hosted by: AskPat 415 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 415 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today! As always, I'm here to answer your online business questions, five days a week. And we have a great question today from Josh.
But before we get to Josh's question, I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is, first up, Braintree. Braintree, if you're working on a mobile app, and you're searching for a simple payment solution, there's a lot of them out there. You've got to check out Braintree. This is the one that's used by Uber and a lot of other big companies out there. With one simple integration, you can offer your customers every way to pay, period. So to learn more, and for your first $50,000 in transaction fees free, go to BrainTreePayments.com/pat. Again, that's BrainTreePayments.com/pat.
All right, here's today's question from Josh.
Josh: Hello, Pat. My name is Josh Light. I run a website called Mad-RealEstate.com. I just started Instagram and I'd like to know how to convert my Instagram followers to newsletter followers, or to customers. I love your show. You provide a lot of great content. All right, thanks Pat. Bye.
Pat Flynn: Hey Josh. What's up? Thank you so much for the question today. I really appreciate it.
And, you know, Instagram is huge right now, and I know a lot of people who are doing really well with it. I also know a lot of people who are, who just have massive amounts of followers, but they aren't doing anything with it. And for them, sometimes, it's a waste of time and they're wondering why there's no ROI.
So I appreciate this question, because we're going to focus on: How do you get those followers that you have on Instagram to become email subscribers and/or customers?
And there's two great examples of this, people doing very well with this. Susan from FreshlyPicked.com. She was in Episode 165 of the Smart Passive Income podcast. You can check that out at SmartPassiveIncome.com/Session165. She's built a million-dollar business off of Instagram. And, plus other channels, but Instagram is a huge part of her marketing platform, and she talks about that in, again, Episode 165.
And also, Nathan Chan over in Episode 169. He's built a very very profitable digital magazine using Instagram as a primary marketing platform as well. And he talks a lot about. And you can follow them, as well, to get examples.
I think that's the first thing you should do. Follow great Instagram channels, like Foundr Mag and also Freshly Picked, to see how they do what they do. You can see. And you know, a lot of times, they're all—all those great marketing strategies—they're all around us. We just have to pay attention to them and be conscious about what's happening.
And so, I would encourage everybody, no matter where you're at, even if you are in a store somewhere, and for whatever reason you want to buy something, think to yourself, “Wow, what made me buy this?” Or “How did I find this in the first place?” Or “Why did I come here?”
That way, you can start to apply a lot of those rules, and things, and stuff that worked on you, in your business as well. So, find and follow a lot of great Instagram followers, like Freshly Picked and also Foundr Mag, to see how they do it.
Now, I'm not going to talk about building your audience. Both of those people who were on the show talked a lot about how to increase your followers, and things like that, and that's one of the cool things about Instagram in general. When you share stuff, and especially if it's great, people start to tag people, and you get this viral quality with it. And so, if it's great, and if it's something that's useful for your audience that you've built, they'll often share it with other people too and you'll get a lot of new subscribers that way, and not only that, new email subscribers as well as customers too.
But let's get right into your question here. So, I was brainstorming with Periscope users a little bit before this. Because, right now, Josh, we are actually live on Periscope right now, which is really cool. And we've got 133 people right now to help you out too. So I'm going to be checking in with them every once in a while too. But they all say hi, and hopefully you're doing well today.
But let's get right into your question. So how do you get people who are following you on Instagram to come off of Instagram? Now the challenge is, when you post something on Instagram, nothing is clickable except your profile link. And you've probably seen some people say, “Hey, I got some deal going on,” or “You can follow me here,” or “Click on this, my link is in the profile.”
And that's the only way to get people to actually click on something, and have it exit the program, and go and open it somewhere else, whatever it is that you're doing. So that's one quick strategy, and one little technical way you can get people to click on something. I've also seen people put in the location a call to action: “Click on the link in bio!” Or ”Get it now! 50% off!”
That's in their location, because that's also shown underneath where that image is, on Instagram, as well. So those are some small things you can do. But, most importantly, you always want to make sure that you are providing value. That's the number one thing. I've seen a lot of big Instagram followings out there that, there's no reason why anybody would come off of their site, because there's nothing there.
I mean, millions of followers, yet there's nothing. There's no reason to do that. So give people a reason to get off your site. So whatever it is that you are promoting, as an email incentive, for example, or a product that you're promoting. Make sure it's something that actually relates to your audience. Make sure it's something that they want. And so, of course, that goes with understanding what your audience is all about and what they want, what their pains are, and all those sorts of things.
Now, the email incentive is very strong, and that's something you can do. And the cool thing about Instagram is you can actually put an image of that email incentive. So, if it's an ebook, for example, or a list of tools, you can just show maybe a snippet of it. Or maybe even a quote from it as well. Those are cool little teasers, you know. People want to see what they're going to get before they get it, so I would absolutely do that.
And along the same lines, maybe you can add some text in the status update area, where, you know, where you're typing in whatever it is. I've seen a lot of great Instagram posts that are actually much longer than you might normally think would be okay. But when you get into a little bit of length, and you provide value in there, like I was going back earlier, to tip number one. You get a lot of people who really get into why you do what you do and what you have to offer.
And it's not just like, “Hey guys, buy this!” But maybe you tell a story about the product that you have created here. That's why Kickstarter is so great, because people tell stories about the creation of their product. It's not just a “Hey, buy this product,” or “Support this product!” It's a whole video on what the behind the scenes is and stuff. And again, on Instagram, sharing behind-the-scenes is one of the best things you can do. We talked about this on Periscope earlier as well.
So you can share, maybe, a little bit about the product that you're promoting. And the cool thing is, you have that video capability, so show people how it works or what it can do. And if you can create a really compelling video, behind the scenes, or maybe of the product being used in some way, shape, or form. You're really going to get people interested in what it is that they see and click through, or actually go to the URL.
