Your Dreams. Your Goals. Your Way.

Things No One Tells You About Making Online Sales

List building - Your list is your biggest, baddest, and most important asset online or offline. Your lists are collections of hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of people who actually care about the content that you're putting out into the social media streets. I get so agitated when all of these people pop up online and claim, “I'm going to show you how to make $10,000 in a month”, “I'm going to show you how I made a hundred thousand dollars this year with my ebook”, “I'm going to show you how to… blah, blah blah”, but they never mention building your list.

I don't own Instagram, Facebook, Periscope, Twitter, Pinterest, or any other social media platform... and guess what? None of you all do either. We may own stocks or shares in them, but we don't actually own the platform. We don't get to conduct what happens day to day. The algorithms are changing all of the time. They never stop.

The way that they work now is, whenever you post something, only between 7 to 10% of your audience that currently follow you can see your posts. Depending on what percentage of that 7 to 10% of your audience that responded in a positive way to that post, how much conversation is going on, how many likes you're getting, how much engagement is happening, how many saves and shares you're getting and if they commented(comments are specifically important because comments matter and you want them to comment four words or more), is going to determine if Facebookis going to show this to the next 25% of your audience. Then they go through the same process with the next 25%, then 35%. After 35% you start to go viral or hit the explore page.  That’s when people that don't know or follow you or aren't following specific hashtags will start to see your information and come to your page. That’s why the majority of the time when you are posting, about 90% of your audience has never seen your post. 

Therefore, if you have an event, or you're promoting a book or a song, and want people to come to your store that day, or visit your food truck, they miss it, because you posted it on social media. This is why you need your list. You can text, email, and/or blast your list to the DM, and you’ll have another way to communicate with them.

Next, people don’t tell you that you need at least three different types of lead magnets available at all times(This is specifically true for those of you who have Shopify stores and online boutiques). You have to do better than free shipping or 20% off. If you have digital products or brick and mortar stores that you want people to visit, you need to create something that answers a frequently asked question.

Many times people would ask us, how much does an event, a wedding, a shower, or a birthday party cost? In my event company we created a document that broke down the common expenses based on an event for 100 people. If people wanted to get that document for free, all they would have to do was input their name and email and it would send it to them. That helps because if you were trying to have an event,  I know specifically what you're working with in regards to the pricing or the budget for your event. That’s how I got so cold at closing event, clients.  Who really needs a $40,000 baby shower? Nobody. But, my clients buy it from us on a regular basis. I can also do as many of them as I want to in a year. I'm at the point now where I get to pick and choose.

So, if you have an online boutique, and people are always asking you about the size chart, the length, or the material, you can say: “Hey! Got questions about how to find the perfect size?”, or  “You want to make sure the pants are long enough because you're a tall girl?”, or “You want to know what undergarments to wear underneath these pieces in order to get the best silhouette?”, “Just put in your name and email and we'll send you a free guide right now!”. Boom!! Just like that, I helped somebody out. Think about what people are asking you. Don’t get too deep or complicated. You sell by listening. Just listen to what people are telling you and that's how you will know what your lead magnet should be. Do we need free shipping or  20% off something similar? Absolutely, positively. You definitely should make one of those the standard, because that's going to incentivize people to purchase your products. I’m talking especially to those of you who have physical products, if they would have normally been on the fence about it, however, you need to have useful information. So, you need at least three lead magnets to be able to easily build up your list

Hashtags - Hashtags are your homies. Period. They are the friend.  Do you want greater reach? Do you want more exposure? Do you want to actually get in front of people who want your products? We need to focus on hashtags... and not just any hashtag. We're looking for hashtags that are attached to sub-communities. Normally, we like to find hashtags that have anywhere between 50,000... Sometimes it's 10,000 usages for that hashtag all the way up to like 2 to 3 million. I definitely, for a fact, don't like going over 5 million with the hashtag usage, because after then, it's like you get lost in the sauce.

When you're creating hashtags, or searching for hashtags so that you can be found by the right people, and people that are actually going to turn into customers and clients for you, it’s important that once a month you really put some time into doing some hashtags.

You want to use anywhere from 30 to 50 hashtags and you want to rotate them on your posts. Every time you post, you need to be posting anywhere between 10 to 17 hashtags underneath that post. From what I’ve found, it doesn’t matter if they’re in the description or if they're underneath the first comment. That's just a style thing. No, hashtags are not a thing of the past. There was a rumor that “they” were blocking hashtags. My clients have been out here still winning, hunting with these blocked hashtags. We've been getting it. I’m very proud to call Ms. Paula, the hashtag queen, a client.

Another client has been able to build up her Instagram account to over half a million people in under two years. And she does it all through hashtags and content. Hasn't run one ad.  Hashtags work, baby. She followed the rules. She got a niche. She does those hashtags. She puts up content and she’s beginning to blow up. So, hashtags are not a thing of the past. However, what I have noticed is that if you're always doing the max hashtags at 30, Instagram and Facebook definitely frowns upon that. I think they look at you like you're a spammer. So, somewhere in between that 10 to 17 definitely seems to be like the sweet spot.