ep 457: Increase Your Sales Conversion With This – 2022 Secret Strategies Series #4
In the 4th episode of my 2022 Secret Strategies series, we are diving into a topic I get asked about all the time – how to increase your sales conversions.
It’s probably not a surprise that the number one way to increase your sales conversions is to increase the amount of engagement, conversations, and positive interactions you’re having with your audience and leads.
The goal is connection. Makes sense, right?
But HOW to do that, and how to do it really well, isn’t always as obvious.
So if you are looking for tactical ways to build those relationships with your audience (and in turn, increase those sales conversions), look no further. This episode is chock-full of strategies that are working right now in our client accounts, and you can implement them today.
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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Emily Hirsh:
The way that you increase your sales conversion is you increase the amount of engagement, the amount of conversations, the amount of positive interaction, trust building, relationship building that you are having with your audience and with your leads.
You are listening to the Not for Lazy Marketers podcast, episode number 457.
Hello my friends. Welcome to day four of this series. I hope you guys are enjoying this. If you’re just tuning in cuz this is a regularly published podcast day. I’m doing a series this week, five episodes, all about secret strategies from 2022 and really getting specific so that you guys can take things and go actually take action, implement them in your business and they are based off of what truly works. I sat down last week and I looked at all of my different strategy calls that I’ve done. I’ve done over 50 for clients and created these custom marketing strategies and just looked at what am I recommending to multiple people, what is working, what is different, what is innovative? And then also what am I using in my own marketing? Because one of the reasons that I am such a good marketer and I am so good at marketing strategy is I try a lot of stuff like you name it, I have tried it myself and so I learn that way and I use my business, my own business as a way to learn and to test things out to then bring that into clients.
And that’s super powerful. So today we’re gonna talk about ways to increase your sales conversion. And this is super important in funnels where you feel like either you’re getting leads or you’re getting traffic and they’re not turning into sales or maybe there’s opportunity that you don’t even realize and you have a profitable funnel and you are making sales but you want to make even more of them and you are actually leaving opportunity on the table because you are not capitalizing on them. So these are really specific ideas and strategies. So first of all, this is all centered around creating opportunities for engagement and conversations. That is the core strategy that all these micro strategies I’m gonna talk about are related around because the way that you increase your sales conversion is you increase the amount of engagement, the amount of conversations, the amount of positive interaction, trust building, relationship building that you are having with your audience and with your leads.
Because here’s the reality, you guys like 98 to 99% of your leads and your audience consuming your content or following you on social media or in any way, shape or form coming into contact with your brand is not ready to buy from you today or even in the next week, 99% of them, but a huge percentage of them will be ready to buy in the coming months, in the coming years. And so if you look at your business from this long term perspective and your goal is to have so many positive interactions with your brand to create that for your audience and your leads, you will absolutely increase your sales conversion. So here’s some ideas. First I’m gonna start with direct message strategies because that’s obviously a great way to get conversations going and then I’m gonna talk a little bit about SMS text message strategies cuz those are two ways to really get conversations going and increase that and be able to open up that opportunity for trust building, for sending someone a piece of value or for maybe sending ’em to your offer if it’s the right fit for them.
So this first strategy is a newer one that I tested and I’ve had a few clients test that I think you guys will get a lot of value out of. And that is using the tool called Bonjoro. If you haven’t heard of it, I’m not like an affiliate or anything, I just think it’s a cool tool and it basically sends people a video and so you can do a lot of cool stuff with it. You can actually integrate it with your email software so when somebody gets a tag, their contact ends up in Bonjoro or you can upload a list of emails or you can manually send VI videos to an email. But basically you can send a video and it comes through really nicely in the email because it shows the video kind of plain in the email with a message and then they can click to reply and it stays right all in boner underneath that video.
And so there’s so many ways that you can use this to start a conversation, but one of them that I just tested is a couple weeks ago I did a paid workshop and after that workshop I recorded a video and we sent it out personally using each individual email address so that if they replied it was their own personal conversation, we sent them out this video. And I’ve also had clients implement this to engaged people in an email sequence. So people who they are seen are actually watching their webinar or in some way shape or form engaging maybe opening the emails, they’re showing interest in what that client is doing through a follow up sequence. I have them send a video and you don’t have to do a different one for every person. I recorded one video that felt very personal and it was very simple.
