The Social Media Takeaway - Louise McDonnell

Turn Your Social Media Time into Sales

• Louise McDonnell • Season 1 • Episode 35

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Are you spending hours on social media but not seeing those hours turn into sales? You're not alone—69% of businesses feel the same way! In this solo episode, I’ll be diving into how you can maximize your social media time to drive real results, not just engagement. I'll walk you through the four stages of the customer journey, common mistakes I see people making, and how to build a customized social sales funnel that converts followers into paying customers.

And if you're ready to take this to the next level, I have a 3-Day Live Challenge in September from the 24th to the 26th. Join me as I help you create your own social sales funnel. By the end of the three days, you'll have a solid plan to turn your social media time into money in the bank! 

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Welcome to the Social Media Takeaway. I'm your host, Louise Louise McDonnell, and this is the show for business people that want to know how to use social media to drive sales and leads for their business. If you enjoy the show, make sure you subscribe. And if you know of anyone who the advice might benefit, please make sure that you share it with them. them. So today I'm doing a solo episode. I'm going to be talking about a subject which is very close to my heart, and it is how to turn your social media time into sales. So 69 percent of businesses that I surveyed tell me that they feel they are spending a lot of time on social media, but it doesn't actually translate into sales and leads. And so that is a huge issue because What we want to do on social media is spend the minimum amount of time possible getting the best possible results. And the best possible results is money in your bank account. not followers, it's not engagement, and they are important metrics. Obviously, it's money in your bank account. So if what you're doing on social media isn't turning into Sales and customers, then you need to change it up. And so that's what I want to talk to you about today in today's show. People tend to fall into two camps. They're either not using social media at all or else they are on social media, but they're not getting results. So if any of the following resonates with you, if you're feeling overwhelmed or you don't know where to start, That's very common. They're the most common things that people say to me when I'm talking to customers. Other things people say to me is that they feel they're shooting in the dark or going around in circles, or they have this kind of stop start approach or a scattergun approach. So if any of that resonates with you, Don't worry, it's quite normal and I'm going to share with you a system here today, which is going to help you get the results that you want in your business. So what we're going to talk about are challenges faced by service based entrepreneurs, reasons, three reasons why selling services is actually harder, four stages of the customer journey and the biggest mistakes to avoid at each stage of the customer journey. And then I'm going to talk to you about the three steps for building your social profile. Sales funnel. So I'm so passionate about social media marketing because I can see the potential. I can see that businesses with just a few hundred followers can actually make a huge difference to their bottom line. if they use it properly, if they use it effectively, and in fact, The people that I work with use the system I'm about to share with you over this podcast. So there are 8 billion people in the, in the world. 5 billion of them are social media users. And again, I challenge you, like when you are out and about of a day when you're, let's say waiting in a waiting room or when you're waiting for your children at an event, just check out all the people around you on their phones and check out what they're using. And you'll see that the majority of them are on social media. Now what has become a trend in recent years is that people are passively consuming social media, but all we need to know is that they are there and that we have the opportunity to reach them. So the average social media user is on social media. Believe it or not, three to four hours a day, and they are being bombarded with commercial messages. They say on average between about three and 5, 000 commercial messages a day. And with the advent of AI and AI generated content, that is just increasing exponentially all the time. So the question is, how do you stand out in the crowd? Now, if you are creating generic Content, which is the samesy, samesy, samesy as everyone else, you won't stand out. And if you're doing that, you may be ticking a box that yes, you're on social media, but I guarantee you it won't work for your business and it will never translate into new customers for you. So another thing that has been tended to notice in recent times is that it's really getting harder to achieve organic reach. Now what is organic reach? You may ask. Organic means non paid for and reach is the number of people that see your content on social media, that see your posts. So when you create a post on social media, it's the number of people that see that. That's what I mean when I speak about organic reach. Now, organic reach has plummeted in recent times. On Instagram, it's dropped. 18 percent year on year on Facebook, the reach of a, of a Facebook page on average around the world is somewhere around 1. 