After the year that we’ve had, regardless of whether your business was positively or negatively affected by the pandemic and local lockdowns, sales are top of mind, always.
“How can I get more consistent sales?” is the most common question we get asked by business owners. The quick answer is – there is no magic pill formula that will turn the tap on to consistent sales, as every business is different, working with different industry challenges and targeting different customer groups.
However…..
There are a number of levers you can pull to set your business up to achieve consistent sales that will help you forecast stock, resources, cashflow and profit, and generally give you some level of comfort and visibility around the future of your business, regardless of what’s going on in the world.
Here is a list of the things you can control and implement in your business to help generate consistent sales.
- FOCUS ON YOUR EXISTING CUSTOMER BASE:
Studies have shown that it is significantly more expensive to acquire new customers than it is to gain repeat business from existing customers. So our first tip is to concentrate on your existing customer base and see if you can either:
- Get them to purchase from you again.
- Increase their order spend on their existing purchases.
How do you do this you ask? Contact them. Simple! Build a relationship with them to enhance their customer experience with you, and encourage them to build their loyalty to you. Depending on your type and size of business (either a service-based, or a transactional eCommerce business), you can do this through either calling them (if you have the man-power to do so), and/or emailing them. Lead the conversation with a relationship building intent (such as “As a valued customer, we’d love your opinion on a new product/service we’re creating…”) rather than a sales first approach, and you’ll find that you’ll get a nice response. Make it about your appreciation for them as a customer, more so than a “look what we’d like you to buy from us” approach to begin with to build up trust, so that they don’t feel like you’re simply spamming them for your own selfish gain.
If you have a service-based or B2B business where each customer spend several thousands of dollars per year with you, then dedicating the time to call and visit them is a great way to introduce them to new services your business is offering, or to new products you may have that they are not aware about.
If you have a low value, high volume transactional eCommerce business, then email might be the more efficient way of contacting your customers. Make it interesting, and make sure you’re adding value with everything you send them.
Set a plan in place, and make consistent, regular contact with your customers. Don’t send one email and assume that everyone has read it. Don’t spam their inbox, but do follow up with a phone call or another email at a time that doesn’t feel too pushy!
- SET UP A REFERRAL PROGRAM:
It is no secret that people buy from people, and people place a high level of trust in the things their friends and contacts recommend to them. Your best advocates are your happy customers, however people are busy, so sometimes they just need a little prompt to remind them to tell people about the positive experience they’ve had with your business.
So, how do you encourage your customers to refer you? Set up a referral program with an incentive or reward for them.
There are a few ways to do this. You could:
- Offer a competition whereby if they refer a friend both they and their friend goes into a draw to win something of value.
- Offer to put money directly back in their pocket. If you have a beauty business for example, of something your customers use regularly, then ask them to refer their friends and then offer $x off their next appointment if they mention your customer’s name when they book. Then, once their friend becomes a regular customer, you can offer them the same incentive, further expanding your network of advocates!
- Offer a “family and friends discount” and encourage your customers to share it far and wide with their family and friends.
The key thing to remember when asking your customers to refer you to their friends and family, is that they are putting their relationship on the line to do this, so make sure you go out of your way to appreciate their effort, and to also provide a fantastic customer experience for the people they refer to you. Love every customer and appreciate every sale I say!
- SET UP A SYSTEM TO AS FOR CUSTOMER REVIEWS:
Along a similar line to asking for referrals, if you have a low involvement customer base, then reviews will play a HUGE part in convincing people to buy your product or choose your business. Reviews written by actual customers on websites not owned by you, generally give a fairly accurate account of a customer’s experience with your business.
So, how do you get customers to leave a review?
The simple way is to just ask them! If people have had a great experience with your business, they will often tell their friends about it, and that’s about it. You need to invite them and prompt them to extend this praise and leave a review for you online where more people can benefit from it.
Make it easy for people to leave you a review. Enable your Google My Business, and send them a link to there. Alternatively, if you’re in the travel industry, set up a profile on Trip Advisor.
If you do a lot of your promotion and advertising on Facebook, then enable reviews on your business page and invite customers to leave you a review on there. The easier you make it, the more likely people will take the time to leave a review.
If you do a lot of your promotion and advertising on Instagram, invite your customers to upload a photo of themselves with your product, tell people about it, and tag you in it. You can then share this on your profile, in your advertising, on your website etc.
Send your customers a post-purchase email thanking them for your purchase, and inviting them to leave you a review.
For more tips on the power of customer reviews, please read our article here.
- BUILD AN AUDIENCE AND TALK TO THEM:
Email marketing is one of the most effective tools that should be in your business marketing toolbelt. Setting up processes to grow your email list with interested potential customers, and then sending them relevant emails that add value and build your relationship with them is the key to building brand awareness, trust and getting people from the consideration phase to the purchase phase.
Some tactics for growing your mailing list are:
- Add a “subscribe” button to your website on the bottom of each page or in your footer;
- Post about it on your social media accounts, inviting people to sign up for early access to a product launch you’re running.
- If you have an eCommerce site, you could add a pop-up to your website encouraging people to sign up to your mailing list to gain an instant discount off their first order.
- If you have a service based business, or operate in the B2B space, you could write articles and post them on your website and social platforms such as LinkedIn, and simply invite people to subscribe to your mailing list to be alerted to new articles as you write them.
Once you start to grow your mailing list, create professional emails in easy to use programs such as MailChimp. MailChimp has an automation function where you can pre-write emails and schedule them to send automatically. This can help to take the pressure off having to come up with fresh content regularly. If you are going to go down the automation route, make sure the information you include in the emails is general in nature, as these will send at different times to different people based on when they sign up to your list.
When designing your emails, make sure you use your brand colours and imagery to create consistency with your website and social profiles to create a consistent user experience and amplify your brand.
The key to effective email communication is consistency (without spamming people every 3 minutes!) and packing your emails chock full of information that they will value. Don’t make them salesy. Make them informative first. Think about the kinds of things that make you look forward to opening emails from the brands YOU love, and incorporate that into your email strategy.
(Speaking of which, if you want to be notified when we upload a new article such as this one, then feel free to sign up to our email list! #shamelessplug!)
- ACTIVELY LOOK FOR NEW OPPORTUNITIES:
There is no substitute for being proactive when it comes to generating sales. Make it a part of your weekly routine to look for new opportunities, thinking outside the box of where your next customer could come from. Is there another business you could collaborate with, or partner with to create a value packed offer for your customers? Is there a marketplace that you could list your products on to tap into a wider audience? Is there a networking group you could join to help make new contacts?
Think about who your customers are and where they hang out, and do what you can to get your business in front of them.
We’ve written an article on areas that you could explore to generate new sales here.
These were just some of the areas you could explore to gain more consistent sales for your business. Every business is different so the best way to find what works is to trial, learn, tweak or repeat. If you would like some more tailored advice on what areas you should focus on for your business, please feel free to have a look at our ‘Done For You’ Marketing advice and services here. We’d love to help!
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!