In today’s topsy turvy world you might be experiencing an unexpected sales slump. At the time of writing this post Covid-19 is creating an unprecedented impact across the global market.
As many businesses are feeling the impacts, it is easy to slip into a panic, that I get. This can make it difficult to analyse the situation objectively and clearly.
That therefore, makes trying to find a solution to address the sales decline, challenging and frustrating.
In this post, I’ll walk you through 5 sales boosting strategies you can implement into your business today, to help address and even reverse the decline.
1. Sweating The Assets
The first strategy for boosting your sales is to review your current assets and ask yourself, are you sweating them? Sweating your assets simply means maximising the assets and resources you already have. In this example your assets are your existing customers and followers.
The process for implementing this strategy begins with asking yourself a series of questions.
- When did you review your customer orders and identify the last time they made a purchase from you?
- When was the last time you emailed them since the last purchase?
- do you have a re-engagement strategy?
- What are you doing to make it quick and simple to place repeat orders?
We are creatures of habit, leading busy lives and your business can easily be forgotten if you are not reminding customers that you exist and reminding them about the benefits of your products or services.
Sales & Marketing Opportunities
Once you’ve answered these questions, it’s time to identify sales and promotional opportunities.
To identify these, answer the following questions:
- Are you running free delivery weekends?
- Are you offering them the opportunity to bulk purchase in exchange for a discount?
- Can you up-sell or cross sell?
- Can you partner with a with a strategic brand to offer existing customers additional value?
There are sales within your customer database, you need to look for them!
2. The Conversion Strategy
With the conversion strategy, you are looking to convert your existing social media followers into paying customers and clients. These are your warm audience and therefore should be easier to convert than going out to new audiences.
Again, you need to put your business into their mindset and your content strategy will help you achieve this.
- How are you engaging with followers?
- Are you posting everyday / twice a day?
- Are you tapping into your followers for research purposes?
- Are you educating / entertaining and inspiring followers? These are 3 content categories that I recommend you focus on whenever you’re creating social media content
- Are you inviting followers to your place of sale: your website, Etsy store, Amazon store, high street?
Give people a reason to make a purchase decision or take action. It’s your job to do that.
It’s too easy to publish a photo of your product or service each time you go on social, Don’t just make it about your product. You will achieve better results when you engage with your audience on an emotional level and that means talking about their needs, hopes and desires. Sell the benefits or the experience, not the product features.
3. The Customer Growth Strategy
What are you doing to to reach new customers? Are you growing your audience on social media? I hear so many business owners complaining they are not hitting their sales targets, but the reality is, they are not actively growing their audience.
Without doubt, you have a captive audience somewhere. You simply need to look for them. Unfortunately, the majority of your audience will need your encouragement and invitation to join your tribe. It’s your job to tell then you exist – especially during the early growth stages of your business.
Use growth tactics such as hashtags, following your followers followers and making time to jump into Instagram and Facebook to have a daily conversation, will help you grow your account. Stories and live video will help you get in front of new audiences.
Are you doing enough on social media to grow your audience? Are you actively growing your audience everyday?
Your sales are in your fanbase! The larger your tribe, the more brand ambassadors you’ll attract and they will possess the power to help raise the profile of the product or service you offer.
When I ran my shop, I posted across local facebook groups every day. I grew my followers by 500 in one week! It was a matter of hours before word of mouth kicked in. You can do this! What groups can you join (beware of group rules and guidelines around self promotion).
4. The Paid Ads Strategy
Paid advertising across social media doesn’t need to be expensive. With the correct targeting and optimisation you can reach new audiences for as little as 1p or a cent per person.
Check out my video teaching you how to set up a page like a campaign for Facebook – which you can use for IG as well.
There’s also a video that teaches you how to grow your following to 1000 for less than £100!
Consider, the impact of attracting 1000 new followers. The question then becomes how you convert 10% of them? That’s 100 new customers immediately!
5. The Stop Strategy
Sometimes, stopping an activity can boost sales.
Consider what you can stop doing? If you offer a range of products or services consider what you can stop selling? Removing the tail of your range, in other words the low performers can help reduce production and variable costs and allow you to focus your marketing efforts on your top selling lines.
But it doesn’t stop there.
Make a list of your expenses. What can you postpone, cancel or reduce? Are there subscriptions or items that you can live without?
By reducing your overheads you’ll improve your net profit position which will give you some breathing space and reduce the pressure on sales.
Alternatively you can redirect money saved and you can use it to invest in marketing
Conclusion & Next Steps
There you have 5 strategies to help you boost your sales today.
Grab a pen and notepad and begin working through each one. Better still spend the next 5 days implementing each of these strategies and I promise you, things will begin to change for the better.
Get Hands On Support
I offer a free 30 minute marketing clinic for business owners who need a little nudge in the right direction.
During the call we’ll discuss the biggest issue that’s preventing you and your business from moving forward.
At the end of the session you will walk away 2- 3 action points to move you past these challenges.
Book your session now by clicking the button below. Good luck!
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