In this final section of the four-part business growth guide, we will discuss how to sell online.
We’ve already covered how to get your business off the ground, now it’s time to start selling more products.
These marketing tactics will help you sell your physical products, digital products, services and more.
Use Live Chat To Close Sales
Chatting real-time with your visitors when they have questions will show your dedication to help them and will, in turn, build trust.
If you’re hesitant you either think won’t have time to be available or you don’t need this because you already have a contact form.
Here’s the deal, if you’re not around the message will be forwarded to your email to answer later and you definitely need both ways to get in touch.
Recent stats show that a large number of visitors will leave your website if you don’t have live chat when they have a quick question rather than staying to fill out your contact form.
That being said, go install a live chat widget on your website.
Give Stuff Away To Build Trust
Giveaways are a great way to build trust.
You can organize a giveaway and award the winners with free products or services.
Not only will this help you reach more people and popularize your brand, but, it will also allow you to gain reviews from the winners.
Make sure to share your giveaway on your website and your social media accounts as well as send it to your email list in order to get as many people to participate as possible.
You can also write a blog post about your giveaway or even purchase advertising to promote it.
Make sure to make the giveaway as transparent as possible and post the winners on your website.
Social Proof Increases Conversion Rates
Social proof speeds up the process of earning trust.
- Uncertainty – When looking to buy a product, we face so many choices. This makes choosing the right product difficult. The uncertainty this creates pushes people to seek recommendations from others. That’s why people read an average of 7 reviews before making purchasing a product.
- Similarity – People try to copy the behavior of those who are like them. It’s the same reason marketing certain cosmetic products can be gender-specific (e.g. men’s soap or face cream).
- Attractiveness – People listen to and copy the behavior of people who are attractive. You’ve probably noticed that advertisements often feature people who are above-average in attractiveness.
- Desirability – People are likely to engage based on how desirable a person’s qualities are. This is why fit people are promoting supplements.
Try using testimonials, reviews, case studies, live notifications and more to increase your sales.
Product Demos Drive Sales
Put yourself in your potential customer’s shoes.
They have questions that may be easier to answer with a hands-on product demo, video walkthrough or product webinar.
In most general cases you may see better ROI with video tours or free-trials.
Although, large enterprise companies usually “set up a demo” so they can get in touch with the lead.
What this does is it allows the company to sell directly to the lead.
So it all depends on the type of lead, B2B customers are much easier to get on a call or set up a demo walkthrough.
The point is, product demos can drive sales through the roof if done right.
Potential Buyers Could Miss Out
Use FOMO to increase sales.
Use real-time social proof and countdown timers.
Live notifications promote “FOMO” (fear of missing out).
You can use tools such as Sales Pop to show recent purchases on your website. Seeing other people buy a product will make your visitors feel more comfortable buying it themselves.
Use Scarcity to sell faster.
Display the number of sold products on each product page. You can also combine this with showing the number of products left in stock to create a sense of scarcity.
Add a countdown timer to your website to let people know how much longer your sale is going to last.
This will help to generate more sales as shoppers get scared of missing out.
You could also add a countdown timer to your checkout page as well.
If Shopify is your eCom platform of choice, I suggest checking out Countdown Cart by Beeketing
Close More Sales With Exit Intent Popups
One of the best ways to boost your email list growth is to use exit-intent popups.
As the name suggests, exit-intent popups are popups that appear once a user tries to leave your website.
They have shown to be quite effective in getting users to sign up to an email list, especially when combined with a lead magnet.
Email Your List To Make Sales
If you haven’t already, go read our Complete Email Marketing Guide for Building Giant Email Lists Within 90 Days.
Once you have an email list of targeted leads, you can start selling gradually.
When I say gradually, I mean don’t start selling before you’ve proven to be of value.
Take the time to educate your leads and send regular updates that don’t come attached with a price tag.
It’s all about nurturing your cold leads into making a trusted purchase.
In our 7 Genius Lead Nurturing Emails post, we discuss what type of emails you should be sending.
Comparison Pages Generate More Sales
Have you ever wished you could legally steal your competitor’s traffic?
Maybe you currently offer a better product or service than your competitors…
…and you wish their visitors knew more before making a final decision.
Well, I’ve got good news for you, it’s absolutely possible with comparison pages!
List all your strengths that target your competitor’s weaknesses with a “pros and cons” table.
It’s OK to leave out a few details, just highlight what makes you look best.
By having these comparison pages you will also see a boost in traffic.
When people search for your competitor, they will now see your page as well.
Sell More With Targeted Landing Pages
Use targeted landing pages to capture leads and convert visitors into customers.
It’s easy to sell more products with pages catered to your target audience.
ClickFunnels makes building landing pages and sales funnels a breeze.
In less than an hour, you can have a solid landing page that will be sure to warm your leads.
Always aim to provide value for free to new leads and give them a reason to trust you.
Work On Your Elevator Pitch
People want to learn more by nature, but we have to pique their interest.
Try perfecting your one-liner elevator pitch that sums up your products, offerings or services.
Remember, you have one job with your elevator pitch … make us want what you have.
A great elevator pitch will tell the audience the following:
- Who the heck are you or what the heck is “it”?
- What do you, your products or services offer me?
- Are you grabbing my attention or boring me?
