Today many businesses are getting started in the world of e-commerce and one of the biggest challenges they face is achieving sales numbers that are representative of their offline businesses. Higher revenue is always the goal of business, but many companies are having a tough time increasing their online sales. Most businesses have grown complacent with their current marketing efforts, and they need to find new ways to attract buyers to their sites. In fact, the best performances in lead generation services have come from creative new strategies that make those businesses stand out from the rest.
A great product can only take you so far. You also need a marketing strategy that inspires and magnetizes customers to choose you, creates a strong connection, and motivates them to make the purchase.
In fact, how you market your brand and products online can have a huge impact on your sales figures. For example:
Over 60% of shoppers now go to social media to look for business recommendations before making a purchase. 73% of shoppers are more likely to buy from a website if it has a positive reputation. Over 42% of shoppers use mobile apps or sites to locate retail stores that carry a specific brand or item. You must have a strategy to tap more such consumers and have it benefit your business.
Here are 10 powerful strategies for increasing your online sales:
1. Responsive and customer friendly website – The website is the front page of your business. It should be easy to navigate and the customers should be able to find what they are looking for and then proceed to buy it. A complicated browsing experience may turn away prospective customers. Make sure that your business website is well designed, visually attractive and highlights your products/services.
2. Understand the target audience – You must understand the target audience of your products/services. The marketing efforts have to be then focused accordingly. For instance, if your product caters to a particular age group, your marketing campaigns would be designed to target that particular age bracket only. When your customers are online, you have to proactively take steps to learn about them. By using analytics tools in your online store and point-of-sale (POS) system, you can identify purchasing patterns and preferences. You can learn more about your customers through emails, phone calls and online chats. This is an excellent way to add a personal touch to their buying experience which would in turn help you in increasing your online sales.
3. Use analytics to find out about incoming website traffic – Use analytics tools such as Google Analytics to research how customers who make purchases are finding your store. You can then better focus your marketing efforts and resources. For instance, if you have a restaurant business and you get a lot of traffic from a blog post about good food in the city, you should keep posting more content on that topic. If the majority of your sales are coming through Facebook ads, it may be worth it to invest in more Facebook advertising.
4. Provide customers with a live chat option – More & more customers have started to rely on chat to communicate with businesses. If you don’t have a chat feature, add one to your website and monitor it throughout the day. You may include a chatbot to answer commonly asked questions.
5. Use customer reviews – As many as 65% of online customers are influenced by online reviews. Make sure to share product feedback and testimonials on your web page. Word of mouth publicity goes a long way in building your business reputation. You must also ensure that you take negative feedback constructively.
6. Smartphone compatible website – Most online shoppers prefer shopping through their phones. Your online store should display properly, and easy to navigate and purchase from when using a mobile device.
7. Use high-quality photos for your products – A picture is worth a thousand words!! Invest in a professional photographer to take high-quality pictures that show your products’ features. Make sure you use real photos so that customers know what they are purchasing and don’t feel cheated afterwards.
8. Low Shipping costs – While many retailers offer free shipping, it is not always possible for small businesses to do so. However, make sure you keep the charges as low as possible. Many customers tend to turn away if the shipping charges are too high. You can offer free shipping above a set minimum order value or include shipping costs in your product.
9. Use social media to your advantage – Create and share interesting content on social media for your target audience. This will help in finding new customers and also build loyalty with existing customers. You can run contests and offer freebies and thus engage customers. Many businesses offer free promo codes or gift vouchers if the customer likes and shares their posts. This helps in brand building and overall increases your online sales.
10. Offer as many payment options as possible – Different people have their own favored methods of payment while shopping online. There are many who prefer using cards as a seamless payment option while many prefer wallets for payments. Try to incorporate as many of these payment options as you can into your online business to cater to all segments of society.
With the world going digital, online shopping is here to stay! You could try coming up with a new, innovative idea or one that’s already been around quite a while, in order to see if it can work to your advantage. We at wwwleadsmartinc.com help your business by providing you with good quality, real-time leads i.e. Potential customers! All you have to do is to convert them into sales. We got half the work done for you! For more information call us (855) 466-5542.