We have collected 43 ways to increase sales, proven on the real experience of large online stores.

Starting to sell online is much easier. Created a product, made a website, went to social networks - and is ready for sales. The competition is higher, it is more difficult to declare oneself, to break into the leaders. We have collected 43 ways to increase sales, proven on the real experience of large online stores. 

Online course

Online store from scratch

Stage 1. Customer acquisition

Set up ads on social networks

The modern way to reach the client is to give him advertising on social networks. It looks so simple: I drew a picture, “washed down” the text, attached the “Buy” button and, as a result, “leaked” the budget.
To prevent money from flying out due to poor preparation, follow a few rules:
1. Explain how to interact with advertising. Customers may not understand how to work with advertising. Especially with the one that is embedded in the news feed. Point to the Buy button, write in the text where the potential customer should click. Explain lucidly how to interact with the ad.
2. Make a catchy creative. Bright “tasty” picture is the key to the attractiveness of the campaign. Creative should catch your eye, but not annoy him. Boring, banal pictures are just as bad as "vyrviglaznye" creatives. Try to adhere to the rules of design and style of your site.
3. Do not use a lot of text. The abundance of text makes it difficult to focus on the product. The sentence should be clear and convenient for quick reading.
4. Check how the ad will appear. Additional icons that will be visible when an ad is shown should not overlap important details of the creative. The close button, age limit, all this should not interfere with the perception of your message in advertising.
5. Do not lie to the client. Advertising from the series “In this dress you will look two sizes slimmer!” already tired of everything and, apparently, will be bored for a long time. Perhaps your product is really slim. But it’s unlikely that he acts universally on everyone, right?

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Instagram: Business Opportunities - Indie Gogohia Course

Choose the right audience

The first thing a novice businessman should do is to determine the target audience of his project. Without a clear portrait of the client, it will not be possible to build a competent positioning of the company, and the advertising budget will "merge".
How to find your buyer? As always, trial and error. At the first stage of determining the target audience, you can limit the approximate circle of interested. For example, a subscription to online games is interesting primarily for a young audience and, to a greater extent, for its male part, and online clothing stores are more likely to target girls over 20 years old.

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Dostan Misheov's course - Search for the target audience

After an approximate selection of the audience, it is necessary to make the most accurate portrait of her. How to do it?
1. Analyze what competitors are doing. Where do they distribute their product? How do they position themselves? Who is following their groups on social networks?
2. Gather focus groups. Dial several groups of people of different ages of both sexes. Present them your product and determine to whom the product or service seemed interesting, who is ready to purchase, in what form and at what price. At the same time, you can identify which positioning of the company can make the product interesting for inappropriate traffic. This will help expand the company in the future.
3. Advertise at all. Then analyze who most often clicked on your offer, went to the site, performed the target action. Next time, target an ad to a dedicated audience to verify the correctness of the results in the first experiment. Depending on the conversion level, adjust the portrait of the target client.
The process of highlighting the target audience can stretch over several advertising campaigns. You have to not only accurately identify the age, gender and geographical boundaries of your audience, but also to determine its values, desires and fears. Then you can correctly position your business at all possible sites.
In 1988, RJ Reynolds, a cigarette company, began producing smoke-free cigarettes. This allowed to protect passersby from secondhand smoke. True, the taste of cigarettes was so unpleasant that the target audience, namely smokers, did not accept the goods. As a result, the idea burned out.

Set up search engine ads

Where will users first search for the information they need? That's right, in search engines. Even if they need not an online store, but an ordinary one. Therefore, advertising in search engines is considered one of the most effective.

6 rules of good advertising in search engines:

1. Unique title. The client types the request in the search engine, in response receives several identical answers. How to choose among them?
2. Be honest with the customer. Promise high quality stick to it. Lure low prices - the buyer should see them on the main page.
3. Track the conversion of lead generation. Visitors must complete the targeted action, not just see the site.
4. Segment and test. It is not always possible to get into the interests of the audience as successfully as possible.
5. Filter out inappropriate traffic. Most likely, an advertisement for elite furniture does not interest a freshman student. Therefore, indicate in the ad for which segment of the audience you are working.
6. Find the right keywords. Go to Yandex. Wordstat ”, enter a word or phrase that denotes your activity. For example, "selling furniture." Two lists will appear. On the left are clarified questions, on the right are similar queries. Repeat with all the ads you are interested in.

