There’s always room for improvement and testing is the only way to discover what works and what doesn’t in the world of sales.What matters is your approach towards your target audience. The small tricks and tips of sales might seem simple but these simple strategies make a huge difference.
1. Listen to Your Customers
To find out how and whom to sell something is the very basic of making a sale! Learn the language before trying to preach it. At times we forget to look at things from the customer’s point of view. To this, at first you must fix a target audience and get to know them. Try to understand what they struggle with in daily life and approach them with a solution. The ability to listen goes a long way when it comes to building a good customer base.
2. Be Local at Heart but Global in mind
Release your product to the local audience first and observe the response. Fix the problems, test your product and observe the reactions. If sales does not pick up locally, there is little chance you will be able to compete on an international level. To gain the most from this strategy, try different methods, such as selling items on a discount to the people on your email list. Make improvements constantly to increase sales.
3. Make Profit and Reinvest it
If you don’t have a good product or quality service, no strategy will help, except for this one! Reinvest to make the product better. At the end of the day no one will look at how fancy your new office is if the product you’re trying to sell is not up to mark. Companies who think through and improve their products constantly are the ones that survive.
4. Advertising is a Must
Sales cannot be forced because customers do not like to be sold to. Thus when advertising we must keep in mind to not say anything false. Advertising is a medium through which we can state the benefits the product has to offer. Do not over promise in an advert. It is the art of making people believe they need the product. This way if your product meets the customer’s expectation they will come back to you next time. Advertising is essential, to make your product stand out, especially when the completion is high.
5. Reward your Customers
You can run a simple program where people will get discounts for being a loyal customer for a certain amount of time. Or discount offers such as “get 10% off if you buy items worth more than 1000$”. But you have to remember to act and think like your brand. If a particular strategy is against the way your brand is supposed to act. Collaborate with the popular coupon platform such as Coupon daddy, Retail Me Not etc. This way you get promotional visibility for your sales discounts.
6. Be a Co-Worker Not a Boss
Be a part of the team. When you work as a team, things will get easier and you might be able to identify problems much easily.Most online business owners have virtual employees, in that case try to be as polite as possible over the phone or email. Make an effort.
7. Incentive Program for your Sales Team is always a good idea!
Giving incentives on making higher sales will motivate your employees to sell even more and their dedication towards work will increase. Having no incentives means your employees won’t make that extra effort to make those extra five sales. It can be almost anything, staring from extra pay to a fancy dinner for two. Be creative andgenuine with your incentives. Get a little personal and win your employees hearts!
8. Keep Testing
Test your products or services as often as possible. Carry our surveys to improve. Get customer insight through quick and easy questioners. Experiment with the ad copy, the website structure, price points and so on. Also improvise the promotions you run. A lot of testing results in finding the most effective way to increase sales.
9. Improve your copy
Most people go online to get free information. When a sale pitch starts too early in a copy it loses the audiences interest. Grab their attention by informing them about the product instead of trying to sell it. Try to relate to a problem they might be facing and let them know how the issue can be solved.Once that is done, the sales pitch can come in and do its job. To make things easier, try to avoid references to sale, cost, buying from the first part of the copy. Don’t mention anything to do with spending money until you have gained your readers trust.
10. Makes your Products Desirable by Adding Images
In the online world, images sell. They give the full picture. Literally! An image makes your product real and more trustworthy. Place the image near you call to action in order to grab your audience’s full attention. Images have the power to grab the attention of your audience for a greater amount of time then a just a copy itself.
11. Mention Certain Benefits in the Headline
Your headline is a key factor when it comes to online sales. It is the first thing your reader will notice. An attention grabbing headline is therefore a must.It should speak to your audience. Try to state a problem and then highlight on how your service or product can solve the problem your target audience is facing.
12. Portray urgency through your copy!
Your copies need to portray the urgency and how buying the product can solve the problem NOW! Keep this part for the end of the sales letter or copy.
To start off, you can test these methods:
- Give additional bonuses if people buy within a certain time frame.
- Limit the quantity of the products or services being offered.
- Offer free items with certain products.
Web developer and SEO specialist with 20+ years of experience in open-source web development, digital marketing, and search engine optimization. He is also the moderator of this blog "RS Web Solutions (RSWEBSOLS)".
