Ep. 045: 5 Simple Steps to Sell on Instastories
While you shouldn’t only use Instastories to pitch paid offerings, you can absolutely use a simple framework to sell the right things to the right people. You don’t even need a fancy sales page or ads to do it either. Listen in as I share 5 simple things to share to get more clients from “the Gram.”
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Erika Tebbens: I am super duper excited to record this episode for you because I have had so many people request this. And I know you are going to love it. And I'm really hoping to get, uh, a blog post up soon about this as well. So I don't know if it will be up by the time this comes out. Uh, but sometime in the near future.
It should be. So, um, definitely though, this is, if you utilize this, it is, is going to rock your world. Especially if you're already using Instagram as your primary, uh, lead generation source. So I love Instagram. If you've listened to the podcast, uh, you know, that, that is where I hang out the most and I just love it.
It feels really, really fun and sort of, uh, effortless. I don't know if effortless is the right word. But it just, it feels very like natural to me. So stories are sort of the name of the game now. Uh, in early 2020, as I'm recording this and putting this out. Stories are really where a lot of the magic happens over there.
Uh, they are really pushing stories on that platform because video content is something that people really gravitate towards. And, uh, you can use stories for all sorts of cool things. But for this episode, we are going to strictly focus on selling. So, one thing that I want to point out is that you do not need to and should not just be using your Insta stories to sell.
Right? Cause that's a little bit, I dunno, that's, that's gonna like turn people off, right? Because people want to see all sorts of stuff from you. They want to learn from you. They want to see like, you know, some of the behind the scenes about what you have going on. Like all of, all of that other stuff, right?
They don't just want to be pitched too constantly. So I like to think, and I want you to keep in mind, um, the 80 20 rule. Okay. So 80% of the time just put out other content, 20% of the time, sell, or pitch. So how you're going to do this is think of the thing that you are pitching, right? So let's just say you have a group program.
And you are going to be opening the doors to that group program soon. So you probably know. Hopefully you already know, who is the best fit for that group program. So let's just say you are a social media manager or strategist, whatever you want to call yourself. You, you do social media for other people, and you also teach social media.
And this group program is for entrepreneurs in their first year of business who want to get a handle on their social media. They really want to build a strong social presence. They want to figure out how to do it. And you are going to run a six week group program for them. Okay? So you already know they are business owners. They are in their first year of business. They feel very overwhelmed by being on social media and by doing it correctly. And they are ready to up their social media game. And they are going to use that as a way to get more business, uh, organically. Right? So without paid traffic at this point. They just want to show up on there and start to make connections and then start to convert those connections into paid customers or clients.
So now you know who you're targeting. So step one is when you hop into your stories, you can just start recording and saying, "Hey, I want to talk to you if you are a-", and then list out those things. "So if you are an entrepreneur in your first year, if you are using social media, but it feels overwhelming and complicated. If you want to really get super comfortable about utilizing different social media platforms to organically grow your business so that you can make more money, then keep watching." Okay? So that is step number one. You want to define who you're talking to. Because let's also imagine that you have your one-on-one clients, that where you fully manage all of their social media, right?
You're not talking to those people. They are not your target audience for this program. Right? You could do a different story on another day or another week where you are specifically targeting them. But for this instance, you want to call out exactly who you're targeting, targeting. And then you say, okay, keep watching. Now, if it's not those people, this doesn't mean that all of those people are going to stop watching.
We tend to be kind of nosy as humans. So some people will watch all the way through anyways, cause they're curious about what you're up to. Right? But it also lets them off the hook if that's not for them. And they want to skip ahead to somebody else's story. Right? So now next, you want to talk about, uh, what your thing is going to do for them.
So you've already pointed out who they are and what they are struggling with. So they're really overwhelmed with, uh, how to utilize those platforms to organically grow. Uh, an engaged audience of followers that they can turn into clients. And now you're going to talk about the after. So that's the before and now we're gonna talk about the after picture.
So you can say, "I am opening the doors for one week only to my signature program that is going to help you to get more of the right followers that are going to be, uh, engaged. You're going to learn how to put out content that they are excited about, that they find really valuable. You're going to learn how to attract more of those people and then convert them into paying clients or customers."
