30 Ways to Increase Sales Online - Proven Methods

Are you looking to increase sales? Here are 30 ways that will help you do just that.

Assuming that you know all the benefits of having an online business, or at least an online branch for your brand, you are probably looking for ways to capitalize on your online sales and improve them in any way you can.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

30 tips for increasing sales

Several marketing methods help small or big brands increase sales, but if you want to know the tricks of the trade and how to increase sales of a product, keep on reading.

1. Be honest in your sales pitch and advertisement

Being honest about your sales copy and the abilities of your products and services helps your business with its credibility and reputation. You must be straightforward because customers today are more than ever sensitive to exaggerated offers and false claims.

Now, more than ever, honesty is the best policy.

2. Leverage customer testimonials

Ensure that you include your customers' feedback and testimonials on your homepage. Showing that other people and businesses trust your product and services plays a crucial role in securing new leads.

By sharing your customers' opinions on your website, you send trust signals to newcomers while building an image for your brand.

3. Provide various payment options

The more payment methods you support, the better your chance of making a sale. Cover all the basics like Visa and Mastercard while embracing new payment methods like Google and Apple pay. Accepting cryptocurrencies is the latest trend that we recommend you implement.

4. Refocus on your existing customers

Do you know who is more likely to purchase from your website again? A satisfied existing customer!

Try promoting your new line of products or services to your existing customer base; these are the people familiar with your brand's quality, and by retargeting, you have a good chance of increasing your sales.

5. Have an eye on the competition

Pay attention to your competitors and their offers, and try to outdo them on every corner you can.

This doesn't mean that you need to go out of your way and compromise your brand message to do so, but that you stay current on new moves and tactics that your competitors make, learn from their mistakes and build upon their best ideas.

6. Have a meaningful presence on social media

Being present on different social media platforms is a given, but leveraging them to create new leads is another story. Think of your social media channels as portals that connect you to potential users and customers. Try communicating to people by asking questions, polling, and even participating in new challenges.

Staying current on the newest social media trends has a side benefit for your brand as well. It can help you have your hands on the pulse of society and reduce your risk of running tone-deaf campaigns that land your brand in hot water with the new "cancel culture" that's going on.

7. Leverage email marketing

We're not talking about spammy send-to-all emails that we all hate. A successful email marketing campaign is measurable.

Use professional platforms that let you see the engagement of your emails. Use creative and unique templates for your emails and make them as personal as possible. Include the name of the receiver if you have it, and offer personal promo codes to people.

Email marketing is also a great way to keep the communication channel open with existing customers and can be used as a retargeting method as well.

8. Create a buyer persona

If you haven't already, then this is your sign to start creating buyer personas. If you already have buyer personas, we challenge you to create even more detailed ones.

Buyer personas will help you identify your ideal customer and eliminate any unnecessary efforts you make chasing after undesirable groups that have a lower chance of buying from you.

9. Introduce new services or products

Having a broader range of services and products improves the chance of boosting your sales. Introducing a new line of products and services helps you attract new customers and motivates your existing customers base to try out your new line.

10. Tweak your prices

Try new pricing models, such as tiered pricing or reduce your costs by optimizing your production process. It is also a smart move to check out the profit margins of your competitors when you're pricing your products and services to see if you have any wiggle room left.

11. Create a sense of urgency

Create campaigns or pop-up offers that are only available for a limited amount of time; this way, you create a sense of urgency in your users to buy your products or services now.

12. Pay attention to aesthetics

Invest in good pictures and graphics for your website and social media outlets. Presenting good-quality images speaks directly to your product quality and your attention to detail.

Have a clean and neat website, which is responsive on every device. Use clean fonts and complementing colours. Having an aesthetically pleasing professional website is another way of showing your customers that you value them.

13. Build a good customer service

The quality of your customer service and the responsiveness of your customer managers is another contributing factor to building your brand image and boosting sales. Responsive customer service translates to trust in the mind of your potential customers.

14. Have a refund policy

Having a fool-proof return policy is a must to generate more leads and boost sales. Refund policies show that you are confident in the quality of your products and services, and your customers feel they are in charge every step of the way.

Your refund policy needs to be straightforward, and you should handle all refunds smoothly, as it speaks to the responsiveness of your brand.

