or scroll down to get the highlights

Is keeping up with Social Media a constant source of stress for you?
Do you feel like you should have a plan, but don’t know what that even looks like?

Are you wondering if all your effort on Social Media is worth it? 

The truth is that most store owners can’t afford to ignore Social Media.

Here’s why you can’t afford to ignore Social Media:
The number one reason that most people aren’t getting sales is that they don’t have enough eyeballs on their products. Even though organic reach has declined, Social Media is still the very best place to find ‘your’ people and get your products in front of them. You can find thousands of your people on Social Media – and you can do it for very little money.

You might not know this important fact:
You can use Social Media platforms to build a huge audience of several hundred thousand people. These are people who have indicated their interest by watching one of your videos, or engaging with a post, and you can capture them in an audience, and then show them more of the content they’re interested in. 

About 2% of those people will click through to your site, and some will become customers.

I don’t think Social Media is optional for most of us. It’s how we get eyeballs. 

We use Social Media to fill  our Sales Funnel and start the customer Journey.

The goal is to systemize your content – so it’s easy to create posts that attract your perfect people.  Do this and you won’t be stuck doing your own Social Media forever.

What if you had a plan that allowed you to have one meeting a month. If you’re working solo, you’d have a meeting with yourself, but if your goal is to outsource Social Media, you could meet with your Social Media assistant.

In the meeting you’ll decide what products or events you’re featuring each week, and once you do that, you’ll walk away with 4 weeks worth of posts and videos that are aligned with the content and promotions you’ll use for your email campaigns.

It might sound too good to be true, but this is the system that we’ve been using to make Social Media easy. 

It’s allowed me to feel confident that my Social Media content is relevant, engaging, and is attracting more of my target audience. 

Since we’ve been using it, my Social Media Manager, Katy, has all the content she needs to do her job well, without having to ask me for content all the time. That’s a huge burden off my shoulders. 

Most store owners struggle to outsource their Social Media

I’ve seen so many people outsource their Social Media, only to bring it back in house a few months later.

When I ask why, the number one reason I hear is that the content wasn’t right. The store owner was having to edit all the posts, and it was too much work.

Many store owners give up because the assistant they hired needed too much from them, and the store owner was left feeling like hiring help actually created more work.

I knew that there had to be a better way. Early this year, I started working with my Social Media manager Katy, to come up with a system that would eliminate most of the pain points that we all experience with Social Media.

The outcome I wanted was for store owners to have a simple, repeatable, system that they could use to create great, relevant, quality content that builds their audience. It had to be do-able in a couple of hours a month. Lastly, it needed to be clear and simple so store owners could hand it off, and be confident that their content would have an impact on sales.

We came up with a system – and Katy spent several months testing it with some of her clients and using it on her own ecommerce store. We know it works, and we know it will help other store owners finally get Social Media off their plate. So we created a new course.

Last month our new course, Social Media Made Easy, was available to Inner Circle members only, and now we’re making it available to everyone who is ready to finally have a system for their Social Media.
I think every store owner can benefit from the strategy and process we teach in the course.

Grab a pen, and get the framework here on the podcast

Or, keep reading for a look at the strategy and process we’re using

The Strategy

Many store owners are frustrated with Social Media because they often can’t see if it’s working. This creates an internal struggle when you’re setting your priorities and deciding how much time to dedicate to Social Media. dedicating our time to it.

We’ve become very clear on the outcome we’re looking for, and how we are measuring our results.

I think you might find this helpful too, because this simple system of measuring shows me the impact of the work we’re doing.

My one clear outcome from Social Media is to build my audience. I track the size of my audience every month by measuring my 30 day reach across all platforms. This gives me a clear picture of the size of my audience.

It’s a metric that the entire team understands. Because we set “audience size” goals, and measure our results every month, I know that our Social Media plan has an impact on our results.

We post Consistent messaging across all platforms every week. 

Communication is the hardest thing, and it took me a long time to learn that people have to hear the same message several times before it really sinks in. 

