Table of Contents
Discount codes
What are programs?
A program in Meal Garden can contain any of the following types of content:
Meal Plan (s): A schedule, a grocery list, and any pre-prep instructions
Collection (s): a group of recipes or meals
Resource (s): An article, video, or PDF in your Meal Garden
In addition, each program has a landing page (aka 'sales page') and a home page and requires a user to create an account for your Meal Garden via a dedicated signup page.
Note: Meal Garden accounts are independent and private.
Programs can be paid (one-time or reoccurring) or can be free. Any payments made via Meal Garden programs are deposited directly into your bank account via Stripe.
What can I use programs for?
Programs can be used for a number of different things, including:
A stand-alone program such as 'Fundamentals of Low-Waste, Whole-Food Cooking'
A membership site for your online efforts
A companion for your book (s)
Interactive Lead Magnets
As a support tool for a program run from a third-party system such as Practice Better, Healthie or Thinkific, or any other program like this. In this case, Meal Garden Programs would provide access to dynamic and customization nutritional content
Pre-Made Programs
Pre-made content makes it easy for you to find inspiration and keep your content fresh for your audiences and clients.
Meal Garden's team of nutritionists creates one or two new programs each month.
All you have to do is find a program you like, copy it to your Meal Garden, and share it.
Once you've copied the program, it will be fully branded and you can customize any aspect of it.
To explore pre-made content, click on 'Programs' in the left-hand navigation bar and then click on 'Pre-Made'.
From here, you can click on each program to review the content and focus.
Once you find a program that you think you can use, click on the 'subscribe' button at the bottom of the screen.
Subscribed Programs
You might be asking yourself, 'why do I need to subscribe to a program?' the reason is that many of the programs maintained by Meal Garden are updated periodically. As a subscriber, you will be alerted when new content is added.
Once you've subscribed to a program, you can copy any of the content from that program into your library, or you can copy the whole program and use it as the starting point for a program of your own.
Working with Programs
Once you've copied the program, all the content in that program will be added to your library.
The content will be added to the 'Created By' tab in the source bar at the top of the search screen.
Navigating a Program
Once you've opened the program in edit mode, you can change any aspect of the program.
Note (s):
To change the name, just click on it at the top of the screen.
This guide starts with the 'content tab' and ends with details.
The Content Tab
Programs are containers for content that make it easier for you to create and your clients to navigate related content.
To add content to a program, click the 'Add Content' button at the bottom of the screen. You can then add existing content or create new content, which will be automatically added to your program.
To delete content, click and drag the content to the bottom of the screen.
The Sales Page
Think of the sales page as a pre-purchase landing page. You can add headlines, body copy, images, and multimedia content (i.e. video, audio, etc.) to your sales page.
To preview the sales page, follow these steps:
Step 1: Click on 'View Sales Page' at the bottom of the screen.
Step 2: Copy the URL
Step 3: Open a private or incognito browser
Go to the top action bar of your browser and click the 'file' menu option.
In Chrome, click on 'New Incognito Window'
In Safari, click on 'New Private Window'
Then, click on the address bar and paste the URL into the bar and click 'enter'
Watch the video below for a full walk-through.
The Home Page
The home page is displayed above the program content once someone has subscribed to your program.
The home page uses the same editor as the sales page and can include any type of content or images.
You can also use one of your resources as the home page by clicking on 'Home Page Article'
To preview the home page, click on 'Preview' in the left navigation bar.
Preview
To preview and share the final product, click on 'Preview'.
From here, you can share your program via a hyperlink, through a social channel, or directly with clients in Meal Garden.
Once someone subscribes to the content, they will be sent an automated email from your Meal Garden account confirming their sign-up. You can create a custom message in the branding section of your Meal Garden. Learn more about custom emails here.
You'll also receive an email alerting you to a new sign-up/conversion!
Statistics
Once you've published your program, you can use the 'Statistics' tab to track progress and sign-ups.
What you can learn from the Statistics screen:
Page visits: the number of times the landing page has been viewed
Sales count: the number of people who have purchased/subscribed to your program
Sales amount: if you have a dollar value associated with the program, this is where you'll find out how much money you've made.
You can also download the users and transactions to add this information to your other tools (accounting, email marketing, etc.).
You can also use the contacts screen in your Meal Garden.
From the details tab you can:
Set the order that your content will appear to members
Create a social sharing icon.
The social sharing icon is the image that will be displayed when you share your content with social sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. (here's a great resource for putting together social sharing icons).
Restrict access of program members to only the content in the program (as opposed to all your Meal Garden content)
Set-up payment options - one time or monthly subscriptions (see payments below for more details)
Add subscribers to Meal Garden's Contacts. By default, program subscribers aren't included in Meal Garden's contacts. If you activate this, they will be added to contacts.
Skip the sales page - use this option if you already have a funnel or sales page set up. When activated, the program link will direct users to the sign-up / payment page for your program.
Create a custom URL
Close the program so that the sign-up link becomes inactive. All existing members will have access to the program, but no new members can join.
Setting up payments
Meal Garden enables payments via Stripe.
You can create and connect your Stripe account to Meal Garden through your settings.
Once complete, any payments made through Meal Garden will be automatically deposited in your Stripe account.
Setting up discount codes
You can use discount codes for specific programs or all your programs.
The variables you have available to you include:
Amount (dollar value)
# of cycles (only available for reoccurring memberships)
Trial days: you can add trial days to memberships
Start and end dates
Conclusion
Programs are a powerful marketing and engagement tool for your business; they make it easy to package your nutritional content in a fun and informative way.
You can use Programs to generate revenue, create an interactive lead magnet, or keep your existing audience engaged.
We look forward to hearing how you plan to utilize Programs and what you think we can do to improve this aspect of Meal Garden.
Continued Reading
Now that you've mastered Programs keep going, and get familiar with the other great aspects of Meal Garden.
Programs
Everything you need to know about: