Stack #2: The Color Palette Studio

When I was dreaming up Pretty Smart Stacks, I had a few businesses in mind that I knew I had to feature.

And The Color Palette Studio is one of them.

The Color Palette Studio, founded in summer 2023, sells premium tools for graphic designers. They’ve served over 1,000 customers in just the last 16 months.

Because of their success selling digital products, I couldn’t wait to feature The Color Palette Studio and their tech stack.

You should probably know…

Last week, I featured my tech stack and since it was my own, I shared ALL the juicy details.

From now on, I'm playing detective 🕵🏻. I'll research for hours to uncover the tools and workflows that power the online businesses featured here.

Behind the Business

So, we might be friends. 😎

Behind The Color Palette Studio is a talented husband-and-wife duo: Sam, the designer, and Chris, the engineer.

Sam is no stranger to entrepreneurship. We first connected in 2021. She was running Fancy Sips, a successful virtual mixology business and I was coaching online culinary solopreneurs. Sam was a guest on my podcast and from there, a business friendship was born. 💕

Over the years, I’ve gotten to know and admire Sam’s tech savvy approach to setting up systems in her businesses. Whether it's an online margarita class for Google execs or a new brand visualizer tool, she can always figure it out. That's reason #219 I couldn't wait to feature her business!

Social

Sam posts organic content on four social platforms: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Pinterest.

• TikTok: 457k followers

• YouTube: 31k subscribers

• Instagram: 127k followers

• Pinterest: 292k monthly views

On top of posting organic content, she runs Meta ads leading to the Color Palette Builder product and evergreen workshop, “How to Build a Brand Color Palette”.

Workshops

To engage their audience, Sam hosts free workshops packed with a ton of value. Her live workshops have hundreds of chat messages from her participants who soak up her approachable and educational teaching style. (There’s almost always a nod to Taylor Swift!)

Seriously, if you want a masterclass on how to deliver a workshop with high value and authenticity, get on The Color Palette Studio email list and join the next workshop.

My research also uncovered that The Color Palette Studio is experimenting with paid traffic to an evergreen workshop titled How to Build a Brand Color Palette. (More on that in the Workflow of the Week!)

The Color Palette Studio’s Tech Stack

Now that you know more about The Color Palette Studio, let’s dive into their tech stack!

As I shared earlier, these apps are the ones that I’ve been able to discover through my research. By no means is this a comprehensive, 100% accurate list of every tool used by the business. (*Some of the links shared may be affiliate links.)

Hidden Tech Gems

Here are three tech tools you probably haven’t heard of that I have found to be super valuable.

💎 Color Buddy

How could I not feature this super helpful FREE Chrome extension from The Color Palette Studio? With the Color Buddy, you can add multiple color palettes and have the color codes just a click away. I find this tool super useful when starting a new project and needing to update ALL the things with your brand colors. | Color Buddy Chrome Extension, Free

💎 Section Store

When I had my Shopify site, I wanted to add fun animations and pre-designed sections. Fortunately, I discovered Section Store, an app within Shopify that lets you buy individual page sections so you don’t have to build them from scratch. | Section Store, some are free - most are only $9

💎 Tiny Chat

Tiny Chat is a customizable website chat widget that you only need to pay for once! It was a no-brainer for me because I don't get a ton of messages on my site but still want a chat widget *just in case*. And, unlike other widgets, you don't need to monitor a separate inbox. It integrates with Slack so you can read and reply via a dedicated channel! | Tiny Chat on AppSumo, $29 one-time purchase

Featured Workflow:
Paid Traffic to an Evergreen Workshop

Using paid traffic to fuel an evergreen workshop that converts your audience into customers is a smart way to scale sales—without needing to go live or bring that on-camera energy every time.

Inspired by The Color Palette Studio, and with a few optimizations of my own, here’s how I would set up an automated workflow that effectively channels paid traffic into an evergreen workshop:

Here’s how it works:

1. Meta Ads Campaign: A Meta ads campaign runs to promote the workshop to both cold and warm audiences.

2. Workshop Registration Page: When someone clicks the ad link, they land on a registration page. This page is hosted on a website builder (in this example, Shopify) and includes an embedded registration widget from EasyWebinar. Here, they enter their first name and email address, then select a time slot for the workshop.

3. Data Transfer to Email Marketing Tool: Once registered, their information flows from EasyWebinar to Flodesk via Zapier.

4. Automated Confirmation Email: Flodesk sends an automated confirmation email containing the workshop date, time, and a unique link.

What I love about this workflow:

⭐️ On-brand experience: Embedding registration boxes on your own site and sending confirmation emails from your email marketing tool create a seamless, on-brand experience. While visual brand consistency isn’t a necessity, I find it adds a polished touch to any funnel.

⭐️ Centralized analytics: Hosting the workshop sign-up page on your own domain means all traffic and activity are captured in your Google Analytics account. Similarly, by sending confirmation emails from your email marketing tool (rather than webinar software), you keep open rate and click rate data centralized, making it easier to analyze performance!

⭐️ Works while you sleep! With this setup, your systems are working 24/7, so you can focus on other things while your funnel keeps running smoothly in the background.

A quick favor!

I hope you loved this issue of Pretty Smart Stacks! If so, can you think of just one other person who might find these tech tips helpful?

Share it with them via this link 👇 and you’ll get referral credit (gifts coming soon!)

 https://newsletter.yourtechgal.co/subscribe?ref=PLACEHOLDER