95%, which is just absolutely rubbish. LinkedIn. You still get some decent organic reach there. So it's the one platform apart from Tik TOK, LinkedIn is you can get some decent organic reach there. Same with Tik TOK, YouTube. Yes, you can get organic reach, But smaller channels do tend to struggle with visibility. So, so getting in front of people has been an issue. Organic reaches is certainly diminishing. Now, anyone who works with me knows I'm an advocate of paid reach. So if you cannot reach people organically, you can pay to reach them. Again, it's really important that your messaging is really strong and persuasive, and link back to your overall strategy if you're going to spend money, because you want to make that spend worthwhile. So why is selling services harder? Well, essentially. Selling services is harder than selling products because you cannot see a service. The service is delivered and consumed simultaneously. People become part of service delivery. And so people, your customer cannot separate the service from the person delivering it. And so that really changes how we approach service marketing and that changes how service providers or service based entrepreneurs use social media. If you're a service based entrepreneur and if on your social media, there is no, sign of you. If you're not visible in any shape or form, if your content's just too generic or too full of stock images or stock videos or, or just image posts that don't contain you, you're missing a trick. So in service marketing, it's more important than ever to be the face of your business. And in an AI world, that is actually more important than ever. So the number one difference in service marketing is that the service is delivered and consumed at the same time, and it's delivered by a person. And so if the service is not good, Well, then the experience will be not good. So have you ever gone into a five star restaurant where there's the most beautiful decor and the most beautiful food? But if you've had a poor experience, you go away and you say that wasn't good because you cannot separate the service from the actual experience itself. So people cannot separate service from the people delivering it. And so again, how does this impact on social media? Well, we know that people will buy from people that they know, like, and trust. So the advantage we have on social media is that we have the opportunity to get in front of people multiple times, week in, week out. And so we know that when we reach people multiple times on message. With a persuasive message and authentic message that they will get to know us, they will get to know like us and they will get to trust us because people don't buy from people they don't trust. Okay. So it's really important. And so the number one mistake that I see service based entrepreneurs making is that they, you know, may show up with their, you know, new offer and they say, here's my offer, buy it. And they've turned up out of the blue. They've got that in front of them. Somebody that maybe doesn't know them, like them, trust them, and it's never going to work. And so the analogy that I like to use is that you would never walk into a nightclub and you go up to somebody that you like the look of and propose marriage. You would never do that. Okay. You would potentially, if you like the look of someone, you might just smile at them. Okay. So the concept of micro yeses. So it's really important that if you're a service based entrepreneur, that. They, you know, that, that you have this approach of bringing somebody into your world. So think not a proposal, but just a micro, yes, to get them into your world and get them engaging with you. within the customer journey, I like to talk about four different stages. I like to talk about my ideal customer. And at the early stage of the journey, when they don't really know me or they don't really know what's wrong with them or what they need, I like to call them suspects. When people who are actively searching for a solution to their problems, they become prospects. People who buy from us are customers and really satisfied customers become advocates. So what do we know about suspects? They're just starting to realize that they have a problem or a need. At this stage, they may not even know what the solution looks like. They're just seeking information. So they're not going to respond to anything in a, in a sales form because they're just too early on in the journey. They don't even know themselves that potentially that they need something and they're certainly not going to buy from us if they don't know who we are and they don't know, like, and trust us. Then we have prospects. So prospects are different to suspects because they get to the point where they've decided, I need to do something about this problem that I have, or this need that I need to fulfill. And so they're searching for a solution. Now they may not know what the solution is yet. They may need to do some research on that, but they're going to respond to brands that are speaking their language and brands who seem to understand what they're doing. You know, what their position is and what their needs and wants are. So they may not be ready to spend money, but they're certainly more likely to sign up for our free events, our free offers, our free guides. What do we know about customers? Well, we know that they like, they chose to do business with us. And so if we're, if they're satisfied with the, the, the service that we have offered them that they're six to seven times more likely to repeat their business with us. And what do we know about advocates? Well, we know that advocates are so satisfied, they're satisfied customers, and they had such a good experience, they want to tell everybody about it. They want to, they will recommend us to their personal network and they will offer testimonials and participate in case studies. And so there we have it, suspects, prospects, customers, and advocates. And so what we need to do is to think about. That the people at different stages of the customer journey are more likely to respond to different messaging. They're more likely to respond to different content. They're more likely to respond to different emails, different ad creatives. So people at different stages of the, so if you just show up And you're only on social media when you've got something to sell, or if everything that you have is got a sales focus, you know, you're, you're, you're not going to appeal to people at different stages of the customer journey. And so what I like to do is to link the customer journey to the three phases of the social sales funnel, which is the awareness phase, the consideration phase, and the conversion phase. Now let's just talk about suspects before we get into that. The biggest mistakes that I see brands make when it comes to communicating with suspects is that they're not ready to buy from you yet. They don't know you or they don't know you very well. So they're not ready to buy from you, but they will notice your content, especially if it solves a problem for them. Now, the one thing to always remember about everybody, but in particular