Whatever industry you are working in, improving sales performance, and increasing conversions will be a key target, especially post pandemic.
Consumers are window shopping online now more than ever. Detailed generic search queries are now growing faster than branded search queries. And, as more businesses have taken to selling online, consumers want to know what is more readily available on a wider scale.
Here are seven important steps you can take now to increase your online sales.
Make sure your website is mobile and user-friendly
However, your customers decide to purchase from you, ensure the process is as simple as possible across all devices. Some consumers may choose to purchase via their mobile device, rather than on their laptop or personal computer, while others prefer to browse and purchase via a bigger screen to fully see what’s on offer.
It is important to look at your analytics and see what device your web visitors are using to browse/purchase. Ensure users can navigate and purchase simply through your website or chosen platform whatever device they are using. If your site takes more than 3 seconds to load, you will likely miss out on a lot of potential customers.
It’s important to remember about the technological advances that have happened over the past 3 years as well such as branded shopping Apps and shopping via social media channels such as Instagram and Tik Tok. This could be something to implement if you haven’t already, especially if the majority of your web visits come from mobile.
Build a list of loyal email subscribers
Make the most of your email marketing by promoting it via all of your online touchpoints such as your website, blog, and social media. Once you have begun building up an engaged data list, you will not only have an audience of interested customers that you can regularly communicate with, but you can also send personalised offers to drive subscribers to your website.
You can split your email lists into new and existing customers. This will enable you to utilise retention and acquisition methods such as rewarding loyalty and offering one time offers. Think of it in the same way as if a customer came into a physical store and had their loyalty card stamped or scanned. This tailored approach will help to increase opportunities to convert.
Choose your language and copy carefully
Your sales copy should create a sense of urgency with your visitors, compelling them to buy now. Brands portray this message in ways like having a countdown on an offer and making it time sensitive. The language you use will play an important role in the sales process so choose positive, active language that drives the reader to purchase. Make the most of clear calls-to-action and test out limited time discounts or offers, to make sure your visitors are not getting tired of those types of messages.
Offer valuable, free content
Avoid a heavy sales focus by offering high quality content. This can usually come in the form of a free consultation or a free trial of what it is you are selling. If you bombard visitors with sales language as soon as they hit your website, you’re likely to put them off. By offering ‘free’ information to your visitors, you will build your reputation as a reliable, authoritative source of knowledge. This doesn’t need to be in terms of any offer, you could be offering up solutions to problems in a blog for example.
Pinpointing the problems your consumers may face, along with proposing a solution will intrigue consumers. Consumers are more likely to purchase from a brand they come to recognise and eventually trust, so focus on developing engaged relationships before bringing in the sales-talk.
Images and videos are important!
It might sound simple, but images and videos help your products to appear more ‘real’ and tangible. More brands are adapting to letting their products sell themselves to consumers. For example, social media has become the go-to place to convert potential customers. Instagram have introduced Instagram shopping; Tik Tok have also introduced their own channel shop, in which users can shop directly from a brand’s live stream.
High quality images can help to boost the desirability of your product and help potential customers imagine owning the item. You can also incorporate 360-degree angles of your products. It’s important to remember that images and video can take up a lot of space on your site, so making images as small as you can in file size whilst keeping the quality is imperative. Big file sizes can slow your site’s page load speed down, making consumers just bounce off site. You can use free tools such as TinyJPG to reduce your image file sizes before upload to ensure a smooth load of your product pages.
Review the appearance and copy of your website
It’s important to reflect on the appeal of your website, any visuals you use and the variety of content. Can visitors easily digest the copy? Is the key information clear? What will their eye be drawn to? It’s important to regularly update your content to ensure it is relevant and driving customers towards a particular action.
If you’re looking to make changes you could try using alternative formatting or fonts and varying length of paragraphs, subheadings, or bullet points, not forgetting to include keywords that are popular to drive traffic to your sort of website. This will be dependent on your products/services. It is also worth remembering that if you are driving consumers to different product pages from various sources to ensure they actually land on those pages and that those pages are optimised for the best experience possible.
What’s your follow-up process?
Your customers should feel valued regardless of where they are in the sales process – and that includes the end! This will ultimately help to generate future sales as you will keep your brand in the consumer’s mind and help to develop a positive relationship. Automated emails can ensure customers receive a ‘thank you’ email post-purchase and you can offer personalised discounts to generate further sales.