Sales are the backbone of any business. A company’s long term sustainability depends on its sales numbers. All the functionalities like resource hiring, product development, logistics planning, warehouse planning depends on a single entity. That is sales. Without sales, there is no long run growth for any business. Many companies follow various strategies to increase revenue. In this blog, we are going to highlight top 10 ways to increase your business revenue.
Sales and revenue are two different things. But they both are closely related. Each needs its own strategy. Although both the strategies are different, but they should complement each other. If you want to grow as a business, you need to understand how sales and revenue are related & how to coordinate both the aspects to optimize your profits.
There are many external factors, on which your sales depends. Economy, market trends, competitor strategy, substitute products are few of the factors which can affect your sales. Whether you are among those affected companies or you want to boost your sales- you need to work on a certain set of strategies and most importantly you have to keep your strategies flexible which can be changed depending on the market needs. While each of your sales strategies can be implemented alone, you can also implement various strategies simultaneously to get greater results in the case of profit.
Let’s discuss Top 10 Strategies every business should follow to maximise its sales & achieve optimum profits.
Expand your Market Reach
Trust us. If you want to improve sales, you have to increase your market reach first. In this competitive business era, you can’t limit yourself to any specific geographical location or any specific group of audience. Adding new complimentary services to your existing product or service line, may add a lot of value to your brand. You can surely get the much needed attention and can increase customer base. For example: if you are running a furniture business, make the delivery and installation free. There are many businesses who has hidden cost associated, but make things transparent. You will certainly have edge over your competitors.
Many SMEs limit their sales efforts to a particular geographical area. You can’t afford to do this mistake. Don’t limit your services. A Dallas based manufacturing company was limited to a particular area, but later they found they have a huge opportunity in the nearby city as they don’t have any competitors there. After expanding their geographical reach, they increased their revenue by 3 times. The additional cost associated to expand their business to the other city was minimal as compared to the revenue they got. Never stay under the impression that the other market doesn’t have potential. You never know. At least you can give a try.
If you want to explore a new market, another strategy could be getting into a cooperative sales agreement. You can contact businesses who are into similar kind of business and try explore their market with your offerings. This is very effective while expanding your business to international market. It just matters to find the right partner. Adding a sales team with no additional cost is surely going to give your sales a boost.
Review Your Pricing Strategy
Price is one the most important factor which can influence your customers. Low price can make your service cheap, a high price can make your service overpriced. In both the cases, you won’t be able to bring new customers. Before implementing a pricing strategy, know how your customers are feeling about your product. Find out what your competitors are charging. Never fix your price, and change it according to market condition or business requirements.
Change in price sometimes does wonders. An immediate hike in price can bring more revenue and profit, if the price increase doesn’t impact the sales in a negative way. Changing prices may “shake things up,” so you should be particularly sensitive to the reaction of your customers as the new prices go into effect. If the reaction is not positive, you can make further adjustments, including a return to the old prices or give some additional benefits.
You may also consider raising your prices slowly on a regular interval. Consumers rarely react to slight price increases. While a small increase in price may not seem significant when compared to the full price, the impact of the increase in profits is magnified since the increase will flow directly to the bottom line.
Buddle your products better. Always do consider packaging complementary products/services together to boost sales. For example if someone came to develop a website for their business, you can bundle it with a first round of the SEO and SMO. There is no harm in it, it won’t cost much to your client, but certainly it will add revenue to your financial statements.
Discounts/ Offers
If you have loyal customers who purchase frequently, reward them with incentives, discounts, additional offers, etc. Since you have maximized your cash flow, there is no harm in providing few extra perks. Uber is one of the best examples. They have special offers for their regular users.
Discounts/offers, properly marketed, create a massive buying opportunity in consumers’ minds, often tempting them to purchase. The discounts can be applied to limited products, such as a single manufacturer’s brand, a limited category of online products, or all products in a store-wide sale.
A rebate is a discount offer, offering a percentage of the price in cash after the product is purchased. Rebates typically have redemption rates less than 50%, according to John Courville, professor of marketing at Harvard Business School.
Coupons are very popular nowadays. A coupon code is very familiar to those who do online purchase regularly. Traditionally it was distributed through newspapers and magazines- coupons have been an effective medium to increase your sales revenue. Daily deal websites such as Groupon and LivingSocial aggressively seek companies willing to offer their products at a discount in return for exposure to their large markets of coupon users.
Communication
This is one of the most important sales strategies every company should follow. Communicate effectively with your customers. Use various online as well as offline mediums to interact. IF you won’t communicate, someone else will do and will take your customers. Provide your customers buying ideas. Navigate them to your landing pages. Resolve every small query. Use mediums like live chat, mail, phone, social media platforms, newsletters etc. Don’t sell products, sell benefits. Remember excellent Customer Service is the best sales strategy.