15. Optimize your internal processes

You can continuously optimize your internal processes to reduce friction, costs, and time, from your supply chain to production and staffing. This goal can be achieved by training, finding or creating new partnerships and leveraging your own or your partners' strong suits to smooth out any problems on the way.

Smoother internal processes will help you to boost your production, and therefore, increases your sales.

16. Stay consistent on your messaging in different campaigns

Don't send out mixed signals to potential buyers. If you're running an ad or campaign that suggests one thing, make sure that when customers click on it and visit your website, they see that same message again.

Have a clear goal and message and broadcast them across all your marketing campaigns to build trust.

17. Don't underestimate Google Ads.

Google provides numerous types of advertisement, including Google Adwords, Mobile Ads, Gmail Ads, and other forms of promotion which you can choose from depending on your specific needs.

No matter how good and unique your product or service is, when your competitors use Google Ads, and people google their needs and questions, you have to pay attention to Google Ads as well.

18. Optimize your website, campaigns and ads for mobile users

The number of mobile users and search volumes with mobile devices surpasses the search volume from desktops, and you should capitalize on that.

Make your website as easy as possible for users to order from their phones. Design your ads and campaigns for mobile users in the first place, mind proper fonts and sizes for your banners and ads.

19. Make your first impression count

If a user is new to your website or application, dazzle them with a follow-up email and offer promos uniquely for them. Making your new visitors into buyers early on is a big game-changer for every brand that wants to increase sales volumes.

20. Have a clear advantage

Why should people choose your brand among your competitors? What is your unique value proposition?

If your answer to this question was "we are cheaper," then we urge you to think again. Having lower prices by itself cannot be a sustainable advantage, as bigger competitors with vast resources can come along and slash the prices even more because they can afford to do so.

The good news is that people care more about your cause than your prices.

If you are an environmentally or socially conscious company, it's your time to shine more than ever. If you are a small brand, run by a family business, support gender equality, hire LQBTQI+ staff, say so and showcase it proudly.

If your products are cruelty-free, carbon net-negative, organic or not processed, proudly present your facts and show your potential customers that you care about more than money.

Tying yourself to one or bigger goals and agendas that really resonates with your brand is one of the unique ways to increase sales, regardless of your product, service or even company size.

21. Market research

You've probably had market research when you wanted to launch your business or a new product or service line. We are here to tell you that market research is an ongoing effort.

Market needs are like living organisms because we people are living organisms and our feeling, needs and wants change through time and with new circumstances.

Constant communication with customers is your key to increasing more sales.

22. Over-delivering works

If you want to boost your sales by making your buyer come back again, then over-delivering should be at the top of your list of priorities.

Having good-quality packaging, including a personal message in the package, and following up are among the methods that will help you stand out to your customers and shows them that you are in business to deliver more than just your products. You are here to build relationships.

23. Practice empathy

Imagine yourself in your customers' shoes. What are their pain points? What is their journey that guides them to your doorstep?

Remember, in today's competitive market, you have to deliver more and be responsible more.

Listen carefully to your customers' complaints or problems of potential customers, and try to solve them to the best of your abilities.

24. Team selling works

There are many great ways to practice team selling. You can try pairing up your sales representatives and make a competition out of it, or pair a junior salesperson with a senior salesperson. Another idea is to ask sales personnel to listen to another sales rep's call and offer constructive feedback.

25. Give something back to customers

Partnering with cashback services or rewarding your customers with unique offers or store credits is another way to create more incentive for them to buy from you. By giving something back to customers, you transform one-time-buyers into life-long and loyal customers.

26. Try referrals

Do you know who is more likely to recommend your services and products to their family and friends? A happy and satisfied customer who is going to get something out of it!

You are more likely to inspire your existing customers to sing your praises to their friends by introducing a referral program. Using a referral program, you gain access to your customers' network and turn your exiting customer into an operating agent.

So offer deals, cash, store credit or any other appropriate gift to the customers who refer you to their family and friends.

27. Try network marketing

We are not talking about Ponzi or pyramid schemes at all. Network marketing motivates your sales team to inspire other members to join the team and try selling your products by offering them a piece of your commissions or sales.

Network marketing is a solid sales technique, and it has helped many brands to boost their sales.

28. Reward your sales team

Setting sales goals for your sales team and rewarding them upon reaching the goals by offering employee packages or, better yet, a piece of the sales is another way to motivate your personnel to work harder and boost your sales.