It was like, hey, thanks for coming to my training. I would love to know what you thought and see how I can support you further. It felt like I was just setting them a personal video but I didn’t record 60 of those. We used one and then I did personally go in and respond to the people who responded to my video. And I got so much number one, positive feedback and testimonials basically from my workshop that are great, I can use that in the future. Just so much wins and praise for what I taught. I also got people who shared what their biggest marketing struggle was and I was able to send them either to a free piece of content or a one or two people I just gave really great advice to in a single message. It took me three minutes to send that message or I send a couple people to our application and I send another one to our marketing accelerator product.
And so I was able to send people and provide value whether that was a paid option or just advice or a free option. But what that does is no matter if all I did was respond and say like, Hey, I would focus on this and here’s my advice based on your struggle, that creates a positive interaction that who knows when that person is gonna come back and choose to work with me and what if they never do? My goal is still to provide value but you never know. And if you do those little things, do you know how sending that video stayed in people’s mind? Wow, I got so many messages that were like, this is so cool, this just makes me wanna work with you. And that is a positive interaction, a memorable interaction. That’s how you stand out as you get creative in this way.
And it’s all about relationships in that trust and creating these interactions and engagement. So there’s so many creative ways that you can use this. We’re gonna be using it in different ways. We’ll continue to use it kind of on the back end of a workshop or a webinar. We also have it in our application for people who come in and they don’t book a call, we’re gonna send them a video or if there’s the right fit for them as more so a digital product. And it doesn’t take me that long to respond to these messages and maybe someday I’ll have my team help me, but right now I literally respond to them myself because it keeps me connected to my audience and it keeps, takes me maybe 10, 15 minutes in a day that’s nothing and it lights me up. I was super inspired by the messages back with the positive feedback and experience from my workshop and then it keeps me really connected to the people that I’m here to serve.
So there’s a lot of creative things you can do with a DRO video to start conversations. The next thing is getting people to dmu. I do this mostly on Instagram. I guess you could do this on Facebook or other social platforms, but I like doing this on Instagram. And so what you can do is have somebody DM you a keyword to get something for free. So maybe it’s a checklist, maybe it’s a swipe file, maybe it’s a calculator, something really useful, not like another video or something that just isn’t super valuable or super actionable. I would have it more be like a checklist to swipe file, something really like juicy but also actionable. And you can put this on the thank you page of an opt-in as a call to action to say, Hey, send me a message and I’ll send you xyz. You can put this in an email sequence, you can put this on both.
All of these things start a conversation. And so I have people do this and then I send them the gift and then I ask them a question if they did it because they watched my training, I asked them what they thought about the training, if they did it because they went to a speaking event. I still get messages from my social media marketing world. I did a speech almost a year ago, or it was the end of last year or maybe it was the beginning of this year, I literally don’t remember. But I spoke at Social Media Marketing World and in my speech I put semi the SM M W keyword in Instagram and I will send you a free gift. And I still get messages like eight months later I still get messages from that and that starts conversations. And then I can ask them, they think, what’d they learn?
I ask people, what are you gonna implement? And then I’m able to start this conversation that maybe it leads to working with us, maybe it leads to me mentioning a product or a couple times I’ve mentioned me creating their marketing strategy for them and doing an intensive, who knows? But the goal is not that. The goal is to create a positive interaction with them and to build that relationship. So this is a super easy thing that you can add in. There’s lots of different ways you can do it. Do it, play with it. There’s no right or wrong way. As long as you’re coming at it from a place of serving and a place of connecting, you can’t really go wrong. The next thing is another idea that I implement with clients and I have also done myself, which is just like you add a field for a phone number on an opt-in form, I add an optional field for Instagram handle because then when people opt in, we’re able to go send them a message based on their Instagram handle and basically say, Hey, I know you just signed up for this and what do you think about it and how can I help you?
