How to boost sales short term?

[messiah]

The title of this post is a bit of a mess I must admit, but let me elaborate on what I mean.

How do I meet sales targets on a day to day basis? For example, yesterday I sold just 2 items and my daily target is 5 items per day.

On a market stall, the merchant can begin offering BOGOF deals, standing among the footfall and begin hard selling when they have stock to clear, but with eCommerce I feel it gets a bit more complex and tricky and I need some help implementing a strategy for boosting sales towards the end of the day when I have not yet met my sales target.

So far, I've left things to ride and let the sales average out over the long term (which may be the best strategy) but I am really interesting in discussing some ideas on how an eCommerce business can boost sales to meet targets

For my business, integrity is extremely important and I do worry that if I constantly throw discounts or intrusive adverts (which have a 0% conversion rate anyway) in my target markets faces

 

[fisicx]

What are you selling? Where are you selling? To whom are you selling?

 

[AllUpHere]

Seems like a strange way to run a business. Surely if there was a way in which you could quickly make a few sales to hit a target, you would scale it up and use it all the time.

Adwords would be a good example. You could turn on a well optimised campaign when you had a target to hit, but then why not just leave it running?

 

[antropy]

Adwords would be a good example. You could turn on a well optimised campaign when you had a target to hit, but then why not just leave it running?

Exactly.

 

[messiah]

Seems like a strange way to run a business. Surely if there was a way in which you could quickly make a few sales to hit a target, you would scale it up and use it all the time.

Adwords would be a good example. You could turn on a well optimised campaign when you had a target to hit, but then why not just leave it running?

I do in fact have a well optimised AdWords campaign running around the clock, however, this alone does not always achieve my 5-sales-a-day target

 

[AllUpHere]

I do in fact have a well optimised AdWords campaign running around the clock, however, this alone does not always achieve my 5-sales-a-day target

I think you have completely missed my point.

 

[fisicx]

I do in fact have a well optimised AdWords campaign running around the clock, however, this alone does not always achieve my 5-sales-a-day target

In which you are doing it wrong

And you haven't answered the questions: What are you selling? Where are you selling? To whom are you selling?

 

[DontAsk]

Who set your target? Based on what criteria?

 

[WebshopMechanic]

@AllUpHere makes a good point.

People buy at different times on the day, week and month. Payday weekend is always a huge uplift in sales in the ecommerce world.

Rather than micro-manage your store sales, set up some campaigns and let them run so you can get some data about what works and what doesn't. It's all about testing and tweaking to see where the success is. Test multiple add text and imagery to see what works best.

You can then spend time on the stuff that will grow your reach organically like content production, engaging with customers on email, partner marketing, social, blogger outreach, etc.

Whatever you do, you should be aiming to capture an email from every visitor. Yes, converting sales is important but people rarely impulse buy anymore so you need to capture an email and nurture them using a marketing funnel (a.k.a series of warm-up emails).

Think of it like you are entering a car showroom. You don't want the salesman to hassle you until you've had a chance to look at the merchandise and get a feel for it. It's the same in the online world. Don't force the sale. Be helpful, add value and incentivise them to hand over an email address in return for a free guide or something related to your product.

Matt

 

[Christophe Lo]

Have you tried facebook ad? The best strategy is to try all different strategies and see which one can bring you more customers. Once you've identified those, you can then focus it and bring in more sales.

 

[messiah]

I think you have completely missed my point.

I think you missed my original point.

 

[alex360]

Have you try to contact your current customer base? But again what are you selling? You can run different program depending on what you are selling

 

[safia2017]

I understand your point in reaching your daily target and it can be difficult. I think it really depends on the product you are selling and who your target audience is. A high priced product will take time to sell, while low impulse purchases can be shifted pretty quick. You really need to find out where your customers are and what platforms they are most likely to use. This can help you reach them directly.

Similar to the other comments: Along with your adwords campaign, try advertising on other platforms like facebook and twitter to see which ones work best for you? If you are a B2B business, try looking for your ideal customers on Linkedin and building a relationship with them on there.

