Ready to expand your customer base and increase sales? (Spoiler alert: You don’t need tons of money or a strong marketing background.) Learn how to increase sales and make meaningful connections with these 8 simple strategies.
1. Run a Content Audit
If you’re wondering how to increase sales, you can start by reviewing your existing digital content.
Here are questions to consider:
- How are your website, blog section and video channel performing?
- What are your traffic numbers?
- At what rate are visitors or readers converting to paying customers or clients?
Look at reports on how your content is performing. Use that information to shape the content you create going forward and how you change existing content.
Publishing relevant content enhances the user experience as well as your company’s value to current and potential customers.
One of the most important tips to remember during a content audit is that the emphasis should be placed firmly on the customer’s experience. How does your customer benefit from your content, and subsequently, your products or services? When your content offers value to your readers, it likely will improve sales.
2. Run Special Promotions
Running promotions can quickly improve business and be an effective way to find repeat customers. Make sure your promotions are tailored to your specific customer base.
Here are just a few promotions your business could adopt to increase sales:
- Bundle sales: Improve sales by bundling product or service offerings. Bundling not only saves customers money but also allows them to try products and services they might not have considered before.
- Gift giveaways: Customers love free products, even small items, such as branded lanyards or pens.
- Email coupons: Email is a critically underrated tool for maintaining contact with your customers. Use your email list to offer customers exclusive opportunities that encourage return business.
- Daily or weekly deals: You can offer small discounts daily or weekly to certain customers (such as seniors or students). For instance, if you run a restaurant, consider offering kids’ meals for half the price. This tactic can help increase sales during typically slow periods.
- Limited edition or seasonal products: Another way to grow sales is to create a sense of urgency by marketing a limited-time promotion, encouraging customers to act now.
3. Ask for Feedback
One of the best ways to boost leads and conversions and increase sales is to focus on current customers’ experiences and get their feedback. You can then use that information to guide your decisions related to product offerings, customer service and more.
Whether your solicitations are in person or through social media and email, you can gain valuable insight by asking these simple questions in a follow-up survey or email questionnaire with a call to action:
- Did we meet your expectations?
- How did we do today?
- How did you hear about us?
- What could have made your experience better?
- What were you using before you found us?
- Did our staff help you with your needs?
- Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about your experience?
Another unique way to increase sales with feedback is to ask your customers and online followers to post user-generated content that goes beyond basic reviews, such as photos or videos of them with your product.
4. Focus on the Features and Benefits of Your Product
To stand out from the competition and boost sales, you must identify the unique features of your product or service and heavily promote their benefits.
Ask yourself:
- How does your product or service improve your customer’s life?
- What problems can your business solve?
- How do you achieve that in a way that’s superior to your competitors?
While features are important, benefits are arguably the greatest factor for how to increase sales in your business. They’re the “So what?” components that turn many browsers into buyers.
5. Leverage Your Online Presence
Get the most out of your website and social media accounts by leveraging your online presence. Here are some ways to turn your online footprint into one of your most powerful assets for a sales boost:
- Collect data: Data collection and analytics can be a useful tool to understand your online market and thus appeal to your audience as effectively as possible.
- Cross-promote: Anything worth being promoted on one platform should be promoted on all platforms, including your website and social channels. Make sure you craft a few versions of your promotion to fit each platform best.
- Use your email lists: Whether your customers shop online or in person, it’s always a good idea to ask for their email addresses. Sending out consistent and valuable content (such as newsletters, coupons and any relevant updates) can boost sales from both existing and new customers.
- Increase your web platforms and social media channels: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are not the only options. If you aren’t gaining the traction you were hoping for on one platform, explore other spaces, such as LinkedIn, Snapchat, Medium or Quora.
- Take advantage of multimedia tools: Don’t limit yourself to written content alone. Increase the appeal of your online presence by creating videos, infographics and high-quality photographs for your website, digital promotions and social channels.
- Create a Google business profile: This is another one of our top strategies to increase sales. Take advantage of this free tool to set up your business profile on the popular search engine. Once you sign up, you can see how customers engage with your profile, post photos and special offers.
6. Offer Various Payment Options
Another way to improve business sales is to go beyond accepting debit cards, credit cards or cash. Convenience and speed are valued today. Consider offering other additional payment methods, such as:
- PayPal
- Stripe
- Venmo
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
If you run an ecommerce business, you’ll also want to consider “buy now; pay later” apps and plugins, such as Klarna and AfterPay. These services, which allow shoppers to spread out payments, typically interest-free over several months, are projected to experience a 274% increase from 2021-2026.
7. Entice Customers With Pricing
Another business strategy to increase sales is to make sure your pricing is spot on. After all, in many ways, the right price can make or break you. If your products are priced much higher than your competitors’, and you haven’t established value for the price difference with a large enough audience, you could be hearing crickets.
Additionally, it’s important to understand your target demographic, including their income levels, needs and wants. Also, consider factors such as the economy, trends and seasonality of product offerings when establishing or adjusting prices. Be sure to put in the time and research to get this crucial step right.
8. Create a Memorable Experience
Strive to make the customer experience as seamless and enjoyable as possible. Consider how these factors affect whether a customer buys from you and returns to buy again (or doesn’t):
- Customer service
- Store layout
- Ease of checkout
- Website design
- Waiting times
- Return or guarantee policy
