Six ways to sell more online without spending a fortune on advertising, part 2
In our recent blog post, “Six ways to sell more online without spending a fortune on advertising,” part 1, we offered the following suggestions with additional details under each recommendation:
- Start with the end in mind – Customer service!
- Build your audience and convert visitors into contacts
- Convert contacts into loyal customers – Delight
In part two (this article) we look at three additional suggestions and offer our downloadable guide to running a successful eCommerce outreach campaign.
4. Put social proof to work – reviews
Whether it’s a review of your products or of your company, social proof works to increase an audience and build trust.
Much like what Jay and Daniel talk about in Talk Triggers, happy customers bring more happy customers.
Ask for reviews after the sale. You can use email to ask, linking to your reviews page, your Google business listing or your Amazon product page – however you sell.
Then, highlight those reviews on your website, in email communications and in social media.
5. Increase your numbers
Of course one way to sell more online without spending a fortune on advertising is to increase the numbers across the scope of your selling process.
Let’s look at an example.
- A website has monthly visitors of 1,000.
- 40% of the visitors leave without interacting with the website. This is the bounce rate and we are left with 600 visitors.
- Out of the 600 visitors, 100 of them end up on the buying page or shopping cart.
- Out of the 100 visitors on the buy page, 10 end up actually buying.
From this example we have:
- 1,000 monthly visitors
- 40% bounce rate
- Monthly sales of 10
- Overall conversion rate of 1% (1 out of 100 visitors buy)
The goal is to improve the conversion rate so you have more sales from the same amount of visitors so you’re not spending more on advertising.
One way to decrease that bounce rate is with good SEO – fast page load times, relevant content, etc.
Marketing consultant and national speaker Neil Patel offers 13 ways to reduce bounce rates here.
Also, increase returning customers through good service and consistent communication after the sale as mentioned earlier.
Finally, you can also increase overall visitors through marketing (it doesn’t have to be paid advertising). Content marketing, social media content, Facebook live sales… it all comes together and costs you time more than money.
6. Offer live chat
One final tip to increase online sales for your eCommerce store is to offer live chat.
People want to interact.
A report from Econsulntacy estimated that over80% of clients need assistance while shopping online.
Read that again. In the age of automation and digital commerce, more than 80% of clients need assistance while shopping online.
And they expect to get fast help. Instead of sending an email and waiting for a reply, or trying to call you hoping that the line won’t be busy, they want immediate help. If they can send you a message on chat a get an instant response, conversions will go up.
With the right tool, you can serve clients 24/7. You can also handle multiple conversations at one time. The best systems offer web, desktop, and mobile applications so you can answer questions on the go and provide help from any place.
According to that research, online shops offering live chat on their site claim to boost sales up to 30%.
When you’re ready to increase your online sales and build an outreach campaign, check out our guide below.
If you’d like more information on our tips above, be sure and check out part one of this two-part post.
