Unbox the Inbox | Email Marketing for Online & Offline Businesses

The Social Media Strategy I Was Wrong About: Conversations Lead to Conversions

• Gary Redmond • Season 2 • Episode 10

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Sometimes the most powerful business lessons come from admitting we were wrong. After years of dismissing social media marketing in favor of email strategies, I've discovered a system that's transforming how coaches and consultants generate clients from their social platforms—without being pushy or sales-focused.

Social media can be a powerful channel for generating clients when approached as a conversation starter rather than a passive billboard for your services. Every notification represents an implicit request for help, providing opportunities to initiate authentic conversations that can lead to client relationships.

• Content alone doesn't convert; it's the conversations sparked by content that drive sales
• The system follows a simple path: Content → Conversation → Client
• Post feed content that explains your expertise and approach
• Use interactive story features (polls, sliders, questions) to identify engaged followers
• Follow up on engagement with friendly, non-salesy messages
• Every like, comment and story reply is someone subtly raising their hand
• Be consistent with valuable content that clearly explains how you help
• Multiple sales channels (email, social, community) create more opportunities for conversation
• No need for cold DMing or sleazy tactics - just respond to the interest signals already there
• This approach works regardless of your following size

Coming soon: I'll be officially announcing the Skool Community this Friday. Join my email list at www.inboxcashmachine.com/free-training to stay updated and get access when it launches.


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Unbox the Inbox with me, your host, gary Redmond. On this podcast, you'll learn how to grow your online business using the power of free and mostly automated email marketing, and we'll hopefully have some fun doing it too. I'm a co-founder of BusterBoxcom and also a mentor and coach helping founders like me and you create their dream life through their online business, so the topic of today's episode is, strangely enough, not email. Okay, it's actually social media. Now, I must admit, over the past few weeks and few months, I've had to eat a little bit of humble pie, and the real humble pie for me has been look to be honest with you, in my subscription box business, we rarely found anything of value in our social media in terms of organic posting and that driving into a sustainable level of sales. Now, if you're in an industry where you are able to industries that are more high ticket offers and coaching, consulting, those kind of offers and there's other types of offers that are also high ticket as well real estate offers or whatever they are more and suited to organic social media, because you know if you only get one or two or three people and move them to the point of a sale from your social media audience every single month. That might be five, ten, fifteen, twenty thousand dollars, depending on the cost of your offer. Okay, so I've traditionally not seen social media as a particularly valuable tool, particularly for the business I was in, which was in e-commerce business, a subscription box where each customer was worth 20 quid a month, right, um, and you don't? That's not. That's not a 100% profit margin either. Um. So, and even to extend that further, even if they were worth 25 a month, they'd only stay for 10 months, 12 months at a maximum. So it's not really worth it to spend your time speaking to people one by one, which is what I'm going to explain now. I'm not talking about cold DMing people. I'm talking about a social media system. So, anyway, what I'm trying to say here is I've seen a lot of coaches and consultants over the last and few months in my, in my learnings and my research, who get a shit ton of sales and clients on social media. Um, whereas I had always beat the drum of email is the way to go now, email still is the way to go, and it's always better to have two sales channels instead of one, but I have to open my mind a little bit to the possibility and the systems I've seen people using to getting sales from social media, which is not something I'd really been exposed to before, and it's something I'm now starting to try and experiment with myself. So hold my hands up. I guess social media Also like.

Speaker 1:

Another thing is I did spend a lot of time with social media in 2022. I hired a VA to do a lot of graphic design for me. I spent my Saturdays and producing content and like putting a lot of effort into my social media and I really what happened really was a lot. I spent about 10 grand over that year and between paying this VA, various different tools to try and grow my following, unfollowing stupid things that I was doing, and I didn't make any money. So it burned me bad, like a lot of times, like when Facebook ads burn people, organic content burned me, even though it's supposed to be a free way of getting traffic. I just wasn't really I wasn't putting in the time myself. I hired someone to do that sort of graphic design and stuff.

Speaker 1:

So, anyway, a couple of reasons why I generally don't like social media. But, as I said, I'm not knocking, not all of a sudden changing my tune now to say email marketing isn't the way forward. Email marketing is still probably, in my opinion, more effective. But to ignore your social media, especially with what I'm going to teach you today, is probably something that I should no longer do, and for that reason I'm going to tell you guys too. So, social media okay, you think you're going to post on social media and you're going to get clients, but the real point of social media isn't what you think it is. Okay. It's not about getting followers and it's not about the more I post, the more people are going to realize how awesome I am and a great coach I am and they're going to reach out to me. Okay, it's about generating conversations Okay.