Over the years, I’ve seen evidence that this is a fact.

I see it in our Inner Circle Members every month. Even though we have the same live calls every month, and members receive multiple emails and notifications, one of the most commonly asked questions is “where’s the link”?

I see it in my own behavior. I find myself asking again and again for information that’s been shared with me before.

People are busy. Our attention is scattered, and Social Media is noisy.

Clarity leads to results. Our strategy is to create clarity for your audience by consistent messaging across Social Media and Email Marketing about one product, or one Event a week.
It might feel repetitive, but it works.

Clarity comes from seeing one message multiple times.

Confusion comes from seeing multiple messages once.

Listen to this episode of the podcast to see how to apply this strategy for more effective emails

The Process

We plan our “weekly” content once a month. Because each week is all about only one product or one event, it’s relatively fast and easy to block out the weeks and decide what we’ll be posting about.

We use our Content Matrix to identify and record the talking points we will use to create a full week’s worth of content for our posts.

Watch here as Katy and I create a week’s worth of content in less than 10 minutes.

Use the Matrix content for Social Media posts, but we also use it for our emails, so we’re creating a consistent message everywhere, and we don’t have to stress about coming up with more ideas.

We’re set up to recycle our content. Sadly, nobody is watching what you do closely enough to call you out on reusing content that has worked well for you. It’s smart to recycle your content every few months.

We have a process that others can learn. When you have a strategy and systemize your Social Media, you can train others to use this repeatable process. You’ll cut your workload down to one meeting a month, and be confident that your social media is getting better results than before.

Click Here to Start Using Social Media Made Easy

New FREE Course

GROW YOUR SALES

(without breaking the bank)

Conversion School is a step by step process to grow your sales,
without spending a fortune on risky ad strategies, or discounting your products.

Works for Ecommerce stores at all stages.

Start getting consistent sales, and see significant sales growth every month.

New FREE Course

GROW YOUR SALES

(without breaking the bank)

Conversion School is a step by step process to grow your sales,
without spending a fortune on risky ad strategies, or discounting your products.

Works for Ecommerce stores at all stages.

Start getting consistent sales, and see significant sales growth every month.

or scroll down to get the highlights

GA4: 5 knowledge bombs to calm your nerves as you make the transition

Big changes have arrived at Google, and they impact every business owner who uses Google Analytics. As of July 2023, Google has retired Universal Analytics. You’ll still be able to collect your data in the new version of Google Analytics, GA4.

How will this change impact your Business?

Change is hard, and especially if it’s a change that involves technology.

It’s important to remember that this change doesn’t affect your site’s user experience or change the user behavior in your store. It’s very much different from the change we experienced when the iOS14 update was released.

When iOS14 was released, users had the ability to opt out of tracking. Many store owners felt the effect of this change because when users “opted out”, our ability to retarget web visitors was significantly reduced.

GA4 is Google’s solution to gathering data online, in a “cookie-less” world.

Here’s what you need to do today

It’s going to take several months for the industry to find the best way to find the opportunities and understand the limitations of GA4.

Our best first steps are to learn what’s changed, understand what the “new” metrics mean, and develop solid benchmarks for the metrics that store owners should be tracking.

Leona Griffin is our Inner Circle Ecommerce Coach, specializing in Google products.

A few days ago, I sat down with Leona for a discussion about the most important changes our Inner Circle Members need to know when they start using GA4.

