Transcription
Nine out of 10 Instagram accounts that I look at are severely underutilizing Instagram stories, or worse, they're using them in the wrong way to try to get more sales.
So, after posting over 400,000 stories across accounts between 100k followers to 60 million followers, I boiled down what really works to bring in consistent and predictable revenue. And I want to give you three of those frameworks in this video. I'm also going to give you a stories posting checklist at the end of the video to help with actually implementing all of this.
Now, if you don't know me, I'm Natasha Willis. I scale seven-figure businesses to eight figures and beyond with our social funnel conversion system that involves DMs, SMS, email, regular website funnels, and ads. And I've worked hands-on now with over 3,000 brands like Nike, ClickFunnels, Russell Brunson, Amy Porterfield, Mine Valley, Cody Sanchez, and so many others. And stories, I have found, are the easiest way to instantly generate leads and revenue for your business.
Now, you might be thinking, well, aren't regular feed posts more important? No, they're actually equally important, and they serve different purposes. So stories typically get 4x more engagement than feed posts. So if you're not turning that engagement into sales, you're leaving a lot of money on the table.
So you might be wondering, how many leads can I actually generate from my stories? Well, by the end of this video, you'll know how to get results that'll have you saying things like this. From one of my clients, Anthony: "I had to turn my notifications off. Lol. This is crazy. I'm in a meeting. My phone died." This is from my client Anthony, who told me that after we generated 27,000 new leads and over $100,000 in sales from just implementing these story strategies. Another client said, "Let's go. You called it. Stories are wicked awesome for this stuff. Impressions alone were at 132,000," and he generated 16,000 new leads from his first couple of stories. And one more, because even if you have a lot of followers but only get a couple thousand views on your stories, this is going to help you a ton. Now, she said, "Getting really outstanding views on my stories as well. The one I posted yesterday evening already has 12K views." The day before, she sent me a voice note and said, "Hey, I got 20,000 views, which is the highest that I've ever gotten. 3,000 is usually my highest on most days." And this client generated over 1,000 new leads from her first story using a specific type of CTA.
Now, in terms of how these actually convert when it comes to sales, one of my clients, Yayyang, told me, "Our story views have gone up 6x since we started implementing this. And we have a 23% immediate purchase conversion rate." And our customers are saying that it was a fun experience. And so, the results have been quick and impactful. And by the way, all these people that I just showed you have products that are between a $20 to $5,000 price point. So, at this point, I know that this works for products of any price.
So, now let's dive into three of the frameworks that I've developed after analyzing over 400,000 stories. The first framework that I'm going to show you is called the Prime and Convert Formula. Now, this is a four-step story sequence that's guaranteed to turn viewers into leads. And I'm going to show you a couple of examples of what this can look like first. And before I dive into this, I know that creating a sequence of stories can seem a bit complicated, but it's actually quite simple when you follow four key steps that I'm going to walk you through right now: connect, clarity, curiosity, and call to action.
Now, let me break down what should happen in each of these stories. Now, in the first story, we are asking people a question about your audience's current challenges or their knowledge. Now, a key part of this first story is making sure that you have a poll on it. And there needs to be two options. One option is a like, "I'm curious," or like, kind of response in response to the question. And then the other is a definitive yes. So, for example, right here, when we say, "Did you know that two out of three Americans can't afford a $400 emergency?" "I'm one of the two" would be your yes. And then, "No, I didn't know." That would be like, "Oh, wow." You know, I want to engage with this in some way. Now, when we have a poll here, we are instantly boosting our reach right off the bat for stories because Instagram, seeing that there's a lot of engagement on that story, they want more people to use polls. And so, as a result, they increase the number of your followers who actually see your story pop up in their story lineup when they go to their feed, for example.
Now, in the second story, we're going to dive deeper into their issue or their challenge. So, again, we have a poll here. And in this one, we're saying, "Most people think this is a money problem, but the truth is it's actually a lack of using your gifts and talents." And then we have two poll options. Once again, one is like a definitive, "Oh, yeah, that totally makes sense." And then the other one is like, "Okay, tell me more." Like just for the people who are a little bit more neutral or like more curious, but not like all-in on this message that you're sharing with them. Right? On the other hand, I'll show you another quick example which says, "Are you worried that your product idea might not sell?" And then we say, "I still need an idea." Or, "How did you know?" So, again, two examples where like one's a little bit more neutral. One's like, "Oh my gosh, you're speaking right to me."
