Dawn & Traci's Favorite Things
All the stuff you need to run a happy, shiny business from your laptop 🙂
Stuff We Use and Love
It seems that not a day goes by without someone asking us what tools we use to make Happy Hour run like a well-oiled machine.
You might be surprised to find that as time goes on we've found that using less is actually more… which is why our list seems to get shorter the longer we're around.
That's good news for us and good news for you, since it means less expense, less technical hassle and more awesome. So without further ado, we present Happy Hour's Favorite Things…
Website Stuff
Website Hosting
A2Hosting – We've used several popular hosting companies over the years, but were disappointed with the level of customer service and the number of interruptions we experienced. A friend recommended A2Hosting and we've super happy ever since. The company is based in the US, their chat is very responsive and you can always get someone on the phone when you need to. Highly recommend.
WordPress Themes
Here at Happy Hour, we have a couple of definite favorites when it comes to themes. Both of the ones we recommend come with tons of features and options including landing pages, popups, and drag-and-drop page builders.
Divi by Elegant Themes (Dawn's Favorite) – I held out on loving Divi for a long time, because with drag-and-drop editors, you're pretty much stuck with your theme (which is still true). However, Divi is so ridiculously customizable you'd basically never run out of beautiful options.
As part of Elegant Theme's suite of themes, it's also one of the most affordable premium themes and one of the most popular – which means you'll never have trouble finding someone who can help you with it if you get stuck!
Thrive Themes (Traci's Favorite) – Built by marketers, for marketers, this theme is optimized for conversions. Less customizable than Divi this theme is perfect for you if you want something out of the box that comes loaded with conversion features.
Social Media Marketing
Webinar Tools
Marketing Tools
Ontraport – Where to begin… everything we do at Happy Hour runs on Ontraport. It handles lead generation, email and text message marketing, sales and checkout pages, product delivery, recurring billing, membership site protection… ya, basically EVERYTHING.
Ontraport is one of those tools you look at and think “I can't afford it.” Until you have it and then you wonder how you ever lived without it. Seriously, having Ontraport is like having a full-time VA who never takes a day off. If you're serious about scaling your business with automation Ontraport is a must-have.
LeadPages – Even though Ontraport now handles the bulk of our landing pages, we still LOVE and highly recommend LeadPages! Proven to convert and super easy to use, LeadPages is the perfect compliment to any email marketing autoresponder program. If you're serious about growing your list and getting the highest number of conversions possible, LeadPages is your solution.
ConvertKit – there are a lot of autoresponders out there, but not many that offer tag-based CRM management (something you should definitely be looking for). ConvertKit is by no means a competitor to Ontraport (as it only handles email), but if your business isn't quite ready for Ontraport, ConvertKit is something to consider.