I want to talk to you a little bit about creating stories that sell. Now, I am talking about stories inside of Instagram. It's that thing up at the top of the page where people share pictures of what they ate for lunch and their workouts and mirror selfies. And then sometimes we share funny reels that we found or we share the photographer's post when it's a wedding that we worked on. These kinds of things don't necessarily help us  grow our business, but this thing is a very underutilized feature inside of Instagram, and I’d like to help the bridal industry fully realize and utilize how effective stories can be for building connection with our audience. I took a copywriting class not too long ago to improve website copy, and the person said to me, “you know, stories are what sell.”

I took this whole course called Stories That Sell, but she wasn't talking about stories on Instagram. She was talking about literal stories. Instead of creating copy or words that just state things and list facts, you create an emotional connection with your readers by telling them a story. So, it's interesting that Instagram took this feature and they named it “stories,” because stories really are what draw in the human connection and draw people in. It's where I get all of my sales inside of my course and my coaching business.

I don't post stuff on my feed or expect people to go to the link in my bio and then buy stuff from me or hire me. It's not how I connect with people. It's how I give information, increase my visibility, and reach new people. But I really connect with my audience inside of stories. That's what leads to DMs, not somebody reading my caption where my call to action says “DM me.”

Inside of stories is where the connection is happening. It's where we build the trust factor. They see little glimpses of who you are, and they get an idea of your vibe. There’s also the opportunity to give people a more laid back option of seeing that peek behind the curtain. So the feed is all really pretty and really polished, but the stories is where shit gets real. That's who you really are. That's how things really happen in a non-curated way.

The feed gives you visibility and growth. Most people are using the feed to find information and to discover new products, brands, or accounts. Right? So that's why it helps you with your visibility and with your growth. This is where you're going to get a lot of followers. 83% of Instagram users use it to find new businesses or to research brands. So, that's where we want to educate. But we want to entertain and we want to build connection through storytelling inside of our stories on Instagram.

People want to connect to the people behind the brand, and the like and trust combination is what leads to sales. People don't go into stories to say “I want to be sold to.” They go into stories because they say “I want to connect with this brand.” They want to see that unpolished imperfect version, and then they like you and they trust you more, and that's what naturally leads to sales rather than being “salesy.”

Another tip for using your stories is that I want you to showcase more of you and of your actual face. I want to see you. The reason people are going to stories is because they want to connect with the brands that they're following. You are your brand. People want to connect to you, and they want to know who you are. They want a sense over time of who you are as a person, what your values are, what your vibe is. So, we're going to connect with people who we have similar vibes with, who we have similar priorities to.

Those are the types of things that make showing your face important. You are the face of your brand. So, you can create more effective stories that do the selling for you without it being selling, without you having to say “hey book this.”

It’s not about promoting your services or overtly selling anything. But all of these different tips and habits, when you build them up consistently, it's building this connection, and connection is where the sales happen.

Episode 45: Creating Stories That Sell

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Now if you're reading this and you're like, “wow, this sounds really good, I wish I knew more about Instagram,” I have a whole course built just for people like you who really want to be able to use Instagram more effectively as a support method for their marketing of their business.  There have been a lot of case studies and testing that I have done with my own Instagram that I've been tracking progress and things like that. So looking at that information makes writing captions and creating content more consistent. And this in turn allows me to see more success and more actual sales.

We don't focus on followers, because “followers” is vanity metrics. We don't give a fuck. We don't care how many followers we have unless we are trying to be able to add subscription services. We need to optimize our account for sales.

And creating stories that effectively showcase who you are will naturally create that connection with your viewers. It gives them the opportunity to engage with your brand on a different level, and ultimately this is what sells. Stories sell.

What's Next?

Go watch my Selling In Stories Masterclass!  Learn how to create engaging, high converting stories on Instagram in this 60 minute training.