Work with bloggers

The company's interaction with the blogger leads the business to the target audience. She is initially loyal to the brand, because she has values ​​similar to a blogger and agrees with his opinion. It is important at the preparation stage to choose a blogger with an audience as similar as possible to yours.
A successful collaboration with a blogger cannot constitute direct advertising of a product. It can be advice, feedback and any other activity that will not shout to the potential client “Buy! Buy it! ”
Top YouTube blogger Sasha Spielberg collaborated with the Marmalato brand. The girl herself developed the design of clothes and accessories and included elements of her style in the collection. Then the blogger told her viewers about products, including shoes with luminous soles. The loyal audience of Sasha Spielberg praised the product. As a result, already in the first week, Marmalato sold more than 10,000 pairs of shoes.
Advertising for beginner bloggers will cost less. However, you must understand that at the beginning of his career, a blogger may misunderstand his audience or take up the advertising of any goods. You run the risk of getting a return less than what you expect. Therefore, it is important to find "your blogger."

Create a company blog

A blog will be useful for search engine optimization: sites with content are better ranked by search engines. Search engine advertising is expensive, and targeting customers will find it easier to reach you.
For example, online clothing stores may make articles on what to wear this summer. Potential customers will find the article in a search engine, read the text and at the same time flip through the seller’s website.
Using a blog, a company can talk about new products, describe the products that are offered on the site, and cover interesting topics for the target audience.
In our blog you can find materials that describe amoCRM functionality (for example, how a digital funnel works and what are its advantages), tips for an interested audience (entrepreneurs, marketers, project managers), cases for working with our program, and more useful information from business and sales.

Optimize Email Marketing

Remind the customer about the company and the product in every way possible so that he makes purchases again.
It is best to follow the example of Mosigra. The company does not send the customer direct annoying advertising letters. Instead, newsletters come up with interesting stories that sometimes are not even directly related to the products, but which will be interesting to read to the target audience. At the end of the letter, we’ll talk about the products of the week for which discounts are currently available.
Which mailing format is most interesting to the audience is determined by testing. Do split tests, A / B tests of each letter, analyze which topics contributed to greater discovery, and after which letters customers unsubscribed in bulk. Check which calls to action are better motivated to buy.

Add the Buy button on social networks

Both Facebook and VKontakte are positive about business accounts, in particular, entrepreneurs can set up a button to go to the site to buy goods. No reason not to use!
A subscriber or an accidentally logged in person will not have to figure out how to purchase your product, where to see the full range. This will speed up the buying process.

Additionally, add links to all landing pages: a page with store contacts, a company blog with useful tips. 

Motivate Followers to Repost on Social Media

Encourage subscribers to repost posts in your accounts. How will this be useful to you? Free advertising: each repost increases audience reach. In addition, the repost on VKontakte will remain on the subscriber’s wall, even if for some reason you decide to delete the post in your group.
Yandex.Taxi encourages users to share code on social networks. This gives the consumer a discount, and the company - coverage.

Track aggregator reviews

Feedback on aggregators can become an additional advertising resource, but at the same time they can damage the reputation of the business. Therefore, they must be monitored and responded in time.
What does this give your business? Detailed reviews of real customers will show entrepreneurs the strengths and weaknesses of the product. Negative feedback must be answered so that future buyers see that you are working and are ready to change for the better.
You can watch reviews on Yandex.Market, IRecommen.

Check list

Complete Guide to Collecting Customer Feedback

Hold competitions in social networks

Competitions, especially with simple mechanics and guaranteed prizes, help to increase the reach of people who will know about the account and the company as a whole. The more people just learn about the product, the more purchases will be made.
Some participants will not want to wait for the end of the competition and hope for victory. They will purchase the goods before the end of the activity.
What is important to consider when conducting a contest in social networks?
1. The rules should be clearly spelled out. In the event of questions arising from the results of the competition, the organizers can show which specific points of the rules have not been met or were executed incorrectly.
2. Realistically correlate the value of the prize and the mechanics of the competition. No one will record a competitive video with the name of your company and the correct tags for a notepad. But for a notebook signed by Imagine Dragons, people will be ready to work a little.
3. Make the winner determination transparent. Record the winner’s choice on the video, use the random number generator so that subscribers don’t think that you chose among the same names.

