things consistently to drive more traffic to your website. 

 

Next, think about what you can do to get more subscribers. Adding an opt-in box to your latest blog post is a quick task that could go on your daily to-do list. Setting up a new opt-in funnel with a fresh lead magnet may make a great weekly project. Writing a book to tap into a new market via Amazon would be more of a project that takes a month or more. Come up with a variety of different things you can try, tweak, and do more to grow your list consistently. 

 

Last but not least, you’ve got to make an offer. This could be something evergreen like crafting a new autoresponder email for your flagship product. It could be a daily task of running and tweaking ads. Or it could be a free SEO and social media campaign that you work on for a few weeks. Make a list of what you can do to get your offers in front of fresh eyeballs and get to work. And don’t forget to set aside some time each week to work on the next paid product as well. 

 

Keep chipping away and continuing to build and fine-tune your routine. Your consistent efforts will start to pay off and more importantly, they will begin to compound as you get more traffic, grow your list by leaps and bounds, and add more products each new customer may be interested in. Keep at it. Consistency is the key to long-term profit. 

Set Up A Product Creation Schedule For Yourself And Your Team

Let’s talk about money. More importantly, let’s talk about how you profit from your online properties. You do it through ads, by making affiliate sales, or my personal favorite - by selling your own products. Those products are what we’ll be talking about today. More specifically, we’ll be discussing creating information products consistently. Why information products? Because you create them once and sell them again and again. No supply line, no storage, no overhead. When you make a sale, it’s almost pure profit. 

 

I’m going to let you in on a secret it took me a while to discover when I first started out. It’s much easier to sell an existing customer a second product than it is to find a brand-new customer. It’s even easier to sell them the third, fourth, fifth one. You get the idea. That’s because you’ve done all the hard work of earning this person’s trust already and if you’ve done your job right, the first thing they purchased from you is already helping them solve their problem. That’s what information products are all about. Solving a problem. To create that next product, look at where your customers are at and think about what they need to do next. What’s another problem they will face and how can you help them solve it. 

 

For example, your first product may be an eBook or course on setting up a WordPress site. Next, your customers may need to learn about creating content that attracts the right type of reader. And then they need to learn about traffic, and list building, and effective social media strategies. Each one of these could be a new info product or new content for your paid membership site. 

 

Once you have an idea of what types of products you want to create, it’s important to get them out consistently. You want to have a new product out there for your existing customers to buy. Of course, you’ll also attract new buyers along the way who will then not only buy the new thing you’ve come out with, but hopefully also some of the other titles and courses you have out there. 

 

Start with a list of products you want to create. Do your best to estimate how long it will take you to create the product and all the infrastructure that goes along with it like a sales page, a download page, autoresponders and solo emails to promote it, a promotion schedule etc. Make a list of everything you need to do before you can launch this new product. Then get to work. Chip away at it every day and continue to consistently work towards each of these new product launches, adjusting your timeframe as needed. 

 

In the beginning it will probably be just you working on this product creation. Maybe you’re hiring out the graphics. Put that on the schedule and communicate with your graphic designer early to avoid bottlenecks. As time goes by, you may choose to outsource some of the product creation. Maybe you’re hiring an editor to proofread your work. Or a VA to help with the setup, infrastructure and customer service. Eventually you may even hire some writers to create these products for you. As your team expands, it’s even more important to have a schedule everyone works of off to make sure these new products come out regularly. 

Work On Your Funnel Each Week And Continue To Branch Out

You should already have at least some very basic funnels set up for your online business. To make sure we are all on the same page, let’s quickly define what a funnel is when it comes to your website. It’s a way for people to work their way through what you have to offer. This could be going from the content of your blog, to signing up for your email list, receiving a series of emails and getting an offer for one of your products or services. That’s one simple funnel and I hope you already have that one set up. 

 

While that’s a great start, it should be your only funnel. The goal for any business is to continue to find new ways to draw in more potential customers and engage them. That may mean setting up several new opt-in offers. It may mean sending out a monthly or weekly newsletter. It should always mean creating new products, or making offers for existing things. And of course it could mean presenting affiliate offers. 

 

Funnels are great and they are never done. For starters, things change. Links break, you find better offers, and you learn more about your subject matter and have more or even better information to present to your audience. That’s why it’s a good idea to audit your existing funnels from time to time, updating, editing, and fixing them as needed. 

 

It’s also a great idea to test and optimize your funnels. For example, you could split test two different lead magnets and see which one converts better. Test what product you present to your subscribers when. Tweak and test to improve your overall conversions, open crates, and click-through rates. Split test your sales pages… The sky's the limit when it comes to testing and tracking your funnels. The goal will always be the same - try to do a little better than what you have been doing. Over time, you’ll make huge improvements that translate into a bigger bottom line. 

