One of the most important questions you can ask when you start or run your business is how to get clients online. We can’t say that it’s impossible to run the business without an online presence, but you definitely leave a lot of money on the table by not driving sales online. There is no magic with online sales, and you need to be patient to get your first clients on the Internet. To become successful with online sales you need to build the strategy and set a smaller goal along your way to get more clients. Today we prepared 5 actionable tips you can use to get better sales.
1 Offer free consultation
It applies to businesses, which sell services. If you are good at something, you can sell your skills or knowledge. If you already figured out how to promote your services you need to convert prospects into leads. A free consultation will help you achieve this goal. It helps to reduce the funnel friction and get qualified leads. You can convert them to clients later. It’s easier to try something for free, which provides you with a higher chance to get the inquiry from the client. You know that the lead base you are building by providing free consultations has the problem which can be solved with your service. It creates a great opportunity for the upsell in the future.
If you use WordPress, you can create the landing page, where you can place WordPress booking plugin like Bookly or other online booking systems to automate the process of appointment scheduling.
2 Start blogging
You need visitors on your website to get clients or even leads online. You can’t optimize conversions if nobody visits your website. Blogging in combination with SEO is one of the proven ways to increase your website traffic. It takes time to see the results, but if you write regularly and you cover topics which are interesting for your potential clients, it will pay off. But don’t put quantity over quality. It’s much better to write one or two articles per month, which will be interesting and will share some news, or will explain how to solve the problem. Don’t forget about SEO, use Google Keyword Planner or tools like Semrush or Ahrefs to find keywords people use when they search the topic you are writing about. You need to use those keywords in heading, title and in the article itself. Keep writing, and you’ll see more visitors and clients in some time.
3 Run an ad campaign
This method requires a budget, but it’s definitely worth testing. It’s the fastest way to address the message to your potential audience and gather the market feedback. Once you find your audience, you will get more clients online. Nowadays there are plenty of options you can choose from to advertise your product or service. You can test more traditional ways of advertising by placing banners on websites, where you think you could find some clients. For such purposes, you can use the service like BuySell ads to agree with website owners directly. You could try programmatic advertising with Google Adwords, Bing when it comes to contextual ads or even banner ads available across their display networks. Programmatic advertising provides you with targeting options, which allow you to define the audience, who should see your ads, which will lead to better ROI and conversion rates. Programmatic advertising is also available within Social networks, but when it comes to social, you can also try influence marketing. And don’t forget to use tracking to analyze which channels work best for you to optimize ad campaign and budget for better results.
4 Write a case study
If you already have clients, you can write a case study with them. Once it’s ready, you can use it to attract new visitors and improve conversion rate. With a case study, you can describe the problem the client had and how you helped to solve it. It creates social proof and trust because your clients speak for you and they show the results they managed to achieve working with you. Besides you can use sase studies to create more content like a blog, social posts, infographics, etc..
5 Build partnerships
Build partnerships with other companies and brands you don’t compete. By doing that you will leverage their marketing activities to promote your brand. For example, if you are a professional photographer you could partner with wedding consultants, some photo studios, Instagram bloggers, etc. to promote your services. Typically it’s a mutual partnership and you can even agree on some sort of commission.
It’s not an ultimate list of things you could do to get more sales online. But it’s a good starting point. The good thing about these tips is that you can start implementing them right away. Share how you get clients online in the comments.