So you haven't gone into the details of the program yet, right? You are specifically talking about benefits, not features. So you, again, you want to allow them to decide if they are going to keep watching or not. So now they know, "Oh, Hey, I have self identified. She is talking to me. Cool. I'm going to keep watching."
And then you're like, okay, "Oh, so the benefits. So this thing that she's going to keep talking about, this is how it's going to benefit me." Right? Because as humans, we also want to know what is in it for me. Why should I be interested? So if you're watching that and you're like, "Oh wow, she's she has a program and it's gonna, it's gonna teach me how to like attract the right people and then how to talk and like put stuff out there so that I get really good engagement from those right people. And then through that engagement, it's going to make it so that I actually make more money because some of those people want to work with me. Like, ooh, this sounds kind of cool."
Right? So that's step two. So now step three, you're going to say, so some of my past, you know, people from the program or clients, whatever, it kinda depends uh, you know, if this is your first round launching it, or if you've launched this before, but you want to give social proof. So, you know, we think, "What's in it for me?"
And then we think, "Okay, but will it work for me?" Right? So before you dive in to the features, remember, we're still on benefits. You want to show them how it has benefited other people. How your method that they could learn in your program, how has it benefited, benefited other people? So you can show little like case studies or however you want to put it up in stories.
It doesn't have to be super formal. Cause remember it's stories. Stories are like pretty casual chill behind the scenes place to hang out. But you could just maybe show a picture of somebody with a quote from them. You could say, "You know, this is my, my past student, Jenny from the program when she started, she was just you know, randomly like posting, whenever she felt inspired. She was getting a lot of like really unengaged people who were following her and weird like bots and stuff. And she was constantly checking her numbers and stressed out why her, um, her follower count wasn't growing. Why she wasn't getting anyone, um, commenting or DM-ing her. And she just was really baffled over what the hell she was even supposed to talk about. But in just six weeks together, she was able to, uh, grow her follower count like 300%. And she now knows exactly what to post about each day. And she gets a ton of engagement you know, her engagement has increased by blah, blah, blah. And she booked, you know, three new clients over the course of the six weeks."
No, it doesn't have to be as detailed as that, but you want to show people what is possible with your offer. Give them some social proof. That's step three. So now step four are the features and this doesn't have to be a novel. It could just do some bullet points, right?
So it's six weeks. Uh, you get, um, you know, maybe a mini course. You get weekly check in calls where people can get their questions answered and you do live coaching with them. And the whole program is 497, right? So just the overview of the bullet points. And then last step, step five is your call to action.
So you say something like, you know, uh, "The doors are now open for one week only. And that, you know, if, if this is something that you are interested in, that you want to learn more about, that you want to be sure to save your seats, then DM me, right? Go to the link in my bio." Uh, especially if you are, if this was like a limited thing, right?
You're only allowing a certain amount of people in there. Be sure that you are saying that in your story. If you're like, "I only take 20 people at a time." Be sure to call that out because it's going to let the person know like, Hey, I shouldn't, I shouldn't wait. Cause other people are going to be watching this story too.
And this sounds really intriguing. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are immediately ready to buy. Maybe they need to get a few questions answered first. But you want to let them know, like don't wait around time is of the essence spots are limited. Uh, obviously, you know, be honest about it don't lie, but, um, but if that is the case, be sure to call it out, bring it to their attention.
And one thing I suggest is you can absolutely put it at the link in your bio, or if you use link tree or something like that, but also tell them, "Hey, DM, me and I will send you the link directly." And here's why. Think about if you're somebody who already is using stories. When you're on that platform, uh, when you're in the stories, part of the Instagram platform, it is so much easier to, uh, click the little DM box at the very bottom, right as you're watching that story to say, "Hey, can you send me the link or DM me the link?" Or you can just tell them, "DM me with the word 'link' and I will send you the link." Make it as easy as possible, because that is where they already are. If they have to close their stories, go back to your profile, click that link, and do more steps from there. It's just more steps. And any time you add more steps, you, uh, bring in the risk of people falling off because they want it to be as easy as possible for them. Right? And you also preventing them from forgetting.
