Why Your Instagram Followers Aren't Buying From You (and How to Fix It)

[00:01] pretty tough, but maybe at this point you've put in the time, the effort, and you now have at least a small following. Maybe you were talking about a few hundred followers, maybe a few thousand, maybe even more than that. Well, if

[00:14] that's the case, you probably notice some trends. Like people will like your posts pretty easily, they'll watch your stories, maybe they'll watch your reels, and sometimes they'll even comment. But when it comes time to try to sell to

[00:29] this audience on Instagram, oftentimes you end up hearing crickets. The posts fall completely flat, they don't get hardly any engagement, and you don't make any sales. And you kind of know what the problem is, right? The problem

[00:42] is that these posts aren't getting engagement on Instagram. So Instagram isn't giving them a reach, so people don't even see them, but even the people who do see them don't seem to be interested, don't seem to buy. So what

[00:55] is happening here and how can we fix this? That is exactly what we will talk about in the first part of this video. What's happening here? Why aren't your Instagram followers buying from you? In the second part, we'll talk about some

[01:07] of the most common fixes that people try and why those things often don't work. Then finally, we'll talk about some strategies that do work. Some ways around this Instagram follower problem and how you can actually use your

[01:20] audience on Instagram as an asset for your business. Because we don't want your follower account to just be a vanity metric, right? Like you built this audience for a reason, and those are real people who legitimately

[01:34] followed you for a reason, and they could potentially benefit from a product that your business offers, but not if they never see your post or not if your post really helps them to make that transition from follower to buyer. So,

[01:50] let's get into it. First of all, why is this happening? Well, there are three main reasons. The first one I already briefly touched on, which is that posts that have to do with selling often get less engagement, and this means that

[02:04] Instagram doesn't give them as much reach. So, fewer people are seeing them, and when people do see them, they're less likely to engage with them. So, that's the first problem we need to solve is how can we get people to engage

[02:17] with these posts so that Instagram gives them more reach. The second problem, or reason why these posts often don't translate into sales, is because people have this kind of disconnect between this is interesting to me right now, but

[02:32] they're not necessarily ready to buy yet. And so, if you just blast out a sales message, and by that I mean post a sales post on Instagram, people might again, they're not engaging with it because they're not ready to make that

[02:48] transition yet. And then, the third problem, the third reason why your followers might not be buying from you, it's a super practical one, and it's just about friction. So, whenever we're trying to sell something online or off,

[03:02] really, the more difficult it is for somebody to buy it, the more steps they have to go through, the less likely they'll be to actually make it to the end of that process and pull out their credit card. And on Instagram, there's a

[03:14] friction, which is the fact that Instagram doesn't let us put links in our posts' captions, right? We have to use that old link in bio thing. And even if you have mastered the link in bio and you have a nice link tree set

[03:29] up, and it's all updated and everything like that, it still is friction that the like that, it still is friction that the person has to tap into your Instagram account, then tap that link in the bio, find the right link, and all of that.

[03:42] They can't go straight from your post to your offer or your freebie, or whatever convert them into a paying customer. Now, those are three of the biggest might not be buying from you, but I do want to zoom out here and just talk

[03:56] about one slightly bigger picture thing. It has to do with how like people aren't that's often because there's this disconnect between posts that we use to that we know are going to go a little viral. We know they're going to land

[04:12] well. People relate to them. People think they're funny or interesting or engaging, and so they engage with them, right? Maybe they even share them. And then on the other hand, we've got these posts that we feel that we

[04:24] strategically need to do to be able to convert them into a buyer. So, they're posts that have something to do with our offer, but those ones are often not nearly as engaging or shareable or anything like that. But, we do kind of

[04:38] need those posts to be able to communicate messages about our offer. here with getting our Instagram followers to buy is bridging this gap between the posts that get engagement and the posts that sell for us because

[04:52] we need to get the engagement on the selling posts if we want people to see them and we want people to engage with them. So, now let's move on to talking about what people often try to do to fix these problems. The first thing is that

[05:06] consistently. Sometimes they think that it's overall just an engagement problem and that if they post more consistently then they will train their followers to be responding to their content and then when they post their sales content,

[05:20] these people will be kind of like so wrapped up in the content that they will see the posts. They will engage with them and they will go on to buy. And this can help, but it doesn't tend to solve the problem because we still have

[05:32] that disconnect between these two different types of content. We still have the friction of the link in bio, and we still have the fact that people often are not quite ready to engage with the sales content when a post just

[05:44] happens when they are scrolling. And people still just often aren't ready to engage or certainly not to buy when they're scrolling along and happen to see one of your sales related posts. Another thing people do is they try to

[05:57] post better content. They think maybe the quality is the issue here. Maybe if I am more polished, more professional, if I have a better camera, you know, if I write a longer Instagram caption, something like that, maybe then people

[06:13] will be more hooked in with my content. And again, this might help a little bit, main problems. Another really common thing people try to do to fix this is you know, the problem is that my audience isn't big enough yet, but once

[06:28] I have 10 times as many followers as I have now, then surely my Instagram followers will buy from me. I just need more people. But we still run into all these same problems. Of course, if you are converting anybody at all right now,

[06:41] if you're making any sales at all, then 10x-ing your following will potentially 10x that number, and that can help. But if the number is super tiny of that you're making, then even 10 times-ing it often is not enough to make

[06:56] a sustainable business. One more thing people try is rewriting the sales page. They think, maybe the problem isn't my content on Instagram, maybe it's not my link in bio, maybe it's just that when people land on my sales page, they're

[07:09] not being convinced, and so my sales page isn't strong enough. Again, this can help, especially if some people are making their way to your sales page, but often times if your Instagram following isn't buying from

