As a retailer, your online sales portal is a vital component of your revenue stream that, naturally, you want to grow. Unlike customers’ shopping experience on the ground, however, customers browsing the internet for products are exposed to a far wider variety of choice and it can be much harder to convince them to make a purchase. While it can be tricky, there are several proven methods to help convince online customers to buy from you online.
The following are eight ways you can increase your online sales in 90 days.
- Change your sales copy to focus on benefits rather than features
While you could be forgiven for confusing the two, benefits and features are quite different. Features are the actual components of the product while benefits are the things the customer gets as a consequence of using them. For example, a feature of a jacket might be its shade of grey, but you would communicate the benefit as “be on trend in this season’s latest colour”.
- Prompt customers to spread the word
Customers are far more likely to do something when you simply ask them to. Word-of-mouth advertising is even more powerful with the advent of social media, asking customers to share to their favourite social network after making a purchase is a great way to drive their friends to your web store. Prospective customers who find your site though recommendations by their friends are far more likely to buy from and recommend your business themselves.
- Promote limited-time offers
Fear of missing out (FOMO) is common among most shoppers and creating urgency through limited-time offers is a proven method for increasing online sales. Limited-time offers are great when used with smaller, less costly items that customers can easily ‘add to cart’ when checking out. This is because the combination of urgency, convenience and low-cost makes these items appealing to customers who regularly make impulse purchases.
- Create a rewards program
People love to earn rewards and to feel appreciated by a brand they routinely shop with. Rewards or loyalty programs let your customers know that you value their repeat shopping and gives them a way to save some money or get something extra for free. This also helps with word-of-mouth advertising as customers are more likely to recommend a brand that they have a reason to be loyal to.
- Optimise your page speed
If your online storefront loads too slowly then visitors will leave or ‘bounce’ from the page as quickly as they came. To retain visitors on your website you need to make sure that you have optimised the speed of your pages so that they perform as quickly as possible. A good SEO strategy will always prioritise the optimisation of a website from the very beginning of a campaign.
- Offer guarantees
While you should always be careful not to promise things you can’t deliver, guarantees are a great way to reduce the risk of a purchase in the eyes of prospective customers. Even though the majority of consumers never use money-back guarantees, they are far more likely to buy something when they know that they can easily get a refund. Guarantees create a safety net around the purchase that makes the buying decision safer for your customers.
- Record and analyse your sales data
It’s difficult to improve your online sales if you don’t even know what they are, so recording your sale data is essential. This information can be used to determine which products are most popular, which are least and which tactics are working to boost sales. With this data you can inform future business decisions about which products to promote, which to discontinue and which marketing methods should be continued.
- Feature your most popular product prominently
Promoting your top selling product as ‘featured’ and putting it front and centre on your homepage helps generate buzz and implies there’s something extra special about it in the eyes of customers. Even using copy like “our #1 selling product” is helpful as it tells customers that other people are buying the product in large numbers because of its great benefits.
SEO Shark is a digital marketing agency specialising in Search Engine Optimisation, Google AdWords, social media marketing and web design. For more information visit: www.seoshark.com.au
