They Read It, They Liked It, They Didn’t Buy
When people read your marketing and still do not buy, the problem is usually not the words. It is the thing you are asking them to buy, and who carries the risk if it goes wrong.
You wrote the post. Someone read it, properly. They nodded. Maybe they even replied saying it was good. Then nothing happened. So you assume the words were wrong, and you go and rewrite them, and the next one gets read, and liked, and still nothing happens.
I want to save you a few months. The words can be perfect and the emails can be right, and it still won’t work, if the thing you’re asking people to buy is wrong.
You’re selling the work. They’re buying what happens after it.
You describe what you do: the sessions, the calls, the deliverables, how long it takes. If you sell a thing, it is the same mistake: materials, dimensions, what’s in the box. Every one of them is a fact about the work or the object rather than about the person buying it. The buyer wants the thing on the other side. They want to stop worrying about it. Between what you described and what they want, there’s a gap, and right now they’re the ones filling it in. Some will get to yes. Most won’t bother. Translating is your job.
Right now, they’re carrying all of the risk
They pay first. Then they find out whether it worked. If it doesn’t, that’s their money and their time. You lose nothing. That’s not a moral problem. It’s a conversion problem. You don’t need a money-back guarantee or a free trial. You need to move some of the risk back to your side of the table, visibly. A few ways that are free:
- Make the first step small and real, something they get to keep whether or not they carry on.
- Say out loud who this is not for. It is the strongest trust signal there is.
- Tell them exactly what happens after they pay: day one, week one, week four, or when it ships and what happens if it’s wrong.
- Show it working for somebody who isn’t you. One real customer photo, or one sentence in their words.
Do not discount to reduce the risk. Price and risk are different problems. Cutting the price on a thing they’re not sure about just makes it a cheaper thing they’re not sure about.
What I’d change first
Two examples, both made up, so don’t read either as a case study. Before: “Handmade soy candle, 220g, 45 hour burn time, cotton wick, £28.” After: “A candle that makes the room smell like you meant it, for about six weeks of evenings. If the scent isn’t for you, send it back opened and we’ll swap it once.” The description now names the thing on the other side, and the seller took a bit of the risk back. It took a paragraph and it cost nothing.
The twenty-minute test
Open whatever page or message you sell from. Read it as if you’ve never heard of you. What does the buyer have after this that they don’t have now? What happens if it doesn’t work? What do they have to guess at? Whatever comes up on that last question is the thing to fix this week. Not the headline.
Your one job this week
Take one sentence off your sales page or product page, the one that describes what the buyer gets, and rewrite it so it names what they have afterwards instead of what you do or what the thing is made of. One sentence. Not the page.
The week in brief
- Metricool launched Flows on 1 September, chaining a post, a comment, a direct message and lead capture. It’s free right now and Metricool has said that won’t last.
- Google began migrating legacy Broad Match and old auto-asset Search campaigns onto AI Max from 1 September. One trade outlet reported it and Google hasn’t posted about it, so check your own account.
- From the 4th, Performance Max video is automatically cropped into square and vertical, on by default and opt-out only.
- Instagram profiles of AI-generated people that skip the new “AI-generated profile” label get their reach restricted.
- SmarterX has opened its AI for Marketing series free through 30 September.