13. How To Turn Instagram Followers Into Customers (Clint Hufft of the Wedding MBA interviews me!)

I recently had the honor of being interviewed on the Wedding MBA podcast because I will be one of their keynote speakers in Las Vegas this November!

Whether you're a wedding professional or not, I know you'll get a lot of value from this episode.

Clint asked me many fantastic questions, and we discussed what types of content perform best for attracting ideal clients, how often you should post Instagram content, and my exact content strategy for converting followers into paying clients. We also explore common mistakes business owners make when showing up on Instagram.

In this episode, you’ll learn…

• [04:08] Building Audience and Ideal Client Attraction - How to define your target market specifically, focusing on ideal clients, and crafting a client-centric Instagram bio to attract the right followers.

• [8:27] Conversion Strategy - How to Create compelling content with clear calls-to-action for audience engagement. 

• [10:24] Engagement and Algorithm - Understanding the importance of engagement for visibility and algorithm rewards. 

• [16:34] Content Repurposing - Creating successful content by repurposing with variations. 

• [15:13] Specific Techniques for Engagement - How to address potential clients' common objections

Links mentioned in this episode…

Wedding MBA Las Vegas Tickets here

Insta-Growth: The 30-Day Private Instagram Mentorship (SAVE $200 WITH CODE "PODCAST") - https://www.elizabethmarberry.com/insta-growth

Free guide to Monetize Your IG: Seven Simple and Proven Ways to Finally Make Money on Instagram

Apply for your FREE Instagram Breakthrough Call with Elizabeth

Quotes

[14:14] "Every piece of content should serve a purpose, whether it's providing value or guiding your audience toward a call to action."

[07:30] "Your Instagram bio is not a resume. Make it about what's in it for your ideal client, not just about you."

[05:32] "Build your audience with laser focus. Your Instagram followers should be your dreamboat clients, not just anyone."

TRANSCRIPT

S3 Ep13 How To Turn Instagram Followers Into Customers (Clint Hufft of the Wedding MBA interviews me!)

Elizabeth Marberry: 00:00

00:00

Today's episode is gonna be a little bit different. I had the honor of recently being interviewed on the Wedding MBA podcast because I am going to be one of their keynote speakers in November in Las Vegas. And while this is a business conference for wedding professionals who are wanting to grow their business, I thought this interview would really serve you if you have a business and you're looking to grow on Instagram.

00:27

Clint asked me so many fantastic questions and we talk about what types of content perform best for attracting ideal clients? How often should you be posting Instagram content? I share with you my exact content strategy of how I convert our followers into paying clients and we explore some common mistakes that business owners make when they start showing up on Instagram.

00:53

Whether you're a wedding professional or not, I know you will get so much value from this episode. So grab your notebook and let's get started. Welcome to Strut It, a podcast about creating bold visibility on social media with zero apologies.

01:12

I'm Elizabeth Marberry, your host and Instagram marketing coach. I help small business owners get seen on Instagram and monetize their offers so they can make more money doing their sole lead work. If you're tired of spinning your wheels on Instagram and you're seeking simple, proven Instagram marketing strategies that actually work, you're in the right place. Let's dive in.

01:43

All right, I hope you're ready because this is another one of our pre-season episodes. And this is where we talk to one of the amazing experts that will be on stage at the Wedding MBA Conference in November, but we will not talk about the session. No, no, no, that's during the regular season. This is a pre-season, and this is where we ask the expert to share their expertise. And today we're talking with Elizabeth Marberry. Elizabeth, how are you? I am fantastic. Thanks for having me. Oh, I'm so excited about this because number one,

02:13

You are going to be speaking at the Wedding MBA Conference for the very first time. Is that correct? Yes. And I am so excited and so honored to share with our community. Have you been to the conference before? I have, you know, I actually attended way back in 2012. If you can even imagine, I was a baby entrepreneur at that time, pretty new in the industry and I had the best experience. I learned so much and now I get to be on stage and share all of my expertise. And I'm super, super pumped.

02:42

Well, I'm so glad that you brought that up because I think it's time for you to tell everybody exactly what you do. Oh, thank you. I would love to. So hi everyone, I'm Elizabeth Marberry. I am the owner and CEO of a wedding dance coach, which is a brick and mortar dance studio in Denver, Colorado. We also do virtual lessons and our studio, we really help nervous non-dancers and madly in love couples nail their first dance and just show up with total confidence.