Speaker 1:

So most coaches treat social media like a passive billboard. Okay, like if they just here's my post and now I'll wait for someone to click the link in my bio or DM me or just say you know, that really resonated with me, I really want your help. Now, that can happen, but, as you probably know, that is rare and the people who do see your posts are at that point in, you know, at a point of maximum pain or maximum frustration, and they decide you do say something and you hit on something and they go over and they fill out your coaching form and they become a client. And that does happen, but that is rare because most people are just watching, they're just lurking, they're not acting on what you say, because of many different reasons. It might make complete sense that you just laid out your coaching program and you talked about a transformation that someone had, or whatever, but a lot of people just say, just say, that won't work for me. Or you know, that sounds cool, but how would that apply to me, or whatever.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so people who who really take that step, that big jump from. I watched one of your posts, or I saw your your video last week and I just decided right there and then it was time for me to become a client. It does happen, but it's not scalable, it's not not, it's not something you can rely on. And I talk with a lot of coaches who have that sporadic. One or two people per month come in and you know, oh, the people who fill out my coaching form are, you know, usually become a client. Yes, because they are. You know, in a point where they they're essentially admitting you really need your help, okay, so those kind of people can be great clients and they can also be quite easy to convert after the fact when they get into conversation with you because they've essentially initiated okay.

Speaker 1:

But the purpose of social media is and like to build that into a system that you can actually rely on is to generate conversations, okay. So, like, the real purpose of social media it's not really to get clients inbound, it's to stay top of mind. So in your feed and you want to post things about your process and your client outcomes and not just what you do but how it works and who it helps. Okay, so your content is really important for speaking, so people like understand the context of who you are, how you could possibly help them and what. What's your unique mechanism and when someone is ready, they will think of you. And it's about staying top of mind.

Speaker 1:

But it's not going to generally lead to a lot of people. Even people like something like I've recommended before and I've tried it a little bit as well as like, oh, comment, you know a keyword to get more help. Even that is an it's a public and implicit like people who are nervous around their you know, for example, you know their business or their weight or their health, even commenting, you know they don't know who else is going to see that. They don't know, like, send me a DM. It's a big step.

Speaker 1:

So those kind of CTAs that a lot of people put in their content, they're scary for a lot of people, okay, and I'm thinking of, like, say, you know, you're a fitness coach and a lot of your clients are women. You know, let's just be honest, there's a bit of stigma around that whole area of people and body and with their body and stuff, especially like women. Me, I'm in the gym quite a lot. Sometimes I do get a little bit overweight if I'm over my calories, but I know it's just a thing where, oh, I need to cut my calories back, whereas a lot of people who struggle with their weight for a lot of their life, there's so much extra baggage and feelings and negativity around that that commenting on your post, you know, comment six weeks to, you know, get my. You know whatever. Like, get access to my challenge, or comment skinny to get my, you know, to get my help.

Speaker 1:

Not a lot of people are going to do that because it's public, okay, and they're going to have to implicitly say that they are badly in need of your help. Okay, same with me. Like if I'm not doing well in business, and it's like if you're stuck at, you know, two grand a month. Or you know, if you're stuck trying to get your first client coming here, you know, it's like, oh, I don't really know if I want to tell anybody that I'm struggling that bad, everyone doing as good as you think they are, but anyway, so your content in your feeds and it's generally unlikely to lead to direct flood of clients ever. So that's something to be aware of.

Speaker 1:

So what do we do? So what we want to do is to generate signals. So there's two ways to do that, and that is to look in your notifications and see people who like, people who comment, possibly people who reply to your stories, or people who are consistently liking your content. These people are raising their hand and you're not seeing it. Okay, because every notification is an implicit ask for help. Okay, or it's at least an implicit signal that they could be interested in exploring what you offer.

Speaker 1:

Okay, again, you're thinking of people who like everything, a post you put up, but have never become a client, or you've never even talked to them before. Okay, so you know these people are not tapping your content. Or you know, replying to your stories by accident, you know they're leaning in. Okay, maybe it's subconscious. Maybe it's conscious, who knows it's subconscious, maybe it's conscious, who knows? But, like, these people are obviously interested in what you have to say. So let's think about a system here. Okay, so, from content to conversation to client, as I said, conversions happen in conversations. Content doesn't drive conversations. It goes content, conversation, client. Okay, so the feed shows what you're thinking. But what you can do, what I find works well, is to do stories that drive engagement. Okay, so, the feed shows what you're thinking, but what you can do, what I find works well, is to do stories that drive engagement.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so you could do things like polls, emoji sliders, yes or no questions, do you want this or need help? And you know, like, especially when you're doing client testimonials or whatever, a great result you've got for someone and that person engaging with your story. Number one, it comes up in your messages. It's not being sleazy, you're simply following up on interest. Okay, you're following up on someone. Hey, so you tapped a story about fixing your email marketing, losing weight, you know whatever, fixing your knee, whatever it is. What's the biggest thing? You're stuck on? Or like how can I help? You know I saw you like that. How are things going for you? You don't have to be you know this super salesman who is top, top quality DM setter, like it's. Hey, like I saw you commented, or you liked my story, it's just something you're interested in. How's things going with your training, how's your business been, those kinds of things.

