How I Earned 20k With Less Than 1000 Followers on Instagram
Let me start with this: Making money online using social media is easy!
It is…
If you think otherwise, this article is for you, to pick up some good stuff and generate income from the online world asap.
Of course, you need to have the expertise, you need certain skills, you need to know strategies on how to ‘’play the game‘’. It takes time and effort, but what doesn’t?
Once you develop the skills required to sell online you will no longer have trouble with money anymore.
Here we go again, one more time…
— This is not a sprint this is a marathon, speaking of the marathon, these are the skills you might consider developing and master along the way to greatness!
An overview of all high paid skills in 2020 by careersidekick starts with
-Software engineering
-Sales
-DigitalMarketing
-Copywriting
-Web design
-SEO
-Trade skills
I’m going to take your hand and show you my whole journey how I’ve made 20.000€ with less than 1000 followers on Instagram. Also I will give you some of my tips on what I would have done differently, or what you might take into consideration if you want to achieve any goal for your personal brand.
Just to give you a little background about my situation back in those days: I was a full-time student in Denmark, I had a part-time job in the kitchen as a chef. I did learn all necessary skills by myself from investing in online courses and digging deeper to make sure I’ve found the 1% of people online who walk their talk. I did not have any extra money, no credit card so I could not loan any money. I had to attend school during the day at night. I had a job, and the rest of the time I watched and learned, I’ve tried and I have failed.
How did I make 20K in sales with less than 1000 followers?
— I had a successful e-com store before, I was selling ‘’print on demand’’ clothes and products, I was able to build an online store, I’ve learned how to sell, how to run ads and everything necessary to accomplish the revenue I wanted to hit every single month. But I felt empty at the end of the day. This was the time when the idea of helping other people came across.
Once you run your own business and you feel that you want to help other people do the same. You definitely should do that, If you serve others with good intentions, everything will go back at you on a much bigger scale.
I knew what I was doing, I knew what to do to hit the same goals, I did fail, I did learn, I had proof of my work and lastly, I did help other people before I showed anything online. So I was pretty confident to serve and help others.
This is how it all started.
1) Start from the end of my mind- an amazing article ”Begin With the End in Mind: How You Can Make 2021 “Your Year” I read a few days ago, from Ayodeji Awosika. This article itself will help you get clarity on that.
2) Map out, how you could hit the goal that you want, and from that point, go backward!
After these two exercises, I knew, that I had to do these 5 steps:
-Post valuable content
-Create youtube videos
-Run some ads
-Show my expertise
-Have an amazing offer
And you do too.
— I did sell an online course. I was selling digital products before everyone was forced to go online and create courses. I did create my online course about print on demand and dropshipping business models, to help people from Slovakia to build and create their own business online. I was the only person in our country who was educating people about this business model back in 2019.
You might be thinking: Easy for you, Now I get it, you had success because you have been the only one on the market without any competitors.
Well, I thought so too, yes it helps, but it took a lot of time to finally harvest the fruit since we don’t speak English so much in Slovakia and no one knew about this business model.
I had to create everything from scratch in my language. Content for beginners all the way up to expert level, in a different language.
Just a side note: I've never faced the camera before.
Even though I was the only one on the market, I had to build foundations for the whole country and nonstop educate people about this business model which in the USA was already well known, and almost everyone who starts their online business knew or have tried this business model before.
My strategy was simply based on education and funnels.
I’ve created 3 videos a week on youtube to educate people. To accomplish my position as the only person out there who knows what he was doing. I had to create credibility with my experiences and expertise in this topic. Youtube was the perfect platform for exactly that!
As I already told you I had to start from the end of the mind. I’ve created videos that lead people to my funnel. Therefore, every video I published was specifically talking about the content from my online course.
Since I knew what I wanted to create in my digital course, It was much easier to create content on social media rather than finding a new topic to talk about.
Once you know what is in your core offer, it’s easy for you to go backward.
-Creating a low ticket for your audience is a no-brainer, if It’s something from your core offer.
-It’s even easier to create a freebie (lead magnet to get an email)
— It will help you create, and come up with new ideas for your daily emails, Instagram posts, or Youtube videos for your audience since everything has started from the CORE offer.
In my case — a digital course.
At this point, everyone had an amazing customer journey which started from my free stuff to my core offer which was, back in the day-397€
It looks like I’ve covered my all strategy for creating content, so we can move on, building a community and converting the right people to happy customers.
It took me almost 1 year of consistent work on my social media presents until my name has become recognized around this topic in my country.
Building a community is a must if you want to have a successful online business. If you don’t care about people who support you, people who are your raving fans, they will go away.
Look at this situation like this- what If, one person is always giving you presents, and you never give any present back to them? Guess what, one day they will stop giving you presents.
My main platform for converting people and building community was Instagram. I loved Instagram- It’s personal, it’s interactive and it so easy to build any relationship (if you want to)
I had to serve people, I had to educate people and since I mastered my content strategy, I had clarity. I knew exactly what I have to share and talk about to hook people in and create conversation-based relationships from day one.
I’ve created a safe space for them, to feel good. and to trust me, which is a must, if you want to sell something online. My audience wasn’t big, even though I always wanted to have a bigger reach I didn’t have to.
Since I cared about every person who reached out to me, someone who raised the hand and wanted to know more about this business model. or people who already started by themselves, or people who were already in this business who wanted to scale it or needed someone experienced with FB ads.
I did reply to all of them, every single person who reached out to me, I either helped or I gave them direction on what to do next.