suspects is that they don't care about you. They care about themselves. So if you're turning up on social media, talking about yourself, they're not going to pay any bit of attention. But if you're turning up on social media, And you're talking about things that matter to them, they're more likely to respond. Biggest mistakes that people make with prospects is that they, I call this the over nurturing, the nurturing trap. So this is when people just nurture, nurture, nurture, nurture, nurture, and they never actually move people into the conversion phase of the funnel. So that's one mistake, but another mistake can be trying to sell too early on in the relationship. So that's why it's so important to have a social sales funnel that is aligned to the needs of your customer and how they are likely to respond. Biggest mistakes from dealing with your customers can be, remember customers are people who have already done business with you. So biggest mistakes can be missed opportunities. A missed opportunity to cross sell or to upsell additional services. Or to not invite them to create compelling testimonials. And remember, The hero in that testimonial should not be you. It should be them because what you want to do is to appeal to other people who are just like your happy customers. So our customized social sales funnel, this is what it looks like. If you're watching on YouTube. Again, at the top of the funnel, we have the awareness phase where we have our suspects and potentially our prospects. The consideration phase is again, our prospects and our customers moving into the conversion phase, our customers and our advocates. So a customized social sales funnel uses social media to create a targeted scalable lead generation system. Now, the whole thing that's important to notice there is that it's targeted. It's scalable because you want to make money from this. And the other thing that you need to notice as well is that it's intentional. If you're showing up on social media and you're just there week in week out creating content, but there's no plan, If it's not intentional, if it's not strategic, if its goal isn't to create sales, and if you don't know how those sales are going to come about, that is when you can fall into the 69 percent trap where you're like other businesses who just turn up on social media, but they don't use it to generate sales. Now I've heard other experts speak about giving formulas for creating posts or writing ads And they're important, but alone, they won't work. You need to have an overarching strategy, a system, which is going to take your social media content and your social media efforts and deliberately intentionally bring it into a funnel that's going to help you generate sales. So the sole purpose of a customized social sales funnel is to drive sales and leads. So, can you see now why you need a social sales funnel? And can you see now that if you don't have one, how it can lead to your time being spent ineffectively? And can you also see that if you don't know this yourself, how can you possibly outsource it to a VA or a freelancer who doesn't have the knowledge either? Okay, so let's look at now how you build your social sales funnel. Let's look at the three steps associated with that. The three overarching steps. So the first step is the awareness phase. So within this phase, you need to know really truly who you are, what's your why, how your business is different, what makes you tick, what makes your company tick, what your, why somebody should choose to do business with you. And if you don't know that, or if at some stage along the way you've forgotten about it, or you've diluted the message, then your messaging is never going to be as strong as it should be. In the awareness phase, and this is something I go through in a lot of detail in my coaching programs. First, the first question of who you are, what's your why? And secondly, who is your ideal customer and what is their pain? What has happened then today that has impacted on their day? So let's say you're a parenting expert. Like what has happened to your ideal customer today? Has their child had a screaming tantrum outside the school gate, and they're mortified, and they're stressed up their eyes, and they're also worried about their child? And how did that make them feel? Okay. So that's what we're talking about in terms of ideal customer. What happened then today that is having an impact on them, or if it's a team leader within a corporate a corporate setting, and they're just not in control of their team, their team, aren't listening to them, their team aren't performing. So what happened that person today? Did they go into a meeting, which was a disaster? And now they're sitting at their desk and the stress is rising from the pit of their stomach. What was their reality today? So when we talk about who our ideal customer is, I mean, like, Not just telling me, Oh, women in their fifties based in such and such a place with such and such of interest. No, I mean, going deep, deep, deep, deep. So we need to go that deep in 2024, because in a, in an AI generated world where, you know, there's more and more content and where social media users are now more passive than ever, and how they use social media, it's a You have to really get your head inside your ideal customer and their reality, because if you're going to create content that gets their attention, you have to be on the same page as them. So from working on, on who you are and who your ideal customer is, this helps you come up with your core messages. And if you haven't done this, your content will just won't be persuasive. Your emails won't be persuasive, your social media content, your paid ads, your landing pages, your sales pages, all of that just won't be persuasive enough. So you've got to do this before you start creating any social media content. And This is the advantage that we have of using social media is that we have the opportunity to get in front of people multiple times in order to warm them up to our brand with our persuasive messaging because If somebody sees our content once, they may think, oh, that's pretty cool, but it might not have any impact on them. Now, back in the, like, 1940s, they had this, like, rule of seven. So they realized in Hollywood that they needed to, people needed to hear about movies at