Increasing online sales with digital marketing doesn’t have to be complicated.
The right strategies in place can provide engagement, capture your audience, create conversions, and of course, increase online sales.
We’ll give you 7 strategies you can implement today.
Let’s get started.
1. Optimize SEO
75% of users do not access the second page of results on Google! – you need to optimize your content for SEO on a consistent basis.
To rank on Google is one of the best organic ways to increase your online sales. The more likely you are to rank on that first page of Google, the better your sales could be.
That first page of Google means your website, is getting more visibility, more traffic and more sales.
We mentioned optimized SEO here, instead of creating an SEO strategy. Most businesses consider SEO, but they don’t continue to optimize their content.
The Google search engine is always coming out with new updates. These updates can hinder your current search results even if you’re already ranking on the first page.
There is also content being published every day, you need to optimize your content to continually be the best.
Ways to optimize for SEO
- Update existing content to be more relevant
- Continually build backlinks for more authority
- Find better keywords to rank for
- Track metrics to monitor performance.
For information about SEO, read our article “How to improve SEO in 7 Steps“.
2. Create a content strategy
A content strategy is one of the best ways to increase sales with digital marketing.
Creating content, like a blog or article, has the capacity to generate site traffic, build your authority, build trust and engage your audience.
However, you need to produce high-quality content.
Your content strategy needs to have relevant articles that relate to your customers. It’s about creating a post that can engage, teach, and connect with your audience.
A blog can also be a way to move a customer through a sales funnel. Positioning a CTA on a relevant blog about your product can convert well.
Your content strategy also has the potential to increase your sales through social media. Content can be spliced up and shared over social media to continue expanding your online reach.
How to create a content strategy
- Research what your audience wants to read
- Optimize for SEO
- Utilize content for the sales funnel
- Only produce high-quality content
3. Automate email campaigns
Emails have one of the highest conversion rates compared to any other form of digital marketing tactic.
They’re an excellent tool for contacting and nurturing leads. Automating email campaigns can really take the guesswork out of setting up and utilizing an email campaign to increase sales through digital marketing.
Automation will allow you to trigger emails to contact, standardize messages and connect with your customers at the right moment.
Emails should have valuable information that relates to your customers. Again, it’s like creating a content strategy, it needs to have relevant high-quality content. The main idea is to connect and generate contacts.
Emails could be about products, discounts, promotions, coupons or anything else that can engage your audience. Set your emails up through automation and then continue to monitor the campaign.
Steps for automating email campaigns
- Find an automation software
- Create emails that engage your audience
- Set up triggers that connect with customers
- Continue to monitor and track.
4. Utilize social media
Social media is a must nowadays for businesses. Customers expect a business to have a social media presence, whether that’s on one platform or all of them.
Social media is also great for businesses. They can gain more sales through free organic traffic – free is always what business owners like to hear.
Just like the other forms of content, we’ve mentioned social media posts should educate, inspire, learn and engage your customers.
The first step in utilizing social media is knowing where your audience is and what they like to do on social media.
Are they more prevalent on Facebook or Snapchat or TikTok – think TikTok is for young kids, think again!
Next is to create content that is relevant to your business.
Some of the posts that work well with social media:
User-generated content – Its content that has been created by customers, whether they mentioned, reviewed or recommended a product. Businesses can then take this content and share it on their social media pages
Giveaways – They can build connections and inspire your audience. Giveaways can be a tool to grow your social media following as well by making the requirements to sign up, follow, comment, or share.
Educate your audience – A helpful tip or fun fact that’s relevant to your business can go a long way. This informational content gives your audience broader product knowledge and can give them ideas on how to use it.
How to implement social media
- Discover where your audience is
- Create posts that educate, inspire and engage
- Plan social media posts in advance
- Post consistently
5. Simplify the customer journey
Often when business owners, are thinking about increasing sales through digital marketing, it’s about developing and implementing new ideas or strategies.
Of course, this is effective and needed to increase sales, however, looking within your own business first can work well.
It’s important to see what’s working and not working on your website. The main thing to look for is the customer journey.
If your metrics tell you, your customers click off certain points during their journey you need to simplify it.
The more steps or click-throughs you ask your customer to take, the more barriers you have set up for them. The simplest and easiest customer journey will always convert better.
For example, there is a reason Amazon has the option to buy now directly on the products page, or if you do manage to add an item to your cart, you’ll be able to purchase in less than 5 clicks.
The more steps or barriers added to the customer journey, the more time a customer can talk themselves out of a purchase, or other distractions turn them away from completing the sale.
Steps to simplifying the customer journey
- Check your metrics to see where customers click off
- Reduce the number of steps customers have to take
- Continue to monitor and optimize the journey
6. Use chat software
Chat software can be an essential tool for increasing online sales. Chats can be automated or use a real agent. They can encourage customers to take action for purchases and help customers when they need it most.
Chat software can work in two ways. The first way is they are triggered when a customer clicks on the chat widget. The second way is they can be automatically triggered when a customer performs a certain action.
Sometimes customers can have questions about products or need information about shipping or returns. If customers can’t find an answer they may click off and not purchase the product.
However, with a chat in a place, customers can be more inclined to reach out and get the answer they need.
Chat agents can also monitor behaviours and recommend products or offer discounts to entice customers to make a purchase.
Breadstack’s Chatso does just that, check out a free demo!
Ways to use chat software
- Set up triggers at customer blocking points
- Make it easy to use chat for customers to click on
- Track customer data to offer personalized recommendations or promotions
7. Gain reviews and recommendations
Customer reviews and recommendations can often be better at converting online sales than any other digital marketing strategy.
Reviews and recommendations create trust within your business. They are known as social proof. Google reviews, third-party review sites, and forums are popular places customers turn to when they are unsure about a product.
By reading out reviews, good or bad, customers can make an informed decision about the overall opinion of the product. Great reviews can convert a customer thats on the edge of purchasing and a negative review can have the opposite effect.
If you already have reviews or recommendations, using them with your digital marketing strategies can be powerful.
How to use reviews and recommendations
- Have them on your product pages.
- Add them to landing pages
- Share them on social media