So think about how many times you have been watching a story and you're like, "Oh, that's really interesting. Okay. But like, This other, like, I want to keep watching the stories." Right? Or like, "My friend's story is next. I want to see what's going on there." Or whatever. And you start to go down the rabbit hole of other people's stories, and then you totally forget that you want it to look at that thing. Right? I've done this so many times where I'm like, whether I'm scrolling or in stories or whatever, where I think, "Well, I'm just going to keep looking and then I'll go back."
Sometimes my brain can remember, it's like, "Oh yeah, go back to so-and-so's account." That's what you wanted to look at. But a lot of times my brain is like, "I don't even know what the hell was I looking at? What was it that I wanted to click on?" Right? So make it, just make it as easy as possible for them.
Because if they say, "Link, please." And then you give them a link, they have that right there in their DMs. Also, it means that let's say the cart is closing and they haven't, you haven't heard back from them. Right? You can reach back out and say, "Hey, were you still interested?"Because if you listened to my, uh, previous um, episode about like, "Are they ghosting me?"
Right? And I talked about, uh, the importance of followup, and I talked about how people, a lot of times just get forgetful. And we interpreted that as they're not interested, but it could just be that they forgot and they got distracted. Well, now, you know, they were interested. They asked you for the link. They are giving you permission to market to them by saying, "Hey, I'm over here. I'm interested."
So that way you always have people, like now let's say all 20, you know, seats get taken. You could always message them back and say, "Hey, I'm sorry, all 20 seats are already full. Can I put, do you want me to put you on a list for the next round that I do." Right? Then you can already pre-fill some of your spots for the next time you do it.
But don't assume that they just because they didn't enroll that they looked at it and decided they weren't interested. They may have totally forgotten. So just to quickly recap in the stories again, 80, 20 principle for selling, uh, you step number one is to call out who you are going to be speaking to so people can self-select if they want to keep watching or not.
Number two is, and in, in that step one, you're going to kind of, um, touch on some of their pain points, right? So not just like, you know, 30 year old moms or whatever, it's 30 year old moms who are overwhelmed with motherhood and want to get more personal time back. Like, let's say, that's what you do. Right?
So. You, uh, call out what their pain point, who they are and what their pain point is. So they can self-select if they want to keep listening to what you're, you're going to be talking about, uh, next up is, "Hey, I have this thing and this is what it's going to do for you." So you let them know I'm going to solve your problem.
And the after picture is going to look like XYZ. Step three, give some sort of social proof that your program works so that they can see that it's something that they should pay attention to and potentially invest in. Number three, then you talk about, you give just a brief overview of the logistics. And lastly, number five is, uh, can I say number three?
I don't know. The pre the, uh, the logistics was step four. Sorry. I don't remember if I, if I got the numbers wrong there. Um, logistics is step four and then step five is the call to action. And remember, it's always better to capture them right there in the stories, have them DM yous if they want the link and you can send it directly to them.
And then you can always just engage with them in the DMs, right? Learn more about them and, and things like that start to really grow that relationship. And, um, you will have a lot more success that way. And then even if they don't join. For this round, um, maybe they aren't the right fit, like fit after all for this.
And you have something else you could offer them instead. But either way you have now made a new connection of somebody that you can follow up with. Right? So those are my five steps to selling in Instastories. Um, if you're not already following me on Instagram, be sure to do that. I'm @erikatebbensconsulting, if you need more help with this, or you're trying to craft a new offer or something that you want to sell over there, always reach out to me because one of the things that I love doing is helping clients create new offers and, uh, find ways to sell those offers that feel really good and authentic.
And, um, and especially too, if you're like, well, "I don't know, like I'm, I'm struggling to like put together the offer. I'm struggling with the price I'm struggling with, like, what are the logistics? And I'm struggling with the social proof cause this is something I haven't done before." Just reach out to me. I'm happy to help. We will get to the bottom of it. We'll figure it out. And if you try this method and it works for you, let me know. I would love to hear some wins from you and as always, happy selling.
