Small businesses depend on a growing, loyal client base. Advertising to gain attention alone won’t sustain your business. You need strategies to specifically increase sales.
Here are 5 ideas to help you boost sales in a small business.
Optimize Your Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is great because it can be tailored to reach a specific demographic. Going even further than specific age groups or locations, digital campaigns can target people with the same interests, habits and purchase history.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a key component of digital marketing. It optimizes your online presence, making your pages easier to find. SEO works by generating organic traffic through the keywords used in internet searches.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a more direct way of bringing traffic to your website. Your advertisement appears above organic listings on the results page and advertisers only pay when someone clicks the ad. Unlike SEO, PPC is considered paid traffic, not organic traffic. You can set up a PPC campaign on your own using tools like GoogleAdwords or you can hire an online marketing expert to manage your campaign.
Utilize social media to your advantage. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter present an opportunity to build a community around your brand. If you focus on a high-quality social media presence, your audience could advertise for you by sharing your content.
Offer Promotions
Excellent advertising will attract attention, but a valuable offer closes the sale. Trials, free samples and discounts incentivize prospective buyers to try something new.
Offer promotions that ensure a return on investment (ROI). Determine the goals of your promotional campaign ahead of time and be prepared for the influx of new clients.
A successful promotion creates new, returning customers. Knowing your target demographic will help you create deals to entice them and encourage them to purchase from you again.
Brand Deals
Collaborating with other small business owners can benefit both partners by sharing clientele.
As with any other advertising campaign, consider your audience carefully. Work with businesses that cater to the same demographic that your business does-for example, small niche storefronts in the same location might collaborate to advertise their entire street, rather than their individual stores.
A successful brand deal can double your client base while also strengthening the relationships between small businesses within a given community.
Ask for Referrals
Your existing clientele is a valuable advertising resource. Their friends and family will listen to their recommendations, so incentivizing them to refer your business is a great sales strategy.
Good service alone won’t guarantee referrals. Offer discounts for clients who bring in new sales or offer priority booking for new clients who’ve been referred. Referral rewards programs have also proven successful for many companies.
Publicize Positive Feedback
People trust highly-rated businesses. Use positive feedback as a form of advertisement.
Ask your clients to post reviews on your Google My Business listing and other review sites. This builds a reputable reputation that attracts new buyers. People are more likely to choose a business with multiple high reviews than a business that is unrated.
You could dedicate an email address for collecting feedback, or leave a suggestion box in your storefront. Post quoted reviews to your webpage.
After-Sale Service
Once you’ve made a sale, you have the opportunity to continue interacting with your client in a way that could encourage further purchases.
Always respond to public feedback. Showing gratitude for positive reviews shows humility and humanizes your business. Even negative reviews give you a chance to showcase your customer service skills and rectify a bad situation.
These strategies for increasing sales to your small business will only work if they’re tailored to your specific situation. Create multiple sales initiatives per year using our tips and incorporate them into your business plan.