1. Expect to see a significant decrease in traffic. You might be used to tracking the number of “sessions” which includes multiple visits from all users. GA4 is reporting the number of unique “users” that visit your site.
2. Bounce Rates are “out” and Engagement is “in”. Most of us are accustomed to checking our Bounce Rate to determine the quality of the traffic we send to our sites, or the user experience on a page. When you use GA4, you’ll use Engagement to make the same assessments. I think this is a good change, because Google counts an “engagement” when a user lands on your site and clicks on something or spends 10 seconds or more on your site. An “engaged session” is more likely to be a quality session than a visitor that didn’t bounce, but spent just a few seconds on your site.
3. Estimations are the new normal. Google Analytics G4 will apply estimations on the number of sessions which may cause your number of sessions to look higher or lower than what you were seeing in UA. Going forward, we’ll recommend target “ranges” as benchmarks for the metrics that we track and measure.
4. Multiple Conversion Events. When you’re using GA4, expect to see multiple conversion events in one session. Each event in a session is counted in GA4, versus UA which counted an event only one time per session. A perfect example of this is an “Add to cart” event. If a user adds 8 items to their cart, it will display as 8 add to carts.
5. Fewer Reports. It’s significantly harder to get the data that you’ve been used to seeing in the UA version of Google Analytics. Looker Studio is a free tool offered by Google that you can use to create dashboards that are customized for your store.
6. Shipping and Tax Revenue is not reported in your sales. You might get a shock when you log into GA4 and see that your sales are suddenly lower than you expect. Don’t panic, it’s just a change in reporting. In the past, Universal Analytics tracked the revenue you generate from shipping and taxes. Going forward, GA4 does not include that revenue in your sales.

What are your next steps?

If you haven’t installed and configured your store’s GA4 product, you should do it now.

Every member of the Inner Circle has the complete GA4 training in their classroom.
Inner Circle Members, can access their training here.

We know you might need some support. The Mentors can answer your questions in the member’s group. If you need 1:1 help, you can book a session with our Inner Circle Ecommerce Coaches Leona and Sarah.

If you want to skip the set up, and get it done for you, you can book a done for you package with Leona Griffin here.

The Last Word

Google Analytics is an important tool that helps store owners like us understand more about the behavior of our website traffic, troubleshoot problems, and identify opportunities.

Our team is committed to finding a way to simplify the data collected by GA4 and present our members and followers with an effective method of viewing and analyzing their data.

While it’s a great tool, Google Analytics does not provide the insight that every store owner can by building a sales funnel for your store. When you build your Sales Funnel, you’ll be able to predict your sales by tracking the number of people in each stage of your funnel. You’ll understand where you need to focus your attention in order to grow your sales, and you’ll be able to see your progress every month.

I encourage everyone to do this work.

Inner Circle Members, the training is here in your classroom.

New FREE Course

GROW YOUR SALES

(without breaking the bank)

Conversion School is a step by step process to grow your sales,
without spending a fortune on risky ad strategies, or discounting your products.

Works for Ecommerce stores at all stages.

Start getting consistent sales, and see significant sales growth every month.

New FREE Course

GROW YOUR SALES

(without breaking the bank)

Conversion School is a step by step process to grow your sales,
without spending a fortune on risky ad strategies, or discounting your products.

Works for Ecommerce stores at all stages.

Start getting consistent sales, and see significant sales growth every month.

or scroll down to get the highlights

Many Ecommerce store owners are surprised when they learn that they need a massive audience to keep growing and reach their long term sales goals. 

It’s not uncommon for higher volume stores to reach millions of people every month. 
They’re highly visible.

Even when you’re a new-ish Ecommerce store owner, you’ll need to make yourself visible to 100,000 – 200,000 people every month in order to create awareness for your products.

It might seem daunting, but the truth is it’s not that hard, or expensive.

Brand Videos are one of the fastest ways to build your product awareness, get more traffic to your site, and make your business visible and memorable.

You might be thinking that Brand Videos are only for “big” businesses, and that you need a high production value, big budget video, but I know that’s not the case.

Every Ecommerce store owner should have a Brand Video. When you have a Brand Video, you’ll be able to use it to:
→Attract the right people, by giving them a  taste of what they’ll find on your site
→Build a massive audience – for a tiny spend 

Listen in as our Inner Circle Traffic Coach, Cathy Hayhurst shares a simple way to create your Brand Video then use it to build a massive audience. 

