15 Proven Ways To Make More Sales In Your Small Business
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Small business owners often struggle to make enough sales in their business to not only keep their business afloat, but to make enough profit to stabilise the business, and pay themselves a wage that can transform their lives.
In this post I’ll cover 15 Proven Ways To Increase Sales In Your Small Business.
1. Understand Your Target Audience
The greater the depth of knowledge you have about your target audience, the better you can create marketing strategies that speak directly to the pain points your potential customers have and the solutions they are looking for.
Many small businesses show up with marketing strategies that speak about the product or service, and those messages fail to deliver the most important information to their target audience, ie: what’s in it for them.
When your target audience sees your marketing messages, those messages need to resonate deeply with their pain points, their anxieties, worries, and the solutions they are looking for.
This helps your potential customers immediately feel a sense of connection to you, a feeling of “this business knows me”.
When you share messages in your marketing strategies that speak to and resonate with your audience, people will more readily make multiple purchases from you.
I talk more about this in tip 14. below.
The more you can learn about the challenges, anxieties, struggles of your target audience, the better you’ll be able to speak to them in a voice they understand.
It’s worthwhile keeping a record of information about your target audience that you build out over time.
I have a spreadsheet in Notion, and on that spreadsheet there’s a huge amount of information about my avatar (target audience), that I’ve built up over the past four years.
I continue to add to that spreadsheet any time I learn anything new about the wants, needs, stresses, anxieties, wishes of my potential customers.
I gather information about my target audience from places like Facebook groups, from feedback from current customers, from comments dropped on social media posts, from talking to ladies who are my ideal customers, from searches on Google and Pinterest, and from using software such as Semrush and also ChatGPT.
I know the more I understand my audience, the better I can craft marketing messages that resonate with them, that then encourage them to buy from me.
You can read more about knowing your target audience (your avatar), in this blog post.
2. Have Upsells and Downsells
When you sell any product or service, and you don’t immediately offer a ‘bolt on’ in the form of an upsell or downsell as part of your product offerings, you’re leaving potential sales on the table.
When any customer makes a purchase from you, before they get to your checkout page, you should offer upsells or downsells to help boost sales.
Not everyone will choose an upsell or downsell from you. But some customers will, and those upsells and downsells can help you increase revenue on purchases made.
I see many small businesses making single unit sales, without anything in place to immediately present the customer with additional products and services they may be interested in.
As part of your marketing strategy you should consider adding upsells and downsells to your sales pipeline, to help you make more revenue from each transaction your customers make.
3. Have Email Sequences Presenting More Offers
You should have email marketing campaigns you create as automated sequences that you send to your customers once they make a purchase from you.
Many small businesses have poor mailing list strategy, but the best time to sell to your customer base is when they have just made a purchase from you, because they are a. invested in you at that point in time, and b. they are in buying mode.
For every product or service you have available, there should be an email sequence each customer is added to when they make a purchase from you.
That email sequence should give value to the customer, but should also present more of your products and services to them.
Best practices with email sequences is to have a flow of emails that help keep your business in front of your customers.
Those emails should build brand awareness, should meet your customers’ needs, and should show your customers how other products and services can further benefit them.
Your email sequences can be as few as 3 emails sent out over the course of a week, through to as many emails as you want as part of a sequence delivered over a longer period of time.
4. Offer Payment Options
Not all your customers have the ability to make a payment in full, particularly if you’re offering higher ticket items as part of your marketing plan.
Having payment options available can help with buying decisions, and can create satisfied customers who feel they can afford your products and services.
Payment plans can be one a great strategy to help increase sales and conversion rates in your small business.
5. Build Community
People like to feel they’re part of something bigger than themselves, somewhere they feel they’re receiving a more personal touch from you.
You’re the small business who should stand out from the competition by focusing your efforts on building community.
This will serve you so much more effectively than just chasing sale after sale, whilst ignoring the person who makes the purchase.
Without doubt one of the best things I have done for my business is create community, both in my membership, and in my free Facebook Group.
Building community is powerful.
When you have happy people in your community where they feel they get the best results, the best resources, the next level of customer satisfaction from you, you’ll sell more.
It can take time to build a community, but if you commit to doing so, you’ll reap the rewards from loyal customers who’ll stick around and buy from you again and again and again.
6. Bring Know, Like, Trust To The Table
There are many sleazy, cold selling, hardcore, do anything, promise anything just to make a sale businesses out there.
Don’t be one of them.
Slow down, and consider how important it is to build know, like and trust with your customers.
If you want customers to be loyal to you, you have to lead the way by being loyal to them.
New customers, potential customers, current customers – they all need to see and feel that you’re trustworthy, that you’re likeable, that they know you enough to feel safe making purchasing decisions form you.
Treat your customers exceptionally well, and make sure that you’re presenting a safe, trustworthy brand to your target market.
7. Create A Referral Programme
Not much beats word of mouth when it comes to making sales.
Referrals mean other people do the selling for you. How brilliant is that?
Referral programmes can help you sell more.
The way that this normally works is that you create some sort of special offer or reward programme, so that if any one of your current customers refers anyone else to you, who then goes on to make a purchase, the customer who referred receives some sort of reward.
That reward could be anything from getting a good deal on their next purchase from you, to getting some sort of bonus, free gift or monetary incentive to tell other potential customers about you. This is a great way to get more sales, without you having to do the hard work.
Referral programmes are one of the sales strategies that can work really well, to increase sales to your business, if you have good strategy around them.
8. Collaborations
I’m sure you’ve seen this happen!
Many of the big businesses in the online space promote each other’s products and services.
You’ll see one business owner launch something, and suddenly you see all of these other big businesses promoting that thing.