29. Increase customer retention interval

Suppose you have loyal customers who buy your services and products but do so once a year or once a month. In that case, you may be able to shorten this interval by offering deals, promotions or even introducing complementary products and services.

But if you have a low customer retention rate (meaning a low percentage of your customers come back and make a second or third payment), then you either have a problem with your product or service or have a more serious problem with your retargeting campaign.

30. Give out free samples

We saved the best tip for the last!

Do free samples increase sales? Well, duh! Who doesn't like a freebie?

There have been extensive studies on how offering free samples increases sales, and here are their findings in a nutshell:

offering free samples creates a positive image of your brand in the eyes of new customers, and it increases their chance of buying after trying the sample out. Free samples make your brand seem generous and confident of your quality.

Offering free samples to existing customers also makes them feel special and strengthens the bond between your brand and them, making their purchases more often.

Five most common questions about increasing sales

Now that we've covered 30 ways to increase sales volumes, let's answer five frequently asked questions about sales increase.

30 ways to increase sales online — *Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash*

1. What is the fastest and easiest way to increase product sales?

There's no correct answer for this question, as every business is different, but the easiest way to set up an advertising campaign and increase product sales is using Google Ads services.

All you need is a website and a Google account.

2. What is the most effective way to increase sales growth?

The sales rate of your product or service is one of the most important KPIs of your whole business, and a thriving business pays attention to different KPIs and not just sales and revenues.

In layman's terms, If you want to increase your sales volumes, you have to pay attention to other aspects of your business as well.

You need a good service or product, a smooth operation, a responsible team, a defined brand image and message and a sound measurement system for your KPIs to have the ability to boost your sales and do so sustainably and effectively.

Or else you'll end up burning loads of money on different campaigns and only see limited results while the campaign is running.

So, in short, run a targeted, measured and sound campaign to achieve effective and sustainable sales rate growth.

3. What are the four methods of increasing sales?

There are four fundamental methods that you can use to increase your revenue:

Increase the number of your customers
Increase the average transaction size
Increase the transaction frequency of users
Raise your prices

These are the four fundamentals of sales increase, but if you want to know about more detailed or unique ways to increase sales, we recommend you read the first part of this article, as there are 30 tips that help you do just that.

4. How can small companies increase their sales?

Money, among other resources, is scarce in small companies. That is why smaller companies have to be extra careful when it comes to launching campaigns. Usually, innovative methods that leverage technology comes to the aid of small companies and startups.

Market research, accompanied by a good buyer persona and a good marketing campaign, adds up to a successful company.

5. Why do we even need marketing if we have a good product or service?

"If you build it, they will come."

Well, the business world is not like the "Field of Dreams."

You might build the best product or offer the very best service, but how should others know about it? People google their needs, wants and questions now more than ever, and if they don't find you on the first page, the odds of them knowing you exist become very minimal.

A company with an inferior product or service but a sound marketing plan sells more than a company with a perfect product but an unclear or nonexistent marketing plan.

Marketing helps you put your products and services in front of customers; a good marketing plan helps you put your products and services in front of the right customers.

So the more precise and calculated your marketing campaign, the more sales you are likely to make.

Increasing sales in a nutshell

Increasing sales volume is the ultimate goal of every business regardless, and there are many ways to increase the sales growth rate.

Honesty, over-delivering, innovation, and marketing calculations are among the main ideas for increasing sales.

It is paramount that you are honest about what you offer, the quality of your work and in your advertisement.

Over-deliver on every corner to have a better relationship with your customers, satisfy them, and build a loyal customer base.

Leverage innovation, technology and other unique ways to increase sales. An example of leveraging innovation is using data-gathering platforms that give you insight into people's wants and needs.

Measure your marketing efforts to determine what channels are working for you, and make necessary adjustments like allocating more budgets to the marketing efforts that bring you more customers.

Key takeaways

To increase sales, you should:

Leverage the internet and social media to sell your products and services.
Make honest sales pitches and stay consistent about your marketing goals across different campaigns.
Retarget your existing customer base.
Showcase your satisfied customers.
Accept various types of payments.
Optimize your website for mobile use.
Have a sound and straightforward refund policy.
Motivate your marketing team.
Give something back to users who support your brand.
Give out free samples.

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30 Ways to Actually Increase Sales Online – Proven Methods