As online visibility becomes unpredictable, more brands are running at a loss even after doing the most to increase sales yet surprisingly, every other day, a number of businesses are smiling to the bank after making very decent sales.
The difference between brands that are making sales and the ones that are struggling oftentimes is not in how much effort they put into their marketing but the reality of the strategy they choose.
As a growth consultant that’s worked with businesses across industries, I have noticed that with the right structures and strategy, nearly every business has what it makes more sales, even without a big marketing team but positioning and strategy are also very important.
In this article, I’ll be sharing with you the insights I’ve learned from working with brands across industries and the strategies you can use to boost more sales for your business, irrespective of your industry.
Know your Customers
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A lot of business owners do not know their target audience. Especially small business owners but knowing your target audience is a non-negotiable requirement, if you want to increase sales.
As a business that wants to make more sales, one of your primary goals is to know your target customers, where they are, what appeals to them and how they can be reached.
Let’s say you’re running a business that is targeted at children and your marketing is entirely focused on appealing to kids alone while ignoring their parents. In that case, you’ll most likely lose out because your marketing does not address the decision makers.
Also, there are situations where businesses do not even know where their audience are located. A business could be targeting an industry that is mostly found online on Tiktok but your business page is only operating on Facebook.
In such scenarios, even with the right marketing strategies, you’ll still be struggling to make sales because you’re trying to reach the wrong people.
So, one of your first steps to get more sales online or offline is understanding your customers clearly. Know who they are, what they want, where they are and how to reach them.
Have a Sales goal & Strategy
When I started my first business, I really wanted to make sales but I did not have any goal or a strategy. Those were the days people talk about making money online like it’s some magic that happens after a while. Unfortunately, I did not make any cent until the business eventually folded up.
After the business failed, I analyzed events that led to its failure and one of the things I found was that I did not have a single sales goal or a strategy to get the sales.
To be very specific, making more sales with any business is not wishful thinking. If you want to boost your sales, you have to take steps that will get you to achieve that specifically.
Start with having a sales goal. Find out, how much sales would I like to make over the next 6 months or 1 year. Then break it down into specific months and weeks.
Let’s say you want to make X amount in 6 months; how much will you make in every month to be able to make that X amount in 6 months? This makes it more simplified and easier for you to target.
After this is all set out, you also want to find out the specific strategies that you will use to make those sales. This could be the number of people that will get to see your products, the number of posts you’ll publish, the amount you’ll spend on ads etc.
What ever it is, your strategy should be able to realistically deliver on your goals, over the specified period you have in mind.
Consider your Pricing & Competition
Pricing is a major factor that can equally decide whether a business is making sales or not. Depending in your industry, your pricing structure can either attract customers or put them away. And this is regardless of whether the prices are higher or lower than industry standard.
Again, before you fix your prices you have to know and consider four things; your customers, their buying power, industry prevailing pricing and your own positioning.
Let me explain. Knowing your customer means you know the maximum range they can spend for X item per their attachment to that item and this range can be very high or very low, depending on factors like emotional attachment, perception, value etc.
A customer’s buying power influences how much they can spend out of pocket on your product or services. The higher their buying power and demand for your product, the more sales you can make.
Industry prevailing pricing will also impact how much sales you can make. If the other competing brands are selling at a much affordable rates, selling yours at a higher or even lower rates can affect how much sales you make.
Perception matters as well when it comes to sales. Some clients would feel your services or products are not good enough if they come off as being too affordable. If they are also too price, customers might be driven away.
You have to study the industry or individual clients. Understand what drives their buying decisions before using that to decide on your pricing. This will help you in setting a more balanced pricing which will also increase sales for your business.
Fix your Website & Branding
A lot of small brands do not see the need to have a solid branding or get a website. But as someone that’s helped a number of businesses to grow their brands from scratch using digital strategies, one of the most outstanding things I noticed is that you cannot afford to not have a website. Because online is where the sales are happening.
In fact, digital marketing is a big driver when it comes to sales and business growth. And you are missing out if you do not have this structure set up for your business.
