How people do business has changed because of the Internet. Even small businesses can sell clothes, collectibles, software, services, and coaching to people all over the world without spending a lot of money.
Sales are the heart of any business. Some of the offline ways to boost sales can also be used online, but not all of them. Everyone can try to fail quickly on the Internet and learn from it. Even better, after years of testing and keeping track of what works online, people can just learn from what other people have done. This makes the learning curve a lot shorter.
Here are 5 surefire ways to bring in more money:
- Make sure you have a good affiliate programme.
Don't expect different results if it's just another affiliate programme. Focus on making a good affiliate programme that gives affiliates the tools and materials they need to easily promote a programme. Affiliates should be seen as a team, since they work like clockwork. If you give them the right tools to promote the programme, they are more likely to do so.
After the customer buys something, give them the option to join the affiliate programme. Customers who are happy are one of the best ways for a business to get new customers. Pass on the good news by word of mouth. The best part is that they get paid to do that.
- What to do after the first sale
Getting the first sale is the hardest thing to do in any business. Make sure that the name and email address of a customer are the least amount of information you get from a sale. Using that information, keep in touch with your current customers, probably using an automated system like a timely autoresponder.
This effort has been shown to cut down on product returns and make customers happier. Mention once in a while a related product that the customer might be interested in. Write a review and tell what happened. This kind of advertising is very cheap, but it works very well. The product could be anything, even a programme for affiliates.
- Use up-sell technique
Just before a customer checks out and goes to the payment gateway, offer them the chance to upgrade to a better, bigger, or nicer product for a steep discount that isn't available anywhere else, if possible.
Some customers will choose that option, which means that you'll make more sales almost without doing anything extra.
- Provide discount coupons
Coupons encourage customers to shop again. Coupons can be used for advertising and for some types of joint ventures. Customers love it when the price of what they buy goes down. Coupons really bring it home and make it real.
- Promote it with other products that are similar.
There's no limit to the ways this could be done. It is possible to work with another business or even a competitor on a project as long as everyone wins.
One way to do this would be to include samples of other products or services in the whole package. As long as the sample is useful to the customer, this promotion could be seen as more than just advertising.
There are lots of other ways to boost sales, but the tips above have been shown to work over and over again. Pick one at a time and do something about it. Good luck.
