513: 3 Simple Strategies To Increase Connection (& Sales) With Your Audience
Do you connect well with your audience? Today, I’m sharing 3 actionable tactics to increase connection with those who follow you, and ultimately boost sales. Strategies like using Instagram stories to showcase behind-the-scenes footage and your personality to create a deeper connection with your audience.
If you’ve struggled to remain authentic while standing out, and embracing what makes you unique in your messaging, listen in. I have simple strategies to help you create that connection, while remaining true to yourself.
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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Emily Hirsh:
You are listening to the Not for Lazy Marketers Podcast, episode number 513.
Hello my friends. I hope you guys are having an amazing week. I am doing amazing that right now I feel so amazing. I am really dialing in a lot of just things in my life. Health, I am doing a lot of personal development and healing and going really deep on things that I’ve probably ignored for a long time. And that’s leading to a lot of different things. Sometimes really uncomfortable conversations, sometimes really uncomfortable feelings. Sometimes me just being way outside my comfort zone. But overall I’ve gotten really clear on who I wanna be, how I want my life to be. And I’ve also been able to weigh, dial up things in my health and fitness you guys, if you’ve been around, you know, that’s, that’s probably like my biggest passion. Marketing first and then health and fitness. Like if I wasn’t in marketing, I’d be in the health and fitness industry cuz I just love it.
I love optimizing the body to like the maximum capacity and trading it like an athlete and knowing all the data. So I started CrossFit three months ago and of course I can’t just start CrossFit and not take it to the next level. I can’t just go to every CrossFit class every day of the week. I need to train even harder. So, because I don’t know if I’ll ever make it to the games and I don’t say that cuz like, I don’t believe I couldn’t do it. It’s just, I mean, I’m 28, which is young, but these athletes that are really good are like 17 and I am just starting and they’ve been doing it for so long and it’s pretty competitive. But my goal is to make it past like the first round, maybe next year, maybe it’ll take me one more year which is what is it?
The opens. So I am doing extra training sessions and trying to push doing double workouts three days this week. So I’ve got a whole plan, it’s all dialed in and I feel really good about it. Anyways, that’s the life update. Things are good. I’m probably going to do an episode soon that will just kind of share with you guys like a bunch of my life hacks that I’ve been implementing and kind of share that behind the scenes of, of me and my personality because I’m definitely realizing that I’m pretty unique in the way that I structure my life and my day, but it leads to a lot of my success. So maybe I’ll do that soon. Okay, today’s episode, I wanted to give you guys a very easy to implement tactical episode today. And so what I wanna talk about is just four strategies that all of you guys could pretty quickly implement that will help increase the connection with your audience and therefore the sales.
And I think coming back to the roots of always remembering like why we’re doing what we’re doing in marketing and why we’re doing what we’re doing is to build relationships and to build connection and to build that with your audience so that they trust you and they want more of your content and then ultimately wanna buy from you, right? And so I think that gets a lost frequently in all of the funnels and strategies and content and things that we need to do and gaps that we need to fill, which is easy for that to happen. But at the end of the day, we’re really just trying to connect to humans and the people who can do that the best, honestly have the most successful marketing campaigns. So these are four strategies that you can implement really easily, even if you don’t have a huge audience, but also if you do have an audience, it’s just reminders of things that you should be doing.
And they are all things that I do and some of them that I have reignited recently and it’s been really positive. So the first strategy is using specifically Instagram stories, but you can use any social media for this. I just think Instagram stories is such a great way to connect with people because it can lead to conversations. It allows you to show clips and small behind the scenes of your day and just really bring down a wall that a lot of us have, even if we don’t mean to on social media just through posts. And so I personally love stories now. I mean, I love stories in the way that it creates a connection. I’ve had to work very hard to maintain boundaries with it because I for sure don’t wanna live my life. Like, oh my gosh, I gotta record this, I gotta record this.
So I do a lot of batch stuff for my story. So if for example, I do something all day on a Saturday, I’ll post at the end of the day on stories like it’s not happening real time, but I really love stories for how it is an opportunity for creating connection with my audience and allowing you guys to see a different viewpoint than just post could or videos could or even the podcast could. And so if you’re not using your Instagram stories to showcase things like your day, what you’re working on, what you’re doing, your personality, like, what makes you unique. So this sounds really silly, but for me, one of the things that I’m leaning into more is I do this work and I, and I learn to really step into my power and who I am without trying to be somebody that I think somebody else wants me to be or society wants me to be or whatever, is lean into the fact that I’m so disciplined.