To get started, set up a brand for your business. Give it a name, logo, color and pictorial organization that makes your brand identifiable. Make your message stand out. Don’t just do it anyhow, find a way to appeal to your audience in a language they understand.
When that has been fully sorted, fix your website. Your website presents a home where your business can be reached across the world, make it stand out.
Before you build a website, get a domain name that reflects your business name or the brand you’re building. This is very important. Also, consider using a reliable hosting platform that gives your business stability and online availability at all times.
After that, go ahead and build your website, using a platform and framework that is sure to drive your business’ capacity to make sales.
Optimize for Organic Visibility & Online Sales
It is not enough to desire to make sales or even build a website, you have to get your business in front of your target audience if you really want to make more sales. This is very important.
After your website is all set up, you have to optimize it for visibility so it can easily show up when your customers are searching for your business online.
Theres a number of ways to go about creating this online visibility. For example, you’ll want to start with setting up on page optimization. This involves using the right keywords strategically across specific locations on your website like title, meta tags, meta description, sub titles etc.
After that, you also have to consider the technical SEO which is aimed at getting your website crawled and indexed by the major search engines, ensuring that your is loading fast and easily accessible for your clients.
When you’re done with both on page and technical SEO, consider link building and off page SEO. This helps position your website as a reliable source for information which can eventually affect your ranking and visibility across platforms.
In addition to all of this, create a solid content strategy that revolves around delivering high end value for your client. show up and post this content consistently at an interval that aligns with our marketing goals.
Optimizing your website’s SEO goes a long way in getting your website more visible to your target customers. It is a must have strategy, if you really want to make sales.
Engage in Social Media Marketing
With over 3 billion monthly users collectively, the social media is a key platform for any brand that seeks to make sales online. It has helped a lot of businesses and you want to have it as a part of your strategy.
As a beginner, this was what we used especially on days when we were barely known by customers. In fact, social media gave us our first few clients.
As a new business that seeks to make sales, use social media marketing to your advantage. Identify the op social media platforms with the largest number of your target audience and create your pages there.
Beyond creating pages, post content and engage with your audience on that platform. This is a crucial step that will not only get your brand in front of your customers, it will build rapport and also get them to know and possibly like and trust you.
If you want to drive a better result and outcome from social media, do not just pos links from your blog posts. Create and share high value content that are either informative, entertaining, informative to your target audience. This will keep them engaging with your posts.
Advertise to get a Headstart
After all is said and done, getting organic visibility can be hard for a beginner but digital advertising can get you a headstart while you build momentum with organic visibility.
This is not always compulsory as most businesses prefer to wait for their digital marketing to deliver in outcomes but if you want to make sales fast, you can start with this. This can also boost your organic marketing effort.
If you want to go with advertising to make sales, you want to consider your budget first. This is very important. If you have a decent budget, you can consider going for more expensive advertising like search engine focused advertising.
Where your budget is smaller, consider opting for social media focused advertising. This might call for using options like Facebook advertising which is a lot more accommodating for small businesses or other options that works for you.
There are a lot more advertising options that could also lead your business to make more sales like advertising on third party websites, using banner advertising, sponsored posts, influencer advertising etc.
Whichever options you choose should be what you consider realistic for your business, based on your goals, industry and your budget.
Final Words
A lot is involved when it comes to getting your business to make more sales. Outside what I’ve shared here, there are also other things like the market demand, product-market fit, targeting, customer experience and competition.
It will be hard to make sales from your business without considering and optimizing your business to be fit in this regard even after taking the listed steps you just learned today.
So, beyond what you’ve learned today, pay attention to your customers. Create a great product that meets their needs. Have a robust strategy and above all, create a great experience for your clients.
And you do not have to do this all alone. Sign up for our academy to learn growth marketing hands on or work with our team and let’s get your business prepared to make more sales. Reach out to us here.
Now, it’s your turn. What are your biggest struggles when it comes to making more sales with your business?
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