 

In addition to improving your existing funnels, you also want to set aside some time each week to consistently work on expanding and adding new ones. This could mean adding a couple of new autoresponder emails to your first funnel this week. And it could mean creating a new lead magnet next week that attracts a slightly different audience into your circle of influence. The important part is that you work on your funnels every single week. Consistency here, like in so many other areas of your online business is key. Doing a little bit each week, will help you grow, expand, and improve your funnels.

Struggling With Social Media? A Calendar And System Can Help

Do you have a hard time with social media? Either you aren’t finding the time to get around to posting regularly and getting discouraged by a lack of results you’re getting. You know what I’m talking about. You aren’t getting a lot of new followers on your page on Facebook for example and when you post something only a small fraction of those people see the post. It can be discouraging and feel like you have to pay to play by buying ads if you want your content to be seen. Thankfully that’s not true. What is true however is that consistency can help you grow your reach on any social media platform. It can help you with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and anywhere else where your ideal customers choose to hang out. 

 

Which brings up an important point. Before you dive in and invest a lot of time and effort on every single platform, take a look around. Where are your people hanging out? What media does your tribe prefer? For example, if you’re running a recipe blog, you have to be on Pinterest and depending on your particular niche, you may also want a Facebook presence, including a group, and possibly a YouTube channel. If you’re into sourdough, you’ve got to be on Instagram… Do your research and do your best to determine where you want to be before you get started. 

 

Once you have that figured it, it’s time to come up with a posting schedule. Remember, consistency is key. You’re better off doing fewer posts and shares more regularly, than overdoing it and burning out. Start with a conservative number that you’re comfortable with across all platforms and write it down. For example, you may choose to do 5 tweets per week, 10 pins, 3 Facebook posts, one Facebook Live video and a new YouTube video every other week. 

 

Once you have your schedule, it’s time to schedule the actual content using a calendar. You can use Google Calendar or an old-fashioned paper one. The key is being able to stay organized and having your social media goals in writing to ensure it gets done and posted regularly. How far out should you schedule? That’s up to you. If you like to plan in big batches every few months, go for it. If you prefer to be more spontaneous, do it once a week. Play around with different time frames and see what works best for you. When you know what you’ll be posting about and have the text and images ready ahead of time, it’s quick and easy to keep up with social media. 

 

To save even more time and make social media content more hands off, take a look at some of the scheduling tools available. I like Hootsuite, MeetEdgar, PostPlanner, and Tailwind (for Pinterest). Use them to schedule and loop posts that will go out without you having to log into your social media profiles every single day.  Instead, you can set aside time once every couple of weeks to do the bulk of your work. Then check in from your phone throughout the week to respond to comments etc. Getting organized and figuring out a system that works for you can be such a game changer when it comes to being consistent on social media and growing and engaged following. When you have those main posts going out on schedule, you can then pop in and interact & post in real time as and when time allows. 

Why You Need To Mail Your List Regularly

I have a question for you. How often are you mailing your list? Do you sit down once a month to create a newsletter for your existing subscribers? Or are you waiting to reach a certain number of subscribers before you even start to mail? If so, I think you’re making a big mistake. 

 

Mailing lists only work when you use them to get in touch with your subscribers regularly. If you wait too long, they’ll forget about you. When you’re no longer relevant or important to them, they’ll unsubscribe, or worse, mark your emails as spam. Yes, even if it is something they opted in to receive. People forget. It’s your job to stay on top of mind. And you do that by emailing them regularly. 

 

Mailing once a week is a good start for most people. If you’re not crafting email messages for your readers regularly right now, start there. Send out a message and let your readers know what to expect. Good mailing lists are all about setting and meeting expectations. Tell them that you’re excited to kick things off and that you’ll have something fun and valuable stuff to share with them each week. If possible, set a date and time and tell them to keep an eye out for your emails. This will do wonders for your open rates. For example, you could tell them to look for a new message from you every Wednesday morning. Then deliver on that promise. 

 

Meeting expectations builds trust. Not only are your subscribers more likely to stick around, open, and read your emails, they’ll also trust you when you make an offer or a recommendation. That means you’ll start to see more clicks and sales on your affiliate links, and of course higher conversions on your own product offers. Build that relationship with your target audience and move people from prospect to customer, and eventually to raving fan by staying in touch regularly via email. 

 

And here’s a little bonus tip. Ask your readers to share you with others. Every so often invite them to share your opt-in page or even ask them to forward one of your emails to people they know who may be interested in the topic. Keep it light and casual and don’t overdo it. You’ll be surprised how quickly your subscriber list will grow when you enlist the help of current readers. 

 

To get started, commit to an email schedule. Start weekly and stick to it for a couple of months. Use the email schedule features of your autoresponder service to make sure it happens even if life gets crazy. Don’t miss an issue and work on building that reputation of being reliable and consistent and see what happens. I think you’ll be hooked.