Keep in touch with the audience

Do not forget to answer questions in the comments, work with negatives and objections - be in touch with your customers. If you have a small company, you can even subscribe to some buyers. Like them, write non-standard comments. For you, this is just one more way to remind yourself, and the client is pleased.
Every month, the Sweetside.ru online store raffles 1,000 rubles for sweets among buyers who have posted photos of products on social networks.

Use hashtags and mass follow

Maybe hashtags and mass followings no longer bring the result that they could provide 2 to 3 years ago, but they still remain the cheapest ways to promote and can be useful for young companies in the early stages.
Hashtags allow you to find new initially loyal subscribers. Look at user posts with tags that you use most often, like photos, subscribe to your account - let people know about your business.
When the company’s account is sufficiently promoted, start entering your own tags. Let them contain the name of the company or a reference to the main product. Gradually, subscribers will begin to use these tags in their publications and thereby will advertise the company’s account.
The main goal of mass follow is not to increase the number of subscribers, but to attract them to view your page. The more people find out about a product, the more customers there will be.

Use the mystery shopper method

Are you a business owner or sales manager? Try to take the place of the buyer - talk with the managers of the company yourself. So, in practice, you realize what could be fixed in your work.
When KP Britanica began to fall in sales, the commercial director decided to analyze the work of employees using the "mystery shopper" method. First, the company manager phoned competitors and highlighted errors in their work, then the same thing was done in relation to his company. Based on the results of the audit, typical mistakes of managers were highlighted, new scripts were compiled, and additional training was conducted for communication with clients.

Stage 2. Work with a potential client

Accompany the client on the site

Advertising worked, the client went to the site. Now we need to motivate him to stay. Then collect his data, push him to increase the amount of the order, speed up decision-making - you need to force him to perform targeted actions.
How to do it? Accompany the client’s steps with various motivational messages. The visitor has visited the site - offer him a special discount. Long considers the page - show a chat with the manager, where you can ask any question. Made a purchase - there is no reason to keep silent about the loyalty program!
So that a bunch of messages do not bother a site visitor every second, adjust your sales funnel. Make clear conditions for each step. After targeted actions, the site will show additional widgets that will help the customer move to the purchase. Each hint will be reasonable and useful.

Online course

Customer Development. How to find out what your client wants

Prepare an intuitive interface

Ideally, the client should understand the site navigation in a few seconds and be able to return to the main page with a maximum of two clicks. Nearby elements should have clear boundaries. The client should not click on one button, but go on another.
Test the site on friends. Check if there were any difficulties in making a purchase, at what moments a person could not immediately understand how to perform the next action.

Free materials

Usability Checklist

Make responsive design

Today there are so many devices from which you can go online, it’s even strange to see sites without responsive design. If a client comes to your page from a mobile phone and has to constantly peer into the small text and enlarge the page, how many goods will he buy?
Switching to adaptive layout provided the Tentnalodku.ru online store an increase in the number of customers by 10-15%.
If there are no resources to create an adaptive design, make the layout of the site as convenient as possible for viewing from any devices: target elements, for example, phone number, must be clickable, but not tightly pressed against each other.

Simplify the registration process

When entering the site, it is better not to require registration at all. A potential client does not even understand if there is a product he needs on the site, and personal data is already required from him. Instead of registering, offer the client a personal discount that will come to him by mail or subscribing to news. You have collected the contacts, the customer is satisfied with the bonus.
In the registration form there should be only a few questions: name, mail, city. You can ask the phone. Specify more detailed information when the client is ready - when placing an order after filling the basket.

Use contrasting colors.

Buttons, active links, text should not merge with each other. Otherwise, the client will be uncomfortable using the site.

Choose the right product prices

You may have a product that everyone needs, but the high price will scare away buyers and transactions will not be completed.

5 tips for setting the right price:

1. Conduct market research and find out the prices of your competitors. To stand out against their background, offer more functionality for the same price, or put a lower amount than other companies.
2. The high price creates a feeling of high quality product. Having delivered a high cost of goods, be prepared to meet customer expectations.
3. Low price, on the contrary, can create a feeling of poor product quality.
4. The price is directly related to the value of the product for the buyer. If you can convince your customers of a premium product, set a price that matches this definition.
5. For branded products, customers are willing to pay more than usual.