So that's tip number two related to that URL. Make it very easy for people to type that in. So if they can't, or if they don't want to click on your profile and then click on your bio link there, they can easily go to the website.
So, you might use a tool like Pretty Link, for example, if you are on WordPress, to create some particular link that's much shorter than the actual link you're bringing people to. For example, I have a page on Smart Passive Income where I talk about my Periscope gear. And I just say, “Hey, go to smartpassiveincome.com/periscopegear.”
And that's it. Instead, it's actually a long one, but Pretty Link makes it much shorter and much easier to remember. Now, you can take that one step further and use something like GoDaddy, or whatever domain provider you use, and actually buy a short URL, one that's easily memorable, to forward to that specific link.
So I have a number of examples for that. For example, EbooksTheSmartWay.com is a domain I got that just forwards to a page on Smart Passive Income where people can download my free book on how to create, market, and automate a killer ebook. I also have StartAnEmailList.com. I also have a number of other different ones that I can't even remember off the top of my head. PatsBookClub.com is one.
So you can use those strategies as well, to again, in the text or in the video that you have as well. Or maybe in text on the image that you post on Instagram, too, you can use those really nice hosted domains that just forward. So that's another thing.
Now another thing that, again, a lot of people who contributed on Periscope, they were also talking about landing pages. So this is a great way. Because instead of having people come to just a random page on your site, or maybe your home page, for example, you don't ever want to bring people just to your home page. You want to bring people to a specific page that they can relate to that continues the conversation.
Let me say that again. It continues the conversation that you have on Instagram. So you're talking to them, they're seeing something … They go to this landing page that continues from where they left off. So they can get deeper into that product, or deeper into that email incentive so that they then leave their email address.
So again, continuing that conversation is one of the most important things that you can do on Instagram. That's how, really, you want to think about, and mold your mindset in terms of getting people off of Instagram and on to something else, so that they can continue to move on and go down to that email opt-in form, or to that buy now button.
Now on that landing page, typically, best practice is to have just one particular action that you want people to take. You know, yes, you can set up a secondary page on your site, where there's still the navigation, there's still the sidebar, and there's other things to click on. And the reason why that's not good is because there's a lot of options there, and you want people to do that one thing.
This is traditionally called a “squeeze page.” So the squeeze page is a page you bring people to, and you “squeeze” them to do one particular thing. Buy something. Subscribe to your email list. And that's it. There are no other things you can click on. The only thing you can do is follow through with that action or exit that page.
So, hopefully, that will help you as well.
So, let's see. Other things are creating certain incentives where people have a limited amount of time to do something. I think that's another thing that could work very well on Instagram, as well, because it's very real-time, and so if you give people a certain amount of time to take action on something. Maybe there is a deal going on, because there's a holiday. If you're selling anything, I would absolutely love more deals on Instagram, you know. Instagram is a great platform for, you know, using a coupon code that expires in a certain amount of time. I’ve seen a lot of people do that as well.
One thing you can do is make sure you follow, and search for a lot of people in the health and fitness industry. A lot of those people are doing really well, with not only building their following on Instagram but also getting people off of Instagram and building them onto an email list or selling stuff.
And yes, it might not be up your alley, but you can learn from them as well. There's a company out there called Shredz, with a z I think, S-H-R-E-D-Z, that I see pop up on a lot of people's fitness Instagram profiles. And they do a great job, whoever's promoting those items, of actually sharing those things. They put them organically in different ads or videos, and things like that.
Again, following people on Instagram who you know is working in terms of how you know you can best deliver stuff to your audience as well.
And the last thing I want to mention is actually. . . I already mentioned it. But I think, you know, to kind of sum this all up. And again, thank you, for everybody who's watching this live on Periscope right now. You want to make sure that you just build that trust. And that is what can lead to people just naturally going to your website and finding things that you have to offer.
Or, when you, at some point, mention some sort of promotion. They're going to then naturally go and figure out what else they can do to help you, because you've built that trust. And Instagram is an amazing platform for building trust. So you can share things behind the scenes. You can tell a lot of, you know, stories. Stories of failure work very well on Instagram too. Just be real with people. Be a human being. Show parts of your life that might not even have to do with your particular audience. Because, when you do that, you can build a better relationship with your audience. They'll trust you more.
So in fact, sharing those things that absolutely have nothing to do with your target business. Actually, have everything to do with building relationships, so it actually has everything to do with building your business. Because a successful business builds a real relationship with their audience and then, down the road, their customers.
Whew! Going a million miles an hour here. But yeah, thanks guys, for watching this. Josh, thank you for the question. I appreciate you. I hope that answers your question, or at least gives you a starting point. Anybody on Twitter who's listening to this right now, you can use the hashtag #AskPat415 so we can continue this we can continue this conversation on Twitter as well.
Josh, thank you so much for the question! We're going to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show, no charge, no shipping charge at all. You'll hear from my assistant Jessica in the next couple weeks to collect your information so we can send you that.
For everybody out there listening, and those of you watching on PatScope right now, #PatScope, you can ask a question by going to AskPat.com. And thanks to the Speakpipe.com widget. You can just ask right there on that page, no matter what mic you have. You don't have to have the best sound quality. That's my job!
Your job is to just ask the question, and I'll provide the answer to you. So just go to AskPat.com. You might have a chance to win an AskPat t-shirt as well.
Thank you so much again, Josh, for the question! Thank you for everybody out there who's listening. Have an amazing week! To finish off, as we always do, end with a quote. Today's quote is from John Mason. He said, “You're born an original. Don't die a copy.” Boom. Cheers, take care, and I'll see you the next episode of AskPat. Thanks.