Top strategies for boosting sales of small business

Global B2B buy sell website: http://www.bytrade.com

 

Want to increase sales dramatically? Then shift your sales focus from attracting new customers to enticing your proven customers to buy again. The best sales prospect is a prospect that’s already converted – in other words, one of your current customers.

If you start focusing your sales efforts on your proven customers, you’ll be able to increase your sprocket sales dramatically. And these sure ways to increase sales will help build customer loyalty, too. Try some or all of these ideas to increase your sales:

1.Give Your Customers What They Want

This may seem like the most obvious answer for any business, but it’s also the most overlooked. The vast majority of small business owners attempt to guess at what their customers want – sometimes they’re right and sometimes they’re wrong. One of the simplest and most effective strategies for boosting sales in small businesses is to simply ask your customer what they want, and then provide it to them.

Market research can be a long and expensive process – but it doesn’t have to be. This strategy can be done as simply as asking customers to fill out short surveys when they use your service or buy your products. Small incentives like entries into drawings for free products or a 10% discount for answering a couple of questions can help increase your customer interest and engagement, and is a very inexpensive way to figure out what it is that customers want that you’re not providing yet, as well as which of your products or services are the most valued and should be expanded or capitalized on.

2.Add Value to Existing Products

It only makes sense that if someone can get more for the same price they will, right? This strategy involves adding value in lieu of cutting price. If you have a product or service that your customers don’t want because it’s too expensive for them, then give them more. The really great thing about this strategy for small businesses is that it doesn’t necessarily have to cost you anything, or not continue to cost you anything beyond an initial expense.

An extremely popular way to add value is by creating additional related products which can be something as simple as printed booklets or a PDF download that your customers will have access to with the purchase of a specific item. For example, if you own a pet store and someone buys an iguana from you, you can give them free access to a complete care manual online, and could even make it interactive so that they can ask any questions they might have about their new pet as fresh challenges arise. If you own a carpet installation business, you could offer your customers lists of local services that might be useful to them – such as carpet cleaning, interior design specialists, furniture stores, etc. – and possibly even work with those other businesses to offer special discounts to people you have referred to them.

3. Give your customers the inside scoop.

Recently I was shopping at a retail housewares store. I had picked out an item and was mulling over whether to buy it or not when a salesperson came up to me and said, “I see you’re interested in that blender. We’re having a sale next week and all our blenders will be 20 percent off. You might want to come back then.” Guess what? I did – and bought two other items as well. Lesson: if you have a promotion or sale coming up, tell your customers about it. They’ll come back – and probably bring some friends with them too. (And don't forget - you can give your customers the inside scoop by emailing or calling them, too.)

4. Tier your customers.

There should be a clear and obvious difference between regular customers and other customers – a difference that your regular customers perceive as showing that you value them. How can you expect customer loyalty if all customers are treated as “someone off the street”? There are all kinds of ways that you can show your regular customers that you value them, from small things such as greeting them by name through larger benefits such as giving regulars extended credit or discounts.

5. Distribute free samples to customers.

Why do so many businesses include free samples of other products when you buy something from them? Because it can increase sales in so many ways. As the customer who bought the original product, I might try and like the sample of the new product and buy some of it, too. Or I might pass on the sample to someone else, who might try the product, like it, and buy that and other products from the company. At the very least, the original customer will be thinking warm thoughts about your company, and hopefully telling other people about your products.

It is pretty much an absolute certainty that the huge corporations and big-box stores will never take the time or effort to provide these things,  and by doing so you have just eliminated the biggest competitors to your small business. The only things that large corporations have over small businesses, in most instances, are price and wider market coverage. By concentrating on the things that you can do that they can’t, you can really boost sales and increase customer loyalty and positive word-of-mouth tenfold – or even more.

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