Add a signature on the company activity next to the logo

A signature that explains the activities of the company will help the user navigate. A client makes a request in a search engine, sees a site, follows a link and spends a few seconds thinking about whether this online store is suitable for him. If the visitor does not immediately understand which site he’s visited, he will go looking for the right product in another place.
What do you think each of the following companies sells?

In fact, both sites sell lamps in one form or another. You don’t have to think about the first site - immediately under the logo is a designation of activity. In the second case, the site was initially perceived as a decor store, not a lamp. A potential buyer may decide that he is not in the right place. Or, on the contrary: they will come to the site for stickers on the wardrobe and, having spent time searching for the decor, they will not find the necessary decoration.
First of all, site visitors look in the upper left corner, as people are used to reading from left to right, from top to bottom. Therefore, it is best to place the company logo and signature there.

Add company phone number

The client cannot touch or evaluate the real type of product. He may have doubts and additional questions about the product. Communication with the manager will help to remove the doubts of the potential buyer and will help to understand what information is missing on the site.
Internet users are already used to seeing phone numbers in two places on sites: right at the top of the site and bottom at the very end of the page. The phone number located on top is visible to the visitor immediately upon entering. The number below is necessary so that the client can call immediately after reading the text on the page, without returning to the beginning.
It is important to consider that customers can access the site from mobile devices. Therefore, it is better to make the phone number in text format rather than spread it out with a picture. So visitors can click and call right away.

Set up a convenient product search

The client may not know how to spell the name of the product he needs. Or write the English name in Russian letters. It can also be sealed up, forget to change the keyboard layout and much more.
Ideally, the search engine on the site should recognize all such cases and give the client a list of products even when requesting with errors. For example, the QUELLE catalog for a request “slippers” gives a little the wrong product.

Another bad option is empty output. The client types the name of the required product, receives a response from the system: "This product is not in stock." Although in fact such a product is on the site.
Filters will facilitate the search for the necessary product, which will make the client stay on the site more comfortable.

The division of goods into categories and the separate division of goods into brands with which the online store cooperates will facilitate the search for both those who want a certain type of clothing and those who trust exclusively specific brands.

Add real customer reviews to the site

The opinion of people who have already used a product or service from the site will give an understanding of how the product fits the needs of the client.

Make authorization on the site through social networks. This, firstly, will reduce the time spent by clients on authorization, and secondly, it will inspire confidence among potential customers. If desired, the buyer can personally communicate with the author of the review and find out from him about all the "pitfalls" of the acquisition.
Reviews with authorization through social networks and a gallery with examples of work have helped the business of creating Voodoo Studio sites to increase the number of orders by more than 25%.
Negative reviews cannot be deleted. Their presence will increase the level of trust in the company, and a competent timely reaction will demonstrate the quality of service. It is also a good platform to respond to criticism.

Set up a chat with a manager

Chat will support the client on the site, help to collect a database of contacts and frequently asked questions.
The introduction of an online consultant widget helped Uncle Beard online store increase sales by 30%.
How to make a scaring chat with the manager:
- It opens half a page and prevents you from getting to know the goods.
- Messages from the bot come with annoying sound or with the sound of messages from social networks. Do not do like this.
- You can’t get an answer in chat. You can only leave the phone to ring. This is a hoax, it is better to make a separate widget to call the client.
- Chat advertiser. When the client clicks on it, there is a transition to another page. This is the most unpleasant thing that can be done for the client.

Give the opportunity to call from the site

The client had a question, but he himself could not call. Or doesn’t want to. Well, then he can make an online call.
A call from the site will make communication free and accessible for the client from almost any place where there is Internet.
A ready-made widget can be purchased, for example, from CallbackHunter.

Indicate the urgency of the purchase

The call to action will help to reduce the time it takes to make a decision about the first or repeated purchase right now. The most common ways to do this:
- Burning discount. PizzaSushiWok delivery service gives customers a 10% discount on re-order, which is valid for a week.
- Discount on goods on certain days. The MediaMarkt hardware store offers discounts on the site that last a certain number of days.
- Limited time basket. If the buyer on the ASOS website does not have time to complete the purchase of the goods in an hour, his basket is zeroed.

