The events of 2020 hit accelerate on the already growing world of online sales. With more eyes on-screen than ever before, it is essential for businesses selling online to ensure their websites and digital marketing strategies are properly optimised to increase revenue.
In an environment where every business is trying to get in on the e-action, there are five key things businesses must focus on in order to increase sales online to increase revenue.
Build a roadmap
Not creating a detailed roadmap for your business is just about as effective as reading a map upside down, if you’re looking to increase online sales. The first thing you need to include in a roadmap is your 12-month revenue goal. Breaking the end goal down into monthly breadcrumbs can help you look at how many purchases you need and how many visitors you will need on your website to reach your goal, based on your existing conversion rate. Monthly action items and targets are crucial for developing a good roadmap. The final element of your roadmap is drafting ads on a platform, such as Facebook or Google, that allows you to test how much it will cost you to get your target number of visitors to your website.
Understand your audience with a buyer persona
Your business might have one key audience – or it may have 12. Either way it is imperative that you understand who your customers are and then ensure your brand is actively engaging on the platforms they use. Trialing different social media channels and platforms can help, but creating well-defined buyer personas will help you find the best place from day one. Buyer personas will assist your business to developing effective campaigns and a brand voice that reach your audience, build ongoing relationships, and shape a model to look to whenever making buyer-specific decisions regarding digital marketing.
Optimise your website
It is all well and good for your website to look beautiful, but if it is difficult to find, slow to load or complicated to navigate, you may as well shut up shop now. In today’s climate it is not even a question if your online business is listed on Google – but don’t stop there, ensure it is listed on all relevant directories and affiliate sites. Working with an experienced digital media team will guarantee your site is enhanced with mobile capabilities, search engine optimisation strategies, and as streamline as possible.
Stay in contact
Staying in contact with customers who abandoned their cart at checkout are just as important as those that clicked the final ‘Confirm Order’ when it comes to increasing your business’s sales online to increase revenue. Cookies are vital to keep your business front of mind for potential customers to hopefully push them over the edge. For customers that have made a purchase, you should not hang up your hat once you have received their money. Customer retention is core – nothing screams increased revenue more than an ongoing customer relationship. Email and mobile databases are incredible – often free – tools that enable you to send incentives and curated offers to customers that are in line with the products you already know they have consumed from your business.
Provide as many payment options as possible
Sadly, nearly $4 trillion worth of online merchandise is abandoned in incomplete shopping carts each year. It is crucial to nail your check out process in order to increase conversion rates, and ultimately revenue. Begin by streamlining your checkout process – from the moment a potential customer adds a product to their cart they should be prompted to view their cart or continue shopping. Timing out customers, adding unnecessary fields in forms and only offering limited payment options are sure fire ways to lose – or at least irritate – a customer. There are many payment options, and you should offer as many as possible, including AfterPay, PayPal, American Express and ApplePay.
~Novel Serialisation: Heavens Fire~
Digital marketing can be overwhelming, but it does not have to be. Employing the fundamentals is underrated and under utilised – follow these key steps to increase your sales online to increase your revenue.
Lucas Cook, Founder and CEO of www.comedia.com.au
