Ways to Increase Sales: 13 Methods to Boost Your Store's Sales.
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| Ways to Increase Sales: 13 Methods to Boost Your Store's Sales. |
Ways to Increase Sales: 13 Methods to Boost Your Store's Sales.
Different businesses' primary goals are to increase sales and, consequently, profits. However, contrary to expectations, increasing sales is not only about attracting visitors to your online store; even adding products to the shopping cart does not necessarily guarantee a completed purchase. So, how can you successfully encourage them to take the purchasing step?
What is meant by increasing sales?
Increasing sales can be defined as strategies that help raise the sales rate for a specific product or a group of products. Increasing sales is the primary motivation behind launching any marketing campaign, whether to increase profits, expand the loyal customer base, enhance brand awareness, or achieve other objectives that companies seek through sales growth.
What is a good sales percentage?
It is known that the higher the sales percentage, the more profits a project generates. However, the truth is that there is no fixed rule for a good sales percentage across different projects. Additionally, sales figures themselves can be interpreted in multiple ways.
For example, let's assume a website receives 1,000 monthly visits and generates 50 sales, resulting in a 5% sales conversion rate. On the other hand, another website receives 5,000 monthly visits but only generates 50 sales, resulting in a sales conversion rate of only 1%. Here, we can observe a difference in the sales percentage between the two websites, despite the consistent number of sales transactions.
According to statistics from the digital marketing agency WordStream, having a sales conversion rate of up to 5% means that you have better results than 75% of other projects. However, this rule cannot be generalized to all fields. According to the same statistics, the average sales conversion rate in retail trade is about 1.84%, while it reaches an average of 5.01% in economically and financially oriented projects such as insurance.
What are the objectives of increasing sales?
At first glance, it may seem that the sole objective of increasing sales is to generate direct financial profits. However, in reality, there are many objectives that companies seek to increase their sales, including:
1. Increasing profits:
Undoubtedly, increasing profits is the primary goal of sales growth and the main objective of any business activity. All businesses aim to increase their sales volume, even if it means reducing profit margins. For example, if a shoe company sells 100 shoes with a $5 profit margin, they will make $500. By reducing the profit margin to $3 and increasing sales to 200, their profit would reach $600.
2. Acquiring new customers:
Successful companies are always ambitious and seek to expand their business activities, target new markets, and reach new customers. Therefore, they constantly work on increasing their sales and persuading potential customers to make their first purchase, as it is the most challenging step. Many consumers tend to avoid trying new brands, so breaking this barrier helps expand the base of loyal customers in the future.
3. Gaining customer loyalty:
Acquiring new customers is important and beneficial, but maintaining existing customers and gaining their loyalty is always more crucial. Building trust with a customer doesn't happen after the first or second purchase; it requires multiple consecutive purchases. The goal is for customers to forget about competing brands and remember only your brand when they need a particular product.
4. Clearing inventory:
Keeping products in stock for an extended period without sales is detrimental to a company in several ways. Firstly, it consumes storage space, and certain storage requirements like refrigeration or cleaning may incur additional costs. Moreover, there's a risk of product deterioration or decline in quality. Therefore, companies should always strive to clear their inventory and keep the manufacturing cycle moving. Sales slumps can also hinder the launch of new product varieties.
It's worth noting that these objectives are not mutually exclusive, and companies often pursue them simultaneously as part of their overall sales growth strategy.
13 Effective Strategies to Help Increase Sales:
Whether you own an online store or sell tangible or digital products, here are some strategies that will effectively help you increase sales:
1. Write good content:
Good content provides the value and benefits that your audience seeks. It makes your brand a strong competitor in the market and distinguishes it from other brands. Good content discusses your customers' problems and addresses them, providing them with tips and guidance on using your products or services to achieve maximum benefit. This creates a sense of satisfaction and loyalty towards your brand. You can leverage content writing to increase sales through these tips:
- Create a blog alongside your store or service page and add fresh content regularly and at regular intervals.
- Directly link the points discussed in your content to the services or products you offer.
- Ensure high-quality content that is carefully targeted to your audience and potential customers.
- Make your content SEO-friendly, helping your website appear in the top search results.
- Add a clear and strong Call-to-Action (CTA) that encourages visitors to make a purchase or take the desired action.
- Share your content on social media platforms and other marketing channels, such as email lists.
2. Build an email list:
Email lists provide a constant and direct communication channel with your audience and customers, independent of social media algorithms and paid advertising costs. They ensure that your marketing messages reach the targeted audience directly at low or even zero cost, but they require some time and effort.
Building email lists requires consistently creating valuable content to convince the audience to subscribe to your mailing list and then redirect them to your website. Despite this, the return on investment from email marketing is about four times higher than what can be achieved through other marketing channels, including social media and paid advertising, making it worth the effort.
3. Target strong keywords:
One of the key pillars for increasing sales is reaching the right category of customers who show interest in the quality of services or products you offer. Choosing the appropriate main keywords is crucial in this process, as these keywords help attract the targeted audience who are interested in what you offer.
Therefore, add strong keywords relevant to your industry and the services you provide to your website content. This way, you can attract visitors interested in your services from search engines and ready to purchase your brand. Tools like Google Keyword Planner can help you identify popular keywords with high search rates to increase the number of interested visitors.