Now, the third story is going to build curiosity. So, let's pop over to this one. And this one says, "When you use your gifts and talents, you can create more money." And then we have another poll here where it's like, "Yep, I sure can." Or like, "No, I think I'm still going to be broke." And so the idea with this is that we're asking people if they are open and willing to learn about a solution to the problem or learn about the next steps of how we can help them if they weren't even aware that they had a problem until right now. Right? And then down here we're also going to say something similar where we say, "If somebody handed you their multi-million dollar e-commerce store blueprint, would you dedicate the time and effort to apply it to your own store?" So this is again inviting them to learn a little bit more about this opportunity. Right? And finally, in the fourth story, we're then going to have our call to action. This is where we're telling people to DM us a specific word. But as a little bonus tip, you want to have some kind of arrow pointing down to the bottom of the story. Now, at the bottom of your story, there's going to be a visual there that says "send message." That's where people can type in the word. And so, you just want to point people's attention there by using an arrow of any kind. So, you'll see right here that we have our pointing down emoji for this specific one.
Now, I want to share a quick story of how powerful this story sequence can really be. A brand came to us desperately needing to book out their closer calendar; and in just one hour with literally one story sequence using this Prime and Convert formula, we booked out their entire calendar for the rest of the month with qualified leads. I actually had to call him while he was on podcast tour to take the story down because they couldn't handle any more leads. There were no more call slots available.
Now, a hot tip: these story sequences perform extremely well as story highlights. So, as soon as you see a sequence performing well, you can save it on your profile to your highlights for continuous lead generation. Just make sure you don't add a bunch of extra stories to it. So it's like 50 stories in your story highlight. Instead, it's just a couple, which would be ideally these four or a little bit less.
Now, to help you put all of this into action, I have a table here that you can screenshot that's going to show you exactly how to do this. So, right here we have story one, what shows on the story, your swipe copy, and then your hot tips. And that's going to happen for each of the different stories so that it's super clear to you. You can grab this, you can send this to your social media manager, your content people, or do this on your own, on your own account, um, to get this implemented and start to test this ASAP.
Now, the second framework that I'm going to share involves using what's called the reveal sticker. Now, this is one of Instagram's most underutilized features right now for businesses, and it's also fairly new. Using this sticker can give you a minimum of 2x increase in reach compared to an average story that you posted in the last 30 days, plus a 6% plus increase in story replies.
Now, you're going to find this reveal story feature on your stories after you create a story. So, let's say you took a photo of something. In the top right corner, you're going to see different stickers. So, you can go ahead and click into that. Kind of looks like a magic wand, at least at the time that I'm recording this. And then you're going to find in that list something that says "reveal," which you're seeing right here on my screen. Now, when somebody clicks on your reveal story, it is going to show whatever is underneath. So, it's going to show a black story. And then when somebody clicks into the reveal button and types in something that you're going to tell them to do, then they are going to be able to view the entire contents of the story. So essentially like a hidden thing, right? So I'll show you two examples here of exactly how this can work. Let's go ahead and hit play on our first one. So in this video, you're going to notice that there are a couple of stories that come before this just to kind of set the stage. Instagram has actually shared that when a story has at least three stories in it, like a sequence of stories, you get the most engagement. So just another data point to back up overall the priming convert formula that I just showed you. But now you can kind of combine that with what you're doing here. So you'll see that on this story here where we have a black screen initially, it says "Type COURSE to see my five big revelations that I'd share." And then once I type COURSE, two things happen. One, that actually triggers a message to get sent from the account that I'm sending this to back to me to invite me to learn more about this through a freebie or a paid offer. So take your pick, right? But just setting up a word that does that. And then we also have the whole story right here that adds a ton of value to me that I could now screenshot, save for later, and essentially feel like I got something from typing in a message to that reveals sticker.
Now, a second one right here that I want to show you is this one starts with, "Are you currently using a financial advisor?" Right? Then from there, you click on whatever option to the poll. It says, "Did you know that an average financial advisor can steal 20% of your net worth?" Okay, so we're kind of combining the two polls from the priming convert formula leading into the reveal sticker. And then finally here we then say "comment ADVISOR to see how they take your money." And then it takes you through the whole process. And then what we say is, "Hey, I just sent over a free tool to check for yourself. Hope it helps." And then you get a message from the account that sends you a free tool to help with what we were just talking about inside of that story sequence.
