6 Key Success Factors for Your Online Shop
What are the key issues that online retailers should resolve to prosper? We identified five key areas that will help you to enhance your profits.
Believe it or not, the summer months are right around the corner! For many businesses, summer signifies the start of the "slow season". So, what can you do to boost sales during those slower summer months? Here are 5 tips for you!
1. Hold a sale
Though it might sound obvious to hold a sale, there are plenty of things to think about before running a sale. For starters, what are the goals of your sale? Have you thought about who your target audience for this particular sale would be? Are they different from your normal audience? How big of a discount will you give? Head to our blog about running sales to help guide you through these questions.
When running a sale, you’ll obviously have to promote it. Most likely, you’ll want to use Facebook or Google ads. However, Instagram might also be fitting for your business.
2. Offer a free gift with a specified purchase amount
If you don’t want to hold a big sale, you might want to consider offering a small gift with certain orders. Taking it one step further, you might want to offer multiple gifts for multiple spending amounts. If you’re marketing this as a summer gift, then keep the gifts summer-themed. For example, “With every order of £25, you’ll get a free pair of sunglasses” and/or “with every order of £50, you’ll get this insulated cooler bag.
You also might want to have an ad campaign based on your promotion. Don’t forget to promote it on your own website as well. You can, for example, place a temporary link or sticker on your store’s header (or right below it) informing your customers of this temporary deal.
A big image like this below your header is hard to ignore.
(Source: onlinegolf.eu)
3. Have a social media contest
Here is a great way for you to get your customers to engage with your brand. Hold a giveaway or a contest. Promote this contest with your social media accounts like Instagram and Facebook (you might want to consider some paid ads as well). Choose a great item that you can build a bit of excitement around and encourage your followers to share the post. If the contest calls for user-generated content, then you should also encourage them to share their entrees.
If you choose the right hashtags and come up with a great way to show your products in use, then it might even be possible to get your contest to go viral. For more information on running a contest, check out our blog on that topic.
4. Partner up with another business and cross-promote each other
Try reaching out to another small business owner that you think could profit from your promotions and vice versa. If you sell beach products, find someone who sells sandals. If you have car accessories, try a motorcycle shop. The possibilities are endless.
Shutterstock/IKO-studio
You can offer your customers a discount voucher for their shop once they spend a certain amount with you and vice versa. Not only will you encourage shoppers to spend more with both of your shops, but you’ll be exposed to a new audience who very well may be interested in your products.
You can promote this action through e-mail marketing campaigns, paid ads, and social media.
5. Work on your SEO
This tip might not seem as “sexy” as the other ones, but this could have a bigger impact in the long run. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is a crucial part of any online business. By optimising your website for SEO, you can drive traffic to your website organically (in other words, for free!). And getting free traffic to your website is simply priceless.