4. Improve user experience:
When it comes to increasing sales on your website, it's essential to consider the site's structure, internal layout, visual appearance, and how smoothly and flexibly visitors can use it. These aspects are known as the user experience (UX) within the website.
Focus on improving the user experience on your website and address any issues that could hinder its usability. This includes internal linking between website sections, easy navigation, page layout, color coordination, website speed optimization, and other UX principles.
5. Use attractive designs:
In addition to providing a good user experience, it is essential to build attractive and compelling designs for your website pages to capture users' attention and convince them to purchase the displayed products. Good designs give users enough space to focus on the purpose of the page, enable smooth browsing, and ultimately lead to making a purchase or engaging with the site.
While business owners often focus on aspects such as content, pricing, and shipping policies, design aspects are often given less attention or even overlooked, which negatively impacts all other details and makes them less effective.
6. Use high-quality images:
You may have heard the story of Airbnb's experience with images, where the home rental service app was able to double its revenue based solely on the quality of images. This prompted the management to hire professional photographers to capture high-quality images of the homes listed on the app, instead of relying on the low-quality images provided by homeowners.
Therefore, pay attention to the images you display on your website by adding high-quality and high-resolution images, especially for physical products such as fashion and accessories. The quality of images plays a crucial role in influencing users' purchasing decisions.
7. Write clear product descriptions:
Writing clear product descriptions is important for encouraging users to make a purchase. The description should be expressive and concise, accurately describing the product and highlighting its key features and benefits for the user. Don't forget to include necessary details in the product description, such as shipping policies and available payment methods, or refer to the frequently asked questions (FAQ) page.
Crafting product descriptions is a skill in itself, and it should be attractive and persuasive to the reader. Therefore, always ensure to hire professional content writers to write your product descriptions professionally, to attract potential customers and increase your product sales.
8. Display related products:
Smart cross-selling strategies play a powerful role in increasing sales. You can apply this strategy by displaying related products to the one the customer has purchased, under different headings such as "Customers also bought" or "Related products."
These products typically appear when the customer is making a purchasing decision and are often related to the recently purchased product or complementary products. For example, if a user buys a laptop, they may be shown laptop bags, increasing the likelihood of purchasing the bag as it complements the laptop.
9. Reviews and ratings:
According to a statistic conducted by the marketing platform Bright Local, 88% of users trust reviews from other users as recommendations, and 72% of them said that positive reviews about a specific product or service made them more confident in that service or product. This is known as social proof, an old marketing trick used to increase sales.
This means that adding a review and rating system to your website will enhance your sales and make users more confident in the products and services you offer. However, remember that users will review your products negatively if you do not provide them with a good experience. Therefore, let the review system motivate you to provide the best services to your customers to ensure positive feedback and reviews.
10. Interactive ChatBots:
Interactive chatbots are an effective way to enhance user experience on your website. They allow you to directly identify any issues or obstacles users may encounter while browsing or during the purchasing process, and quickly provide solutions to customers, reducing the likelihood of potential customer loss or what is known as customer leakage. Additionally, they improve the user experience within your website, making it interactive.
It is best to rely on live chat for customer support, a technology that enables you to communicate with customers through a live chat screen, enhancing the customer experience on your website and helping retain them.
11. Fear of Missing Out (FOMO):
The Fear of Missing Out, or FOMO, is a psychological trick used by many companies to encourage users to make purchases out of fear of missing out on a product or service, thus increasing sales.
Phrases commonly seen above product descriptions in online stores, such as "Only two left in stock," "Available at this price for only one day," or "Free shipping when ordered today," are all carefully crafted marketing techniques aimed at stimulating users' sense of urgency to acquire the product before it's too late.
Other brands use the FOMO strategy differently, by adding a countdown timer that informs users about the remaining time to get the product at a certain price, further amplifying the fear of missing out and compelling users to make an immediate purchase.
12. Display Product Comparisons:
Displaying product comparisons on your website helps customers to have a good understanding of the products and their specifications, enabling them to make the best purchasing decision. Comparisons are effective marketing strategies that play a strong role in increasing sales through the technique of up-selling. Here is an example from Amazon, which is one of the most well-known stores that utilize this strategy on their product pages.
13. Show Price Changes:
If you are offering a discount on a particular product, it is good to highlight this discount clearly to users by displaying the old and new prices. This technique encourages users to take advantage of the product at a lower price, thus increasing sales. If the product will return to its original price within a short period, it is beneficial to inform users of that to leverage the FOMO strategy in boosting sales.
How does promotion impact increasing sales?
Promotion directs potential customers toward the steps of the purchasing process and motivates them to take the final step in the marketing funnel. It is one of the elements of the marketing mix that focuses on showcasing the benefits of the product to the consumer, encouraging them to make a purchase. Therefore, it is important to consistently prepare promotional offers as they are one of the biggest purchase motivators for consumers.
Promotional offers can come in the form of discounts, additional gifts, free delivery, and more. For example, if you have an online store selling men's clothing, you can launch a 20% discount promotion for the New Year or offer reward points with every purchase, allowing customers to accumulate points and use them to buy clothes. This is also a form of customer loyalty program.
In conclusion, it is important to understand that increasing sales is connected to the success of two fundamental factors:
- firstly, being able to reach your potential customers,
- secondly, convincing them to make a purchase.
To persuade customers, put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself: What might prevent me from buying this product? This will reveal any weaknesses that need to be addressed.