Competition is crazy out there! No matter how big you are, retail has business owners trying to snag an increasingly larger market share to sell their products. The logic for everyone involved in this industry is always the same: How to increase sales?
While running a company, you must set your goals and figure out what you must do to achieve them. Sometimes, increasing sales volume means not only more money but also that you’ll be able to pay off debts, make new investments, hire people for your team or even get more well-being from your profits.
To maintain a significant income and be on top of the competition, you and your sales team must meet new customers' expectations while keeping current customers engaged, applying an all-rounded sales strategy to address your targets' needs and making them buy your goods. Using sales techniques to your advantage will make you successful if you really want to boost sales.
As an entrepreneur, starting a business means you are responsible for making your business prosperous. Still, if you’re looking to start your sales efforts, you should be prepared to present a great marketing strategy to acquire actual sales—and more online sales.
No worries. To save you from this profitable-but-savage industry, we designed a list of eight tactics to boost sales to ensure you’ll achieve your marketing objectives. You can add the items below to your strategic planning and see your conversion rates rise to the next level.
So, are you ready to become a sales machine?
1. Understand your target audience
First, to acquire more sales, you don’t need to simply offer your product to many people. Of course, targeting a range of the market is essential. However, you should have a clear and personalized message to make it possible for your target audience to assimilate your product.
People have preferences, pain points and needs, and while buying and considering a brand, these behaviors will impact their choices. Understanding this will help you tailor your sales approach and message them properly.
There are some ways to research what your ideal customers are interested in, which social media channels they use and what they expect from your product or service. How you will use them depends on your company's size and objectives.
Observation
If you own a small business or want to start something but don’t have all the resources needed, you won’t be able to create an extensive business plan. However, observation is an essential thing you can do to gather necessary information about your business and potential customers!
Just observing people entering your competitors’ stores, practicing social listening, and interviewing friends who use the exact product you sell will help you create a more personalized strategy with your customers.
Consider their age, gender, average income, political positioning, profession and all the demographics while gathering information. These factors will enable you to translate and predict their behavior toward your products.
Market research
If you have a more mature organization or an excellent background in business, consider doing market research to better understand your prospective customers and to use the data as the foundation for your planning.
Doing market research is almost the same thing as observing, but know you will use methodology and processes to make your study more accurate. You will collect the same data, but now you can rely on it because the information you gathered is precisely collected, not only assumptions from personal perception.
In market research, you can be more aggressive about your competitors' characteristics, prepare a SWOT analysis to discuss your business' strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and describe your target market.
If you work as a marketing or sales manager, you’ll be in charge of this process to help upper management with decision-making.
Data analysis
Are you collecting data from your customers or visitors from your website?
You should analyze if you’re getting more traffic and sales through an app, site or platform that can track your potential customer information!
That is market research, but more focused on the data you already have on your database. We can use it to create new campaigns, especially digital marketing ones, since we can personalize your target audience while working on paid traffic campaigns.
It’s a great tool to leverage because it gives you more precise info about your existing customers and what they’re doing. You can track information about your products, what is selling more, when and where. This way, you can create tailored marketing strategies to reach your target market.
2. Go online
Whether you're out of money to invest, out of room for growth in physical sales or just starting out, why don’t you create your own online store?
Building your ecommerce business is an opportunity to expand your company through the internet and reach customers that can’t discover and communicate with your brand physically.
If you have already reached a plateau in your income, this is the opportunity to increase sales and sell to existing customers from other states, provinces or countries.
The internet made it possible for businesses worldwide to connect with different markets and cultures, and even if you’re new to the ecommerce world, you can use this as a tool to make money from home.
Choosing the right specialized platform that can help you start your business with no hassle is one of the first steps you must consider to grow your sales. For example, with Shoplazza, you can start your online store in a few clicks, selling to clients worldwide in multiple currencies.
3. Improve your product or service
Ensuring your product lines or services are high-quality is a continuous process. You’ll always have something to improve since customers frequently change their needs.
To make your product stand out, you should periodically analyze it and figure out how to improve its features.
As we mentioned earlier, market research is a great way to gather customer information, but you must research often. You don’t need to run super extensive and detailed research every month, but collecting all your data and examining it consistently is essential.
After contacting your customer by email, phone or other customer service channels, ask if they’re satisfied with your product. After all, customer feedback is critical while building a reputation for your business. They’re the best people to evaluate what you’re offering, as they’re the ones using it.
On the other hand, you can use a product development framework to help you analyze it. Developing and adding new features to multiple products is more complex than it looks. This development must be possible in terms of what your paying customer wants and what’s financially viable for your company. To check if your product is feasible, we recommend running a break-even analysis to check if you’ll get all the returns on your investment.
The product development process is filled with steps that you must follow to create a minimum viable product to be released in the market to address a necessity. After launching your product, you and your team must follow up periodically to see if there are any improvement possibilities so that your product can live a long life.
