There are, however, six more weeks of opportunity to be captured, as people are in peak “spend” mode, very willing to open their wallets and buy either Christmas gifts, staff thank you gifts, home improvement or home decorator products or even courses, subscriptions and tools that they can have ready to get stuck in to in the new year.
So with this in mind, we’ve put together a rapid-fire list of quick to implement, practical things you can do, in the next 6 weeks, to increase sales in your business and finish the year strong!
RUN A PROMOTION OR SALE:
With people in peak “spend” mode, think about running a sale or promotion to capture the interest of your target customers.
For brands that have products that align with discounts, go for it! And rather than offering a flat 10% or 20% or 50% discount – think about offering a monetary value instead (like $20 OFF, or $50 OFF or $100 OFF, depending on the overall value of your product). Studies have shown that consumers are more inclined to respond to a ‘$$ OFF’ discount, than a % OFF discount due to the psychological trigger of them feeling that ‘$$ OFF’ is literal money in their pocket.
Yes, everyone likes a discount, however if your margins don’t allow for eye-catching discounts, or you are running a service-based business, you don’t have to run a priced-based promotion to spark action. You could offer a ‘value-add’ promotion instead, by either offering a free gift with purchase (to use up some of your excess or old stock that you may have lying around), or you could bundle your services into a value-add package, giving the perception that people are receiving an additional benefit over and above their purchase.
Get creative, there’s no right or wrong – just remember to keep an eye on your overall costs, (including the cost of your time if you’re running a service business), to make sure that your sales are still profitable. At the end of the day, there’s no point taking a sale if it runs at a loss and COSTS YOU money.
OFFER FREE SHIPPING:
Psychologically, this is a HUGE one. Consumers that purchase products online know that it has to be shipped to them, and deep down they KNOW there’s a cost associated with this, however, often just seeing the shipping costs written separately in the checkout presents a HUGE barrier to purchase as people just don’t want to have to pay it.
If you can remove this psychological barrier for people, then you will see an increase in your sales conversions. Do your sums – can you afford to absorb the shipping to benefit from increased sales volume for the next 2 weeks, or 3 weeks, or even 6 weeks? Just by offering this, you might find that this is the little catalyst that people that had be coveting your brand/product, but haven’t purchased yet, might
Note: If you do decide to offer free shipping for a limited time, make sure you make it highly visible on your website, your socials, your email footers – everywhere that your customers view your business comms. Don’t assume people know – tell them, and tell them loudly!
CAPTURE ABANDONED SALES BY IMPROVING THE INFORMATION ON YOUR WEBSITE:
Often, the reason people decide not to purchase is because we make things too damn hard to do so! This is the perfect time to review your website from your customer’s view and improve the information that is available on there.
Think about the top three things people want to know when they’re ready to purchase from you:
- How much is delivery?
- How long will it take to receive the item?
- What is the returns policy.
By positioning this information in multiple places on your site, you will help remove the friction people feel as they’re following the process to purchase.
Write it on your product pages (yes, every product page!). Write it on a dedicated page linked to your header menu AND footer menu. Write it in an FAQ’s page. Don’t assume that because you know where it is on your site, that others will find it easily.
And for goodness sakes, please DO NOT make people click all the way through your cart, fill in all of their details before you show them the shipping cost! This is a terrible user experience from the customer’s perspective, and such a waste of their time! Be bold, tell them the info upfront so they can make an informed decision without having to jump through a million hoops.
LIST YOUR PRODUCTS ON ONLINE SALES PLATFORMS:
The best way to increase sales is to get your product or brand infront of more people. It’s a numbers game – the more people that see you and know about you, the more sales you will receive.
So, what better way to increase your audience quickly and easily? List your products on some of the biggest, existing eCommerce platforms!
Think eBay, Amazon, Etsy, Facebook Marketplace, Gumtree etc etc.
These platforms have MASSIVE marketing budgets and are dedicated to capturing more and more eyeballs of people that are in ‘active buying mode’.
Have you ever noticed that when you google a product, often Amazon or eBay or Etsy will appear near the top of the search results? This is because of their huge paid advertising spend. They’re paying for consumers’ clicks – so rather than compete with them, join them, and make your products available on their site so that their consumers will find you.
Yes you’ll pay a commission to access their audience, but when needing to increase your sales revenue and profit in a short period of time, it’s better to accept a sale at slightly reduced margin, than no sale at all (providing it’s all still profitable for you, of course).
RUN A COMPETITION:
There’s no denying – people love free stuff! So if you’ve got an established social profile (Instagram is the best for this activity), run a competition and give away an enticing prize. Now, the strategy behind this is to get people to tell their networks about the competition to increase your audience reach, and make more people aware of your products.
If possible, ask people to give you their contact details to enter the draw, and give you permission to contact them afterwards. If you can’t do this, then make sure you tell people to follow your social page as a condition of entry into the competition.
Once the competition is over, make sure you announce the winner in a big, loud way, and share their excitement of winning the prize. Then, here comes the clincher – if you’ve captured contact details of competition entrants, then send them a direct email with a special discount code to purchase your product. Yes you may have got a lot of tyre kickers who just want to win free stuff, but some people who entered to win did so because they were generally interested in your product, so offering them a special discount that is not publicly available might just be the clincher to get them to go ahead and buy it for themselves.
Note: If you haven’t captured email addresses, then run a targeted social ad, delivering to your followers, offering them the post-competition special discount.
These were just some rapid-fire tips that can be implemented by you quickly, to increase exposure and gain more sales. Good luck with it – remember, the year is not over yet – you can make a big difference with a little effort in the last 6 working weeks of the year.
And as always, we’d love to hear from you and celebrate your wins – please email, comment or tag us if you do implement any of these tips and let us know how you’re going!