So to quickly recap that: what I showed you first was the prime and convert formula, right? Which is four stories. You're asking people a question on each story of the first three. And then on the last one, you then have a call to action word that gets people to opt in to your funnel for your free or your paid offer. Now, in the reveal story strategy, which is the second framework that I showed you, ideally you don't just use that feature on a random story and people are like, "I have no context going into this," right? Just people are going to be less incentivized to do it.
Now, for our third framework, let's talk about when to post your stories. Having a consistent weekly schedule is critical when you want to maximize your story ROI. And if you're wondering, do I need to post stories every single day? Not necessarily. But if you are optimizing for revenue growth, I'm going to show you the schedule that you'll want to follow. And then I'll also talk about a simpler way to get started if you're like, "I've got a lot on my plate. I just need, you know, a couple of ways to get started." So I'll share that towards the end after I break down the most ideal optimal strategy first.
Now, let's go ahead and scroll down to this. And I'm just going to talk you through each of the different days. So on Sundays, you'll want to post some kind of inspirational win from your life or a customer with a call to action to a free or paid offer. And then you can follow it up with some kind of behind-the-scenes image or video of your everyday life, something that you're working on. You ideally never want to have back-to-back call to action stories. Instead, you want to have a story that has the call to action on it. And I'll talk a little bit more later about why you want to do that with the first story that you post or after a sequence of stories like what I just showed you. Those are really the only two ways that you should be using a call to action in your stories. But then in between your call to action stories, ideally you want to have something that's nurturing. And Sundays are the perfect day because it's the reset day. It's the day to kind of plan out your week typically. And so use that to your advantage by being able to show how you do that on your side.
Now, Mondays are perfect for the reveal sticker to show what you're working on and then follow that up with a CTA to a free or a paid offer and just add a lot of value to people at the beginning of the week. Now on Tuesday, you can use a question sticker. And this doesn't have to be like "ask me anything about my expertise." It could be even asking people for recommendations or feedback if you're working on something like, "Hey, I'm working on this new YouTube video or this new product. What do you guys think about this name?" Or, "Would you find this outcome helpful?" It could also be something totally like outside of work, like "What movie should I watch this weekend?" or food recommendations or something of that nature. And then after that story, you want to do a behind-the-scenes moment. And then later on, you'll actually want to go back and answer all those questions as well. But you usually want to wait at least 24 hours just to have all the questions, and then you can take your pick from there.
Now, Wednesdays are ideal for a quick tip or relatable habit with a CTA to a free or a paid offer. Then on Thursdays, you'll want to leverage what's called the "add yours" sticker. I'm going to show you an example of what this looks like. But after that story, you want to have a CTA to a free or paid offer on your next story. The reason why you want to use the "add yours" is because it boosts story views significantly right now. And so here's an example of what this looks like, right? So you'll see right here it says "add yours." And so that part of the story stays the same. But then when you use that sticker, you can actually change what's in the story. Right? So in this example here, you can see that there are six different images. So when I, as a new person that's about to use this, goes and uses this, then I will fill in my own images there. But for each of the different people, you'll see that it'll always have this section right here. And that is how you can actually find this stuff. So, I'll drop a little bit of information in the video description for you guys since I could talk about this one for a whole hour in itself. Uh, and so in the video description, I'll drop in just how we tend to find profiles and um information to use for "add yours" so that you guys can use that as well if you would like to. But I would prioritize this after everything that I've shared with you so far. It is just something to help you boost your views in the most optimal way.
Now, Fridays, similar to Sundays, you're going to share an inspirational win with the CTA. And a lot of people think that Fridays are the worst performing day of the week when it comes to stories or feed posts. But we actually haven't found that to be true because Fridays tend to be the time where people say, "Hey, I'm going into weekend mode. I want to just chill a little bit. I want to learn more about something new or I want to learn about how I can improve XYZ thing." So, you just want to make sure you put that angle on it. If you come at a Friday story with Monday energy of, "Yeah, ready to grind," uh, and like that kind of energy, then your Friday story is likely not going to perform. It's not going to resonate. So, you just need to package up your story in a way that people are going to be more receptive to it on a Friday.
