5 Easy Innovative Ideas to Increase Profit for Your Online Business
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Hi, I was recently approached by a friend who wants to go into online consulting. He showed me a website of a local shop selling ukelele, smaller version of a guitar.
I took a look and realised that though the website was marvelously done, it falls short of certain marketing elements which can be easily set up and by doing these can possibly increase the profit by another 20 to 50% within a short time.
Lately, my wife had been purchasing some baby accessories from online stores or blog shops set up by stay at home mothers. This interesting trend has also motivated me to explore their online shops. Most sites and blogs are professionally done. I am impressed. And at the same time, the following 5 simple ways can be easily implemented to bring them more profit and more returning customers.
1. Get your readers to sign up
Getting a repeated customer is always cheaper than getting a new one. This can be done by setting up an opt in box to collect your site readers (who are very likely interested in your site content) and your customers’ email address.
For someone to opt in, you need to have a bait such as gift which your potential customers want and find useful.
You can build up a database of potential customers and customers who have bought from you and send them newsletters or emails of your latest products or services.
One autoresponder service I used to create sign up forms and manage my database is Getresponse.
2. Getting them to tell a friend
The best marketing tool for you is always your satisfied customer. And I am pretty confident to say that in their own circles of friends, there will be at least one potential customer who may be interested in what you are providing.
What happens when this customer is recommended by her friend? Most likely she is ready to buy and there is no reluctance to purchase.
So always coupled it with tell a friend script and encourage your readers and customers to refer customers to you.
3. Upsell when your customers buy their first item
When a customer is ready to pay for something, she is already in the “buying” mood. And it is easy to recommend her something else which complements the first item she bought.
Remember how in Macdonald, the cashier will always ask if we want to UPSIZE our meal by paying slightly more. So business owners should always recommend a relevant item. Of course, not 100% upsell is successful but possibly 20 to 50 % of the customers may take it up and that means more money for you this month.
4. Setting up Facebook fan page
Now, almost everyone has a Facebook account and most Facebook users are online for more than 50% of the day when they can easily access through their iPhone applications.
And what is good about having a fan page is that you are building a community of fans who love your brands and by “Like”ing your page, it gets shown in their profile too and their friends get to know about your fan page too.
5. Reward your most loyal customers
It is interesting to know that most businesses do not reward their loyal customers. If you do some analysis of your buyers’ pattern, most of the sales could have come from this small pool of customers who repeatedly buy from you and could have contributed more than 60 – 80% of your profits.
Why not reward your loyal customer with a surprise gift or allow her to choose something she likes from your store? Or you can send her vouchers so she can buy more products from you at a special price. There are many possibilities. In fact, the point is to make your customers feel good so that she will keep on buying from you.
If you have other marketing idea, please share with me.
You can submit in the comment box below. =)
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