Best 5 Wix Apps for your service-based business

Are you ready to take your business to the next level by making the most out of your Wix website?

In this blog post I'm going to show you my 5 favourite Wix apps for coaches, consultants, teachers, wellbeing experts and other service providers who want to monetise their website, streamline processes and attract more clients on auto-pilot - so that your website is helping you reach your business goals.

Why it's important to use your Wix website to its full potential

The vast majority of small business owners that I meet are not aware of all the ways Wix can help you save time, make more money, automate and streamline your business processes and help your website look more professional.

By finding the best Wix apps for your business, you can:

• Save time

• Make more money in your business

• Look professional

• Automate and streamline your business processes

• Set up your website to capture leads and make sales (even when you're not around)

• Tap into passive income streams you may not have considered before

• Increase customer satisfaction and help your clients feel like they're being well taken care of

• Stop missing opportunities and prevent potential clients from 'falling through the cracks'

Best of all, you get to build the lifestyle you want for yourself - and free yourself up so that you can get back to the reason you're doing this whole self-employed thing in the first place!

5 top Wix Apps for your small business

NOTE: You must upgrade to a Premium Plan in order to accept online payments. Once upgraded, you don't need to pay a commission to Wix for any transactions. The only fee you pay is your usual payment processing fee to your payment provider (i.e: Stripe or PayPal).

1. Wix Bookings

Scheduling platform, calendar & online booking

You can offer free discovery calls, 1-to-1 appointments, group sessions, classes, workshops or courses through Wix Bookings. And clients can easily book and pay online for your services, courses, memberships and packages.

Your clients can:

• Schedule a free call

• Book private sessions, 1-to-1 appointments, group sessions, classes, workshops and courses

• Get a free trial

• Sign up to your Membership

• Book a Package (e.g: a 6-week pilates course) with reduced rates

• Use discount codes (called 'coupons' on Wix)

• Book and pay on-the-go with the Wix mobile app

Plus you can:

• Accept secure online payments using Stripe or PayPal (and offline payments too)

• Integrate Wix Bookings with Zoom - your clients will automatically be sent a link in their confirmation email

• Sync staff Google calendars

• Add custom working hours

• Add booking policies

• Manage your schedule from the Wix dashboard

• Send SMS and email reminders

• Manage clients (payment status, booking history etc)

"I feel like a more professional business now and the booking system saves me days of invoicing!"

Chloe, Founder of Coffee Time French, a French Language school that runs courses in-person and online

2. Wix Stores

Sell digital products and physical products

Wix Stores gives you all the tools you need for a professional online shop, whether you're selling digital ones or physical ones.

Your online shop looks professional, is easy to use (for you and for your customers) and the user experience is smooth and effortless.

Think about all the digital products you could potentially sell: guides, ebooks, worksheets, planners, Trello boards, Canva templates... you name it: the world is your oyster!

You can:

• Create a professional storefront

• Sell digital products (images, documents, audio files, .zip folders) as well as physical products

• Create custom product pages

• Accept secure online payments (PayPal, Stripe etc) not to mention subscriptions

• Manage your orders, inventory, shipping, fulfilment and finances

• Send automated emails

• Recover abandoned shopping cards

• Offer discount codes

• Sell across multiple channels, like Facebook, Instagram and more

Examples of clients who use Wix Stores to sell digital and physical products:

Digital products:

Sarah Patel is a sleep consultant and sells digital downloads on her website. These guides are a life saver for her site visitors who are coming to her website with a specific problem. Once they have downloaded one of her guides where she demonstrates her value, they are much more likely to think of her when they are ready to take a course or work 1:1 with her.

Physical products:

Debbie Chan makes beautiful blackout blinds for children's nurseries. Her website ranks on the first page of Google for the keyword 'nursery blinds', higher up than many of the big brand names like Dunelm and Argos and Amazon. A pretty good feat for a small business who doesn't have a whole marketing team and big budget, and it's all organic.

3. Wix Video

Upload or stream videos that you can sell, rent or offer subscriptions for

Upload native video or stream videos from YouTube, Facebook or Vimeo using Wix Video.

This is a great way to share training videos, workshops and masterclasses... or however you'd like to describe your videos. Simply organise your videos into channels and site visitors can sign up - and pay - to watch.

With Wix Video you can:

• Upload your own videos

• Schedule live streaming events

• Stream videos from YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo

• Customise your own video player

• Organise your videos into categories/channels

• Add a YouTube feed

• Add a YouTube playlist

• Ask visitors to sign up to watch free videos

• Add 'action cards' to videos (e.g: get more followers, promote another video, feature a channel, promote a product or design your own custom card)

• Upload your videos to Social Media

• Create channel subscriptions

NOTE: The number of hours of video you can upload depends on which premium package you have. For example, Business Unlimited gives you 10 hours of native video and unlimited streaming from third party platforms such as YouTube.

4. Wix Recurring Invoices

Invoice once and receive recurring payments

You can create recurring invoices so that your clients can send you payments automatically on a recurring basis, and minimising the amount of admin you (and your client) need do.

Let's say you have a high-ticket group coaching programme that costs £3000 and runs for 3 months.

You can create a recurring invoice that charges them £1000 per month for three months. They receive your invoice and click on the PAY NOW button, where they add their credit card details and the first payment of £1000 is deducted. They are then charged automatically every month for the remainder of the time.

NOTE: You get 5 recurring invoices on the free version of Ascend, which is enough to test it out. If you like it and it saves you time (and ensures clients pay you on time) it's worth upgrading to Ascend Basic for unlimited recurring invoices. Plus all the other benefits of Ascend Basic - but we need another blog post to cover that!

5. Wix Automations

A powerful tool for streamlining your business processes and save time on manual tasks

Wix Automations are 'actions' that you set up inside your account that automate and streamline your processes.

You can use Automations to do so many things, including sending automatic emails, nurture sequences and creating simple sales funnels.

Here is one example of an Automation that I use myself:

Let's say someone comes to my website and wants to download the Ultimate Website Checklist.

Here is what happens in the flow which includes an Automation:

1. First they add their name and email address to a form embedded on my website

2. They 'tick' the checkbox if they would like to receive my monthly email

3. Those who agree to receive my monthly email are labelled as 'Newsletter Subscribers' (only those who agree, it's important not force people to sign up as that's unethical and also is against GDPR regulations)

4. This is where the Automation kicks in: everyone who submits that particular form gets an automatic email which includes the free guide for them to download as a PDF

Now these subscribers are on my List and I can continue to build a relationship with them over time, sending them 1 valuable email per month that is really going to help them with their small business website.

NOTE: You can use 2 Automations and send 3 Newletters per month on the free version of Ascend, which is usually more than enough when you're starting out. However, if you're ready to take your business to the next level and want to build in things like nurture sequences, you can upgrade to Ascend Basic.

So if you want to streamline your processes, create a smooth customer journey and feel organised & in control as your business grows, use these apps to help you accelerate your business growth.

There are really so many possibilities when it comes to monetising your business if you're a service provider - you just need to think outside the box.

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