least seven times. seven times before they could get them into the theaters. Now that was in the 1940s. Can you imagine how many times we have to get content and ads and posts in front of people in order for them to get the message that we want to communicate into their heads? Like you can multiply that out. I would say it's at least 40 times. So if you're turning up on social media for the first time today, check it out. Don't think about the results that you're going to get today. Think about what's going to happen in two or three months time because it's going to take that long length of time to start really deeply resonating with your ideal customer. So that's the awareness phase. In the consideration phase, what we need to do is continue to nurture these people who are coming into our lives. So we have got their attention and the awareness. phase through content, which has deeply resonated with them. Now what we need to do is continue to get that content in front of them. So this phase of the planning, we're planning for strategic content creation. We're planning for different types of content, the content that's going to get people to know you, the content that's going to get people to like you, the content that's going to get people to trust you, and the content that's going to get People to buy from you. And so again, we make sure that we are creating different types of content to appeal to people that are at this phase and at every phase of the customer journey. And so our whole goal at the, at the consideration phase is to deepen the connection and to look for the micro yes. Remember these people potentially are not ready to buy. Now, some people may be, some people might move to your funnel really quickly. But others may be like, I've had people on my email list for two or three years and then convert. So some people will convert immediately and other people will convert in time. So it's really essential to create a system to move your followers from your social media onto your email list or into your DM, into your inbox so that you're starting a conversation with them. And so that allow, allows you then to nurture the leads towards the next phase. And the next phase then is the conversion phase. Now, what we want to do is avoid the nurture trap. Many businesses fall into this trap where they are nurturing, nurturing, nurturing, nurturing, and they never actually can bring the prospect from the consideration phase. phase to the conversion phase, where we're going to convert them into a customer. So within this phase, we need to strategically and intentionally create a sales opportunity. Now that sales opportunity will be different for different businesses. That's why it's called a customized social sales funnel. like the same funnel is not going to work for every business. It really depends who you are, the size of the business, how established your business is, who you're targeting and what they're going to respond to. So based on that, we create a sales opportunity, which has the most likelihood to convert that person from being a prospect into being a paying customer. Now you can create a sales opportunity. And you can blow your sales pitch. So you still have to perfect your sales pitch. You still have to speak to people and get them over the line. And that is another part entirely itself associated with this social sales funnel. And then what you need to do is to make sure once you've created this funnel, when you've created a system of creating the content of nurturing the content of moving them towards the conversion opportunity. Once you have that done, you optimize it to make sure that every part of that funnel is operating at its optimum. So you're getting the best performance at every stage of your funnel. And once you have that done. Then you're ready to scale. What does scaling means? It means getting as many people into that funnel so that you can get as many leads and customers from that funnel. And depending on the social media platform you're using, I would say you will need to use paid ads. Paid ads give you the opportunity to get It gives you the opportunity to take a funnel, which is converting and get it in front of more people who are going to take the steps, who are going to give you the micro yeses and who are ultimately going to convert. And so, Never see a paid ad as a cost. See it as an investment, because if you know, okay, if I put a thousand dollars into this campaign, I'm going to get a return of whatever. And so when you have that system in place, you truly are in the place to automate, scale and grow. So that's our customized sales funnel. We go through an awareness phase, we go through a consideration phase, and then we go through a conversion phase. And that is how you turn your social media time into sales. So I hope you have really enjoyed this episode. It's a, I have to say that it's, it's an area that I'm really passionate about. There's so many businesses out there who just don't take the time to be intentional and strategic with their social media, but I know it works. I see it working in our agency. I see it working in my coaching Academy. I'd like to tell you about a three day challenge that I'm running from the 24th to the 26th of September. This challenge is going to help you to build your customized social sales funnel. So if you want to turn your social media time into sales, Make sure you click the link. We'll have the link associated on our social media channels, on my website and on my YouTube channel. Join the challenge. Come join us for that challenge. And within the three days, I guarantee you at the end of that, there's a workbook associated with it. You will know. how to create that social sales funnel, which is in turn going to help you turn your social media time into sales. The reason you started your business was that you wanted more time to spend with friends and family. You wanted flexibility in your work life. You wanted to grow and be able to be financially secure. This is the one thing that you can do is going to help you get closer to that. So thanks so much for tuning in. If you've got any comments or feedback, make sure you seek me out on the socials. I'd be delighted to connect with you there. You'll find me under Louise McDonnell on LinkedIn and under all the other socials you'll find me under @sellonsocialm