Here’s a few examples of great elevator pitches:
- “ClickFunnels Gives You EVERYTHING You Need To Market, Sell, and Deliver Your Products and Services Online!” – ClickFunnels Sales Funnel Builder
- “Leadpages is the most effective, affordable way for small businesses to connect with an audience, collect leads, and close sales.” – LeadPages Landing Page Builder
- “Marketing, sales, and service software that helps your business grow without compromise.” – HubSpot Marketing Platform
- “Heap automatically captures every web, mobile, and cloud interaction: clicks, submits, transactions, emails, and more.” – Heap Analytics for Products
Simplify Website Navigation
This may seem obvious but you’d be surprised how many companies get this wrong.
The first thing you should think about when designing a website is your audience.
It’s safe to say that most people prefer a simple interface but more importantly, they expect to find what they need in a matter of seconds.
Here are a few tips that will help you keep your menu easy to navigate and simplistic in nature.
- Too many menu items on your website will overwhelm your visitors and cause a higher bounce rate.
- Strategically consolidate your menu into groups of buyer actions or information that makes your visitors feel more comfortable.
- Know your audience and understand what they are looking for before they arrive.
Affiliate Programs Generate Sales
You might also want to try harnessing the power of affiliates to promote your brand.
Offer a commission on sales of your products or services and let affiliates promote your brand for you.
You can either create your own affiliate program or join an affiliate network such as CJ or ShareASale.
Influencers Make You Look Good
Social proof is often gained by celebrities or influencers endorsing your products.
Send Abandon Cart Emails
Start improving your cart conversions rates by sending abandoned cart emails.
Well over 40% of shoppers are recaptured by sending abandoned cart emails after leaving products in their carts.
Most online business owners that use software like Shopify or WooCommerce often automate this task.
Abandoned cart emails are a great way to close a sale that almost got away.
Try incentivizing your leads with a “comeback discount” for finishing their order.
Simplify Checkout Process
This is why it’s important that you do as much as you can to improve your website’s checkout process.
Here are some tips to help you accomplish this:
- Simplify checkout – Simplify your checkout process by removing unnecessary fields (such as the salutation field) to make the checkout process as fast as possible. Make sure to add a checkbox which users can check to use their billing address as their shipping address in order to save them from having to enter the same address twice.
- Remove navigation – Remove navigation links from your checkout page to prevent customers from wandering off without completing the purchase.
- Enable guest checkout – 37% of abandoned checkouts are abandoned due to the need to create an account. To prevent this, allow customers to check out without creating an account.
Sell Benefits Not Your Features
Don’t waste all your time selling potential customers on the features.
If you can get people to envision themselves reaping the benefits, you will get more customers.
Benefits are catered to your target audience and will help them make a buying decision.
Offer Free Shipping To Increase Conversions
It may feel like free shipping is not worth it and will cost too much.
Here’s the truth about free shipping…
- Free shipping will significantly increase your conversion rates.
- You can bake the shipping cost into the overall price you charge.
- Shipping has become much more affordable.
So don’t miss the opportunity to make more online sales with free shipping.
Take Better Product Shots
We’ve all come across at least one product that we were interested in but the photos sucked.
So what happens when the photos for an online product look terrible or are missing entirely?
We tend to find another product with better photos or even video hands-on with the products.
Don’t use the camera as an excuse, bust out your smartphone camera and get snappin’.
A good photo consists of the following qualities:
- Lighting needs to be on point
- Just like people, products also prefer their best angle
- Green screenshots work, just keep it classy (no cheese factor)
- Real-world backgrounds do much better in most cases
- Products being used in the photos
- People like variety when browsing product photos
Here’s an example of great product shots:
Source: Annie’s Homegrown Organics
Make Your Call-To-Action Clear
If your audience doesn’t know what you want them to do, they won’t do anything at all.
Try hooking your website visitors with a clear and concise CTA (call-to-action).
Give your potential customers expectations for what comes next.
A good CTA will earn you more money by increasing your sales.
Also, try tracking your CTA results by measuring your CTR (click-through-rate).
Here are tips to help you craft a CTA that converts:
- Command Action
- Use Emotional Triggers
- Offers That Won’t Last
- Use Odd Numbers
- Be Creative
Cross-Sell Related Products
What’s the fastest way to increase your online sales?
Offer your current customers similar products to increase your average order.
If McDonalds never offered their customers combo meals, they wouldn’t be the giant they are today.
Selling is like boxing, the power comes from the right hook and the right cross. Meaning, if you have the right product to hook your customers then you can hit them with the right cross-sell.
In the example photo below, Nike is offering training clothing to go along with your your running shoes. This is an amazingly simple yet effective tactic.
Credit: Upsell X
Upsell and Downsell
You can easily start driving profits by adding upsells and downsells to your sales funnel.
According to Convince & Convert, Upsells generate 2,000% more sales than cross-sales.
Many companies rely on online advertisements to sell more products online.
The problem is that the cost of ads keeps going up and it’s hard to get a return on your advertising investment.
The solution can be using a sales funnel that incorporates upsells and downsells to recoup your ad money.
It will be much easier to make a profit with the right funnel to nurture your leads.
Credit: Bold Upsell
Final Thoughts
Congrats! You’ve made it through our comprehensive online business growth guide.
Here’s a quick recap:
- We talked about why you should start your own business.
- We learned how to launch your website and eCommerce store.
- We learned how to systematically drive more traffic to our website.
- We learned how to get more online sales
Now that you finished reading this guide, it’s time to get to work! Bookmark this guide and follow along as needed, also make sure to create a prioritize todo list.
Have questions about any of the tactics we covered? Email me at [email protected]
