Why Your Instagram Followers Aren't Buying and the 5 Steps to Fix It

Are you posting on Instagram, hoping for sales, but hearing nothing but crickets? You're not alone. Sales don’t happen from a single post. They come from having a clear, intentional strategy.

In this episode, I break down my 5 Steps to Sales on Instagram strategy, the same one I use for my business and teach to my clients. This proven method has helped people go from sporadic posts to consistent sales—and it’s simpler than you think.

Whether you’re an Instagram pro or feeling stuck, this episode is your roadmap to turning followers into paying customers without the overwhelm.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

1. Why one-off posts aren’t driving sales and what’s really missing from your Instagram strategy.
2. The 5 essential steps to turn your followers into customers:
   • Growth: Attract the right audience who will actually engage and buy.
   • Engagement: Start meaningful conversations to build trust and visibility.
   • Connection: Create deeper relationships with your audience.
   • Trust: Show proof that your offer delivers what it promises.
   • Promotion: Invite your audience to say "yes" with ease.
3. How skipping steps can lead to inconsistent results (and how to avoid it).
4. Why this strategy saves time and reduces overwhelm for content creators and online business owners.

Action Steps:

1. Leave a Review: Found this episode helpful? Leave a rating and review to help others discover this show.
2. Connect on Instagram: DM me @socially.yours.strategist and let me know which step you’re focusing on this week—I’d love to cheer you on!

Join Content Clarity Collective and get weekly, strategized post prompts for a sales-focused content plan you don't have to take the time or brain space to plan out yourself