03:11

We've been in business for 14 years and I have a whole team of instructors at my studio and we are just so passionate about bringing our couple's vision to life. I am also an Instagram marketing mentor. So I'm sure many of you for so many years in my wedding business, I primarily use traditional methods of marketing like SEO, making sure I'm on the first page of Google, getting reviews from past clients.

03:39

posting on different wedding websites, all of that. And in the last three years, I dedicated myself to really mastering the art of Instagram marketing. We totally blew up on social media and now I coach other owners and wedding pros on how to leverage Instagram to grow their business. Well, let's launch right into that because I'm sure everybody who's listening is saying, Instagram, oh my gosh, I better get on Instagram, or they're saying I'm on Instagram, but.

04:08

I'm pretty sure I can be doing it better. So when people come to you asking your help with their Instagram marketing campaign, what is the number one question you get more than anything else? The number one question I get is how do I convert my followers into paying clients? I love this question because part of my success story is when I went all in

04:35

on my wedding dance coach business on Instagram. In one year, we had an 84% increase in sales and we got over 4,000 hot prospects, meaning engaged couples who are getting married in the next 12 months on our email list. And I am so passionate about helping people solve this problem because organic social media marketing is where it's at, it's where our ideal clients are hanging out.

05:03

And so yes, how to convert followers to paying clients is definitely the number one question I get asked. Okay then, that's the question. How do you answer it? I'm gonna give you a basic framework. So first step on Instagram is you want to build your audience and attract your ideal followers. So you don't want your Uncle Jim to follow you or your Aunt Sue or your neighbor down the street. You want your ideal client.

05:32

prospects to be your followers, right? So the first step of growing on Instagram is you absolutely must narrow down your target market. I see this mistake often in the wedding industry where we go way too wide and our brains were like, well, our target market is an engaged couple. In order for you to be successful on Instagram and stand out in a crowded marketplace, you have to get super specific and clear on who is your dreamboat client.

06:02

And what I like to tell my clients is think about your favorite couple that you worked with, like that couple that you just totally aligned with, where you were like, this is why I do what I do. Like, I love this. Write down all of their traits, all of their characteristics. What was their budget? What was their vision? Like, really nail that down. And then when you go to create content on Instagram, you're creating content for that one client avatar instead of

06:32

all engaged couples. So the more niche down and specific you can be, the faster you're gonna grow on Instagram. There's lots of different ways of calling in your ideal client. One is that your bio, that little top section on your Instagram page that has your name and who you help and how you help them, that needs to be really clear in terms of what's in it for your ideal client. So many mistakes are made in this section of Instagram. And what I see often

07:01

with wedding pros is they use it sort of like their own magazine, you know, where it's like, here's the name of my company. Here's like all of our accolades. Here's why we're so great. Here's like what we do. And that doesn't work on Instagram. Okay. What you need to think about is why would I follow you? Like, what am I going to get out of following you? And that is what is in your bio. I'm going to give you the example of.

07:30

my dance studio business, we help nervous non-dancers and madly in love couples rock their first dance. So we're calling out our ideal client avatar in our bio. And when you look at our feed, we give those ideal clients a lot of value. So an example of that would be a video of a first dance entrance. So you could watch that video and know how to walk out onto the dance floor.

07:59

Right? Like, so I'm giving that to you for free. Now, am I choreographing your whole dance for you? No, you're gonna have to come and buy a package from us if you want us to do that for you. But that is how you grow on Instagram, is you call out that specific client avatar, and then all of the content that you create provides value to that prospective client. I'm getting to the question, Clint, about how do we get, okay, you've built your followers.

08:27

You've built your audience. All these people are super, super excited. They're liking your content. They're following you. They're sharing it with their friends. Like they're totally digging it. Now what? How do we convert them into a paying client? Well, you need to be clear on your customer journey. And this is a mistake that I see a lot of wedding pros make is they don't really have one. They're just like, well, I guess they just go to my website and then they fill out a contact us form and then no, no, no, no, no.

08:57

On Instagram, you have to really shortcut that journey and you have to be really clear. So it kind of depends on your goal and your sales process. So let's say you, your sales process as you do a free consult, okay? And your goal is to book consults with these people. And you know that, you know, nine out of 10 consults you're gonna close. You're so confident in your sales skills. So what you would do is you would create a compelling piece of content on Instagram.

09:26

And then essentially in your caption, you would write about like the benefits of a consult. Like in this consultation, you will get crystal clear on your vision for X, Y, and Z and the next three steps that you need to take to do. So they're like motivated. They're like, oh my gosh, why wouldn't I even, why wouldn't I book this free call? And then you have a very clear call to action. Comment, consult, and I'll DM you the link to my calendar.