These are strategic partnerships where businesses use each other’s audiences to sell more of their products and services.
Business owners don’t get involved in these collaborations for no reason. They do them because they work.
Collaborations are a great way to help increase sales, but you must always make sure that any collaboration you enter into is set out clearly in writing, and that all parties involved understand their commitments in the collaboration process.
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9. Offer Bundles And Opportunities With FOMO
Whatever you sell, when you’re trying to increase sales in your small business, putting together bundles and creating marketing strategy with a ‘buy before this offer ends’ date, can help to push people to make a buying decision.
If you’re able to bundle a selection of your products or services together to make it a better value proposition for your target market, it can help people’s decision to buy if they feel they’re getting value for money.
This can take the form of bundles with a discount applied, or a single unit purchase with added free bonuses.
Whichever way you choose to go – your goal should be to add as much value to your products and services as you can (whilst still being able to make good profit), that makes the offer too enticing to miss.
The same applies with FOMO offers, where you have an end date by which people have to buy, or you have a limited number of units available.
These are a great way to increase your online sales, and to encourage your customers to buy.
10. Find The Way To Stand Out
You have an ocean full of competitors out there, all vying for the attention of your target market.
The small business owners who win in a competitive market, are the small businesses who find ways to stand out.
When you look at your competitors, you should be able to identify what it is you do that’s different, stand out, above, better than those other businesses.
Those will be the thing(s) that make your small business stand out, and bring people to you and your products and services, rather than your competitors.
You’ll never find a hugely successful business sitting in an ocean full of sameness.
You need to find your unique-ness.
You need to make sure your target audience understands very clearly – why you? and why not your competitors.
When you can do this, it can increase sales.
11. Give Value Upfront To Build Loyalty
Many small businesses fear giving too much away upfront.
They think it’ll take away from making sales.
Not so.
When you give insane value upfront to your audience, it helps cement in your potential customer’s minds that you’re the one for them.
Don’t be afraid to overdeliver upfront.
You can do this through the content you post on your social media accounts, you can do so by offering free trials or freebies that act as lead magnets, to help people take that first step with you.
You have to remember it can take at least twenty touches with your business, before any new customers will ever make a buying decision from you.
If you use your time wisely to build know, like and trust through giving upfront value as part of your marketing strategy, people will take that next leap and start to buy from you.
Asking people to go straight from not knowing you, your products and services, or your business, to making a purchase from you, is too big a leap for most.
Give value upfront to build brand loyalty. Then start to sell.
12. Have Loyalty And Rewards In Place
It never ceases to amaze me how little businesses invest in rewarding their current customers.
It seems that everyone is focused on getting more and more new customers, whilst paying little attention to the customers they already have.
Your current customers are one of your most important assets.
Those customers have already indicated they’re invested in what you do, by making a purchase from you in the first place.
As soon as any customer spends money with you, your goal is to treat that person like a VIP, by rewarding them for their loyalty to you.
Treat your customer base exceptionally well.
Let those people know how much you value their business, and every transaction they make with you.
Show them that you care.
When you do so, those customers will stick around for the longer term, buying from you on repeat.
13. Have Multiple Layers Of Pricing
A big gap in the marketing strategy of many small businesses, is not having tiered pricing options in place, starting from low ticket, moving through mid ticket and up to high ticket.
If you don’t have this type of pricing ladder in your small business, you’re missing out on sales.
When you take into account the 80/20 rule, and apply it to your business, twenty percent of the people who purchase a lower ticket item from you, will be ready to go on to purchase higher priced ticket items too.
I see this happen in my business all the time. Ladies who are female small business owners join my membership at a lower ticket price.
As members become more familiar with me and my coaching, some will move on to purchase my middle tier coaching support, and some of those ladies will then move on to purchase 121 business coaching with me.
When new customers join my membership at the lowest priced tier of £32 per month, I know that some of those ladies will end up in the highest priced tier at £497 per month.
If I did not have middle and top ticket items in place in my business, all of those sales and the revenue from those sales would not exist.
Think about how you can introduce multiple layers of pricing in to your products and services.
People will be willing to spend more, you should make sure you have products/services in place to accommodate this.
14. Don’t Sell The Product
Your customers are not that interested in your products. At least not at first.
What they are interested in is what your product will do for them.
When you’re selling any product or service, your goal is to make sure your marketing messages speak directly to the pain, anxiety, challenges, issues your customers want to find solutions for.
When you say your product is a tablet and it comes in a plastic pot, it won’t mean anything to your potential customer.
However, a marketing message that says ‘This product will help alleviate sleep deprivation in 24 hours, giving you deep sleep back every single night’ is a message that clearly presents your customer with a solution they are desperate for.
Your marketing messages must connect directly with your potential customer’s pains, challenges, fears, anxieties, and the solutions they’re looking for.
When you connect your marketing messages in this way, your customers will sense that you know them, and what they’re going through, and when they feel this way about you. They will buy.
15. Overdeliver
You have to show you care.
Your customers need to know that you value them. That they’re important to you, that they’re the life blood of your business.
This falls along the same lines as tip number 12 above.
You have to really care about the people you’re showing up to serve. If you don’t – why should they care about you?
Poor customer service is prevalent out there in the online space.
Separate yourself from that.
Be the small business owner who steps up to the plate, and over delivers on customer service.
Do this so deeply your customer base is constantly surprised by how far you’ll go for them.
When you do, not only will your customers stick around, they’ll also start telling other people about you.
When that happens, you hit gold with your sales.
Conclusion
I’ve covered 15 proven ways to make more sales in your small business.
Take any of the tips you feel resonate the most. Implement them in your small business to see your sales start to grow!
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