10 Ways to Make Your Internet Sales Better
Increasing Internet sales is the main goal of many businesses, both large and small – whether you run a retail business or work for a huge e-commerce giant like Amazon.
Internet sales are a bit like a hit in bowling, they look much easier than they actually are. Fortunately, there are a plethora of strategies for increasing online sales, many of which can be implemented instantly. In this article, we will consider 10 such strategies.
Design a Great Site
Beautiful site design increases sales. Such sites are often quite simple, look great, and work well. Website design has another important role – it conveys what is most important and what the user needs to do next. You need to organize every page on your website to motivate users to take the actions you want them to take.
What is the order of your eye movements when you look at a site? Well, that is how your site should be viewed by others. What do you notice first, second, third? The first two things are a title that clearly says what it is about and a picture that presents it, followed by a passage with an explanation and a call to action. It is never a coincidence. All sites want their readers/clients to see it in that order. And what is equally important is what you didn’t notice – navigation and other secondary information.
Of course, it is advisable to choose professionals to design and build a website, rather than leaving it to someone who is not an expert. However, it is not an easy process. You have to be careful while choosing a web designer that will create the look of your website. It is not only about a good-looking website – it is about user experience. So, consider hiring a UX/UI designer as well.
Get Started with Email Marketing
Consumers prefer to hear from the businesses they know and trust. More than 23% of people who opt-in to receive emails from your online store open the email you send within the first hour. Email marketing has a fantastic potential return on the investment of 3,800%, i.e. for every dollar invested, you will get a $38 return. Furthermore, cross-selling is the practice of recommending related products to customers at the moment of purchase or whenever they interact with a marketing message.
Cart abandonment is a common occurrence while selling online. When a shopper adds one or more goods to his shopping basket but does not complete the checkout process, this occurs. If the shopper is a frequent visitor to your online store and has chosen to receive email messages from you, the ‘game’ changes. You may automate the process and send a cart abandonment email in certain situations. This is an email sent to customers reminding them that they have things in their cart but have not checked out. It can help you enhance conversions by making better use of emails. And for collecting and sending automation you can use assisting tools, with VerticalResponse being one of those that have proven to do the job.
Turn on Live Chat
Internet sales and their increase depend a lot on live chat. It allows your customers to chat on the site directly with you or the chatbot. Either way, they can ask questions about your products or services and get real-time answers. According to some research, almost 80% of customers will not buy products from a company on the Internet if it does not have live chat.
Be careful when applying live chat to your website. You have to single out working hours so the customers from different time zones know when your team is working and when your team is off. If you decide to have a 24-hour live chat, all is fine.
There are three key ways that live chat might help you boost your sales:
Show Customer Testimonials and Signs of Trust
Customer input has never been more crucial in today's social media world. This means that they can provide you with one of the most precious weapons in your arsenal – their statements of satisfaction. This can be a great way to increase online sales because it builds trust in your brand.
If your company has any professional accreditations (even something routine such as membership in your local chamber of commerce), put these ‘signs’ of trust on your site.
You can ask your clients or customers to give you testimonials for your services or products. A lot of companies are using this strategy nowadays. They ask the client using mail or phone, offering some gift or discount for exchange.
Create a Sense of Urgency
Many consumers react positively to incentives that create a sense of urgency – from special time-limited offers to products with limited quantities.
While there are different ways to achieve this, some strategies may be more effective than others. For example, if you cannot use limited quantities of products to attract potential customers, you may be able to offer a financial incentive to customers to respond immediately, such as free postage or a discount. This will ensure the desired number of online sales.
Offer Strong Money-Back Guarantee
Often, one of the most common reasons for giving up online shopping is fear of risk, i.e. the desire to avoid making the wrong decision and potential loss.
Why would anyone buy your products? What if they don’t work or the customer does not like it? Even small purchases can carry the risk of remorse. So, overcome this objection from the beginning by offering a money-back guarantee. The more risks you remove from the decision of a potential buyer, the more likely it is that an increase in sales will occur.
Target Lookalike Audience on Facebook
One of the best ways to increase online sales is to use information about your existing customers to find people like them. Facebook ads allow you to do this by targeting your lookalike audience. You upload your data to Facebook, which then crosses your own data (and third-party data intermediaries) to create matches based on the criteria you specify. How does Facebook accomplish this? So, Facebook will look at your specific list of people (referred to as a source audience), match emails to Facebook accounts, and then discover persons with comparable interests or demographics.
