How You Can Improve Your Online Sales
As businesses recover from the chaos of the past year, owners are looking for new ways to boost their sales game. That need is keenly felt in online marketing, where most advertisement and sales campaigns are being launched these days. Here are five simple but powerful ways that entrepreneurs can boost their online sales in the coming year.
1. Increase Customer Purchasing Options
Curbside, delivery, pickup…the options available for getting your products to your consumers have increased drastically, especially over the past year. Don’t be intimidated by it; take advantage of it. Offering free shipping on e-commerce orders is only the beginning. The buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS) strategy is gaining popularity with busy folks who want the experience of a brick-and-mortar store, but not the hassle of shopping for inventory that may or may not be stocked. Make your customers’ lives easier by giving them multiple channels for getting what they need.
2. Automate Your Sales Processes
Artificial intelligence and automation are emerging as the big story in the world of sales. Salesforce automation systems (SFAs) are part of a broader set of digital tools known as customer relationship management software (CRM). SFA and other CRM programs usually include a sales lead tracking system that allows a business to track the status of relationships they have with customers, from cold lead to repeat buyer. They also often include order tracking and sales forecasting. Predictive modeling of business performance has been truly revolutionized by artificial intelligence and machine learning over the past decade, so it would be wise to invest in at least the basics of sales automation.
3. Engage in Creative Social Media Marketing
Social media is where customers discover businesses, learn about them and connect to them. Studies show that a full 71% of people who follow a given brand on social media also interact with them via those same channels. This means that your digital media presence means everything in terms of customer retention and outreach. The most important step you can take is to update your pages regularly with fresh content. Video content is especially trendy, especially short-form, underproduced videos via platforms like TikTok and Instagram Stories. Learn about the sciences of color psychology and layout design to build your page in a way that will maximize traffic and length of stay.
4. Try Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is an internet marketing model in which advertisers pay a fee (usually to a search engine) each time one of their ads is clicked. In other words, they’re basically buying visits to their site. This expands traffic by reaching target audience segments that used to be beyond reach. It may sound expensive (and it can be), but if a click costs you $2 and you sell a $200 product, then the process is paying for itself. Do your research and shop around for good deals, and don’t forget to combine PPC with solid search engine optimization (SEO) strategies and a professional online presence.
5. Know Your Niche
The internet has changed our society in a lot of ways, but one of the most powerful of these has been in giving a voice to new cultures and groups. This in turn has translated to an abundance of new markets. With so much competition for brand loyalty, it’s rarely enough to count on a broad focus. Finding a specific niche to cater to, even a very focused micro-niche, can cut competition and help give your marketing campaigns direction. So-called resonance marketing is a way of doing this through marketing your core values to a target audience instead of focusing solely on selling a product. In other words, by becoming a part of their community, you gain the trust needed to build your customer base.
Scaling your business means both keeping the customers you have and earning the trust of new ones. By remembering these cutting-edge strategies, you’ll be earning customer loyalty in no time.