And I’ve done recently a lot of reflection on how there’s a lot of stories here, but I was really weird as a kid. Like I was really disciplined. I was telling my husband last night, like, I can remember being 10 years old and planning my day out hour by hour and like tracking my food and setting goals on Sunday for week. Like I was truly just born that way. And so that’s a natural part of me that has led to so much of my success and my, a lot of my audience really appreciates and looks up to that discipline. But when I was a kid, sometimes it was looked down on, it was like, why can’t you just have more fun? Like, you need to relax, you know, this isn’t normal for a 10 year old to be doing this. And so I think that I over time kind of developed this thing of like, oh my insane, like discipline is weird and didn’t show it as much.
And so I do. But anyways, that’s something that’s a part of my personality, that’s something that makes me unique and ultimately that people enjoy and are inspired by and are connected by. And so I’ve tried to bring that more into, especially my stories content in general. But it’s just this opportunity for people to see like behind the veil and share things that are relevant that make you different. Because that’s how you stand out and that’s how people build a connection with you. And you’re gonna have some people who totally, you know, gel with you and they’re like, oh my gosh, I’m really drawn to this. I’m really inspired by this, or I want more of this, or whatever it is. And then you will have some people who are not, and that is okay. And I’ve talked a lot about that recently because I think that’s actually really important because that’s how you stand out.
So the first strategy is using your Instagram stories and thinking about how can I let people in, in a strategic way and showcase the behind the scenes, showcase my personality more things that maybe you’re like, I don’t know, that’s a little weird. Try and show that and see what happens and see what their response is. I’ve been doing this thing on my Instagram where I say like, what’s up today? And I share what I’m doing and I do it on the weekends. And it’s just one slide and it’s like what I’m doing that day. And people love it. You guys love it. And at first I was like, this is so boring. Like half the time I do the same things every day. But people just love to see how you’re spending your day and, and how, and I actually love it.
Like there’s people I follow who do something similar and I enjoy seeing how they spend their day. It gives you inspiration, it gives you ideas, you name it. So what is a way that you can let people in? And and it’s important here, like don’t just go do exactly what somebody else is doing unless it feels really authentic to you. Do something that feels really authentic to you. When you can bring your personality and your creativity into your content, that’s where the magic happens. Okay? So that’s strategy number one. Strategy number two is super simple, often way overlooked. And that is ask open-ended questions in your emails. I love doing this. We do this frequently in our automated emails, like our automations attached to a funnel. I think maybe every three to four we ask a question and then we’ll also throw these into our regular emails that we send out to our list.
So this is a great way to encourage engagement. And also if people respond to your email, it actually massively helps your email deliverability score. So you get rated, I don’t know how the algorithms work exactly, but I know for a fact like if someone responds to your email, it will help your overall score for your domain, but also it will never end up in that person’s spam. Like if they reply to the email, then Gmail or whatever kind of deems your email as a good quality one. And so it actually helps in that way too. But it’s super easy. It’s not like you’re gonna be stuck with hours and hours of like customer service responses. Now if people respond, I do recommend you respond back <laugh>, like obviously that would be nice to do that. But it really is not that hard. Like sometimes I say this and people are like, oh, I don’t have time to be responding to people.
And I think that you should pause and think about that. I know where it’s coming from, especially if you don’t have a big team or you don’t have support, but what, what are you trying to do with your marketing then? Like that’s such an opportunity to have conversations and you know, a positive interaction like that with your audience. That is a good use of time. Now obviously you wanna ultimately have somebody supporting you on your team in your inboxes, but if you don’t right now I still think it’s worth it. Try to do that and ask a question. Like it can be as simple as, you know, give me a two word check in on how you’re feeling about this or what is your number one struggle? Or you can even make it fun, like you can play with it. It’s just a great opportunity for engagement.
Number three is within your content. And this can be email, social media, podcasts, whatever you use for content. Find places for authentic vulnerability. People really relate when you’re real, because everybody is or should be growing and healing from something or working on something or, you know, maybe struggling with something at the moment. We all go through seasons, we all go through different things and there is definitely a balance to walk with this. Like I, I do believe in pausing to share something fully until you can share it from a responsible place where you can share takeaways, but I also don’t think it does as much. Good when you wait to share until like six months later and you’re like, yeah, that really hard thing that I went through, but I’m better now. Like, things are great now. So, but I’m gonna share that hard thing, which is fine.