The communication calendar should follow a gap between presales, during sales and post-sales. Customers not only respond to this, they really appreciate it and will feel valued and important for your company. A regular communication will acknowledge them, keep them informed, support during a project, and makes them feel part of your business.
Conduct events to educate & communicate with your existing customers on your additional service/product offerings. Do this in an informative manner and in a way that has “their best interests” at heart. Hold a “sneak preview” of your new products, services, models, etc. Hold exclusive events for your best customers. For example, an upscale luxury auto dealer might hold a wine and cheese party with a musical quartet to unveil the newest car models in front of its premium clients.
Redesign your Sales Collaterals
If you want to understand ways to increase revenue, you have to either create a need or need to give your customers a reason to buy from you. The importance of sales collaterals like brochures, flyers, presentations, pictures, videos, and websites are often ignored by business owners, even though the only purpose of the collateral is to make the sales effort easier and more effective for your sales team. To make your sales strategies up-to-date, accurate and informative you should use sales collaterals effectively. Update your website regularly. A website is the face of your business.
Review and redesign your sales materials to see whether they convey the image and message you want to present to your customers.
Develop Relations
You can only increase your sales figures if you have good relations in the market. The more number of people are there to promote your brand, the more number of sales you will get. You can collaborate with other similar businesses and grow together. All this is possible only if you have good connections and a clear market image. If you are into manufacturing of sports equipment, then you need to identify companies who are selling them and also you need to identify international players, coaches or even sports promoters who can promote our business. All these efforts together will work to increase your overall sales revenue.
Motivate your Sales Team & External Sales Partners
Your sales team could be the deciding factor for your business growth. Hire wisely. Sales don’t need any qualification. Selling is an approach, which you need to master. You can’t afford to change your sales team every time. It takes a lot of time for a new sales person or an external agency to understand your service/product. To keep your sales team’s performance intact, you need to motivate them.
Revise your incentive structure to “shake up” the sales force. Most incentive structures are developed where the salesperson receives a lower commission rate as his sales increase. If you’re using that structure, change the incentive ratio from top to bottom by making the higher commissions applicable to the greater volume of sales. This will motivate your team to work more and achieve higher numbers.
To boost the sales numbers, you can also keep any kind of sales contest, where the top performer will get a cash reward or a holiday package. This can influence them to achieve higher targets which will ultimately increase your revenue bucket.
Open every possible Payment Options
A flexible payment options can be handy at times. Don’t limit your payment options. Looking at the level of competition in the market to sustain, you need to introduce various flexible payment plans for your customers. Credit cards, debit cards, cash, EMI options, online transfers, cheques, e-money. A mobile transaction, app payment- keep all the options for your customers. Customers like options. As third party payment gateways are also doing their business by providing exciting rewards/offers to their customers, they can use that method to purchase a product from you.
Use Online Tools
Lead generation is the key to adding new sales to your business. Whether it is online or offline, generating leads is the first step. Many marketers focus solely on online tools to maximize their leads. It is important to diversify online marketing strategies in campaigns to generate a healthy number of leads. With creativity and adoption of effective lead generation strategies, companies should not just be able to lure qualified leads, but also convert them.
How to maximize sales by using online methods
A Mobile App
Many companies are already enjoying the great benefits of enterprise apps, increasing productivity levels and coming up with innovative ways to generate revenue. There are many other ways in which companies can generate additional revenue thanks to mobile apps, whether it’s by reducing their costs dramatically or creating new sources of revenue. Mobile apps are very popular among users and they love to purchase products by the use of mobile apps.
The number of people using mobile devices, smartphones and tablets to research and shop on the move continues to increase. As compared to the previous year, business utility and productivity apps posted a 143% increase in 2016. Businesses that have incorporated apps in their sales and marketing processes are reporting increased sales and improved process efficiency as well.
If you want to increase your sales, a mobile app is a must.
Our Take
If you are in business, you need to understand one thing. Not all the customers are genuine customers. Few of them will take a lot of time, energy and resources without providing any result. But never ignore them. You can identify true customers only by interacting with all of them. But, if you’re spending a lot of time in serving customers who won’t buy often, you will have a low average transaction size. Attract all the customers, but identify the loyal ones. Put all your efforts on providing excellent service to the ideal customers. They buy early, often, spend the most, spread the word, and will add value. The more ideal customers you can attract, it is better to maximize your revenue.
Many business pundits claim that either a business can grow or decline, same as a product. But a successful business continuously puts efforts and new approaches by understanding market and listening to their customers. Sales strategies depend on these factors: market, customer, processes, products and business approach. Each of these factors are important and will drive revenue to your business. But it depends on your approach and market understanding.
Hope you like this blog. If you have any suggestions, please comment below. Apogaeis is a premium business consulting & software development company helping clients all over the world to achieve an optimum business objective. Contact Us today for a FREE CONSULTATION.
