You plan, prepare and promote your offer, expecting the sales to roll in. If you get it right, they will. But if they don’t there are usually 3 reasons for this.
There is nothing worse than putting your time, effort and money into planning, preparing and promoting your offer and… crickets.
If this has happened (or is happening) to you, don’t despair, you may be able to tweak a few simple things to turn it around.
This recently happened to Elizabeth, one of our Ignitor students, recently. She had an amazing sale on but no one was buying. Together, we look at the following elements, she made a few tweaks and like magic people started buying. However it’s not magic, it’s simple marketing.
A failed promotion sucks at the time, but I encourage you to look at it through a learning lens. Work out why it failed and improve it in real-time, or learn for next time. The beautiful thing about eCommerce is that you can make changes to your website and digital marketing instantly.
Ok, so let’s look at the 3 reasons why no one is buying your promotion and what to do about it.
Number 1: You’re telling the wrong audience
You may have the best promotion in the world but if you’re telling people who don’t care, of course, they aren’t going to buy. Dig into your analytics and see where your traffic is coming from and who is viewing your promotion. Where are you promoting your sale? Is it in a large group where your offer may get lost in all the noise, or is it in a very niche carefully curated group? Is it to a bunch of people who’ve never heard about you before, or is it to people who know, like and trust you.
You may also be telling no one. If you are relying on organic marketing alone, you may be missing out on people who are hanging out for the exact promotion you’re running. Social media is becoming a pay-to-play environment and even just a small budget to the right audience can deliver great results for your promotion.
Number 2: Your offer sucks
If lots of the right people are seeing your promotion but they aren’t buying, they are literally telling you that your offer sucks. It’s a tough pill to swallow but the truth is in the market. Your customers will tell you what they want – and what they don’t want – through their purchasing behaviour.
Now, here’s the thing. It could be that your offer is one that people don’t want… or they aren’t clear on what it is. If it’s the latter then you fall into reason number 3.
Number 3: Your messaging sucks
Confusion is the enemy. If people don’t know what they are buying, they simply won’t buy it. If you have an amazing promotion you need to communicate it in a clear, concise and compelling way. Don’t leave people guessing.
Look through a learning-lens and tweak, tweak, tweak
So, if you are in the middle of a promotion that isn’t going so well, look at these 3 reasons why no one is buying from you and tweak, tweak, tweak.
If you have run a promotion that flopped in the past, look at it through a learning-lens and work out what you can do next time to improve.
Written by Megan Winter
Megan is an award-winning marketer and has worked with some of the fastest-growing eCommerce brands in the world.
Megan loves helping ethically-produced, heart-centred, soul-driven online store owners to make more income and achieve more impact.Â