Something really simple like that. I just record a really casual video of just like that and we send it to them on Instagram and then again that starts a conversation and that could lead to them following you, it could lead to them. Now starting to watch your stories, consuming your content. I get messages all the time after we do that that are like, oh my gosh, I just spent an hour in all of your content. And I’m like, that’s amazing. I mean you have to do anything. I sent you this message and you just gave me an hour of your attention. That’s incredible amount of relationship building. And they can go through my feet on just as simple as going through my videos on social media and binging that. And how often do we do that? Do you find someone that you really resonate with and you connect with and then you just binge some of their content?
I want people to do that with me. And even if it doesn’t lead to a sale or a next step today, it will in the future. It’s just a matter of time. And so playing this relationship building in long game is so key. So you can easily add an optional field. I make it optional on your opt-in form for Instagram handle. And then the key is what you do with it. And actually following up, I like to do a video with a simple message related to what they signed up for so it feels very personal and just say like, Hey, I wanted to connect. I’d love to know how I can support you as it relates to your marketing. Let me know what you thought of xyz. And also I would love to know what your biggest struggle is so I can support you, send you in the right direction, answer a question for you and just I’m so happy you’re here.
Something really basic like that is something else that you can easily do with a webinar, with an opt-in, with literally anything. And half of those people you might not be able to find on Instagram or they might have a private profile or whatever, but half you might be able to find. And then what if 25% of those actually respond to you and engage in a conversation? That’s huge And that’s utilizing leads you’re already bringing in and you are already doing the work to attract. So then the next thing I have, the last thing just for dms is just tying it into your content. So I will frequently, if it makes sense in my podcast or when I’m doing a webinar or in an email sequence, I will have a call to action to send me a message. You guys have heard me that even this week on hearsay, share this series on Instagram.
Tag me so I can thank you. I’m one doing that. Yes. So you share it. But I also always send a message to those people. I ask them what they thought about the training and I truly come at it from the perspective of connecting. And I think that is one of the key things I want you to take away from this. Out of all of these strategies, and this is where people miss is they make the goal of direct messages to sell. And you would never do that, right? You’d never go into an in-person interaction and say within five minutes, okay, well here’s my product. And so do you wanna buy it? You would first, if you’re talking to an in-person person, you would have a real conversation. You would understand what they’re struggling with, you’d understand what they want, you’d understand what they need and then you’d make a recommendation.
And if your offer is the right recommendation, make it, that’s great. And all the worst that’s gonna happen is they say no. But there’s also some cases where your offer is not the right recommendation, they may not be ready. And so don’t not reply to those people. Give them an encouraging message, send them a message that tells them something they could go implement. Give them a free resource. Or even better, you could send them to somebody else who specializes in what they need. And I’ve done that before too because my goal is to serve and my goal is to connect. And I never know when that person may become a sale in the future. And if I serve them today and connect with them today and I don’t act too good like oh, I’m not gonna respond to these three people because they’re clearly not ready to pay me.
We would never do that in real, in person, in a room with humans. And we forget this in our marketing. And so you never know when it’s gonna come full circle. And that’s just how you have to operate and how I’ve learned to operate. And it’s a muscle. It also doesn’t come naturally cuz we’re busy and it’s easy to be like, oh, well put the attention where the money is today, but also play the long game of the goal is interaction, engagement, relationship building and connecting. And I can tell you that our clients hands down that are the most successful, they do this, they give this time themselves personally to connecting with their audience. I can’t really think of a lot of better uses of my time than spending 15, 20 minutes a day intentionally connecting with my audience. Whether that’s through dms, whether that’s through responding to juro videos, whether that’s me sharing something on stories.
I think social media can definitely be a negative consumption thing for us. And I really do sometimes struggle with that because I don’t wanna be on it with my kids and I don’t wanna be aimlessly scrolling it. But I also think there’s a really powerful piece to it in the opportunity to connect. And there’s a lot of gratitude I have for it because of the amount of people that I can connect with from my house and I can’t think of a much better use of my time than spending time connecting with my audience. And I do see sometimes people who hit a certain level in business, let’s say they get to seven figures and then they tell themselves and they convince themselves that they are too good to be responding to dms and to be responding to email or connecting with their audience. And it’s because there’s this message out there.
