The most asked questions by entrepreneurs and business owners that sell online is “how do you drive online sales?” It is a frequent question asked by start-ups and established companies. It seems that many are not sure what to focus on and how to allocate their resources to take the proper action to generate more online sales and profits.
The simple fact is that some things companies are doing right and some not. It is most of the time some case such as this. Entrepreneurs and company staff can’t be experts at everything. Online marketing tactics for e-commerce websites and online stores is very different than marketing a service company or solutions online.
To drive online sales successfully, increasing daily and monthly order volume specific marketing and sales tactics have to be undertaken. Furthermore, they have to be managed correctly to achieve the desired goals and outcome. To help out, here are 7 actions and tactics to take that drive online sales.
7 Actions To Take That Drive Online Sales
1. Deploy a strong Email Marketing Campaign
This can’t be stressed enough. The best tactic to drive online sales is through email Newsletters that go out monthly or bi-monthly to an opt-in email database. Basically, e-commerce retailers should capture as many emails as possible through incentives to grow a quality database of potential customers. A properly structured and managed email marketing campaign can generate massive amounts of online sales.
2. Generate more Customer and Product Reviews
According to many statistics within the online retail industry, customer and product reviews are a key driver for conversion. In other words, online consumers pay attention to reviews. Retailers that want to drive online sales should give incentives to their customers to post and publish reviews. These reviews should be published on the e-commerce website, but also on review websites such as Yelp, Google+, and others.
3. Analyze and Make Necessary Adjustments
Selling online is a fluid approach. This means, online retailers must remain flexible to their approach. Things change quickly online, retailers that fail to adjust can quickly fail altogether. Analyzing with tools such as Google Analytics and Webmaster Central gives the much needed intelligence to make the needed adjustments and improve performance.
4. Up-sell and Cross-sell to Increase Sales
It cost the same amount of resources to attract a website visitor, why not have them purchase more than one item? This is why many retailers bundle-up products for multiple unit sales. E-commerce websites should have call to action elements to up-sell and cross-sell. Suggest related products in similar price ranges for best results.
5. Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
Every online store looses money by missing out on potential orders. This is due to shopping cart abandonment. These are customers that start the checkout process and do not finish the buying cycle and checkout. The average abandonment rate of e-commerce website is according to the Baymard Institute, 67.45%. Online sales are 1/3 of what they may be.
6. Use SEO for Online Sales
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) marketing tactic for e-commerce website is highly effective. The downside, it takes time to reach the top results. Keywords for products ranked in the top of organic search results with search engines such as Google can drive thousands of orders online. SEO for e-commerce retailers is one of the cornerstone marketing tactics to drive online sales.
7. Sell on Social Media Channels
Social media channels are a great tactic to add additional stores, sales channels, and increase brand awareness. Social media channels are also great for A/B testing and refining the marketing approach. Social Media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram are great for driving online sales.
