"I haven't had any sales."

It pains me whenever I hear this phrase or a similar statement from a business owner (failed launches, sales not going as expected, a lack of interest in their offer, etc.), because I have to follow it up by asking how much promotion they’ve done. 

All too often, the answer is "not much" or "I haven't." 

I'm guilty of this as well sometimes. I get caught up in creating content, sharing educational posts, or actually doing work for clients. And I forget to remind the people who follow me how I can further support them).

Every piece of content you share should have some sort of action associated with it based on the goals you have for your business. 

Your content and call-to-actions need to feed into your overall marketing strategy, thinking about the relationship you're building with your audience over time. 

If your current content plan doesn't include regular reminders that they can buy from you, it's time to add those in! Because you don’t want to be spending time on marketing that doesn't lead to sales. 

So, how can you get better at telling your audience about what you have to offer?

Make offers part of your content production process

Your sales content strategy needs to be embedded into your regular content production process, or it’s likely to be forgotten. 

You want to be sharing how you can support your audience consistently – both because you likely always have new people joining your audience or stumbling upon your content, and because your current audience needs the reminder. 

To start, 

1. Set a goal for each piece of content. What is the intention behind the post? What sale or conversion are you trying to make?

2. Decide on the angle you want to take with the content. Get creative! Consider how you can share about your offers in new ways that will resonate with your audience and where they’re at. 

3. Figure out what offer aligns with the content. What offer specifically are you trying to share with your audience? If you’re too vague in what you’re sharing about you’re likely going to confuse your audience. 

4. Add a CTA to the content you're producing. Your audience needs clear direction if you want them to take the next step. Should they send you a message? Visit your website? Book a consultation call? Sign-up immediately? What does the process look like? If you make this too confusing, vague or convoluted, you’re going to lose your audience. 

You're in business to make money, so don't be shy about letting people know you've got goods they can buy. 

Shift your mindset on sales by repeating after me any or all of the following:

• My services and products are worth every penny my clients pay for them.

• I have incredible value to give to the people who buy from me. 

• I'm proud to be able to help people and I know sharing my offer will help more people find me.

If you know people are struggling with something, and you know your offer can change their lives in that area, you’re doing them a disservice by not sharing how you can support them. 

Create connections between content and offers

Create a list of your offers and the transformation each of them provide. From here you can begin crafting a content series to reinforce messaging that leads to each particular product or service.

Speak to the pain points and frustrations your audience is currently experiencing, as well as the potential transformation waiting for them on the other side of your offer. 

This targeted messaging will help you find the right people for your product or service, as well as subtly turning away any who aren’t for you. 

Remember, in marketing a business, it's our job to connect people who have a problem with the right solution for their situation. 

While that may not mean the solution you provide is right for them (for now), the act of telling someone they should seek the expert help of <insert expert type of help here> instead of hiring you, is actually marketing. 

Be as bold in sharing how you can help as you are in letting people know you recommend a different approach than you offer.

Remember that not everyone will see all your content 

It’s very easy to hold yourself back from sharing, especially during a launch or big sales push, because you feel like you’re “annoying” your audience. 

Now granted, you can’t continuously only be selling. You need a balance between educational or inspirational content, and sharing your offerings (especially because most individuals want to see at least some transformation from your free content before they’re willing to invest in you). 

However, you also need to be very clear in communicating what the next steps for your audience are, if they’ve found value in what you’ve shared. 

This likely means posting a lot more frequently than you feel you need to be. 

Your audience is bombarded with information and content all day, especially when they open their inbox or sign-in to a social media account. 

And because of the sheer volume, they’re simply not going to see nor engage with everything you post or send their way. 

Think about your own consumption patterns. Do you read every email you receive or like every post on your timeline? 

Recent stats show that, 

• More than 306 billion emails are sent and received each day

• The overall average email open rate is 25.39%, with an average click-through rate of 1.25%

• The average engagement on Instagram business account posts is 0.83%

• The average engagement rate for Facebook posts is 0.18%

Don’t let these stats discourage you. Instead, consider it your reminder that you need to be consistently sharing your offers so that they’re actually seen (multiple times!) by those who might be interested.

If you’re doing all of these things and still aren’t seeing sales, you might want to revisit the offers you have in place, your ideal client, and the messaging you’re using, to ensure each of these elements are aligned. 

Otherwise, you have some work to do! 

Let’s close with one more repetition of those affirmations: 

• My services and products are worth every penny my clients pay for them.

• I have incredible value to give to the people who buy from me. 

• I'm proud to be able to help people and I know sharing my offer will help more people find me.

Now, get to selling.