Furthermore, when Facebook creates the lookalike audiences for which your ad will appear, it ensures that no one from the original audience is included (the list you uploaded). Even for a single ad set, you can employ multiple lookalike audiences so that your ad can be seen by people who are similar to your website visitors as well as your email list. This allows you to create highly targeted Facebook ads to attract Facebook users who are very similar to your existing customers.
Testing helps you understand if your lookalike audience is profitable before investing more money. It is a great way to earn more money, but a lookalike audience is not something that works all the time. Testing on a smaller budget helps to get started with caution. You can then increase the campaign volume to suit your budget.
Add as Many Payment Options as Possible
Okay, your company accepts credit cards. What about PayPal payments? Or Payoneer? Consumers have more choices than ever before in terms of how they pay for goods and services, and not everyone prefers to use the card. By offering more payment options, including newer services that are becoming increasingly popular on mobile devices, you make it easier for customers to buy something from you.
Sure, it can be a hassle to optimize your site for all payment options, but it is a great way to increase internet sales, especially if the users of your site mostly come to it via smartphones.
Drive Sales with the Optimization for Mobile Devices
Mobile search has far surpassed desktop search. If you don’t want your sales to stand still or drop, it is crucial that your site is optimized for mobile devices. Now, more than ever, it is time to optimize your website for sales if you have not already. This may necessitate modest changes to your website. Other times, it necessitates a complete overhaul. The outcome of your mobile-friendliness test will determine your next step.
Amazon’s site is a great example of how mobile e-commerce should work. But you don’t need Amazon resources to create a compelling user experience for mobile visitors. Here are some universally applicable mobile optimization recommended practices. We also urge that if you are building a new website, you think about these from the outset.
Customers use mobile devices to search for products and brands online, regardless of where they are. As a business that is focused on sales, this allows you to take advantage of mobile SEO to attract more visitors to your site.
As we already said, now is the moment to wake up and get ahead of the game if you have been snoozing on mobile optimization. With so many prospective customers searching for products like yours on their phones, you cannot afford to miss out. The goal of mobile optimization is to consider the user’s experience and make it as simple as possible for them to locate what they are looking for. You don’t want any difficulties with design or functionality to prevent you from making transactions that lead to revenue.
Use Remarketing to Close as Many Online Sales as Possible
Whether you are running a Google campaign or a Facebook advertising campaign, it takes time, money, and effort to get results. Acquiring new customers is difficult, and turning those customers into regular consumers is even harder. This is where remarketing can help. You must be wondering how? Well, when a user becomes interested in your product and visits your site, the system remembers it. In the following period, you can place ads for that user through one of the advertising systems. It must have happened to you too. This is when you yourself search for hotels on, say, Booking, and in the coming period, whatever you look or do on the Internet, hotel offers are ‘stalking’ you. It is remarketing, my dear friend.
Remarketing can be taken to the next level with the so-called dynamic remarketing, which personalizes promotional experiences by allowing your advertising to present the precise products or services that visitors expressed interest in, or to suggest accessories that complement previous purchases. Your advertisements may show on websites, social media platforms, mobile apps, and video content. Google and Facebook are the most prominent retargeting networks.
Dynamic remarketing is probably not for you if you only sell a few things. Let’s imagine you are selling three distinct chocolate-covered strawberry gift baskets. You may easily create a standard remarketing campaign and run a few advertisements focusing on your most popular product. If you manage a clothing e-commerce site with hundreds of products for different types of customers, it is a different story. If a consumer liked a pair of great shoes on your site but didn’t buy them, a remarketing ad promoting your brand might not be relevant enough to get them to buy the shoes. The ad will only be interesting enough to drive the customer back to the precise pair of shoes thanks to dynamic remarketing, which provides an image of the product. Google, Facebook, and other remarketing networks can trace what your consumers looked at and show them the same or comparable products over and over again.
Conclusion
If you are working on increasing online sales, you need to start trying techniques that your competitors have not yet thought of. To do that, you have to test a lot and look for creative ways. And before that, research well.
If you are increasing conversions, keep going. If nothing happens, choose another method to increase revenue on your site.
Internet sales are a bit like a hit in bowling, they look much easier than they actually are. Fortunately, there are a plethora of strategies for increasing online sales, many of which can be implemented instantly. In this article, we will consider 10 such strategies.
Design a Great Site
Beautiful site design increases sales. Such sites are often quite simple, look great, and work well. Website design has another important role – it conveys what is most important and what the user needs to do next. You need to organize every page on your website to motivate users to take the actions you want them to take.
What is the order of your eye movements when you look at a site? Well, that is how your site should be viewed by others. What do you notice first, second, third? The first two things are a title that clearly says what it is about and a picture that presents it, followed by a passage with an explanation and a call to action. It is never a coincidence. All sites want their readers/clients to see it in that order. And what is equally important is what you didn’t notice – navigation and other secondary information.
