Boost your online sales
It’s important to remember that businesses always go through different phases – including plateaus and slower sales periods. This is true for both new e-commerce businesses and more experienced brands alike. It’s important to experiment with different tactics to try to gain more customers and increase your revenue. We’re going to share some methods you can use to grow your online sales.
1.Build an email list
A good way to build a following is to gauge brand interest and capture the corresponding email addresses. While it may seem daunting to start from scratch, it’s totally worth the effort. An email marketing strategy is vital to boosting sales.
Email marketing is successful because your customers have the choice of opting in or not, so they don’t have to be targeted by paid promotions. You have full control of your email list, which is not the case for social media platforms.
There are many forms this can take, such as a weekly newsletter, or a daily promotion. Remember to send emails that are relevant to your audience, as they’ll likely get annoyed with too much communication that doesn’t appeal to them. You should segment your audience in accordance with their behavior – what are their preferences and what have they bought from you before?
You’ll also be able to retarget people who are already interested in your offerings, and you have permission for promoting your brand without the costly expense of social media ads. You’re also able to build an organic community surrounding your brand/industry, which can prove highly beneficial and can boost sales through positive experiences.
You could include email subscription check-boxes and drop-down menus to make sure you’ve got the appropriate customer information, including their communication preferences.
2.Upsell and cross-selling
If you’ve already got customers who are adding items to their cart on your ecommerce website, it’s a great idea to upsell your visitors and increase your sales potential.
On average, ecommerce stores that upsell get an average of 70-95% of their revenue from upsells and renewals, which constitutes a large amount of revenue you could be missing out on if you’re not upselling or cross-selling. Upselling is an easy way to utilise your existing customers without needing to attract a new audience.
A simple way to introduce upsells is to insert pop-ups or recommendations that offer related or similar, more expensive products once an item has been added to their cart.
3.Social media integration
Instagram and Facebook now have Shoppable posts, meaning that you can use your social media profiles as a direct link to your ecommerce store. However, you’ll need to be compliant with specific commerce policies and your business should be located in a supported region.
There are over 1 billion people who use Instagram alone, meaning that you could be tapping in to massive sales potential. Instagram relies on visual branding, so you should aim for high-quality and exciting images of your products to draw attention to your store. You can then link back to your store on your posts.You might also integrate your social media pages to your ecommerce site, which could encourage social interaction.
4.Target existing customers
You might assume that you need a huge variety of customers, but you should really be looking at your customer retention strategy past a certain number of customers.
According to recent studies, when compared to new customers, return customers added more items to cart, had a higher conversion rate and generated more revenue per site visit.
This is a more cost effective marketing strategy, as you’ve already got an existing customer base so you won’t need to use complex measures. These customers enjoy your products and are familiar with your brand already.What they could benefit from is an improved experience – whether through a customer loyalty program or discount codes.
5.Display Security / encryption
Cybersecurity is a big deal. Customers will be hesitant to shop if your website looks sketchy, and they prioritise security of their information. You may need to adjust to recognise the importance of this to your buyers. One way to do this is to display any security badges for security services that your website is using, such as Norton, VeriSign, ScanAlert, GeoTrust or SSLValue, among many others. Obviously, only use badges that you are actively using or which are pertinent to your business.
6.Use video demonstrations
Buyers love videos, and it’s now purported that they have the top ROI rate compared to other marketing strategies. Websites are great because they encourage users to spend more time on your website.
You can also repurpose your videos as ads – which will increase engagement and interest in your brand and products. This is because videos resonate more with people, so they’re more likely to remember what they’ve watched when compared to text only.
Product demonstrations are a feasible way to include videos on your ecommerce site that are actually relevant and not overly promotional. Customers are interested in seeing how they can use your product in their daily lives through examples that involve other people in real-time. Of course, this tactic will depend on your category of products. Fashion items such as shoes will not benefit from a demonstration! But if you’re got a really unique and high-performance pair of shoes that is tailored for hiking, then you could use a video to portray this to your audience.
7.Optimise for mobile shopping
Mobile sales are taking over, as customers prioritise portability and ease of access when shopping. Mobile commerce is here to stay – so you need to make sure that you’re equipped to deal with it. You should consider:
- How responsive is your website? It should be fairly fast and display products correctly
- Do you have a mobile payment processor?
- Is the design of mobile checkout adequate?
There’s a lot more you can test, too.
8.Showcase top selling items
Highlighting your most popular items shows what people are buying the most. It gives your customers direction if your offering is relatively large. This could be as simple as a ‘bestseller’ category on your homepage. Not every visitor to your ecommerce store will know exactly what they want, so it’s great to lead them to a location where they can see your brand’s success.
9. Accept multiple payment portals
This one is quite self-explanatory. Expanding your supported platforms will allow a greater amount of customers to have a seamless purchase experience on your website, and may broaden the variety of customers you get.
10. Create scarcity
Scarcity and limited-time promotions create a sense of urgency for your buyer. This encourages shoppers to act swiftly, before discounts end or stock runs out. You should advertise limited quantities of items and be transparent about supplier delivery dates. This strategy can get a customer who is price sensitive to make an impulsive purchase that could result in more sales for you. This is because the customer feels a sense of missing out because if they don’t buy now, they’ll have to pay a higher price for the same product in future.
This could also be done by running flash sales, which create a sense of urgency – such as sales ending at midnight. If your campaign is actionable, you’re likely to get more sales.
11. Use multi-channel marketing
Consider how you can move into territory where your competitors have not yet gone – such as multi-channel marketing.
Multichannel marketing involves communication that is both direct and indirect, such as websites or ecommerce stores, physical stores, email, mobile and more.
There are many options you can use that can integrate well with CRM’s. The goal of multichannel marketing is to engage with customers, increase customer loyalty and solve customers’ problems. Doing this, you might even see repeat customers and increased sales.
Remember to keep your messages personalised to retain a relatable connection to your audience.
12. Consider using a Marketplace
While you may think that your own website is bringing enough sales, you’re not recognizing that popular marketplaces have a significantly high traffic volume. Marketplaces draw in diverse groups of people, many of whom are regular customers. You also have the chance to sell globally by using a marketplace – even if you aren’t the cheapest product. There is massive selling potential by listing your product on the appropriate marketplaces, and it’s quite easy to set up a seller’s account.
It might seem complicated to grow sales, but it doesn’t have to be. Focus on retargeting customers, creating scarcity and upselling, showcasing bestsellers and displaying security measures. It’s absolutely essential that your ecommerce site is optimised for mobile purchases, as buyers continue to grow the m-commerce industry.
There are a lot of methods you can use to grow your ecommerce sales. You should focus on layering your strategy, so that you don’t blow out every option all at once. Social media integration can harness existing fans of your business, or you might use a marketplace to list your products. Of course, we’ve not written an exhaustive list, and there are many other methods you could use in addition to the examples mentioned.
Multi-channel marketing is a growing method. If you’d like to try this out, contact ShoppingFeeder. ShoppingFeeder is an all-in-one multi-channel marketing and feed management solution, which is sure to help you gain some extra reach.
