Increasing online sales is the primary goal of countless businesses, large and small alike. For many first time ecommerce entrepreneurs, it can be frustrating to work so hard getting your business ready only to to hear crickets when you finally launch. Fortunately, there are dozens of ways you can make more sales online, many of which you can implement right away.
Sell Unique Products
Standing out from the crowd is one of the best ways to move merchandise. Especially if you’re in a crowded space where your competitors sell similar, if not the exact same products. The basic premise here is that you do something so unique and different that people will naturally have to tell others about it.
Let’s say you sell something that gets a lot of attention and people start purchasing it. As people start buying your products – their friends will naturally ask: “Where did you get those?” And of course, they will refer them to your online store.
If you don’t make your own products –that’s okay. You’ll just have to source specialized items for resale. And there is a smart way to do this. Instead of buying specialized inventory outright and hope it sells, simply place these products on your site and allow visitors to pre-order or request more information about them. This will let you gauge how much demand there is for these products.
Creat A Blog
Starting a successful blog can be the easiest and cheapest way to attract thousands of new customers. All it comes down to is how well you can create valuable content for your readers. If you put the time and creative energy into blogging, it can pay dividends for years to come.
The beauty of blogging is that once you’ve created a great piece of timeless content, the search engines will bring you traffic to that page for the lifetime that page exists. So it’s a worthwhile endeavor since it’s really a way of planting seeds of future growth for your business. Answering common questions in the form of long detailed blog post always makes great content.
Build Up An Email List
Building up an email list for marketing purposes is absolutely essential.
In fact, according to research by MarketingSherpa, 60% of marketers polled found that email marketing produced an ROI for their company (32% believe it will eventually produce an ROI). When asked what the estimated ROI from email marketing programs for the company were – the overall group reported 119% – a figure that’s tough for any online store owner to ignore.
Having a list of emails from previous and potential customers means you can get your information, products, and content into their personal mailboxes. In contrast, updates made to your Facebook page and Twitter handle will almost never be able to reach your entire following, due to time zone differences and other factors.
Start building your email list today by including an email subscription form somewhere noticeable on your website and, you can buy a pre-built email list online to quicken the process and increase sales instantly.
Related article: Get active Nigerian email list here with free blasting software
Here’s a clever way to convince visitors to sign up for your list. Instead of simply saying “Join our Newsletter,” offer an incentive or some type of value for signing up.
Related article: Email database of high net-worth individuals in Nigeria
Use Paid Ads
The two of the main places where you can advertise are Facebook and Google AdWords.
Facebook advertising has a unique advantage over almost all of the other internet advertising channels, which is that is you can target your ads by: Age, Gender, Interest and Location.
AdWords is Google’s advertising network that allows online retailers to place advertisements on nearly every Google search results page, Youtube video and partner website. No other advertising network will give you faster sales results than AdWords. The reason for this is that your ad can be on the first page of a Google search query in less than five minutes after signing up.
Use Social Media
Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, Instagram, etc are great places where you can generate leads and backlinks to you blog or e-commerce site.
Create a special Facebook page for your business, get new friends. Friends that are most especially interested in your products. Don't just add any person as friend. Find out first, the person's interest before adding. Add as much as you can.
Always ensure you are active most times and respond to comments.
Flood your page with articles and images about your business.
Same goes for Twitter, Telegram, Instagram, etc.
Use Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is when you let other people market your products and send you website traffic. In return, you pay them a percentage of any sales that originate from their efforts. Their marketing efforts can be kept track of by giving them unique hyperlinks (which they can post on their website) containing an ID code at the end of the link, just for them.
For example, a website owner may post your affiliate link for a blue sweater that is for sale on your website. If one of his website visitors clicks the link and then buys the blue sweater, you’ll have made a sale, and as an affiliate, the website owner will be entitled to a percentage of that sale.
The success of affiliate marketing schemes depends greatly on the types of products you sell, as well as the commission percentage you reward your affiliate partner.
Sell Wholesale To Other Retailers
Selling to consumers is fine, but there’s nothing wrong with selling wholesale to other retailers, too, especially if the consumers aren’t biting as often as you’d like them to.
One of the main advantages of selling wholesale is the obvious increase in cash flow. You may be selling with a finer profit margin, but you’ll be shifting products in quantity.
Pay Attention to Stats
Reviewing and acting upon website analytics is paramount. The behavior of every website visitor from entry to exit helps you understand why you are selling, and more importantly, why you aren’t.
Your website stats (or analytics) will show you what your customers are doing on your site, including which web pages they enter, the time they spend on particular pages, and the route they take to leave your site.
Occasionally, some tools will display additional information, for instance how frequently a customer visits your site.
It won’t cost you a penny, either. Google Analytics is a completely free service, allowing you to measure your traffic in more ways than you can think of.
Run A Survey
Learning about the common pain points and desires of consumers can help you make all the right moves going forward.
Consumer surveys are an ideal tool for obtaining honest feedback. Unlike your friends and family, consumers have no qualms about hurting your feelings by picking at your web design or your marketing material.
To run your very own survey, you can make use of online apps like Survey Monkey and Qualaroo to create online surveys.
Set Up A Cartel
Sometimes it’s nice to have some support. A small online cartel could be just the trick.
Find a group of complementary (but not competitive) retailers and agree to promote and support each other. It’s a brilliantly simple way to gain traction in a variety of ways.
For example, if you run an online clothing store, ideal cartel candidates might include jewelry and footwear outlets. Essentially, the stores you would partner with are similar enough to be able to cross-promote and share advice, but not similar enough to create a conflict of interest.
Join us, lets build a mutual business cartel, click here to send a request email.
credit: DWI
