7 BIG Reasons Why You Aren't Selling More Online
Please let me know if this sounds familiar…
You pour your heart and soul into taking a new product to market.
You’ve pushed past the tech issues and you finally have the assets you need in place. Countless hours of planning and effort went into getting to this stage and you are FINALLY ready…
Then you launch…
And you get crickets!
Despite your best efforts, your attempts at selling online isn’t the runaway success you imagined it being.
Talk about frustrating!!
Don’t give up yet though… In fact, there might be a VERY transparent reason why you aren't selling your products or services online.
Want the good news? There’s a very clear way on how to address the issues, improve your conversion and see that your product or service finally succeeds.
Here’s 7 of the most common problems I see in the market and how to fix them.
1 - Getting lost in tactics instead of solid strategy
You need to understand the key difference between tactics and strategy. I love this quote by Robert Greene on strategy:
“Grand strategy is the art of looking beyond the present battle and calculating ahead. Focus on your ultimate goal and plot to reach it.”
Before we start any of our projects, we’d have all clarity on the goals and there would be a clear BLUEPRINT that would include the TACTICS we’d deploy to reach those goals.
Even the most elegant, well-planned strategy is useless if we do not take thoughtful steps to achieve it. While the overall goal remains stable, the steps we take to achieve it must be flexible enough to adjust to the short-term realities of the specific situation.
Changing strategies is like trying to turn around an aircraft carrier—it can be done but not quickly. Tactics are the specific actions or steps you undertake to accomplish your strategy.
2 - Not validating the offer in the market
You might jump to the conclusion that your audience will love your new product but how exactly do you know? How do you know if they actually want it? Did you ask them? Did you do any research to see if the demand is there?
Most DON’T and this quickly leads to the “sunk-cost” effect where you’ve already invested so much time and money into making it work, it feels counter-intuitive to change direction.
Even though this is often overlooked, it’s a pretty simple process.
A - Reach out to the target market directly
B - Invite them on a call
C - Get feedback on components / features + price
D - Ask the question: Would you be interested in this when we launch?
This simple process has saved us tons of heartache and pain. My hope is that you’ll never skip this step again.
3 - Your audience is not as dialed in as you might think
Even hear of a book called Blue Ocean Strategy? This book played a big role in my marketing career when I read it for the first time in 2006.
The concept is simple yet it’s ignored by 95% of the entrepreneurial population.
You want to focus on a blue ocean market where there is uncontested market space and you bring to market an offer that makes the competition irrelevant by creating NEW demand.
The problem is that most people venture into red oceans where there is a ton of competition and their product or service is just a commodity. Trying to be everything to everyone…
In the process we follow with our clients, we evaluate the audiences on a few factors:
A - On a scale of 1 to 10, how personally fulfilling is it for you to work with this audience?
B - On a scale of 1 to 10, how much value can I deliver to this audience?
C - On a scale of 1 to 10, how profitable is it working with this audience? Can they afford working with you?
D - On a scale of 1 to 10, how accessible is this audience? Can I find specific communities and profiles of those I want to target?
If your score is not near perfect… You’ve got a problem and you need to evaluate.
4 - You aren’t pointing out the TANGIBLE results people will get from working with you or buying your product.
This is something that happens more in the service based business where the prospect is not crystal clear on EXACTLY the end result is after working with you. This causes major friction and completely tanks your conversion rate.
I love asking my prospects the question: Six months from now, looking back at the 6 months we worked together, what do you feel would have needed to happen in order for you to feel like working together was a success?
The answer on this reveals the tangible results they are looking for and it’s exactly this you want to include in your messaging / sales presentation.
5 - You don’t have an online sales system or funnel
Expecting someone to buy your product if they don’t know you from a bar of soap is UNREALISTIC.
You need to have a buyer journey mapped out for your prospects that guides them through the process of buying from you online. You want to be able to capture their attention, get them onto your list, educate them about your product or service and then finally make them an offer they cannot refuse. Utilizing a tool like Clickfunnels is probably the easiest and non-techy’est way of getting these assets live in record time.
6 - You aren’t leveraging social proof
Wouldn't you feel better about making a commitment to purchasing or enquiring about a product online if you knew that others had a good experience too?
I’ve been in the online marketing space for 17 years and in the start, I had no real proof that my methods worked or that we actually kicked ass in this space.
3 years ago, I started collecting video testimonials, case studies and reviews from anyone I’ve done business with before and within a month, my business started taking off.
Don’t wait for 14 years like me to start building credibility online. Start today.
7 - Your offer is not “irresistible” enough
This is probably one of the most common reasons why you aren’t selling more online. Your offer or product is VANILLA!!!
You want your offer to clearly articulate the value and tangible outcomes a prospect would get from investing in your services or products.
An irresistible offer is simply a strategic structuring of your products and/or services where the value-to-cost ratio is value-heavy. Meaning that the value of your offer FAR exceeds the cost to access the value.
Here are a few of those strategies and methods:
Bundling - Create a handful of offers that you believe would make your customers say to themselves (or out loud), “Wow, you’d have to be an idiot not to buy this right now!” and run them by a few of your loyal customers to get their feedback.
Create a value-add - Value-adds are exactly like bundle pricing. The difference with value-adds is that your customers get a secondary product or service that increases the real, or perceived, value of the product they are purchasing, at no extra cost.
Attention-Grabbing Risk Reversal - The goal with a risk-reversal is to take as much risk as possible off of the customer’s shoulders. When you reduce risk, you remove friction from the buying process, and increase the number of sales you make.
What is ONE action point you can take from this and implement immediately? Let me know in the comments.