Maybe your product can be sold to offline customers directly? Or how about using other channels to sell your product like ebay or amazon? I know it can costly, but it can improve your reach.

I hope this helps.

 

[Christopher Day]

Try affiliate marketing, very powerful and requires little expenditure

 

[Page]

You may well find this post very theoretical - but give it a go

What I do not understand is why this 5 a day target exists except in a nice to achieve sense
Or take action if not reached or over reached

Personally I think targets are near pointless unless you can do things to hit them
You cannot control a target directly - you can control where you put your efforts - time - headspace and funds

What actually matters is not a target - unless there is a very good reason for having one - usually it is made up twaddle / a dream / wish

What actually matters is anything that can help increase sales and that you can control

And this then applies whether you are selling one a day or 1M a day

Now there can be situations where hitting targets does matter - but so often it is just a made up "random" number

A - made up - situation where it might matter - is that you have 5 arriving a day each and every day and only storage for 20

In which case you can then work out what you can do to control / affect the number oof sales and the hit that this might mean

So you might say you are happy to sell for 1p just to get rid of the things because you have more arriving and have to take them
In a similar way you might decide to spend a lot of money on ad words - until you are just getting rid of the bleeding things - because in this made up example you have to get rid of them somehow

So my question to you is do you actually have to sell 5 a day and why

And the reason it matters is because by understanding what you are really saying is that you can make better decisions as to what to do

 

[DontAsk]

They have point blank refused to say what they sell, to who or who set the targets or the criteria.

Probably a flawed business plan that said if I sell X for £Y then I will make £Z without really figuring out of there is a market or how to service that market.

 

[titanlist]

Follow this 4 step action plan for sales target achievement:

Step 1- Analyze the Past
Analyzing trends in your results up to this point in the year allows you to pinpoint challenge areas and determine the next steps for improvement.
Step 2- Identify Challenge Areas
Step 3- Implement Steps to Course Correct
Step 4 – Coach for Ongoing Success

 

[Violinni]

The title of this post is a bit of a mess I must admit, but let me elaborate on what I mean.

How do I meet sales targets on a day to day basis? For example, yesterday I sold just 2 items and my daily target is 5 items per day.

On a market stall, the merchant can begin offering BOGOF deals, standing among the footfall and begin hard selling when they have stock to clear, but with eCommerce I feel it gets a bit more complex and tricky and I need some help implementing a strategy for boosting sales towards the end of the day when I have not yet met my sales target.

So far, I've left things to ride and let the sales average out over the long term (which may be the best strategy) but I am really interesting in discussing some ideas on how an eCommerce business can boost sales to meet targets

For my business, integrity is extremely important and I do worry that if I constantly throw discounts or intrusive adverts (which have a 0% conversion rate anyway) in my target markets faces

Probably implement giveaways? Could boost your short-term sales, I guess.
But don’t get too gracious with the gifts, because you’ll lose from the income.

Or post an exclusive, limited edition item, that you won’t list at a later time!

 

[Jeff Nev]

There's some great suggestions above. It looks like you are attempting to expand your marketing activities and engage with the user journey on your website, you could potentially look into UX optimisation or employing the services of a CRO agency. If you're trying to boost short term sales and already have advertising campaigns running like you've said - then I'm positive that you would see sales increase by optimising the user experience of your website towards conversions.

There’s so much more to eCommerce than ‘discounts’ or ‘intrusive adverts’ as you put it. I’ve seen first-hand how real experts can transform the conversion rate of a website.

CRO sounds like it could be the next logical step in your marketing strategy. I'd do plenty of research first to see if you think it's right for your problem (it sounds like it is). As ever, client testimonials, case studies and white papers are great for working out which companies are as good as they say they are. (Look at https://www.awa-digital.com/ as an example).

I hope you find a solution that works for you.

Jeff

 

[antropy]

my 5-sales-a-day target

Can I ask if this was the inspiration?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_A_Day

 

[dariadavis]

Run any kind of PPC campaigns (social media, AdWords) or use influencer marketing. It's in case we're talking about short-term results.