Grab a pen, take some notes, and before you know it, your store will be visible, and your audience will be full of people who have a genuine interest in your products.

New FREE Course

GROW YOUR SALES

(without breaking the bank)

Conversion School is a step by step process to grow your sales,
without spending a fortune on risky ad strategies, or discounting your products.

Works for Ecommerce stores at all stages.

Start getting consistent sales, and see significant sales growth every month.

New FREE Course

GROW YOUR SALES

(without breaking the bank)

Conversion School is a step by step process to grow your sales,
without spending a fortune on risky ad strategies, or discounting your products.

Works for Ecommerce stores at all stages.

Start getting consistent sales, and see significant sales growth every month.

or scroll down to get the highlights

Have you heard of an SEO Funnel?

Most of us understand the sales funnel where we’ve got our cold, warm, and hot audiences filtering down the funnel to the purchase goal.

You can apply that same method of thinking to SEO.

An SEO Funnel will bring consistent, high quality traffic to your site, and it doesn’t cost a dime.

Investing time into SEO can be beneficial for any ecommerce business, and you can use a content-based funnel strategy to grow traffic and sales without advertising.

What is a SEO Funnel?
It’s an SEO focused content strategy designed to warm up your audiences and bring them down a funnel, until they make a purchase. Your SEO Funnel has 3 audiences.
Top of funnel audience, middle of funnel audience, and bottom of funnel audience.

Specific SEO focused content is created to attract a top of funnel, middle of funnel, and bottom of funnel audience.

What kinds of Ecommerce stores should use an SEO Funnel?
Every product based Ecommerce business can benefit from this strategy.

Why is this Important to me now?
The SEO Funnel is a slow growing evergreen strategy. You can track and measure your results, so you can see that it’s working and your time is well spent. You can implement it by creating content consistently over time. This isn’t a paid strategy. Your investment is in time, not money.

Traffic that comes to your store from an organic search will often have higher than average conversion rates.

How to get started:
Start by optimizing your Collection and Product pages.

We recommend you do some keyword research, to determine the best keyword phrases to use for each of those pages.
Find the best keyword phrases by using a tool like ubersuggest.
It’s a cost effective way to do keyword research quickly.
You can also use a free tool like the Google Ads keyword planner.
Look for phrases that actually get searched by real people, so you can be confident that the keywords you are using are actually getting some traffic.

Look for keyword phrases that have 1,000 – 10,000 searches a month for products.

Once you’ve done that, make a plan to optimize your homepage, your collections, and your product pages. At a minimum, include your chosen keyword phrase in your title description and image alt text at a minimum.

In the Inner Circle, we have great training  that explains how to do this, step by step.
Learn how to keyword optimize your site. Get the free guide, Simple SEO for Store Owners.

TOP OF FUNNEL: Audience is in the awareness stage. They may not even know that they need your product. They’re asking general questions and considering multiple options. Create broad content that answers questions like What is X? is perfect at this stage.
MIDDLE OF FUNNEL: Audience knows they need your product and are still deciding on which option is best. They may be looking at your products and competitor’s products. Content that is more product specific helps them decide which product will best fill their need. Product comparisons or reviews are two examples of content to create for this stage.
BOTTOM OF FUNNEL: This audience has already made the decision to purchase and they are considering a purchase from you. Your job is to assure them that they are making the right decision by buying from you. Content like lots of reviews, “how to” guides, and in depth product descriptions with specifications can help them make the decision to purchase.

Key points to remember:
1. All store owners should work on an SEO strategy, even if they use paid ads. This content will help buyers feel confident in purchasing from you.
2. SEO is a long term strategy. While sometimes we see quick wins in ranking and traffic, the reality is that bigger wins take months (and sometimes) years to attain.
3. If you use Google ads, working on your SEO will directly and indirectly help those ads. Google P-Max normally uses SEO product titles & descriptions, and optimizing your listings will help you be found more often.

Your next steps:
1. Perform a content audit of your site using the SEO Funnel as a guide.
2.Find the gaps and make a plan to start, or improve, your own funnel. 

