6 Ways to Increase Your Online Sales

Created May 25, 2020

Now that the brunt of global commerce and trade is shifting to the online realm due to the fact that half the world is on lockdown and that businesses are forced to integrate eCommerce into their operations, the online world is becoming increasingly competitive and divided.

New competitors are entering the eCommerce fray every single day, which means that you have to optimize your strategy and focus on improving traffic and conversions in order to maintain cash flow and operational efficiency. Otherwise, you can expect your traffic and conversions to slowly start to fall off simply due to the fact that people have plenty of brands to choose from now.

This will not only require you to manage your inventory in a more cost-efficient way, but it will also require you to rethink your sales strategy as a whole and employ new solutions that will grab the customer’s attention and inspire them to buy from you instead of your competitors. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the most powerful ways you can improve your online sales and protect your small business in this trying time.

Rely on content to convert a lead

Everyone is trying to sell their products and services online nowadays, but no matter how in-demand you might be at the moment, there is no denying that you still have to find new ways to set your brand apart and incentivize potential customers to choose you and not the other companies in the search results.

To achieve this, you can’t focus on the same sales tactics you’ve been using offline, instead, you have to leverage quality content to generate quality leads and inspire them to become your loyal customers.

Always remember that content is king in the online world, which is why you need to create SEO-friendly content on your site, publish it on social media, and other authority websites, and most importantly, you have to do it in a non-sales-oriented way. Instead, the content you publish should serve to educate the online consumer and help them establish a trustworthy relationship with your brand.

Capitalize on social proof

Another powerful way to stand out in a crowd of competitors and inspire your target demographic to buy from you exclusively is to build your social proof. In essence, building social proof means building a trustworthy brand by empowering potential customers to repeat the actions of your existing patrons.

You can achieve this by integrating an innovative social proof tool that will display real-time notifications on your website whenever someone buys one of your products, signs up for one of your services, opts for a free trial, or even downloads your eBook or other digital products. A new website visitor will see these notifications and realize that people are actually buying from you, that they trust you, and that your website has an active consumer collective. In turn, this will inspire the potential customer to buy.

Open new sales channels

The online world is rife with lucrative opportunities and numerous different sales channels that you can exploit – so why are you still selling on your website alone? Yes, your website should be your biggest sales channel, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t sell on other popular platforms across the online realm. Be sure to integrate an omni-channel sales strategy by including social media sales, sales-focused email marketing strategies, SMS and phone sales, as well as affiliate and influencer sales.

Be sure to integrate an omni-channel sales strategy by including social media sales, sales-focused email marketing strategies, SMS and phone sales, as well as affiliate and influencer sales. Don’t forget about offering your affiliates and influencers promo codes and unique links. These tools are an efficient way to drive sales from these channels and measure your affiliate and influencer marketing ROI.

Leverage your most important KPIs

Knowledge is power in the world of eCommerce, which is why you need to monitor the most relevant KPIs and translate them into actionable reports that will help you optimize your sales tactics on a moment’s notice. To achieve this, you’ll need a comprehensive marketing dashboard that will collect and collate all of that information in a centralized location, so that you can have a clear overview of how your brand is performing on all fronts.

Be sure to keep a watchful eye on your website traffic, your conversion rate, the cost of customer acquisition, the customer lifetime value, your abandonment rate, and of course, your customer acquisition and retention rates. These metrics will help you improve your sales and marketing quickly with minimal financial loss.

Simplify the shopping journey and improve UX

Speaking of improving your sales and marketing, one of the best ways to inspire the customer to buy from you is to simplify their shopping journey by reducing the overall customer effort and improving the user experience on your site. Make sure that the customer can find your products easily (help them out by integrating quick filter and a search function), and don’t make them sign up or click on too many buttons to complete their purchase. After all, their shopping journey should be short, sweet, and rewarding.

Don’t let potential customers get away

One of the biggest pain points that online business leaders have to deal with on a regular basis is the rate at which potential customers who were just about to convert decide to abandon their carts. As you can imagine, cart abandonment rates are high in the competitive eCommerce environment, but that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing you can do to minimize it. In fact, one of your priorities should be to leverage remarketing to track down those customers and inspire them to come back and complete their purchase.

You can do this by simply using cookies on your site that will log the user’s information and allow you to track their whereabouts online so that you can position your ads to appear at the right time in front of the right people. Of course, you should also use an email remarketing tool that will send an automatic email to the customers who have abandoned their carts, reminding them that they still have items they didn’t check out. Put a little discount in for good measure and you’re bound to convert those customers.

Wrapping up

Improving your online sales in the modern economic climate might seem like a difficult task, but that doesn’t mean that you are powerless in the face of changing industry trends. In fact, leveraging these solutions will help you boost sales in the months to come, and solidify your position in the competitive eCommerce realm.

About the Author:

Jolene Rutherford

Jolene Rutherford is a marketing specialist – turned blogger. Interested in digital marketing and new technology trends. Love sharing content that can help and inform people.