We all know the power of a good testimonial, but people often forget to share testimonials on Instagram stories. Once you get into that launch mode, possibly before you even come out with your product, testimonials will be social proof to people that whatever's coming is good and they're going to want to see it. Actively sharing testimonials, even if your cart is closed, is super powerful.
Every time Alex receives a testimonial, he makes a little graphic and posts it on Instagram. As he collects testimonies throughout the year, he can compile them all into one highlight. Even if you post testimonials four times a month, you can take those four different stories and put them all in one highlight so people can see them when they're ready.
Another great tip for testimonials is to experiment with previous clients. Alex recommends asking them directly, “What did you like about this? Which was your favourite part?
Research Objections via QA and Live QA Etiquette
There's a question sticker on Instagram Stories that you can use to ask your audience what's keeping them at bay or stopping them from buying. You can then take those questions and repost them to your stories with genuine answers.
In a live stream, this looks exactly like the question and answer sticker in Stories and appears the same as when you repost it to your Story. It's another form of social proof: it shows that there are people interested in this product. Plus, it helps you realize what types of objections other people have, allowing you to answer those objections in advance for others who might share them.
Physically, it's like a juggling act, so you have to have a plan. Alex uses a tripod that holds her phone while she gets going because she moves. If she doesn't do it, she may be annoying to the people she watches. She sets it up with a ring light and her phone on the tripod, and she's close enough to it to touch the phone's screen. There is a little Q at the bottom when going live on Instagram. You can tap that Q and it will show you all the different questions that people have asked you. Then you can go in and choose manually, and that question will appear on the screen.
Small Business Set Up
Alex has set up a small sound notification on his laptop whenever someone signs up for his course. While he is live on the phone answering questions, his laptop is near him making that sound every time there is a sale. Then she announces on the live stream: “Oh, someone new just joined. Welcome to Project Storyline! That adds even more social proof by showing her audience that other people are joining. This makes them want to see for themselves what it's like on the inside. It's like the phones ringing in the background during a fundraising show on television.
During a launch, Alex appears live as often as possible, sometimes a few times a day. People respond well to live videos. Instagram also just launched the ability to repurpose live streams as IGTV videos, unlike the previous 24-hour playback window. Unfortunately, when Instagram reposts a live video as an IGTV video, those question tags disappear. However, you can put a link in the description of your video. IGTV is the only place on Instagram, besides your bio, that allows you to post a direct external link, so that's a big plus.
Warm-up (from the audience) leads to a DM challenge
Right before a launch, Alex likes to ramp up the excitement and try to get as much attention as possible. She always opens the cart on Fridays. The Monday before, she opens the cart and hosts a 5-day Monday-Friday challenge with a pop-up Facebook group where thousands of small businesses from around the world join. It's a fun and free challenge. For 2 weeks before the challenge, Alex runs Facebook ads and shouts about it from the rooftops organically to get as many people as possible to sign up for the challenge.
Alex's challenge is called "Double Your DMs."
The real benefit of Instagram Stories is ending up in direct message conversations with your warmest customers. People who sign up for the challenge get access to five messages, one per day, telling them what to post to their stories to boost those DMs. Demonstrating his method by example, Alex shows you the power of his Instagram close friend Story posts during those 5 days. By the time they reach the end of that free challenge, which consists entirely of daily prompts telling them what to post to their stories, they've undergone a huge transformation. When you open your cart to Project Storyline, they're waiting with your credit card to jump right in.
Fast conversions with DM conversations
Any open cart period tends to have a lot of people buying at the beginning, a lot of people buying at the end, and a trough in the middle where momentum fades. At this point, Alex prompts people on Instagram fake followers to check for Stories to message him and tell him why they haven't joined yet.
She'll say, "Hey guys, so we've already had 500 people on Project Storyline, but I know there are a lot of you watching this who haven't taken that leap of faith and joined yet. I just want to know, why not? what's stopping you? It's okay if it doesn't fit you. But it would help me to have that conversation to better know how to serve you. Send me a message right now and tell me why you're thinking about it. What's stopping you?"
Without a doubt, many people who respond to Alex's message become customers. Often your worries are very small things that aren't even problems.
With Project Storyline, for example, someone responds that they won't join because they like to plan their week and batch content for their stories, so they don't want a new prompt every day. But Project Storyline has a prompt file. So even though you receive a new notice every day, you also have access to all previous notices. This allows you to sit down on Monday and group all your story content together for the next week if you want.
By opening that conversation, Alex begins to understand the little things that are holding people back who really shouldn't. He helps you better market the program by answering those objections directly.