Present a trial period or product

The client is not sure how suitable the service is for him. No problem! You can try the service for free. During use, the client gets used to using your product and acquires a subscription to it.
When first used or after updates, Adobe programs give customers a seven-day period to try out how the program’s functionality works. The client is trying to do the first project. If the system suits him, he will begin to prepare new projects. After the trial period, you will have to buy a subscription to complete the work that has begun.

Write sales headlines

A rule that you usually don't need to be reminded of. However, the question arises: how to make a good headline that will attract an audience?
Kissmetrics founder Neil Patel analyzed posts on his own blog and noticed that the content headlines are like “How can a young project find investors using Instagram?” - Work better in the long run. Posts with such headlines repost 29.1% more than posts with vague headings, stay in high positions longer and receive 62.5% more traffic on social networks. But posts with vague headings - like "How to get rich?" - Receive 44% more traffic from mail.
Try to make several texts with different types of headings. Analyze which ones attracted customers more often. So you will choose the best option for your target audience.

Explain product needs to customers.

Explain how your product can be useful to customers and why it is needed at all. This will not only help reduce the time it takes to make a purchase decision, but casual visitors to the site will also become familiar with unfamiliar products.

Focus on the main product.

Do you offer many products or services on the start page of the site? If so, we advise you to check whether this affects sales well.
Instead of forcing customers to understand the abundance of offers, put on the start page the main product with a detailed text about the properties and benefits of the product. In online clothing stores, a new collection is brought to the home, in electronics stores - seasonal offers.

Write texts for quick reading

On the Internet, people do not read, but “scan” the text, taking out only important information for themselves. Particular attention is paid to the upper left. According to the heat chart from Chartbeat and Slate, the areas that users view the most look like the letter F.

What should be the texts on the site for buyers to read them:
- short. Users want to quickly get acquainted with the product and realize its practical significance for themselves.
- Left aligned. Rough line endings on the right make reading easier and faster.

Introduce the product in detail

The buyer’s fear of buying on the Internet is due to the inability to carefully examine, touch, try on the goods. To ensure that customers have no doubts, make a photo gallery of the product and its detailed description.
The revenue of online stores Obuv Rossii grew by 37% in the first quarter. In the material PROfashion, the head of the company's online sales, Sofia Makarevich, calls the improvement in the content of the site one of the reasons for the growth in revenue. Stores improved product descriptions, added photos of shoes on models and increased the number of products with 360-degree photos.
Here you can pull up photos with the product that your customers posted on social networks. At the bottom of the product page, the comments of site visitors will logically fit.
The online clothing store ASOS shows customers short videos with fashion shows, which allows you to better see the goods.

Make the Cart and Buy buttons tasty.

And still attracting attention. The client will be able to focus on why he went to the site - on the purchase of goods. The client does not have to search for the desired buttons for a long time.

The example shows a not very successful button design. It merges with the buttons for selecting product properties. The customer’s view does not focus on the target.

Set up your cart

It happens: you pick up purchases in a basket for a long time, look for the necessary goods, and then again! The Internet has flown or something else has prevented the completion of the purchase. Again, I do not want to spend a lot of time filling the basket.
So that different difficulties do not prevent customers from purchasing goods, set up automatic saving of the basket. If the buyer changes his mind about making a purchase, he will empty the basket on his own.

Offer an additional item

After the customer orders the goods, show him a cheaper product that can complement the purchase.
Vasily decided to order boots for his wife on the website of the well-known online store. When the selected pair went to the virtual basket, a list of products appeared on the screen that would help in shoe care. “Wow!” - exclaimed Vasily. And 5 more items went to the shopping list.
Sale of additional goods will increase the average bill.

Related Products
Let's say a certain size of a dress has ended in your online store, and a customer urgently needs to buy it. In order not to lose the buyer, offer him an alternative - a similar product.

In addition, an offer to purchase a similar product with a higher price may help increase the average bill. Initially, the client might simply not see another product.

Stage 3. Repeated sales

Prepare a loyalty program

Agree, it is more pleasant to return to the store again and again when any next purchase will cost less than the previous one.

Food delivery Delivery Club gives points for a certain amount of the purchase. Then customers can exchange the accumulated food bonuses. Important note: if you do not make orders within six months, all accumulated points will simply be burned.

Soft restrictions in loyalty programs do not cause negative, but motivate to buy more. If the client does not have to work hard and spend large amounts to save a discount or points, and at the same time the goods or service will be performed efficiently - the client will be ready to register in the program.

