Running a small business is a challenging task. Whether you own a start-up or small business, the central part of your role is to increase sales. But how can you improve your online sales when you operate in a highly competitive space?
The truth is that many business owners face the same dilemma when competing in the marketplace. They all face challenges and have to keep fine-tuning their process to improve their product and service offering.
If you are struggling to increase sales for your small business, try following these tips:
Learn about your existing customers
According to a study by 3 Tier Logic, a 10% increase in customer retention yields a 30% rise in the company's value. That's right. Your existing customers hold the key to increasing sales for your small business. In addition, your current customers are the ones who are already invested in your products/services, so you should definitely find out more about them.
When you get to know your existing customers, you will learn the following things:
- What your company does well.
- What your company doesn't do well.
- How to improve your products/services.
- How to improve the customer experience.
If you want to learn about your existing customers, you can send out customer experience surveys. It could be a part of your aftersales program. For example, every time you acquire a new customer, you can send them a questionnaire to fill out about their experience.
Within the questionnaire, you should ask them questions to establish why they chose your product/service instead of your competitor and find out what they did and didn't like. Asking these questions will help you understand how you should fine-tune and change your product/service. Then you can start mentioning the things that the customers liked about your service in your sales messaging and copy
Use e-mail marketing
Try developing an e-mail marketing program to help you stay in touch with your existing customers. Once you know enough about your customers buying patterns, you can send them products and services that suit their needs. For example, you can also establish a better relationship with your customers by e-mailing them on birthdays to offer them a gift card. According to an Experian survey, birthday e-mails with mystery offers received 481% higher transaction rates and generated 342% more revenue than regular promotional e-mails.
Build a customer loyalty program to improve sales
In a study conducted by Incentive Solution, it was found that adding a customer loyalty program to an e-commerce platform can increase average order quantity by a massive 319%! That's why you need to build a customer loyalty program
Customer loyalty program examples
- Providing a discount/gift or cash incentive for customers who refer their friends and family.
- Providing a discount/gift or cash incentive for customers who take a survey.
- Offering discount/gift or cash incentive for returning customers.
If you want to compete in the marketplace with other established companies, you need to learn how to please your existing customers and turn them into brand advocates. Customers who are brand advocates tend to refer their friends and family who will buy your products and services.
Audit your online advertising efforts
Online advertising is a highly competitive space, so you need to ensure you are always on top of your game. In 2020, the digital ad spend in the UK was forecast to reach a whopping 15.6 billion pounds. If you are operating in the online space especially, you need to continuously audit your marketing efforts. You should already know the channels that bring in the most money and those that are not profitable. You should also have a digital marketing department that is dedicated to the following channels.
- SEO
- Paid search
- E-mail marketing
- Mobile marketing
- Content marketing
- Influencer marketing
Every month, you should ensure that each marketing channel reports on insights that will help them assess and assess their effectiveness.
Furthermore, a thorough audit will help you to answer some of the following questions:
- Are there any inconsistencies?
- Are there any changes that need to be made?
- Is it normal for it to be performing this way?
- What does the current competitor landscape look like?
- Is there anything we can be doing better
Try offline marketing
Offline advertising channels are tough to monitor. So, you have to always play it by ear and continuously look for ways to record what works and what doesn't. For this reason, many small companies focus mainly on online advertising.
If you really want to get the best out of your marketing efforts, you should at least try offline marketing. If it doesn't work, then you can focus solely on online marketing.
Three offline marketing methods you might want to try includes:
- Print ads (e.g., magazines and newspaper ads, posters, and direct mail)
- Telemarketing
- Radio ads
The best way to check which offline marketing channel is effective is to use a unique promotion code for these channels. When your customers use a discount code, you will know which offline channel was used. Lastly, you need to ensure that all your marketing teams communicate with each other. This will also help you to learn about which channels are more profitable than others.
Get better at telling your story
Do you have a unique story to tell about why you started your company? As a small business striving to stand out in a competitive space, you need to ensure that you come across a company with products/services that solve a problem. To do this well, you need to learn how to speak directly to your customers by telling an important story about why you started the company. Make sure this story is told in a compelling way that makes you shine.
Here are some ways you can do this:
- Create a fun video that explains your why and product offering.
- Use an infographic that explains the problem your product/service solves.
- Use existing customer testimonials to tell an actual story about how you solved their problem.
Keep fine-tuning your process
There is no one way to increase sales for your small business. You need to work on a combination of things to learn which one is the most effective. Once you have a good idea of what works, keep improving it. Keep auditing your sales and marketing efforts and improving your products. Lastly, remember that your existing customers can help you to learn about what you need to improve.