Of course, it is advisable to choose professionals to design and build a website, rather than leaving it to someone who is not an expert. However, it is not an easy process. You have to be careful while choosing a web designer that will create the look of your website. It is not only about a good-looking website – it is about user experience. So, consider hiring a UX/UI designer as well.
Get Started with Email Marketing
Consumers prefer to hear from the businesses they know and trust. More than 23% of people who opt-in to receive emails from your online store open the email you send within the first hour. Email marketing has a fantastic potential return on the investment of 3,800%, i.e. for every dollar invested, you will get a $38 return. Furthermore, cross-selling is the practice of recommending related products to customers at the moment of purchase or whenever they interact with a marketing message.
Cart abandonment is a common occurrence while selling online. When a shopper adds one or more goods to his shopping basket but does not complete the checkout process, this occurs. If the shopper is a frequent visitor to your online store and has chosen to receive email messages from you, the ‘game’ changes. You may automate the process and send a cart abandonment email in certain situations. This is an email sent to customers reminding them that they have things in their cart but have not checked out. It can help you enhance conversions by making better use of emails. And for collecting and sending automation you can use assisting tools, with VerticalResponse being one of those that have proven to do the job.
Turn on Live Chat
Internet sales and their increase depend a lot on live chat. It allows your customers to chat on the site directly with you or the chatbot. Either way, they can ask questions about your products or services and get real-time answers. According to some research, almost 80% of customers will not buy products from a company on the Internet if it does not have live chat.
Be careful when applying live chat to your website. You have to single out working hours so the customers from different time zones know when your team is working and when your team is off. If you decide to have a 24-hour live chat, all is fine.
There are three key ways that live chat might help you boost your sales:
- Increases conversion rate and order value: When compared to phone or email, live chat allows you to respond to consumer questions in real-time. Customers will have less time to wait, and they will be able to continue their online purchasing. Furthermore, screen sharing is a function of live chat that allows the agent to share their screen with the consumer. It aids in giving the customer a more efficient resolution. If live customer service is available, you can expect more online purchases from your customers and reduced shopping cart abandonment.
- Increases client loyalty and retention: Confusion and hassles produced at the moment of checkout are some of the reasons why people stop purchasing. Customers’ issues can be addressed through live chat, which increases sales and conversion rates. Co-browsing is a feature of live chat that allows agents to browse alongside consumers while talking and assist them in resolving their issues. As a result, it is reasonable to conclude that offering live chat will boost customer loyalty and retention, hence increasing revenue.
- Provides competitive advantage: With so many competitors these days, it is more crucial than ever to stand out and differentiate yourself from the competition. You can provide clients with a tailored experience and boost customer happiness by using live chat. Video chat is a feature of live chat solutions that allows customers to connect with agents face to face, which helps to create trust and confidence. The strategy gives a direct and personal engagement with customers. Furthermore, activating live chat will help you save money on running costs because it is less expensive than other tools like the phone.
Show Customer Testimonials and Signs of Trust
Customer input has never been more crucial in today's social media world. This means that they can provide you with one of the most precious weapons in your arsenal – their statements of satisfaction. This can be a great way to increase online sales because it builds trust in your brand.
If your company has any professional accreditations (even something routine such as membership in your local chamber of commerce), put these ‘signs’ of trust on your site.
You can ask your clients or customers to give you testimonials for your services or products. A lot of companies are using this strategy nowadays. They ask the client using mail or phone, offering some gift or discount for exchange.
Create a Sense of Urgency
Many consumers react positively to incentives that create a sense of urgency – from special time-limited offers to products with limited quantities.
While there are different ways to achieve this, some strategies may be more effective than others. For example, if you cannot use limited quantities of products to attract potential customers, you may be able to offer a financial incentive to customers to respond immediately, such as free postage or a discount. This will ensure the desired number of online sales.
Offer Strong Money-Back Guarantee
Often, one of the most common reasons for giving up online shopping is fear of risk, i.e. the desire to avoid making the wrong decision and potential loss.
Why would anyone buy your products? What if they don’t work or the customer does not like it? Even small purchases can carry the risk of remorse. So, overcome this objection from the beginning by offering a money-back guarantee. The more risks you remove from the decision of a potential buyer, the more likely it is that an increase in sales will occur.