Speaker 1:

Okay, what do you do then? You have a fucking conversation with the person and figure out if they qualify and by qualify it means figure out they need your help and you can help them. And if you've just had a conversation with someone and you figured out that they need help with the exact thing that you can help them with, well then what do we do next? Well, obviously we have a further conversation. Or you make them an offer. We get onto a phone, a sales call or a strategy call, whatever you want to call it. Or we say here's my offer, here's a Google Doc, here's a website that explains everything. Let me know if you want to jump on. Here's a voice note, whatever, this is what you get. I can certainly help you with that. That's it. That's clients. So, without feeling gross, this is how you would essentially use this as a strategy.

Speaker 1:

Okay, you don't need to call DM a lot of strangers. You don't need a huge following. You just need to post content that explains what you do and how you help. Use stories to identify who's raising their hand and who's watching, and start conversations with those people in a genuine and helpful way. You don't need to be sleazy, you just need to pay attention to what's going on in response to your content.

Speaker 1:

Now, some things to be aware of here. This sounds great, right, this sounds like it works. It only works if you are consistent with your content. Your content speaks to the right people. Your content explains what ways you help people. Perhaps you post some results and testimonials, so it's all about displaying that and having that clear in your feed and then posting your stories at least once a day and posting things that are going to generate engagement and replies and then actually handling the conversation. So talking about it is great. Actually doing it is another thing, okay, so, um, so that's kind of it for today.

Speaker 1:

I just wanted to talk about that strategy. Like I've seen a lot of coaches like, to be honest, I'm only getting started with this myself, so I wouldn't say I have a massive amount of um experience with this. I'm more of an email man myself, but I am broadening my horizons and, as I said, I've had a large slice of humble pie, so no need to remind me of that, but it's something that I'm focusing on a lot more now. In terms of if you have email as a sales channel, that's great, but you still need to nurture people through content, and whether it's through like a community, whether it's through your social media, whether it's even through your email list and generally, the best thing you can do for your business is to have more than one sales channel. So if you have a social media account and you are posting content, why not turn that into a system that works for you? It's kind of what I'm realizing, and this is a system that works because it's working for a lot of bigger coaches.

Speaker 1:

And then, if you want to take this system onto steroids, there's a couple of things you can do. You can put money on ads that are either your best piece of content, asking people to comment. I know I said that might not work, but if you put it out to people who are not familiar with you, a comment on one of your posts is certainly something that people can do, and you can follow up through Messenger, or you can send out one of your most popular posts and optimize it for follows and then you can message the new followers, or you can just essentially get people to follow your page and wait for them to engage with your stories, and that is essentially how you can grow and scale your business using conversations generated on social media. So it's very similar in terms of, obviously, to grow any client business, you need to have conversations with people. Whether you do sales calls or whether you do through DMs, or whether you use email, it's all the same thing, okay, but it's just a different way.

Speaker 1:

And, like I said, if you have email, if you have, for example, a school community which I'm trying to get going now and you have your social media account that's three different places you can have conversations with people. You shouldn't struggle as long as you're consistent across all channels. You shouldn't struggle to generate conversations as long as your content speaks to what people need from you. So, closing thoughts, the point of social media isn't sales essentially, certainly from the feed, it's getting attention and it's generating conversations. Okay, this attention that you've generated and this kind of goodwill that you get from people by posting valuable content only turns into income if you turn it into conversations. Okay, so if you guys post a poll or a slider in your story today and then send a quick message to the people who vote or reply, it's very simple, may get you some clients. It may not, but at least you'll have a chat and get in contact with some people, um in your in your feed or in your in your notifications, who've been hanging around.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, I'm planning on maybe adding a training on this into the skill community. So if you want to join the skill community it's going to be officially announced on Friday. You keep an eye on my emails. If you're on my email list, please keep an eye out for my email. If you're not on my email list, you can go to inboxcashmachine, wwwinboxcashmachinecom. Forward slash free hyphen training, which I'll link in the description of this podcast, and you can join the list there and keep up to date with the skill community. And we should be coming out this week. So thanks very much. I'll see you in the next episode.

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Gary Redmond

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