Make sure you set your boundaries in this process. Since I didn’t have any boundaries many people took advantage of me and I did end up sharing stuff for free, even though I had to pay big bucks for this information on the US market.
I’ve also created a Facebook group to nourish people. To get in, they had to give me an email. This move helped me grow my email list to 2000 emails within a few months.
The purpose of the Facebook group was always to answer the questions, re-purpose the content to make sure people will consume every single piece by me, and also announce my new products and offers.
Being inside the Facebook group is something that most people don’t care about. This was an opportunity for me to build strong relationships, almost like a family member. If you make people feel special and treat them with respect, it will create a better place to offer any of your products.
Marketing tactics to use in Facebook groups
-Beta testing: If I had a brand new product, I used my audience in my Facebook group to be the first ones to get in. Test, tweak, and upgrade, with the people who already know you the best.
-Special offers for members only: ‘’You are seeing this first before everyone else’’ I’ve also used my private Facebook group as a waiting list for hot news, and new offers.
-Up-sells after promotion: This was the most powerful way to get extra people on board. If they’ve lost their change and doors were closed, or if they had questions, I was promptly replying and making sure they got in asap.
-Social proof: I used the screenshots from the wins people shared in the group, I used the number of members as social proof to promote a private group via my email list. I’ve shared what is going on in the group on my other social media to let people know what they’re missing out on.
At the end of the day, people always want to belong somewhere. If you create a safe space for them to be open and feel good they will always stick around.
If you are in the business you already know about cold, warm, and hot audiences.
-A cold audience is people who never heard about you in the first place
-Warm audience are people who are curious and want to know more
-Hot audiences are people who are committed to work with you and buy your stuff.
Just a summary so far to give you an insight of my business in this stage:
●Cold audience- Or how people find me online: Instagram and Youtube.
●Warm audience- I had a Facebook group, Emails and conversations on Instagram in dm’s.
●Hot audience- Every single post, video or email had a call to action (CTA) to enter my funnel. There was only one option- If you want to know more, you have to commit yourself (pay for that).
My funnel was really simple
1)Value-Consume free videos, posts, and emails.
2)Actionable strategies and tips- I had a low ticket — Manuals and 5-day strategy — how to do research and start your business -something like DIY.
3)Buy my digital course and you have it all, under one roof.
1)Value- Free
2)Low Ticket-14,99€
3)Digital course-397€
I didn’t use any upsell or anything like that. People who enroll in my course did purchase almost anything from me. Everything from Christmas boundless to my high ticket 3 months mentorship (value-1500€).
Once people trust you, and know that you over-deliver every single time, it’s much easier and faster to make any sale. These people become your true fans who will follow you who will stand up for you and got your back every time someone new starts to talk about you some dirt.
My last piece was about conversions.
I used Instagram a lot. Every day I showed up on stories I did live with people or doing FAQs to serve people the most.
The way I launch my digital course: I did the 5-day challenge on my Instagram account for almost 2 hours each day. I educate people, I give them actionable steps, heck, I’ve even created homework for them, and on the last day, I did announce my course.
At this point, people had enough pieces of information, clarity, and especially I’ve built a trust factor, so they knew they could go all-in with me. Once I did close the doors for my course, I also created a low ticket from that 5-day challenge I used before to announce my course.
The secret behind the success?
-I deeply care about people, who want to build something by themselves.
-I did over-deliver every single time.
-I replied, and covered almost every topic that might people possibly needed.
-Nourishing people every day on social media, emails.
-I had a strategy and mindset for success.
-My expertise- Since I knew a lot about marketing, Facebook ads and consumer behavior from my e-com business, It was easier for me to build and sell online with my skills and expertise.
If you’re someone who wants to sell digital courses these are some skills you need to have to succeed.
Experiences
— You have to learn, but the most importantly, execute the things you’ve learned. Your expertise is created by your own experiences: you have to try and fail to succeed.
-Marketing and strategies on how to sell online: focus on selling digital courses.
-Facebook/Instagram ads: this includes, psychology, consumer behavior, marketing, copywriting, designing and editing skills for appealing ads on social media.
Also, here are 5 tips, I would leave for everyone who needs to know more about the online game:
1- You need expertise
— Don’t call yourself an expert if you are not, please stop this nonsense on social media. People who are saying this, in the bio ‘’I help 6–7 figures entrepreneurs scale their business’’ even though they don’t make 6–7 figures.
People are clever, don’t expect your audience to be full of dummies. If you’re making 6–7 figures, people expect that you have at least branding.
2-Metrix doesn’t count
— The number of followers doesn’t mean anything in your business. If you are still playing the game of likes, This article might change your perspective by now, that you should care more about building relationships rather than counting the numbers. Numbers are something just broke influencers care about.
3-Community is the only way
— Do you build relationships with people, or you don’t bother to DM someone to let them know how appreciative you are for their time and effort, they spent to leave that comment on your last post?
4-Be yourself
— Do not try copy, model or hack other businesses, If you want to be unique and run passionately your successful business you cannot skip this part of finding yourself first. Before you show yourself on social media, you should know how conscious leaders run their business.
5-Set your boundaries!
— Don’t give your expertise for free, If you don’t value your time and energy don’t expect that from the people who dm you for a favor.
5- Focus and Clarity
— If you are confused with what you’re doing people will be too.
PS-This whole article is my way to help you on your journey, don't be triggered by it, this is my case study which I'm so happy to share with you.
-Yes, it takes time
-Yes, It’s a commitment
-Yes, It’s worth it
I got your back!
-Denis
