6 reasons your online marketing isn’t selling

“Stella, I’m great at what I do and my clients are getting AMAZING results. But my online marketing doesn’t bring me business.”

I hear this all the time.

And within 20 seconds of looking at someone’s website, I can usually pinpoint what’s keeping someone from selling online.

Here are the most common culprits:

#1 Using writing when you should be talking to people. I’ve noticed that many business owners have negative feelings about asking people for money. This is a problem that will put you out of business! Instead, they hope that they can write a nice website, and it will do the selling for them. Nope! That’s not a website’s job. If you need to work on this critical skill, I highly recommend my friend Kiva over at Wise Women Network (she has a brass tacks course on asking people for money that’s free right now – check it out — http://wisewomennetwork.com/authentic-sales/)

#2 Asking your audience to buy from you without building the relationship first. People want to buy from people they trust and respect. And yet so many business owners put the cart before the horse and try to sell before they have “paid into the relationship bank account” with the people on their list. Give people great content first, then make the ask.

#3 “I’ll run some Facebook ads and sell to those people”. I know Facebook Ads are all the rage right now, and some internet marketers are really killing it with them. But for most of us, that is an experimental strategy that should be frosting on your revenue, not the magic bullet you are hoping will work for you. Facebook is great to build an audience, but my friends who are smarter at social media than I am say that it’s a strategy that takes 3-6 months to work.

#4 Not having a list. Here’s the deal. Strangers don’t care about your ebook/low price info product that you hope will bring you passive revenue. The only people who care are the people who follow you and hear from you on a regular basis, and already know you create quality work. In other words, the people on your list. Also? Please stop talking trash about how small your list is. You don’t a big list to generate sales. Even 200 or 300 people is a great size, if you know what you’re doing. Which brings us to…

#5 Attempting a HUGE launch when a small one will work better. First off, I want you to have a full book of 1-1 clients before you try something as wonderful and agonizing as an online launch. Because even if your campaign is small (read: 3 emails promoting a webinar followed by 3 emails offering initial sessions – a strategy that netted my client Robin $24,000 when she wrote it with me), it’s a lot of work. And your gremlin voices will pop up. But if you like a good challenge, start there – a small launch. Don’t even bother with a sales page. Just get people into sessions. It will build your confidence and teach you what you want to do differently the next time. Trust that there will be a next time. And start small.

#6 Writing a fast food sales page you don’t even need. Look, the truth is you probably don’t need a sales page (those really long pages that take your reader through a full blown sales process). Here’s why. But if you ignore my advice and plow ahead with it, there’s a strong chance your sales page will be really bad. And cheap-looking. And scream amateur hour. Have I talked you out of this yet?

I don’t mean to be a jerk here. But this is a HUGE project to undertake, and it WILL pull focus from everything else you are doing in your business. It’s worth it if you are generating $150K+ a year in revenue, have your baseline income covered, or you have a copywriter on your team and need to figure out how to give them constructive feedback (I have clients who hire me to advise them and train their copywriter at the same time, by the way). But if you’re struggling with getting private clients in the door and just covering your bills, take this off your to do list (see #1). It’s too soon.

The other thing that’s been coming up a lot lately is how writing about your work is a whole other ball of wax than talking about your work. Many of you are really, really good at resonating with people you talk to, but you’re all thumbs when it comes to the writing. The biggest thing I’m seeing here is that the way you write about your promise is far too generic. “Change your life” is not a compelling promise. “Grow your business in 90 days” is not a compelling promise. “Financial security and peace of mind” is not a compelling promise. I’ll write more about this in the future, but for now, ask yourself, “what do I really mean when I say this?” and “what 3 specific outcomes do I offer, that my ideal clients would give their left arm to get?”

I’ll see you on the road.

Mighty thanks to See-ming Lee’s flickr photostream for the food variety.