09:55

Or in your story, you could say, DM me the word consult, and I will share a direct link with you to my calendar. Do you see what I'm saying? So the sales happen in the DMs, and you have to be really clear on the next step you want your client to take in your sales process. So it really depends. So what I heard you say is that you figure out who the ideal client is, you create video content on Instagram for that client,

10:24

But the key is the call to action inside the comments on that piece of content because that's what will get them into the sales funnel. Did I hear that correctly? Yes. And so your call to action is in the caption and if you're going to be using reels, so reels are those short form videos on Instagram, you absolutely need to have a call to action on the screen of your video as well, because

10:54

many people will never read your caption. So if it's always buried in your caption, a lot of people will miss it. So an example that we use in our wedding dance business is we have a free first dance checklist. Now this checklist is so valuable. It answers all of the most commonly asked questions that we get, like, when should you start your dance lessons? You know, how do you pick out your song? What do you have to bring to your dance lessons? And like,

11:22

and day of tips, like make sure you communicate with your DJ as to, you know, that you have a choreographed first dance and you know where you're starting. And so this free guide is super valuable, okay? So a free guide is a lead magnet. So what we do is we'll create a really awesome piece of video content and then our call to action. So the text on the screen of the video will say, free first dance checklist and then comment checklist. So,

11:50

It can be on screen and it can be in the caption. I recommend having it multiple places so more people will be likely to see it and take action. Okay. So, I would like to repeat back because then I clarify in my own mind that I'm understanding what you're trying to teach us. Putting text on the video is critical because it's possible the viewer will not go into the captions or any of that.

12:20

that on the screen is really important in regards to the call to action, trying to get them to DM you. Did I hear that right? Yes, you totally have it. And the other clarifying point I want to make is you don't want every single piece of content to be sales driven. Okay. If you do that, you're not going to grow on Instagram. So you need to weave in that sales kind of content.

12:49

into other content, but what you do need to be doing is a call to action for every video. And here's why, you wanna tell people what to do with that piece of content, right? Like, like this video if it was helpful, save for future reference, tag your fiance in the comments, right? So telling people what you want them to do with a video is so important. And I'm sure you've heard people talk about this, but...

13:16

engagement. So engagement is liking, commenting, sharing, watching your video, saving your video. Why that's important is that Instagram makes money by people staying on their app. So if you can create a piece of content that people are watching all the way through, they're engaging with, they're sharing it. Instagram, the algorithm gods will reward you. And here's how the algorithm works.

13:45

Let's say that you're on my page and you're liking my videos and you're commenting. You're like, oh my gosh, Elizabeth is such an awesome marketing mentor. I love her. I'm going to comment. I'm going to save. Next time you log into Instagram, guess what? You're going to see my video because you engaged with my content. So that's another kind of sales strategy is that you don't want to be selling in every single piece of content. You need to be in dialogue. You need to be in conversation with your people.

14:14

And then you're kind of building that no like interest factor. And then eventually it's kind of like, you want to date someone before you marry them, right? So then when you do have that call to action of, Hey, grab my free guide or get on my calendar this week. I have five spots available. They're more inclined to actually take action. So I understand that you don't want to every piece of content to be a selling tool. However, from a certain standpoint.

14:42

It is because you're trying to push engagement. And so I really, really like what you did when you, you targeted a bride or let's just pretend you targeted a bride, but in the call to action, you said, tell your partner about this. And so you're still giving them something to do in every single video. Is that correct? Exactly. You totally got it. Exactly. Yes. And I love that. I love that you have to not only think of the target client.

15:13

but also who's influencing that client or who's the decision maker in connection with the client or something along those lines. And I love that because every single wedding pro is going to be able to identify if they've been in business for a while, they're gonna be able to identify the people that influence the ultimate decision maker. Does that make sense? Oh my gosh, absolutely. And you know what, if in your particular niche, let's say you always bump up against a certain objection.