[07:21] you, hardly anybody is actually making their way to your sales page. So, rewriting that sales page might not help at all. So now, let's talk about something that actually does solve this problem. In short, we need a way to get

[07:34] people to engage with our sales related content. Now, the reason why this is so powerful is because when people start to engage with that content, more people will see it. And also, if it's the right kind of engagement, it can help to move

[07:47] them along the buyer's journey. Now, I want to preface this by saying that for this to work, I would recommend that your sales content on Instagram generally isn't too explicit. It generally shouldn't be a direct buy now

[08:02] call to action, especially the more expensive your product is. So, if it's a very affordable product, sometimes you can use that buy now call to action. that cost hundreds or certainly thousands of dollars, then you

[08:17] definitely need some intermediary steps. Some steps that will get your follower from scrolling on Instagram with no thought of buying your product to eventually buying. So, what I have found to work the best for me is to use some

[08:31] to work the best for me is to use some sort of Instagram comment automation tool so that you can get people to comment below your Instagram post and then have your free resource automatically sent to them. And this not

[08:45] only gets that engagement on your Instagram post that will help the post get seen by so many more people, but it also moves that person who commented one step further down the buyer's journey and way more likely to ultimately buy

[09:00] your product. Now, by far the most common tool that people use to create this system is called ManyChat. And one of the reasons why it's the go-to tool for this for most people is because ManyChat is an official Meta business

[09:14] partner, which means that Instagram very much approves this strategy and they approve you using ManyChat on your Instagram account with your Instagram post. So, the algorithm is not at all going to penalize you for using this

[09:27] type of automation. And in fact, you're going to get a big boost from getting all these people to comment on your post. So, basically, how this works is in your Instagram post where you are offering some sort of free resource, and

[09:41] that's how I would recommend that you do this. You tell your followers, comment a specific keyword like comment YouTube and I'll send you this new video that you're talking about in that post. And so, now you have really eliminated the

[09:55] friction. It's super easy for them to take the next step. You're not asking them to buy anything or anything like that. So, they comment YouTube, you get engagement, they instantly get a DM straight from you facilitated by

[10:07] straight from you facilitated by ManyChat, and that DM gives them the link to your free resource and facilitates them to be able to give their email address to get the free resource right there in the chat. So,

[10:20] it's super convenient for them and really low friction. From there, what happens is they get your awesome free resource, which might be your latest episode, your free guide, you know, whatever it is. So, they get a really

[10:34] positive first impression of you and your content and your products. And you now have them as an email subscriber. An email is where I close 90% of the sales

[10:46] I've tried selling on Instagram, I've tried selling on YouTube, I've tried selling via email. I've also tried lots of other things like Facebook ads straight to my sales page and all sorts of things. But, 90% of my sales come

[10:59] from email marketing. So, my highest priority on any platform, certainly including Instagram, is to convert those Instagram followers into email subscribers where I can then turn them

[11:12] tool like ManyChat really makes it easy we were talking about earlier in the video, this strategy really solves all three of them because, first of all, you are going to get the engagement on your

[11:26] posts. In fact, ManyChat has done research on this and they've found that accounts tend to grow 140% faster when they are using ManyChat with comment automation like this. So, you're getting the engagement, that means that

[11:40] these sales-related posts are going to get more reach. You're also solving the problem of the fact that your followers who are scrolling on Instagram are not ready to buy yet. Now, we're creating a very frictionless intermediary step to

[11:53] move them closer to buying. And third, we're solving that friction problem because now they don't have to tap into your link in bio and find the right link, etc. But instead, they can just leave a comment, which they can do

[12:05] feed, and then they'll be guided through the next steps with that instant DM. strategy to promote any type of offer you like, even directly promoting your paid offer. But two of the ways that I like to use it the best are, first of

[12:20] all, if I'm going to be doing like a free webinar or workshop, masterclass, something like that. I think that this is the best way to convert your Instagram followers into webinar attendees, which ultimately, of course,

[12:33] can convert them into paying customers. And then the other way that I love to use this is to grow my email list from literally every single Instagram post. And the reason why this is so awesome is because now there isn't going to be that

[12:47] disconnect between your regular growth content on Instagram and then your promo type content. Instead, every single post can be designed for maximum reach and

[12:59] maximum engagement with your target market, but also can include an opportunity for people to get a freebie and get on your email list, again, with really, really little friction. Here's the truth about building a following on

[13:12] Instagram. Your content might be getting your account, or even you, attention right now, but attention doesn't pay the bills. If you want your Instagram following, your Instagram account, to really support your business and help

[13:26] you to sell your products, then you need a better system for converting these followers into paying customers. And basically, this system needs to do these three main things. Needs to create engagement on these posts, it needs to

[13:39] engagement on these posts, it needs to move this follower closer to buying, and really, if you can close the gap between your content that's performing well and your sales content that's falling flat, that is when your Instagram account will

[13:52] start to actually be profitable. If you want to give this strategy a try for yourself and see how well it works, just check down below for the link to get 30 days of ManyChat for free. I'll put the link in the description and in the top

[14:04] comment as well, so that you can find it really easily, because unfortunately here in YouTube we don't have this option where we can tell you to comment ManyChat below and then I will DM you the link. I really wish we had DMs here

[14:16] on YouTube. I actually think that would be awesome, but we don't. So just check right there. Again, it'll give you 30 days of ManyChat for free. Now, if you haven't even started growing your email list yet, then watch this video right

[14:30] here all about how to get your email list set up super quickly, super easily, because it is one of the first things you should do if you're trying to build you should do if you're trying to build an online business.