I am so happy to have you back here on the podcast. If you listened to the last episode, then you heard three reasons that your marketing may not be working. Now in that episode, we talked about bigger picture strategy and approach. Today, I'm going to dive in even deeper to talk about 4 reasons why your content may not be converting. Because even when you take the right approach and you start showing up and delivering value and you think that you're doing the things that you're supposed to do and then you hear crickets, then you might start wondering, what's wrong? And so I've got 4 different reasons that your content may not be converting into clients for you. The first thing is that you don't know your audience well enough. You don't know their pain points well enough, their desires, and you're not using the language they're using. So they've got these pain points, and those are the things that are keeping them up at night.

 

And then you're talking to them about things that they're like, that doesn't really matter. That's not what they're really struggling with. So if you're showing up even consistently, but you're talking about things that are in the back of their mind or would be nice to have and not something that they're really struggling with that they really want, you're not gonna catch their attention. So you gotta figure out what their pain points are and what their desires are and talk about those. Talk about those. Nothing else is going to matter except for what they're struggling with the most or what they want the most. And be sure to talk about it in their language. There's a big difference in how you might talk about something, the jargon that you would use, the industry terminology that you may use versus how your clients describe their problem or how your clients describe their desires, their goals, their vision.

 

So maybe you don't know your audience well enough. The second reason that your content may not be converting is that you're giving it all away. They don't need to pay you for any more advice because they're getting so much from you for free that they're going to go try to implement it on their own. Now I'm offer giving value, and so I'm not saying that you shouldn't show up and help your audience. Content marketing is huge and it's incredible, but you gotta give the right kind of value. Value doesn't have to be how to content. And so I really encourage you to think about other types of content that you can give that will open their eyes, that will help them give them moments, point them in the right direction, but not teach them how to do it all. Because when you do try to teach them everything, they're like, oh, thanks.

 

Great. I'm gonna go try that all on my own. And the reality is in the short amount of time that you did teach them something, you probably weren't able to give them everything that they actually need to know to be successful. So you're doing them a disservice, and you're doing yourself a disservice by giving them just a piece of the content without actually giving them all the ins and outs of everything that they need to know, they end up trying and failing and then wondering why it didn't work and thinking that you may not even know what you're talking about because you gave them this advice and it didn't work. So instead, talk about the what, talk about the why, but not the how. The third reason that your content may not be converting is because you're not even trying to convert. You're not giving a call to action. A call to action means an invitation to take the next step.

 

Maybe you spend all this time creating incredible content and you never ask your audience to do anything. Maybe you don't even have a strategy for what that next step should be or maybe you feel kinda sleazy or salesy promoting anything at all, no matter what, no matter the reason. If you're not giving them a call to action, then you can pretty much guarantee that you're not going to convert. You're not giving them a reason to move forward. And if you are thinking that you'll just wait and hope and pray that one day someone will just reach out and ask about working with you. You may be waiting longer than necessary. It's not impossible. That can work.

 

But people need to know and they need to be told what that next step is. It's in service to them to give them a next step, whatever that may be. The 4th reason your content may not be converting is that you're actually moving too fast. Someone hops on and they hear you speak or they watch a video or they read something that you wrote, and you go straight from this 1st invitation to learn a little bit from you all the way to trying to sell them something. And so I'm gonna caution you and encourage you to slow down. Just like a relationship because it is a relationship by the way, just FYI, because it is a relationship, then just like any other relationship, you've gotta take it 1 step at a time. Now if you think about getting romantically involved with someone, you most likely wouldn't consider the best option to go from meeting straight to a 1 night stand. Right? And they call it a 1 night stand for a reason, by the way, because typically that doesn't turn into more.

 

When you go straight all the way to the end there, you give it all up. Even if you are successful, it doesn't turn into a long lasting relationship most of the time. I'm sure there's an exception, and that's okay, but it's not going to be the case most of the time. Right? So instead of going all the way to the end giving it all away, nurture that relationship. Take it 1 step at a time. What's the next step that they can take with you to get to know you a little bit more. Think about it kinda like dating before you get engaged, before you get married. It's a process.

 

So what's the next step? Don't go too fast. So your content may not be converting for those four reasons. You don't know your audience well enough. You're giving it all away. There's no call to action or you're moving too fast. So instead, get to know your audience, do some research, talk to them, have some conversations, listen well, use their language, then show up and give some value without giving it all away. Talk about the what and the why and not the how. And get clear on the journey that you wanna take your audience through so that you can give a call to action for just the very next step to work with you.

 

That's gonna make all the difference. So I'm curious. Do you have a clear strategy in place? Do you know what the next step is? Do have a sequence of events that you know lead seamlessly one to the next, or is it all of these jumbled steps, all of these things that someone could do, but none of them are very strategically aligned. I encourage you to get really clear on what you want that journey to look like.