Analyze customer behavior on the site: what you liked

Analytics programs will help to understand the popularity of pages: - for example, Google Analytics or Yandex.Metrica.
Open the Behavior section in Google Analytics. Track attendance analysis, login page. Analyze search queries on the site.
The Webvisor technology on Yandex.Metrica allows you to analyze the behavior of a site visitor: identify the source of traffic, find out the time elapsed since the last visit, and separate the visits in which the conversion occurred from all the others.
The most popular pages will help to adjust the focus and positioning of the company. Login pages tell you which products or services are most interesting to your target audience.

Analyze customer behavior on the site: which pages are more likely to leave

Pay attention to the pages after which customers most often leave the site - they need to be reworked. Think what the page is missing? Is the design clear? Is the text written in sufficient detail? Does the information meet customer expectations?

Vasily went to the site of the local pizzeria. Before you start choosing a product, I decided to take an interest in the conditions of pizza delivery to your home. Something was said about the geography of delivery in passing, the cost was not indicated - Vasily was upset and left the site

It takes a few minutes to analyze the exit pages.
Option 1. Open Google Analytics. In the "Behavior" section, select the "Site Content" tab. View "Exit Pages".
Option 2. In the “Yandex.Metrica” settings, enable the option “Webvisor, scrolling map, form analytics”. 
Set the counter counter to all pages. Control how customers behaved and what pages they viewed before leaving the site.

Offer free shipping 

This option is attractive because you do not have to spend money in excess of the cost of the goods. Using free shipping, you can motivate the customer to buy more.  

In the online clothing store ASOS, standard delivery will be free upon purchase from 2,000 rubles, express delivery - from 8,000 rubles. Otherwise, you will have to pay for delivery. This motivates the customer to buy more goods, although the total purchase amount may be higher than the price of the originally selected product with delivery. 

Give a present to a client friend

Often customers share purchase information with their loved ones: show off a new purchase, talk about lifehacks for online purchases. To manage this process, an online business can offer a client a gift for a friend: a discount on the first order, a free additional service, a coupon for a purchase. In this case, you can use the gift only on certain conditions.

Uber taxi service offers customers to share with a friend a special promotional code for registration. Both users receive a discount on the trip. The recipient of the code can take advantage of the discount on the first trip, and the sender only after his friend first uses the services of the service. This promotion is always valid. More friends - more discounts.

A gift to a friend is useful to all three parties: users receive a discount or additional service, online store - an additional customer.

Send a gift for purchase

A small present to the client, which he will receive along with the purchased goods, will make a pleasant impression about your company.
Sellers of the online store AliExpress often give customers some small unexpected gift: socks, postcard, stickers. Since customers leave their feedback and seller’s assessment under each product, the gift pleases the buyer and motivates not only to leave a good review on the site, but also to tell their friends and subscribers about the purchase on social networks. In addition, such a gift can somewhat mitigate the negative impression if something happened to the goods during delivery.
As long as the business is small, you can make personalized gifts for each customer. For example, insert a hand-signed card upon delivery. A unique gift always evokes positive emotions and pleases customers.

Collect reviews yourself

You can periodically ring up customers and ask their opinion about the product. So you show that you care, and you can answer the negative.
To make customers more willing to contact, offer them a discount or a gift for participating in the survey. Thus, you motivate the buyer to re-purchase.

Make a content plan

Constantly filling social networks helps to increase the number of subscribers, and hence the reach. Test the reaction of the target audience to page updates, set the optimal frequency for their perception, with which the public will not lose interest in the company.

Enter a free refund

If your store is large enough, allow customers to return unsuitable goods for free. Then customers will be more free and calm to make purchases.

The online store of a major Nike brand leaves customers the opportunity to return unsuitable clothes or shoes for free. Customers are less afraid that the purchase may not suit them.

Use situational marketing

Try not to forget about situational marketing. Posts linked to relevant and interesting events for your audience collect more likes and reposts and help increase reach. You can prepare for most of the highlights in advance. It remains only to post on time.
Aviasales responded to a Pornhub resource lock. Made an interface in the style of a blocked site. This not only amused the audience, but also got into different media, reposted on social networks - in every possible way increased the coverage of the campaign.