And I’ve had this message fed to me too and I’ve had it corrected by amazing coaches and mentors. But this fed this message of once you get to the certain level, you shouldn’t actually be doing anything in your business. You should have a team doing everything, running everything. It should be easy, you should be outsourcing. And if you’re not, you’re doing it wrong. But losing that connection with your audience and acting like coming off with that energy of like, well, I’m too good to respond to dms or I’m too good to connect with my audience or how in whatever format that is, it just, it’s not gonna serve you and you don’t deserve to get sales from those people because today they can’t in this moment buy from you where they’re not at the business level or the level you want them to be at.
And you’re like, oh well you’re not worth my time. And it’s truly like I say this because it has to be a conscious thing that you’re aware of. And it comes from understanding the long game because you absolutely, if you are consistent and you show up in the way that I’m describing and you connect with people and you prioritize that you will get people five years down the line who have consumed your content for five years and they finally are ready to buy from you. And when you look at it from that perspective and you play this long game of the impact you wanna have on people and not the sales today, this week, it will all just happen. You’ll get the sales this week, but you’ll also get the sales in a year from now and five years from now and you’re building. That’s how you build a movement.
That’s how you build a bigger movement. So those are all my strategies for, oh, I have one more DM strategy actually, which is really simple. And this came from my friend George Bryant and we actually just started implementing it cause I think it’s brilliant, which is any new follower that you get on Instagram that followed you in the last day, the next day, send them a video and a little message. I did mine prerecorded, I’m gonna update it every few weeks. My friend George is awesome and he does it personal. He said if he gets a lot of followers, he won’t do it personal, but he sends people like a quick personal video. I can’t do that yet. I think I, it’s better than me not sending anything. And so I haven’t committed to doing that yet. But I did record a really personal video just saying, Hey, I’m so excited you’re here.
Welcome to my world. I love to get to know you a little bit better and I would love to understand what’s your biggest marketing struggle right now so I could support you. And that has led my dms are flooded after we started doing this with conversations with people saying they love my content or people saying here’s my biggest struggle and giving me the opportunity to help them. And it’s amazing right there. Created all this opportunity for connection and for creating these conversations that who knows where they will lead. And here’s the other thing you guys, when you have this conversation and do you think when I send that boner video or I send that video to a new follower, they’re probably gonna go tell their friends, maybe not everybody cuz it’s not that cool, but I guarantee you a few people were like, whoa, did you see this?
This is so cool. I just got a video from Emily or whatever and oh I followed this girl and I got this video. And then that gets someone interested. Okay? So you never know the conversations that people have about you and about their experience with their brand that that person might lead to a sale down the line or maybe this week you never know. And so you have to play this game of the goal is connection to the maximum level and you’re probably sitting on a lot of opportunity right now with your current assets. I’m gonna talk briefly about text messages too cuz I said that was another way to do that in here. So right now, for the most part with clients and myself, I send out text messages as a part of just broadcasting. And I think they’re smart because they definitely are opened more.
But you have to be respectful with them. You can’t send as many as you can with emails. You have to be short to the point. Do not send an essay on text messages. Obviously they come up way shorter. I mean way longer when you send something in the text message box. And so if I do a promotion, if I do a webinar and let’s say we’re sending out five or six emails, we’ll send out two to three text messages. So it’s about half of what we would send in terms of email and then they’re very short and straight to the point. So I think from that perspective, text messages are great and it’s smart to get phone numbers and leverage them in that way. I have tested different platforms where people can actually reply to your text message. One of them was community. I do not like it or recommend it personally.
I know there’s a lot of people in the space that recommend it, but it’s because they’re getting paid to recommend it. Community keeps your data in a way that I don’t think is very cool because if you leave community, you don’t have the phone numbers, which is shady to me. And at least that’s how it was when I tried it. And then I also just didn’t like the experience for the person to get on the text message list. There was a way too many loopholes. So we stopped using community. I would love, I think it is smart, especially if you’re high ticket, to have a text messaging platform where people can actually respond to the text and have a conversation with you. It’s not something I’m currently doing. But for some clients that especially have people who want to start these conversations, appointment set, whatever, that is a strategy that you can definitely do because text messages are opened more obviously than emails are.