4. Offer promotions and discounts
Promotions and discounts encourage customers to purchase, especially if they get a good deal. That’s why you should work to increase sales through promotions, discounts and special coupons to attract customers.
Besides limited-time offers, you must follow all the trends your competitors are involved in. There are many profitable dates in the retail calendar, periods when people are more likely to buy gifts, presents and things they need. They often save money just to enjoy special promotions, like Black Friday. Offering a discount to them is a way to catch their attention and make them spend in your store.
With that in mind, you must create the perfect environment for your customer to buy from you. You must know your products and customers to develop special offers personalized for them. Once you understand their needs, it’s time to match them with the perfect goods!
Sometimes an extra push is needed to make them choose your store, so play with special coupons with personalized names, landing pages and URLs. Everything is possible when it comes to delighting them.
Investing in affiliate marketing is another excellent way to help you achieve new potential clients. Social media platforms are crowded with influencers that want to monetize their content, and you can help them!
Creating a special coupon for each influencer and giving them a part of the profit margin of each sale made using their personalized coupon will benefit both parties. On this agreement, they will help you sell your products and show your brand to your audience while earning a commission for every sale!
5. Build trust and credibility
People will only trust a company or product if they know the brand’s reputation. Some companies are already popular in the market. However, many businesses in the traction phase still need to work on their reputation to improve their customer acquisition.
But calm down; Nothing is lost. You can still start building your reputation on the internet today. All you have to do is pay attention to some essential aspects if you want to thrive:
Social proof and testimonials
Social proof and testimonials are powerful tools for building trust and credibility. Social proof refers to the idea that people are more likely to trust and follow the actions of others. At the same time, testimonials are a form of social proof in which satisfied customers share their positive experiences with a product or service.
To use social proof and testimonials to build trust and credibility, consider the following tips:
- Display testimonials prominently on your website and social media platforms.
- Use testimonials from various sources, including industry experts and satisfied customers.
- Use video testimonials whenever possible. They can be more persuasive than written testimonials.
- Encourage customers to share their experiences on social media and review sites and respond promptly to negative feedback.
- Use customer data to create case studies or success stories that highlight the benefits of your product or service.
Want to see an example of a case study? Check out how Creality’s online store made 12 million dollars in eight months! 💰
Ask for reviews
Online reviews can be an effective way to make more customers trust your business. Sometimes people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family.
You must encourage them to write about you to get your business on the radar of the most popular review sites. Sometimes it can be a small incentive like a discount, coupon or gift. Staying well-ranked on popular platforms like Google My Business, Yelp or TripAdvisor is essential to your business.
After receiving these positive reviews, you can use them as social proof by featuring them prominently on your website and social media platforms.
Build a case
Building a case for your product or service involves presenting a clear and compelling argument for why your product or service is superior to the competition.
People are more likely to trust your business if they see solid numbers and rates from your results. To build a case for your product or service, we prepared some steps that can guide you through the process:
1. Identify your unique selling proposition (USP) and highlight it prominently in your marketing materials.
2. Use data and statistics to demonstrate the effectiveness of your product or service.
3. Provide examples of successful outcomes or case studies to show how your product or service has helped others.
4. Address customers' potential objections or concerns, and provide evidence to support your claims.
Branding
Branding is another vital tool in your quest to learn how to increase sales and conquer your customers’ trust. A strong brand can convey professionalism, reliability and trustworthiness!
While developing credibility for your brand, make sure your identity is apparent, including logo, color scheme and visual style. Using this identity consistently across marketing materials will make people used to it and connect your products to these visual elements.
Align your branding strategies with your value proposition, your mission statement and the values of your target audience. Consider partnering with reputable brands or influencers that match your brand’s values and are related to your target audience to enhance your reach.
Collab with other brands
Why treat your competitors as mortal opponents when you both can unite forces to achieve success? Collaborating with other brands can be a great way to benefit your business. By partnering with another company, you’ll be sharing the same goals and common target audience to promote your products.
That’s a win/win situation, but you should remember that you can’t partner with every company and must preserve your business identity. Here we prepared a small list of how to collaborate with other companies:
- Find the right partner: Look for a brand with a similar target audience or values to yours and whose products or services complement rather than compete with yours. A well-chosen collaboration can help both brands reach new customers and enhance their credibility.
- Plan the collaboration: Once you have identified a potential partner, brainstorm ways to collaborate to benefit both brands. That should involve co-creating content, offering joint promotions or discounts, or sponsoring events or charitable causes.
- Communicate clearly: Establish clear expectations and goals for the collaboration, and ensure that both brands are on the same page regarding messaging, branding and timelines. Communication is vital to ensuring a successful partnership.
- Promote the collaboration: Once it is underway, promote it on both brands' social media platforms, websites and other marketing channels. As partners, you should help build awareness and credibility for both brands and their respective audiences.
6. Invest in marketing and advertising
Investing in marketing and advertising can help you reach new customers and raise awareness of your products or services. With the proper budget and after calculating the ROI, you can consider using them.
