Boosting your online sales is one of the primary goals for most businesses, whether large or small.
Whether you are selling physical goods, or run a service-based business, the thing about online sales is that it looks a lot easier than it actually is.
Luckily, there are several ways where you can boost your online sales and ecommerce fulfillment, some of which you can easily implement right away. Some of the tips have more focused strategies which you can implement, other strategies are more generalized.
In this post, we will be looking at the most effective ways to increase your sales:
Upsell and cross-sell
Upselling and cross-selling drives in large benefits for your business, no matter how big or small.
Both terms are used interchangeably, but various scenarios with different prospects call for one particular approach over the other.
By knowing the difference between the two, you will put yourself in a bigger advantage.
Upselling is encouraging customers to buy anything that would make the main product more expensive. For instance, you can upsell a set of batteries to someone who is purchasing a camera.
On the other hand, cross-selling is a suggestion that another product can be bought along with the primary product. For instance, a conditioner suggestion when a shampoo is bought.
The benefits of upselling and cross-selling for your business are that both drive in more revenue.
Focus on your target audience
It is vital to understand that your products and services do have a target audience.
Meaning, as a marketer, one of your main goals is to look for ways to identify who are these people so that you can craft marketing campaigns that directly speak to them.
Although this might come off as pretty obvious, a lot of marketers make the mistake of thinking that their products have a universal appeal and that everybody is their target audience.
Leverage the use of social media
Social media is one of the most cost-effective platforms that you can advertise your business on.
If you have already made an account on big social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, then you have already made the first step. But simply having accounts and posting often will not be enough to grow your business, especially in today’s overly competitive market.
It is vital that you also build your own e-commerce social media campaign. Once you have a strategy, it is time to begin advertising.
An excellent starting point is Facebook. There, you can target a specific audience and then link specific pages into your site.
Have an email newsletter
Crafting an email list is as enticing as letting users give you their email when they buy something from you.
You can also collect these emails via your social media campaigns and from your website in exchange for something, like discounts and coupons.
Create a sense of urgency in your newsletter
Humans are naturally born procrastinators. They like to wait it out till the end or when a deadline is nearing before they could keep going.
Thus, it is safe to say that target customers are also procrastinators. When you give your shoppers an ample amount of time to think, they will also delay making a purchase.
If the delay gets prolonged, they might even completely forget your product or offer altogether.
Of course, you do not want this to happen to your business. That is why an effective way to prevent this from happening is to create a sense of urgency to your target market.
Run daily deals, such as running a promotion for 24 hours at a special price. You can also set a specific deadline for all your discounts. That will create a sense of urgency in your target market, and boost your conversions.
Use ad extension
If you are selling something online, then ad extensions are a no-brainer.
This feature, found in both Bing and AdWords, will let your ad look bigger, with a lot of places to click. The best thing of all is that it does not cost you extra. Not to mention, it also boosts the click-through rates of your ads.
Have an easy check out process
This is one of the many e-commerce strategies that a lot of marketers and business owners often neglect.
What they do not know is that it is imperative to have an easy check out process. In fact, it can significantly reduce your cart abandonment rates by adapting an easy and simple check out process.
When you spend a lot of time building trust between your brand and your target market so that you can get them to buy from you, you continue building that trust up until the checkout process.
If you have a check out process that is trustworthy and easy from start to finish, then you will gradually boost your conversion rates, and significantly reduce your cart abandonment. So, it does help that you optimize your checkout page, making the entire transaction fast and easy.
Leverage on user-generated content
UGC or user-generated content is a fantastic way to generate social proof. When prospects see that other users like them are regularly buying products from you, then they will be much confident to do the same.
Come to think of it, more than half of the customers trust online recommendations and reviews from other people.
User-generated content can take in a lot of forms. One of the most effective types of UGC is the photos of your previous customers that are using your products. Even those product reviews can serve as UGC.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to knowing the e-commerce marketing strategies that will work best for your business, it is high time to experiment and get creative.
What are the things that you can do to outwit your competitors?
These strategies we have outlined above can help cultivate customer trust over time and building a loyal following made up of customers who want to purchase from your business, time and time again.
Try to implement these ideas in your e-commerce store daily, for the next couple of weeks. Then, take stock and figure out what are the best tactics that worked for you to drive in more sales.
