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Struggling With Online Sales? Here’s What You Can Do

Posted 4 years ago

Struggling With Online Sales? Here’s What You Can Do
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Whether you’re a small retail brand operating from home or work for a vast ecommerce giant such as Ebay, online sales form the lifeblood of a business. But increasing sales can be a herculean task. But help is at hand. At NextFin, our mission is to help entrepreneurs get the funding they deserve, so we have created a simple step-by-step guide on how to make more online sales and the strategies you can use. Here’s just a few ideas we have come up with to help you increase your sales

1. Focus on existing customers

It's easy to attribute a decline in sales to a lack of customers. But this is a common misconception. Instead of focusing all your effort on customer acquisition, you should improve your customer retention strategy. Data shows that compared to new customers and customers who only make one purchase on your website, loyal customers:

  • add more items to their shopping carts
  • have a higher conversion rate
  • generate more revenue each time they visit your site

There is no denying that attracting new customers is a must for your business, but compared to focusing on loyal customers, the marketing involved is far more costly. It is, therefore, much more efficient to give more attention to your existing customers. As they are more familiar with your brand and know your products. 

Try to stimulate them and improve their experience with a customer loyalty program, for example, that will provide more incentive for existing customers to spend more money each time they revisit. 

2. Keep your website’s home screen simple

It’s tempting as an entrepreneur to craft an intricate and visually appealing website as a metric to measure professionalism, offering a variety of products to tempt customers in and drive sales. But actually, this is not always the case. Offering fewer products on your page with text that describes the advantages and benefits of the features of the products or service, works not only from a selling point of view but also helps with your search engine optimisation. 

Too many entrepreneurs focus on features, rather than benefits. Try and remember the acronym ‘FAB’. Every time you list a feature, always describe the advantage and benefit to the visitor. 

Focusing on less products per page allows you to promote popular and trending items in a clear way. This could also make your business more profitable through the focus of major items, allowing you to get discounts from your suppliers from buying in bulk. Be sure to only advertise major products that you know customers will be interested, and keep your calls to action limited to ensure that when a visitor lands on your home page, they will be able to easily navigate and make a purchase. 

3. Develop ways to capture customer data and keep them interested

There are myriad ways a business can market their products these days, but message marketing is still a useful and successful method of selling products or services. Be sure to create as many opportunities as possible for a potential customer to keep on coming back by providing the facility for them to give you their data such as: email addresses, mobile numbers or social media details. 

By providing this facility, you now have the opportunity to keep inviting customers back to your website and further stoke interest through marketing campaigns. But don’t just email your customers with promotions, think outside the box; of something that will really set alight a visitor’s interest. To capture someone’s data, you need to offer something that is valuable to them to allow you to use it. For example, some companies offer a free website review which they then exchange for some personal information, such as an email address and name. A company with this could create a weekly update of latest marketing trends to help them grow their businesses and therefore continue to receive the weekly updates, which gives you the opportunity to cross-sell your products. For example, here’s the latest update on search engine optimization techniques. Would you also like an SEO boost submission for £50 submitting your website to 50 search engines. 

4. Use testimonials and case studies to create trust

Proof is perhaps the most important element when it comes to getting customers to purchase your products. If you’re just starting out and don’t have a way to promote trust, you’re missing out. Elements such as testimonials, images of staff and case studies about products or services can make a significant difference between a customer purchasing your product, or going elsewhere. 

At NextFin we regularly post testimonials on our site so that our visitors can get a first hand account of our service before they engage. We also have a dedicated ‘Meet The Team’ section so that a prospective user knows exactly who they will be dealing with when working with us. 

5. Take advantage of upselling

In Marking Metrics, it is said: “The probability of selling to a new prospect is 5-20%. The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%. Since product recommendations can drive up revenue, putting the right upsell offers in front of people at the right time is an important, and highly beneficial sales growth tactic. A great example of this is offering a customer an upgrade. Remind people that for just a little more money, they can purchase a more exclusive product. 

If you apply this to your business, and develop a strategy in which customers are convinced that they will receive a better product by spending a little more, you will find the value of sales rise dramatically. Take a professional restaurateur, for example. They will upsell you side-salads, extra vegetables, coffee, dessert to increase their order value. This same principle can be done online. Amazon, for example, will list products that other people have purchased whilst you purchase your product.

These, what appear to be simple strategies, will have an immense impact on your business to increase its sales. 

Authors: Oliver Murphy & Sacha Bright

Disclaimer

To the best of our knowledge, the information we have provided is correct at the time of publishing. Sacha Bright is not a solicitor or accountant and we recommend that you seek professional advice on any topic discussed.

Tagged: business sme money finance



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