When you start an online business, the primary goal is to grow the business, make profits and have ever-increasing sales. But this isn’t always the case as running a business is no piece of cake. There are several problems you could face (or are already facing) when it comes to online product sales. For instance, limited methods of payment, maintaining customer loyalty, the ever-changing e-commerce market, limited customer base, and several other factors could affect the extent of growth you have in your sales.
In this article, you will find seven innovative ideas that will undoubtedly bring significant growth to your online business. Let’s dive into it!
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Create a Project Plan and Stick to It
When you want to launch a new product online, it is very important to create a project plan that you intend to run with. A project plan is that formal document you use to define the strategies you plan to use in managing and guiding your business. Project plans help with sales because included in your plan would be the different sales strategies you would employ in your business. Writing down your strategies makes them easier to be accessed and shared with the rest of the team. Designing a project plan might seem like a lot of work, but with a project plan template, it becomes a lot easier.
As you sell your products online, ensure you do not stray from the sales tactics you have already put down in your project plan. Following through on your plans, especially when they are clear and detailed, gives you a higher chance of bringing in more returns.
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Maximise Customer Reviews and Email Lists
In online marketing today, customers rely greatly on feedback from other people. Your customer reviews could come in very handy in boosting your product sales online. If you happen to have dedicated followers who would “gush” about how great your products are, by all means, make use of them; they are your greatest assets. Be sure to showcase every positive review that you get from your customers.
If a nameless or faceless person persuades you to get a product, most of the time, you are not very convinced. Thus, it is advisable for you to take it a step further by attaching the photo of your testifying customers to their full names with their approval, alongside their reviews. These measures, as simply as they may sound, help to increase the level of belief prospective clients have in you and put their minds at ease. It would also help them know that you are not a fraud and that the testifiers are not made up.
You could publish these reviews on your product pages, landing page, pricing page, and even your home page. This would give your potential customers an idea of how great your product and/or services are.
In addition to using your customers’ testimonies, have an email list. An email list is very useful for organising your customers. Through email list management, you have tighter control of your contacts and can section customers into groups. Each group would then have targeted and personalized content sent to them. This would help you effectively manage your old and new customers.
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Offer Money-Back Guarantees and Refunds
When it comes to purchasing products online, most consumers are wary of the risk that could be attached to the purchase of these goods. They get concerned about things like the quality of the products they are paying for and whether or not they would lose money paying for inferior items.
You would always get questions like: “Why should I buy your products?”, “What if the product does not work?” or “What if I do not like your products?” However, when you promise your customers that they can get your products risk-free, through a reasonable and foolproof money-back guarantee, then you would be reassuring them that they can have unwavering trust in you.
Money-back guarantees are like promises you make to your customers, assuring them of a refund if for any reason your product(s) do not meet their preferences. It drastically reduces the risk involved for your customers, thereby increasing their will to buy your products. In addition, money-back guarantees also help customers who are undecided about your products to make up their minds.
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Have Several Payment Options
The era where customers only have the “pay-on-delivery” option has come to an end. There are several payment options that have been devised to make online shopping a lot easier for consumers.
Do you want to increase your online sales? Then, allow multiple payment methods! If you accept only credit cards, then you would be limiting a lot of your potential customers. So instead of restricting choices, allow your customers to pay through other payment methods such as Google Wallet payments, ApplePay, Stripe, WePay, PayPal and even Cryptocurrencies.
When you provide your customers or clients with more choices to pay for their goods and services, you make it easier for them to be eager to pay for the products you are offering. Their checkout and payment process becomes which in turn increases your sales significantly.
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Giveaways and Discounts
People love free stuff. The more free stuff you give away, the more favour you attract from prospective customers. Offers like ‘buy one, get one free’ is appealing to anyone, even if they do not need two of the same product. You can also give out samples, trial memberships and other rewards to both your regular customers and your would-be customers.
Rewarding long time customers would encourage them to keep being devoted to you; and who knows, through word-of-mouth, they might bring even more customers your way. Offering discounts is a sure-fire way to enhance customer loyalty.
Also, giving discounts on your products would encourage people to purchase your goods even more. Giving out discounts is a marketing strategy that is as old as time itself, but that does not stop it from being very effective. Make use of various holidays and special events to offer promotions to your customers. If it is not too much, you can throw in free shipping here or there.
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Employ the Social Media Strategy
Social Media is a very potent tool that you can use to increase your online product sales. With millions of active users of various social media, you have a wider audience to advertise your products to. If you cannot do it by yourself, employ a content creator or a Social Media manager to post content about your business.
By building relationships with your customers through these channels, you can access more people than ever. Using social media, such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, in your business helps in boosting brand awareness and customer satisfaction, and not only sales.
If you hope to increase your product sales online, increase your Social Media engagement with your customers through interactive marketing. It is a two-way approach to marketing that focuses, mainly, on interaction and collaboration. Through interactions with your customers, you can provide fast and honest responses to the questions and concerns of your customers. You will not only develop relationships with your customers through these channels, but you will also gain access to more potential buyers.
On your website, include links that would lead your customers directly to your social media pages (and profiles), so that they can find out more about you and your business.
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Make your Website Mobile-Friendly
More than 60% of people nowadays shop on their mobile phones and tablets. For a better shopping experience, it would be more suitable to have a website that is mobile-friendly. If your website does not support mobile phones or is very tedious to access the site via mobile phones, it may deter potential customers from shopping with you. This may lead to an extreme reduction in your sales.
Invest in quality websites that make it a breeze for customers to shop both on personal computers as well as mobile phones and tablets from beginning to check out. Additionally, you can consider building a mobile app for your website. This would make it easier and faster for your customers to have access to your products. Focus on convenience, speed, customers’ preferences and rewards when designing your mobile app.
Making it easy for your customers to navigate your mobile-friendly site or mobile app would make it more unlikely for your visitors to abandon your site or leave their products gathering dust in the cart. It also makes it possible for you to collect useful data about customers as you analyze their behavior on your website. This will help to align your subsequent offers via newsletters and email campaigns with their preferences. You must, however, ensure that you remain in line with the country’s data privacy laws, as you collect user information.
Conclusion
Growth is very essential, especially in business. Stagnancy can lead to debt, bankruptcy, depression and many other avoidable unpleasantries. In an online shopping and marketing business, there is a lot of competition. If you look forward to an increase in your online product sales, then adopt these ideas; they are trusted strategies that are sure to work for you.
Interesting related article: “What is Social Media Marketing?“