Overall, these marketing strategies can help your business to expand its reach, engage with its target audience and increase sales. However, it's crucial to invest in the right strategy for your business, track your results and adjust your approach as needed to ensure that you get the best return on your investment.
Social media marketing
Social media advertising is arguably the fastest way to create brand awareness on the internet, and social commerce is growing faster than ever. Platforms like TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn have billions of users, making them an ideal place for businesses to reach a large and diverse audience.
Your marketing team can leverage this low-cost way to drive traffic, build brand awareness, generate leads and increase sales by creating compelling content, engaging with followers, and running targeted ads on your social media accounts. All these promotional efforts are measurable, so you’ll know if your investment is paying off.
Some people don’t believe in the power of social media. What they don’t know is that people are making a lot of money on YouTube, just for posting videos.
Email marketing
Email marketing is one of the most popular types of marketing communications as it can speak with customers and prospects directly and can be highly effective at driving new sales.
By building a list of subscribers and creating email marketing campaigns that provide value and encourage action, businesses can nurture customer relationships, promote their products or services, and generate repeat business.
Paid advertising
Paid advertising, such as Google Ads, Meta Ads and TikTok Ads Manager, can effectively reach potential customers who may need to be made aware of your business. By targeting specific demographics, interests and behaviors, companies can show ads to people most likely to be interested in their products or services. Paid advertising can also be an excellent way to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your website.
Content marketing
Content marketing strategies are essential to build credibility and increase sales volume. While reading content from a company, you’re being exposed to a content strategy to convert your audience to paying customers.
From starting a blog to publishing YouTube videos, there are a few ways that content can help you to make money from home and increase sales, providing long-term success. We listed four to convince you to start using content as a sales strategy:
1. Establishing expertise
By creating valuable content that demonstrates your knowledge and expertise in your industry or niche, you can establish yourself as a trusted authority in the eyes of your target audience. This can help build credibility and trust, leading to increased sales.
2. Building relationships
Content marketing can also help you build relationships with your audience by providing them with valuable information, insights and entertainment. By creating content that connects with your target audience, you can make loyal customers that are more likely to trust and purchase from you.
3. Driving traffic
Creating high-quality content can also help you drive traffic to your website or other online platforms. Investing in SEO and sharing it on social media and other channels can attract new visitors and increase your online store’s visibility.
4. Supporting the sales process
Content marketing can also support online sales by giving potential customers the information they need to make informed purchase decisions. By creating product guides, how-to videos, customer testimonials and other types of content, you can help to address common questions and objections and move prospects along the customer journey, closer to a purchase.
7. Provide excellent customer service
Imagine launching a new feature to an audience that hates interacting with you. Sounds like chaos, right?
A positive customer experience can lead to repeat business and positive word-of-mouth referrals. Ensure your customer service is top-notch and that customers feel valued and appreciated.
Now that you’re trying to expand your marks and reach new market shares, take care of your customers differently. Open more channels to listen to their complaints, answer their questions and reviews on websites and social media, and interact with them as much as possible to improve customer service.
You’re building a community for your brand by caring for your customers. They’re more likely to advocate for you, engage with your social media posts and campaigns and recommend your products to their friends and family.
8. Expand your distribution channels
Sales teams of a lot of companies use this strategy to improve their rates. Selling goods through multiple channels can be super helpful for your business since now you can improve sales revenue. That will increase the possibility of getting new customers since more channels mean more exposure and sales volume.
One of the possibilities is adding your products to sell with big retailers such as Amazon or AliExpress to leverage their vast traffic. You’ll use their extensive loyal customer base to increase your earnings.
Now, imagine if you only sell through one channel, and this channel, for an unexpected reason, stops working. You’re putting all your eggs in one basket, so you must diversify your sales and look forward to an omnichannel strategy. Selling in different channels won’t make you vulnerable to market changes or supply chain problems.
By doing it, you’re making things more accessible to your customers. Since you’re diversifying your marketplaces, people now will have a lot of options to choose from, and by partnering with other retailers, you’ll increase your credibility while using their structure.
How to increase sales: conclusion
Increasing sales volume is crucial for any business looking to grow and succeed. Some many different strategies and approaches can be used to achieve this goal, and we choose eight particular ways to get it:
- Understanding your target audience
- Building an online store
- Improving your product or service
- Offering promotions and discounts
- Building trust and credibility
- Investing in marketing and advertising
- Providing excellent customer service
- Expanding your distribution channels.
While developing your strategy, you should remember that increasing sales means all these factors together, helping you build your plan. By diversifying your online sales tactics and improving the services and all steps of your workflow, you can increase your reach and create a more robust sales volume.
We know that is not as simple as it looks, so don’t pressure yourself. Step by step, you’ll find your path to success. Just make sure you keep focused on making your strategy work. If you need more help, we’re here to facilitate your life and ensure your online business begins really well. Count on us!