15:41

In my business, a lot of times there'll be one person in the couple who loves to dance or they want to learn how to dance and then maybe their partner is a little hesitant and maybe even hates dancing or doesn't want to dance. We call that out in our content. An example of that is we'll create a piece of content, five ways to get your partner on board for dance lessons. Like to your point,

16:07

If you see a commonality of a specific person who's influencing the other person within your market in your sales calls, then you can call that out and create content specifically addressing those objections in your content. And it totally works because we've done this before and people will tag their fiance in the comments, and we'll even do a call to action at the top of the caption that says,

16:34

tag your fiance to get them on board for dance lessons. And then people will tag their partner. And so it's just, it's fun, you know, it's fun. You're kind of empowering them. If there's one person in the couple who's like, I want this, if the other person doesn't, it's a great way to kind of help them out. Like I like to think of it as you're kind of helping them make their case for their partner or their mother-in-law or whoever it is that is influencing them. In a way you're turning that one person into an advocate.

17:03

for your business to the other person. Did I hear that right? Yes, yes. Oh my gosh, I love how you just said that. And you know how else this comes up is when you create a really valuable piece of content, like I'm gonna go back to that first dance entrance because that's a big deal, right? Like walking on to the dance floor, but you don't wanna just start off in a boring sway. You wanna just have a simple entrance that you could learn even if you have no prior experience.

17:31

they tag their fiance in the comments and say, hey babe, let's do this one, right? And so yeah, it's so great because then that other person is also looking at your content. So your views are going up and then all the people they're friends with, your content will be pushed out to them as well. So it is just this ripple effect. So if you can really, that's why engagement is so important. And I'm sure if you're in the Instagram world,

17:59

You hear it all the time, like tips on how to boost engagement. But that's why it's so important is it will make that one piece of content that you're creating go further faster and be more effective. I really like this. One last question. How often do you recycle your content? Because isn't Instagram, correct me if I'm wrong, but it has kind of a short shelf life. And so does it give you the opportunity if something is getting a lot of engagement that you can run it again? Great question. Okay. The answer is yes and no.

18:29

Yes, in that, I will tell you that we have had many, many videos by now that have gone viral with millions of views or hundreds of thousands of views. And what is really fascinating to me is that I will take that exact same video, but I will put on a different piece of music, and I might even copy and paste the exact same caption with hashtags three months later, and it goes viral again. So,

18:58

Yes, you can absolutely run a report, go into your professional dashboard on Instagram, see in the last six months, like which pieces of content performed well, and absolutely test it. Try to post it again, maybe pick a different song or maybe tweak something just a little bit. But the reality is, is people are not seeing all your content. So don't worry about being redundant. Now there's a recent study that came out that said that people do get frustrated when you get too repetitive.

19:28

So you have to kind of find that balance, but 100%, if you have, I can't tell you how many videos I've repurposed, so you don't always have to reinvent the wheel. You can absolutely repurpose or use the same video, but use a different hook. Use different text on screen, a different audio, and do it like the next month, right? So you can kind of test and play. Social media marketing is all about experimentation.

19:56

So I could tell you to do something, but you just have to go and do it and experiment and see what resonates with your audience and what doesn't and then learn as you go as you're implementing. Man, this is brilliant stuff. I really like this, Elizabeth. You know, I know people are gonna wanna reach out to you. What's the best way for them to do that? Thanks for asking. They can hop onto my website, which is eliz And if they are interested in a complimentary Instagram breakthrough call with me

20:25

take a look at their Instagram, they can share with me where they're at and where they wanna go with their Instagram marketing and I can help them identify their next three action steps. If you want that call totally free, then you would go to elizabethmarberry.com slash application. That's elizabethmarberry.com slash application. You fill out an application because not everybody gets a free call and I'll be reaching out to you with my calendar and we can get on a free call and I can take a look at your Instagram.

20:55

Spell your last name. Absolutely. So it's Marberry, N-A-R-B-E-R-R-Y. I had you spell your last name because when I first looked for you or typed in your name, I put a U in there and there is no U. It's M-A-R-B-E-R-R-Y, like a berry on a tree. All right, Elizabeth, I'm excited and I'm excited about your session that you're gonna be sharing with everybody in November. And so I'll probably be talking to you again during the regular season, but you've been spectacular. Thank you very much.

21:25

Thank you, Clint, for having me. I so appreciate you and thank you for all the work you do with Wedding MBA. I love the event and I cannot wait to see everyone there in November. Thank you for listening to Strut It. If you're ready to start leveraging Instagram to grow your business, then you're gonna wanna grab my free Monetize Your IG Guide, where you'll learn seven simple and proven ways to finally make money on Instagram.

21:51

You can grab your guide at elizabethmarbury.com slash freebies. That's elizabethmarberry.com slash freebies to get my monetize your IG guide. If you've got some incredible value from today's episode, be sure to leave a review and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And I cannot wait to start it with you again next week.