And then I’ll also mention automated dms and messengers. Cause I know you guys will ask about MiniChat. MiniChat can be great. I have used it and it can be great for starting a conversation, but I don’t generally ever recommend this fully automated MiniChat sequence where you have five messages and you build it all out and it’s automated. I just think it feels it. It’s not meant Messenger is not meant to feel automated like email. And so I think you can get people in an automated way if you want have that first message that someone, let’s say comments or clicks for something free and they get it sent to them via mini chat. It could be automated so it’s immediate and then you come in and follow up with either you or a team member to actually have real true conversations. That’s how I would do it.
I don’t love mini chat for this reason because there’s this weird thing, and I think it’s Facebook policy actually, but where if you wanna go send a broadcast to all of your subscribers, they have to have engaged with your page in the last 24 hours, which is like, who’s gonna do that? That’s not a lot of people. So if I’m paying mini chat this monthly fee for all my subscribers that I’m getting on mini chat and then I wanna send out a broadcast because I’m doing a live webinar, I can only actually send it to the subscribers who have engaged in the last 24 hours and that’s gonna be a very small percentage of all these subscribers that I’m paying a monthly fee to mini chat. So that for that reason we sometimes turn on our mini chat and turn it off and use it for a few things, but I don’t regularly use it.
And all of the DM strategies I talked about sending a video, having people DM a keyword. Right now I have my team supporting me or myself in there just responding and it honestly doesn’t take that much, much time. It really doesn’t. Like unless you’re gonna be dealing with hundreds of messages a day, 20, 30, it’s not that much. 15, 20 minutes and you can bang through a bunch of ’em. So all right you guys, this is a lot of tactical strategies in here. I hope you guys found this helpful and I know if you implement just one or two of these, it will massively improve your sales conversion. And the cool thing is with existing audience and leads like with work you’re already doing, it will probably and most likely improve that sales conversion, both short term and long term because the long term is a really important piece of this.
If at any point during this series you’ve listened to this and gone, I want Emily’s brain and these custom strategies created for me, you can go to help my strategy.com and fill out an application to work with our team. But something else I realize that I don’t talk about the other day is that I do intensives with people and so I will do like a half day or two hours and completely build out your marketing strategy, your email marketing, every single detail, just getting my brain on your business. And I’m feeling out doing more of those because I’ve enjoyed so much doing the strategy calls in our agency and won’t be doing those. We hired a strategist and so we’re working on offloading those off my plate, which we have an amazing strategist who’s going through my training, which was quite in depth, but I really love doing the strategy.
So if having some sort of marketing intensive with me where I deep dive into your marketing, we plan your next year’s marketing, and I mean from ads to customer journey to your funnel, to your email marketing to your sales and ad spend projections, to what platforms to market on, everything. If that is of interest to you, send me a message because I realize I don’t talk about it and I am gonna talk about it more because I love being able to do this for companies and deep dive and I’m honestly really good at it. So you can send me a message on Instagram if that’s of interest of for you, if getting a done for you strategy or and going through and working with our agency, getting a strategy full done for you, ads management, copy, creative funnel work, all the things is what you need for your business. Then you can go to help my strategy.com and chat with our team. All right guys, I’ll be back tomorrow with the fifth and final episode of this series. I hope you’ve enjoyed it and I’ll talk to you soon.
Thanks for listening to the Not for Lazy Marketers podcast. If you love this episode and want deeper support with your marketing, head over to helpmystrategy.com to see how Hirsh Marketing can help take your marketing to the next level no matter where you’re at today. We help our clients scale faster than ever, find hidden leaks in their funnel, experiment with new creative marketing strategies, and help their business explode and be more profitable than they ever dreamed possible. Head over to helpmystrategy.com and see if you qualify for a free strategy audit with Team Hirsh.