I mean, at least you’re sharing that hard thing. But I think there’s so much to be said for authentic in the now vulnerability. And that can be as simple as like, man, I am just really struggling with my mindset this week and, and believing that I can do this or whatever it is your audience. What that does is it makes you human to them. And because the reality is everybody struggles. Everybody struggles with things one way or another. And so when you do that, you are creating a massive connection. Now I use the word authentic here because it needs to feel authentic. It can feel a little uncomfortable, like when you’re vulnerable sometimes, and this still happens to me, I’m like, oh my God, should I have said all that <laugh>, that vulnerability hangover after something ha you release something or you share something so uncomfortable is okay, but don’t like, be like, okay, I need to be vulnerable because that’s gonna create connection with my audience.
So I’m gonna start crying on video when I never would do that. You know, like people will sense that too. Like if there’s an ulterior motive besides just being authentic and connecting with your audience, then people are gonna also pick up on that. So make sure that it feels natural to you, however you share. And push yourself maybe a little outside your comfort zone in doing that. I shared this, I think it was a week or two ago on the podcast, but I had a really powerful conversation with a client who was like, I’m really trying to, you know, create more connection with our audience and create a really solid mission and like go really deeper in what we do. And he said that at the beginning of the call and then towards the end of the call he shared with myself and one of my team members how he was really struggling and he had something upcoming that was related to the industry he’s in.
And he wasn’t feeling prepared and he wasn’t feeling like he did all of the, you know, training that he should have done for it and all these things. And he got really emotional about it and he’s like, and everybody’s like looking to me because I should be the best or I should be one of the best cuz I’m a leader in this industry. And I said, you know what? I guarantee you if you get on video and you share that life got in the way and you weren’t able to get all your training in and you’re feeling really bad about it and you’re, you’re gonna go give it your absolute best, but you, you feel like you’re under prepared, you feel the pressure of, of people, you know, expecting something from you and you c you know, you can’t wait, but you, you’re feeling this and just be really raw.
I said, I 100% guarantee you so many people would connect with that because that’s 98% of the people, like even the best athletes or even the best, you know, business owners or whatever your industry is, life happens and we are human. And so if you can create that connection and be real and not have, you know, a a a huge wall up, it will create really authentic connection. And the way that, you know, social media has gone in the last year to two years is people don’t want the filters. They don’t want the too good to be true narrative. Like they sense that and they want to see the real thing and that’s how they’re gonna ultimately trust your business. So think about from you and your perspective and your business, what is an action or maybe it’s something you’re going through right now that you could have the courage to share authentically that would bring make your audience feel less alone and connect with them.
And for me, I love doing this because I get uncomfortable doing it for sure. And you know, there are times that I, I am like, have to really think through how I want to share something, but for me it, it allows me, I feel it’s one of my purposes because I have a platform and so I get to share the real, the reality and the real behind the scenes and how things really are in business or as a mom and a business owner or whatever. And I get to share that and I get to share that with my platform. And so I feel that that gives me a way bigger impact than if I didn’t do that. Okay. Okay, the fourth strategy, this is the fourth and last strategy I have, is engage your audience in the content you create. Even if you have a small audience, try to ask questions or spark discussion that will help you drive what content you create.
I frequently will ask a question in my dms or I will ask a question on my stories. Or sometimes we’re paying attention to comments that are happening on our social posts or if I’m on a training and I use all of those things to drive my content for my podcast, for my social media, because at the end of the day, why am I creating content for my audience? Why else would I create content? It’s to serve my audience. And so if I just sit here in my own head all the time and go, well this is what I think the best thing is, yes, I have a responsibility to break things down really clearly and share lessons and deliver it in the most clear and simple way. But a lot of times your audience will tell you what they wanna hear more of. They’ll tell you what they’re confused, overwhelmed about what got them excited.
And so engage your audience in the content and then allow those questions and discussions to drive at least some of what you create. I think sometimes that there are things that your audience doesn’t know that they need to hear and that’s totally okay to include in your content. But a lot of times I have content inspiration from listening to my audience and pulling out a takeaway that they didn’t even know they needed, but it was from a discussion that I either saw or had, you know, on a training or whatever. So regardless of the size of your audience, maybe it’s once a month, maybe it’s twice a month, just ask yourself, how could I use my audience and engage them in discussion
And the ability to ask questions to help drive my content? Cuz why are you creating your content? It’s for them right at the end of the day. So those are four strategies you guys can do to increase the connection with your audience, which ultimately will absolutely increase your sales. I hope you guys found that helpful. Thanks so much for listening and I will talk to you on Thursday.
Thanks for listening to the Not for Lazy Marketers Podcast.