Music courtesy of Pixabay

Transcript

Sydney: 0:44

Hey, can I ask you something real quick? Have you ever posted on Instagram, cross your fingers and just hoped you would get a sale from it? But you didn't no inquiries, no DMS. No comment in the comment section for more info, just straight up crickets. I don't want to start off super negative. I want you to know you are super, not alone. And here's the thing sales don't happen because of just one post. It takes a lot to get there. And if it feels like you are doing all the things all the time on Instagram and you're still not getting those sales. It's because there's a bigger picture that you're missing. But that is exactly what I'm going to talk about in this episode. I want to share with you the five steps to sales on Instagram strategy that I use, that I use for my clients that I teach. The members in my membership. And let me just start by saying it's not just some random thing I came up with for fun one day. I do use it myself. That is how I make money. On Instagram. That's how my clients make money on Instagram. In fact, I had a client use this strategy and within two weeks she signed eight new group coaching clients. Eight, she wasn't scrambling. She wasn't guessing she wasn't hopping on trends, hoping she would go viral. She had a plan, this strategy, and she knew exactly what each of her posts were supposed to do. So those posts work together to guide her followers. Into paying clients, That's why we're here. That's the goal. And like I said, those posts weren't random. Each one had a purpose and each purpose builds off of the previous one to get you to that end goal of sales. Right. That is what an Instagram strategy should do. And that is the beauty of this strategy. It gives your content, a job every single post. Leads your audience further along what is called the customer journey? So, if you're not familiar with this term, the customer journey is basically the path your audience takes from them, finding you in your account to deciding they want to invest with you. Or by whatever it is that you're selling now, it's not instant. People need to take time to get to know you, to trust you, to feel ready to buy from you. So. They're not just going to buy from any old post. Like think about it. How often do you see a single post or ad and immediately whip out your credit card ready to buy? No, it takes time. It takes, you know, building that trust and connection, especially on social media where you are there to be social. That connection piece cannot be ignored. And that is why this five steps to sales strategy works. It's like building a staircase. Each step brings your audience closer to that ultimate goal of sales. And you got to hit each step, otherwise you'll lose them. So let's break down what each of those five steps are. So your content is actually getting you sales. The very first step, the very bottom stair here. Is growth. And I know you're thinking, I thought you weren't about vanity metrics. Sydney, do I have to have a ton of followers to get sales? No, absolutely not. I had less than 300 followers and was fully booked with one-on-one social media management clients. You don't have to have a ton of followers. You really don't. the goal for this first step of growth. Is to have the right followers. Okay. If the right people aren't following you they're not going to end up buying from you. So when you know exactly who you're talking to and how to talk to them, You can attract the right people that will really benefit from whatever it is that you're selling and that will actually engage with your content. And we'll actually. Foster connection and build the trust so that they become. Paying clients or customers for your online business. Without this very first foundational step. Everything else falls apart. Which is really shitty because you're not going to get engagement from the right people, which means your account. Isn't going to get seen by the right people, which means. It's going to be hard for your ideal audience to find you and connect with you and trust you and buy from you. So this is like I said, super foundational. You have to have. The right followers. Without it, the rest of the strategy just doesn't work. But once you do have that. You can head to step number two, which is engagement. And again, you might be thinking, well, I thought this wasn't about a numbers game Sydney. I thought you were about actionable metrics, not just appeasing the algorithm. You are absolutely spot on, but engagement is really just about starting conversations with your followers so that you can start to build that connection and start to build that trust. This doesn't have to be super deep conversations. We just want to get some engagement going so we can start. Learning a little bit more. Getting to know each other. I want you to think about engagement, like a first date. You would not propose to someone on day one, right? It's not like you show up and at the end of your dinner together, you're like, Hey, let's get married actually. No, absolutely not. It's the exact same on Instagram. You want to take some time to get to know each other? Engagement helps you do that. And it does also help with the whole algorithm thing because when you're getting engagement from the right people, Instagram notices that and they show your content to more people in that audience, if that makes sense. So when you get more interactions from your posts, from people with certain interests and obviously. Those interests being whatever it is that you teach or help your people with. Instagram will notice that and show. Your content to more people with those same similar interests. So more non followers that could be following you and would benefit from following you. So that also helps with growth. So those two steps kind of work together there. And that is why this is the second step we're starting to introduce ourselves, we're starting these conversations. It's also helping with step number one algorithm wise, but we're not going too deep into topics yet and making it super awkward and weird. Once we have this engagement and these starting conversations going, we're going to start building connection and step number three. We can move along up the staircase. Be a social media is about being social. You kind of have to have these connections to be able to use social media as a platform for marketing and for sales. this is where your audience goes from liking your posts to liking you. This is where you can dig a little deeper. Talk about more specific pain points. Talk about your unique selling proposition. Talk about things that will make your audience feel like you really get them. Which a lot of the time you do, because most time online business owners are their own ideal client. Just maybe a step or two ahead of where your audience is. So you can share that, like you get it, you've been there, you've seen the other end of it. When your audience feels like they know you, they start to trust you. And that trust is what makes them more interested in buying from you. The connection is what keeps them sticking around and continue to engage with you. So, if you don't have this connection piece in place, your content feels very transactional and not authentic. Which is what no one wants. I don't know about you whenever I see that kind of content. I get the ick, I just keep on scrolling. So we need that connection piece. Because that is the foundation of social media. So if we're existing trying to sell on social media, you gotta have that. And once we have the connection, we can go up the staircase to number four, which is trust. Trust is. Showing that what you offer does what it says. It's going to do that. You're delivering on that promise of your offer. I can't go out there and be like, Hey. My course is going to make you$10,000 in like three months. And then have zero. Information backing that up, right? Nothing showing how nothing showing, why nothing showing that it actually works, that it's worked for other people. People are gonna look at me and be like, what is she going on about? This seems like a scam. People aren't going to buy from a stranger on the internet. If they don't trust you, thankfully, step two and three take care of the stranger bit, but you do have to have that trust. If you want people to actually be whipping out their credit cards, ready to buy, whatever it is that you're selling. So you have to be able to show in your content and in your DMS and in your stories. That the thing you are promoting does what it says it's going to do if you want people to trust you enough to buy from you or to hire you. Especially for like one-on-one type of service done for you services, like high ticket stuff. It takes more trust-building. To get the sale there. And then we get to the fifth and last step and it's a very short staircase, thankfully. Which is the sale, right? Promoting your offer. For the last step you've done the first four. So this part is pretty easy. You've guided them through the customer journey. This part should be more effortless. It's not really about pitching. It's more about helping showing your audience how you can solve their problem. Focusing on that transformation, not just listing. Features of whatever it is that you're selling. It's more like an invitation of, Hey, I can help you do this with this service or product, right. You've ever skipped those first four steps and jumped straight to promotion, it feels off. It feels forced. It feels like someone is proposing on a first date. Right. It's too much too soon. You got to have the other four steps first, if you want to actually have the sales, you gotta have those trusting followers, those engaged followers, those followers that connect with you. To have the higher sales conversion rate. It makes a world of difference. in getting consistent sales because you could just be posting random stuff At random times. Ah, but you get random sales, right? Random randomized posts leads to randomized results. When you consistently stick to this five steps to sales strategy, you will consistently get sales when you promote, when you invite people to buy your offer. It's also pretty amazing because you know what you need to be working on at any point in time by following the strategy. So it saves you a ton of time and brain space of wondering, oh my gosh, what the heck should I even be posting right now? So even just having that like baseline formula, Of like, this is what I should be focusing on at this, with this post. Saves me a ton of stress and overwhelm. So quick recap. Step one growth brings the right people in step two engagement starts the conversation and gets you more visible with the right people. Step three connection deepens the bond trust proves you can deliver and then promotion invites them to say yes and actually. Buy your thing. So each step builds on the one before. If you skip one. Or post randomly, and you're going to get random results instead of consistent sales. The strategy is simple. It's intentional. And it's designed to help you turn your followers, the right followers into clients or customers without feeling overwhelmed or having to post all the freaking time. Now, if you found this helpful, I want you to do two things. One. Leave a rating and review so that someone else is more likely to find this podcast and get the same helpful information you did. And to find me on Instagram and DM me what step, you're focusing on this week because I would actually love to cheer you on my handle is at socially dot yours dot strategist.