Having an online store that brings in passive income is a great way to earn some extra money. But translating your efforts into online sales can be difficult. ‘Build it and they will come’ is unfortunately not a thing.
But fortunately, there are many ways you can increase your online sales. Here are my top 10 tips. The best thing to do is try out a variety and find out which combination works best for you.
1. Create a sense of urgency
This could be only making your product available to purchase at certain times of the year, or for limited amounts of time. Many customers respond positively to incentives around urgency, especially those who might be on the fence. Offering something for a limited time only might just be the thing that tips them towards purchasing.
2. Offer a bulletproof money-back guarantee
Your customers want to know they aren’t wasting their money. They want to know your product really does what it says on the tin. They are worried about the financial risks. Overcome this by offering a bulletproof money-back guarantee. The more risk you remove from your customer’s mind, the more likely they are to purchase from you.
3. Invest in quality product images
Regardless of what you sell, there is compelling evidence that high-quality product imagery is far more attractive to customers than low-quality, blurry or grainy images. It makes sense. It might seem overkill to include shots of your products from every conceivable angle, but you’d be surprised at when these images will come in handy.
4. Call-online campaigns
Who wants to spend several minutes browsing website pages looking for a mobile number? Call-only campaigns in Facebook and AdWords are an excellent alternative strategy to landing pages.
5. Keep messaging consistent across campaigns
If a user clicks an ad for a specific product or service, the page they’re taken to should be about that specific product or service, not a related category. Or a special offer to purchase another product. Ads and pages that are a maze for your customers to navigate will result in them just closing your website and going elsewhere.
6. Optimise your website for mobile shopping
Mobile search has already eclipsed desktop search by volumes. Make sure your website/store is easy to navigate and purchase from on a mobile phone.
7. Don’t compete on price, complete on value
You can only compete on price to a point, and everyone is trying to do the same. Instead, show your customers why you’re worth what you charge and how you do things differently to others.
8. Implement tiered pricing
Particularly useful with service providers, but can also be done with products. By offering tiered pricing you’re more likely to capture the interest of a wider variety of customers who have different budgets and needs.
9. Give away free stuff
We all love a freebie. Free incentives mean customers will look at your brand favourably and will be more inclined to purchase from you if they were impressed with what they got for free.
10. Establish different buyer personas
This is a similar strategy to offering tiered pricing structures. You’ll have different products that will attract different types of customers. Use the variety of different marketing strategies available to you to target these customers on different platforms. The more you understand the persona of each of your buyers, the more likely you are to successfully sell to them.
