Cakes & Instagram

Selling on the Internet

How can cakes be sold on Instagram? Why will you trust a person you have never met or whose cake you have not tasted to make one for you, a birthday, or some event?

Quite simply, you do because you can.

The fundamentals of selling are the same, online or offline.

The environment changes though, so, the dynamics change but the fundamental principles remain the same. There is a constant in the whole story and the constant is ‘humans’. Humans are at both ends and whether you are dealing online or not, you are dealing with humans.

One of the reasons people find it hard to sell online is because they study the environment (internet) but they don’t study the fundamental principles of sales, so, you might run ads and post content and all the stuff you do and still do badly.

When you visit a cake shop, you might get a taste and judge the baker from the taste of the cake, and based on that plus how well the baker persuades you, you’ll probably take the chance, but it’s different online. It is different because you don’t get a taste.

This means that that the baker has to find other ways to gain the trust, and create the impression that earns a sale and how do you do that?

You do it first by understanding that the game doesn’t change, only the field does and if you want to sell on the internet, the first thing is to understand the game, not the field. It is to understand how to sell not how to run ads, it is to understand human behavior to a degree, it is to understand the buyers’ journey for whatever product you are selling; then, you can run ads, then you can go live and take advantage of all the stuff you have on the field.

If you starve the tongue of taste, then you have to feed the eyes and the ears, perhaps overfeed to create the same effect. That’s why it’s easier to get by with bad branding and visual appeal offline than it is online because people can easily swipe and go to what is next. They can choose not to see your ad, there’s also a feature called ‘block’.

Akin Alabi said in a podcast, “if you can’t sell offline, you might not be able to sell online”. And the reason is that the game doesn’t change.

If you want me to write more about this, drop a comment and I’ll check it out.

Don’t forget to use a face mask on your way out. It’s 2021