30% more business with less than 1,000 followers on Instagram
How a clear Personal Branding Strategy boosts sales in as little as 3 months
Paola Simboli
With over 15 years experience in the wellness industry between Italy, US and Middle East, Paola is a certified nutritionist, personal trainer and pilates teacher.
“It was September 2019, and at that time I used to have a profile on Instagram with around 400 followers between family, friends and clients at my Pilates studio. I used to upload pictures of me while exercising along with a nice quote in the caption, that’s it! It was just a personal diary of my life.
However, I started to have a business idea in my head and I wanted to use Instagram to sell it.
I used to see Giulia every week for my Pilates classes. I knew about her marketing expertise, built with global brands, and of her Instagram experience through @Spaghettiairways so I decided to reach out to her with the idea of launching my first ever wellness retreat – one of my biggest dream for 2020!
I remember she told me straight away “Paola, you need a proper Personal Branding strategy first and then we can talk about selling your retreat to your community.”
As Paola did, many clients reach out to me because they have a product, an idea, a service and they want to sell it through Instagram. But before you even think of selling something on a social media platform, the first step is to always have a clear strategy, which means you need to know what you are doing there and how you can add value to your audience. Then you can start building a community around you and once you have their trust, it’s then that you can actually start to sell. So, first thing’s first, Paola needed a Personal Branding strategy.
“I will be completely honest; I hired Giulia with the idea to launch the retreat, and it turned out that my overall business started to grow. I had no clue this could happen with such a small number of followers - but it did!
Giulia started building my personal brand by deep-diving through my strengths and passions and she taught me how to leverage them in my profile.
I used to position myself as a Pilates teacher only, but I was much more than that and Giulia helped me to highlight all my areas of expertise through an effective Instagram strategy - from having a clear vision of my marketing positioning, to creating an editorial plan that could drive my business agenda.
I guess the key thing for me was understanding the difference between being on Instagram as an individual and being there as an entrepreneur, nurturing a community of potential customers (‘cause at the end of the day that is what my followers are), and keeping the focus on my values and ethos.“
This is so important when we talk about Personal Branding - the person always comes first. Paola’s values, passions and strengths are a key part of her positioning. People don’t book just a Pilates class with her - people book Paola, first.
“Three months after starting to work with Giulia, implementing my new Instagram strategy, these were my results:
+30% Nutrition business
+10% Pilates business
9/10 tickets sold to my first ever wellness retreat
At that time, I had less than 1,000 followers on Instagram, but my business was thriving!
In a span of a month, the COVID pandemic happened, the studios closed due lockdown and the situation was quite critical, but it was thanks to all the personal branding work done before that I was able to bring all my classes online, and to work with a community who trusted me and grew with me. Shifting my business online helped me to reach out to an even wider audience and now I have clients who book me from all over the world.“
I couldn’t be more proud of Paola’s results! Have a look at her profile now @paola_mindbodyandsoul
As I always say, you don’t need big follower numbers to do business through Instagram, but you do need to have a clear understanding of your strategy and your personal brand if you want to stand out from the competition and get effective results.