Target Lookalike Audience on Facebook
One of the best ways to increase online sales is to use information about your existing customers to find people like them. Facebook ads allow you to do this by targeting your lookalike audience. You upload your data to Facebook, which then crosses your own data (and third-party data intermediaries) to create matches based on the criteria you specify. How does Facebook accomplish this? So, Facebook will look at your specific list of people (referred to as a source audience), match emails to Facebook accounts, and then discover persons with comparable interests or demographics.
Furthermore, when Facebook creates the lookalike audiences for which your ad will appear, it ensures that no one from the original audience is included (the list you uploaded). Even for a single ad set, you can employ multiple lookalike audiences so that your ad can be seen by people who are similar to your website visitors as well as your email list. This allows you to create highly targeted Facebook ads to attract Facebook users who are very similar to your existing customers.
Testing helps you understand if your lookalike audience is profitable before investing more money. It is a great way to earn more money, but a lookalike audience is not something that works all the time. Testing on a smaller budget helps to get started with caution. You can then increase the campaign volume to suit your budget.
Add as Many Payment Options as Possible
Okay, your company accepts credit cards. What about PayPal payments? Or Payoneer? Consumers have more choices than ever before in terms of how they pay for goods and services, and not everyone prefers to use the card. By offering more payment options, including newer services that are becoming increasingly popular on mobile devices, you make it easier for customers to buy something from you.
Sure, it can be a hassle to optimize your site for all payment options, but it is a great way to increase internet sales, especially if the users of your site mostly come to it via smartphones.
Drive Sales with the Optimization for Mobile Devices
Mobile search has far surpassed desktop search. If you don’t want your sales to stand still or drop, it is crucial that your site is optimized for mobile devices. Now, more than ever, it is time to optimize your website for sales if you have not already. This may necessitate modest changes to your website. Other times, it necessitates a complete overhaul. The outcome of your mobile-friendliness test will determine your next step.
Amazon’s site is a great example of how mobile e-commerce should work. But you don’t need Amazon resources to create a compelling user experience for mobile visitors. Here are some universally applicable mobile optimization recommended practices. We also urge that if you are building a new website, you think about these from the outset.
- Easy-to-use, i.e. mobile-friendly navigation
- Website design that is responsive and appealing
- Simple checkout process
- Fast website load times
- Removal of intrusive pop-ups and advertisements
- Images and videos that have been optimized
- Reduction of the ‘heavy’ content
Customers use mobile devices to search for products and brands online, regardless of where they are. As a business that is focused on sales, this allows you to take advantage of mobile SEO to attract more visitors to your site.
As we already said, now is the moment to wake up and get ahead of the game if you have been snoozing on mobile optimization. With so many prospective customers searching for products like yours on their phones, you cannot afford to miss out. The goal of mobile optimization is to consider the user’s experience and make it as simple as possible for them to locate what they are looking for. You don’t want any difficulties with design or functionality to prevent you from making transactions that lead to revenue.
Use Remarketing to Close as Many Online Sales as Possible
Whether you are running a Google campaign or a Facebook advertising campaign, it takes time, money, and effort to get results. Acquiring new customers is difficult, and turning those customers into regular consumers is even harder. This is where remarketing can help. You must be wondering how? Well, when a user becomes interested in your product and visits your site, the system remembers it. In the following period, you can place ads for that user through one of the advertising systems. It must have happened to you too. This is when you yourself search for hotels on, say, Booking, and in the coming period, whatever you look or do on the Internet, hotel offers are ‘stalking’ you. It is remarketing, my dear friend.
Remarketing can be taken to the next level with the so-called dynamic remarketing, which personalizes promotional experiences by allowing your advertising to present the precise products or services that visitors expressed interest in, or to suggest accessories that complement previous purchases. Your advertisements may show on websites, social media platforms, mobile apps, and video content. Google and Facebook are the most prominent retargeting networks.
Dynamic remarketing is probably not for you if you only sell a few things. Let’s imagine you are selling three distinct chocolate-covered strawberry gift baskets. You may easily create a standard remarketing campaign and run a few advertisements focusing on your most popular product. If you manage a clothing e-commerce site with hundreds of products for different types of customers, it is a different story. If a consumer liked a pair of great shoes on your site but didn’t buy them, a remarketing ad promoting your brand might not be relevant enough to get them to buy the shoes. The ad will only be interesting enough to drive the customer back to the precise pair of shoes thanks to dynamic remarketing, which provides an image of the product. Google, Facebook, and other remarketing networks can trace what your consumers looked at and show them the same or comparable products over and over again.
Conclusion
If you are working on increasing online sales, you need to start trying techniques that your competitors have not yet thought of. To do that, you have to test a lot and look for creative ways. And before that, research well.
If you are increasing conversions, keep going. If nothing happens, choose another method to increase revenue on your site.