Now, on Saturdays, here is where most people go wrong. You want to let all of your stories expire. This actually helps boost reach on your next story that gets posted. Now, some people will say, "Hey, you should do this for every single story that you ever post." We haven't necessarily found that to be uh as useful, but instead, we want to do this at least once a week so that that way you're letting all your stories expire; there's no active stories on your profile is what I mean. And then from there, when you post your next story, so in this case, this would be on Sunday, you're going to get a ton of views on your Sunday story because now Instagram is pushing out your stories to your followers. Once again, it's just essentially an algorithm thing that's been true now for quite a while. So, it's definitely something to leverage, and it's really easy to implement.
Now, when it comes to this schedule and your overall story strategy, you might be thinking, "Do I need to create brand new stories every single week?" Absolutely not. Just like you can repost posts on your Instagram feed, don't be afraid to repost story sequences or single stories that have performed really well. My clients find that they get the best results when they repost a story sequence or a single story every 6 to 8 weeks just so there's been enough time in between.
Now, if you are like, "Whoa, that was a lot of what I just shared with that calendar. What is the simplest version of this that I can get started with?" Choose three days to make stories; whatever days you can make happen with your schedule, and then use the strategy that I have for those specific days to make it really easy, and then eventually you can ramp this up and schedule this out just like you schedule out your content.
Now, before we wrap up, I promised you a stories posting checklist that's going to help you implement everything that we've covered. So, let me go ahead and break this down for you. First, check your creative and your text elements. So, you want to make sure that in your story you have the right call to action word, which is "reply with this word." This is absolutely critical because you're going to get 400% more opt-ins to your offers on your stories when you use this versus the link sticker. I cannot stress this enough. I still see so many businesses make the mistake of using link stickers when DM keywords are far more effective. It actually allows somebody to receive that link in a place that they're going to be able to come back to it and get it since often times people will click on something and then get distracted or get a call or forget to go back. And so having it in their DMs actually gives them a place to like, quote-unquote, bookmark it. Right.
Next, make sure you're actually writing your call to action word on your story. You would be surprised how many people actually forget this simple step, but it makes such a big difference in your conversion rates on the story. Third, you want to check your weekly frequency. Are you posting at least three stories per week with your call to action? Because if you're only posting one CTA story a week, you're just not giving yourself enough opportunities to convert all those viewers. Fourth, don't forget about nurturing. So, are you posting stories between each of your stories with a call to action that is nurturing, educating, or just sharing behind-the-scenes content that does not have a CTA? Using call to actions in every single story that you ever post will actually lead to decreased story views over time. So, you want to make sure that you're balancing the promotional content with the value-giving content or just nurturing people so they don't feel like you're selling to them 24/7 every single time they see your face on their feed or their stories. And finally, just be careful with back-to-back CTA stories. So, you want to keep consecutive stories with a call to action in them to ideally one maximum. You can do up to three. We have found that in very heavy promotion phases where it's like the biggest launch of the year for our company, like, we just want to go all in on this. We'll do three back-to-back stories with the same call to action, but each one feels a little bit different, right? It might be a video, then we have an image, then we might have another video. So, just making sure we're switching it up so people don't feel like every single one of your stories says the exact same thing, if that makes sense.
And finally, if you test some of these formulas and you find that one doesn't perform as well as you would hope it does, do not give up. I highly encourage you to just tweak one part of it again and try again. Because, as you know, content is a volume game. And so, the more of these story formulas you create and post, the better they should get and the more leads you should generate. 'Cause this is a compounding skill that is well worth the time investment to master.
Now, if you're not getting those opt-ins that you want, it's usually due to one of three things: the hook, the offer, whether it's free or paid, and how you're actually connecting those two things together in the piece of content. So, try adjusting those elements and post again. And if you're still feeling lost, actually reach out to the people who are liking your post, liking your stories, engaging with your DMs. Like, ask them, "Hey, if you saw this story of mine, like, why didn't you take action on this?" And that's going to reveal exactly what you'll likely need to tweak. They might say it was confusing, or they might say that they didn't really see the value in the thing that you were offering, and so they decided not to engage.
So, if you enjoyed this video and want more, just hit the subscribe button below. That helps more businesses like you find my videos and get unstuck with their revenue from social media. And if you have any questions at all, please drop a comment below. I actually check them and reply. Thanks for watching, and hope you got a ton out of this.