For 1:1 help, Inner Circle members can book a call with our SEO Coach, Sarah and get personalized recommendations for your product.

Not a member of the Inner Circle? Use this link to get the details.
https://thesocialsalesgirls.com/inner-circle/

New FREE Course

GROW YOUR SALES

(without breaking the bank)

Conversion School is a step by step process to grow your sales,
without spending a fortune on risky ad strategies, or discounting your products.

Works for Ecommerce stores at all stages.

Start getting consistent sales, and see significant sales growth every month.

New FREE Course

GROW YOUR SALES

(without breaking the bank)

Conversion School is a step by step process to grow your sales,
without spending a fortune on risky ad strategies, or discounting your products.

Works for Ecommerce stores at all stages.

Start getting consistent sales, and see significant sales growth every month.

or scroll down to get the highlights

What can I work on that will really move the needle in my business.

What’s the work that will get me closer to my goals, keep me on track, and lead to long term success?

This is the question that swirls around in almost every store owner’s head – all the time.

For years we’ve been giving our Inner Circle Members the exact work they must do in order to get sales.

More often than not, their progress comes in baby steps, and sometimes that’s really hard to see. That’s when many people start to wonder if all their effort is having any impact on their results. And they shift gears or stop altogether.

It’s a problem

This year, we developed new training that solves that problem.

We’re teaching our Members how to build a Sales Funnel for their shops.

When you build your sales funnel, you actually get to see:

• How many potential customers are in your Sales Funnel
• Where they are on their customer journey
• The work you need to do to convert more people into buyers
• What your business needs you to focus on this month.

You are actually able to see what your business needs each month. You’ll do the work, and you’ll be able to physically see the impact of your work when you build your Sales Funnel next month.

Building their own Sales Funnel, and being able to see the big picture has had a massive impact for our Members. They’re focused. And they’re making more progress than ever before.

This training is so important that I knew we must share it with you.

Join us next month for a live, hands-on workshop. We’ll guide you through the process as you build your Sales Funnel.

You’ll leave knowing the big picture for your store, and the work you’ll focus on that will get you closer to your big goals.

You can register here. The cost is $10. Join us live, and come ready to work.

A replay will be delivered to all registrants.

https://classroom.thesocialsalesgirls.com/build-your-sales-funnel-workshop

New FREE Course

GROW YOUR SALES

(without breaking the bank)

Conversion School is a step by step process to grow your sales,
without spending a fortune on risky ad strategies, or discounting your products.

Works for Ecommerce stores at all stages.

Start getting consistent sales, and see significant sales growth every month.

New FREE Course

GROW YOUR SALES

(without breaking the bank)

Conversion School is a step by step process to grow your sales,
without spending a fortune on risky ad strategies, or discounting your products.

Works for Ecommerce stores at all stages.

Start getting consistent sales, and see significant sales growth every month.

or scroll down to get the highlights

Feeling like your shop is invisible? Do you continue to post on Social Media even though you feel like you’re talking to the wall?

It’s frustrating and exhausting.

I recorded this episode with our Member Success Coach, Tina, shortly after she’d been at an in person event with products from her shop.

I want you to listen, because you’ll learn a different way to think about your ideal customer.

We’re giving you a strategy you can use to improve your messaging.

AND, we’ll give you a way to flip your thinking about your audience and how you can grow it.

New FREE Course

GROW YOUR SALES

(without breaking the bank)

Conversion School is a step by step process to grow your sales,
without spending a fortune on risky ad strategies, or discounting your products.

Works for Ecommerce stores at all stages.

Start getting consistent sales, and see significant sales growth every month.

New FREE Course

GROW YOUR SALES

(without breaking the bank)

Conversion School is a step by step process to grow your sales,
without spending a fortune on risky ad strategies, or discounting your products.

Works for Ecommerce stores at all stages.

Start getting consistent sales, and see significant sales growth every month.