Whether you’re managing a dealership facing inventory lows or launching a new business in an already crowded marketplace, when you need to increase sales, it’s easy to look at a common tactic to boost your numbers — slashing your prices.
However, lowering the price tags on your goods or services is often not the ideal strategy for long-term growth. A race to the bottom of the barrel can actually hurt your brand image, leading consumers to believe that you’re selling an inferior product or service. Not only that, but it’s a strategy that is hard to sustain long term as you decrease the profit margins of every sale.
Ultimately, you want customers to choose your business not because you’re offering a better deal than your competition, but because they perceive a higher value from your company. In some cases, your prices might actually be lower than the competition. In other situations, they might be higher. But regardless, a loyal customer base will return to you again and again, without requiring you to constantly cycle through price-focused sales strategies.
Today, we’ll take a look at how you can increase your sales without lowering your price tags, creating a sustainable approach to sales growth.
1. Improve Your Marketing Accuracy
Too often, the tactic of lowering prices on products and services is used to help boost a specific marketing campaign. While offering a discounted price might temporarily boost sales for a marketing campaign, it can wind up being a costly approach.
Instead, it’s important to focus on improving the accuracy of your marketing campaign. For example, simply lowering your prices might tip some deal-driven customers to your business, but it won’t help you create loyal customers that are willing to spend money with your business on a long-term basis.
Before you turn to a price strategy to drive improvements on your marketing campaigns, look into the following:
- How accurate are your customer segments? Make sure that your marketing campaign is targeting a specific set of customers that are most likely to convert to a sale. You can waste a lot of money when you use too broad a customer list for a specific marketing campaign.
- How up-to-date is your customer data? If you’re running marketing campaigns with a poor data set, it won’t make a difference in terms of the quality of your offer. You won’t be reaching your customers. Be sure to periodically cleanse your data, ensuring that the contact information is still up to date.
- How targeted is your messaging? Clear messaging designed to speak to a specific audience segment will perform far better than vague, broad messaging. Make sure that your messaging aligns across the entirety of the campaign, from Google Display ads to social media posts.
- How clear is your call to action? Make sure that when you spend money on a marketing campaign, you have a clear action for your customers to take. Additionally, ensure that the path from seeing an ad to taking that action is simple and easy to follow.
2. Build a Superior Online Experience
According to Statista, in 2021, more than 2.14 billion people were projected to use the internet to purchase goods and services. This is up from 2016, when there were only 1.66 billion online buyers. This dramatic increase in a matter of only five years is a sign of what the future of sales will look like.
With more and more consumers relying on the internet to make purchasing decisions, building a superior online experience is one of the best ways to outpace your competition. When you make it easy to find product and service information online and create a purchase flow geared toward your specific customers’ preferences, you can boost sales without ever dropping your price tags.
For example, if you’re a car dealership looking to funnel your competitor’s customers to your store, rather than offering a flash sale on inventory, invest in building an online experience that is more engaging than the competition. This might include designing a custom digital showroom, building out a robust amount of vehicle information that can be easily searched and accessed online, and even offering a simple way for interested parties to chat with your sales team from the comfort of home.
Today, consumers expect to be able to purchase almost anything online. Increasing sales means capturing those customers around the clock via their mobile devices and computers.
3. Lead in Customer Service
Increasing sales is all about increasing revenue, and brands that provide superior customer service have been shown to bring in 5.7 times more revenue than their competition. Not only that, but 73% of consumers report that a positive customer experience is a key influence in dictating where their brand loyalty lies.
Additionally, the average American consumer is willing to spend 17% more on a purchase if a company has a reputation for superior customer service.
As a global leader in online sales, Amazon is a prime example of how customer service can build a brand. From the get-go, Amazon’s focus was on being a customer-centric business. They have made it easy for customers to quickly make purchases, return items, process refunds, and resolve issues, all from a quick online chat.
For brands looking to increase sales rather than focusing on price tags, it’s much wiser to consider the quality of your customer service. Look for areas where you can provide an experience that is superior to the competition.
Key questions to consider as you aim to improve your customer service include the following:
- How easy is it for a customer to reach your team?
- How quickly are issues resolved?
- How satisfied are your customers with your service?
- How well connected is your customer data across channels?
4. Build a Recognizable Brand
Nearly 60% of shoppers state that they would rather purchase a new product from a brand they are familiar with. Additionally, around 21% of customers make a product purchasing decision because it was offered by a brand they like.
While there are consumers who simply shop based on price points, some of the best, most lucrative long-term customers are those who are brand loyal.
Building a recognizable and trusted brand is key to boosting your long-term sales numbers without requiring you to degrade your pricing structure.
But, building a brand takes time. It starts with ensuring that you have a brand identity. From creating a memorable logo to establishing your brand’s voice, make sure that you begin by establishing what your brand is.
From here, building your brand involves creating awareness of your brand in your specific market segment and reinforcing that brand every time a customer makes a purchase.
Finally, it’s all about building trust. You want to build a brand that customers not only recognize but associate with quality and a positive overall experience.
Read More: 7 Easy Ways to Improve Your Dealership’s Brand Image
5. Engage with Follow Up Communications
In many cases, businesses turn to price wars as their solution to improving conversion rates. However, the price of your product or service might not be the reason why a customer didn’t complete a purchase. Simply barraging them with discounts might not be the solution to the issue.
Instead, learn to engage with customers via follow-up communications when they don’t convert into a sale. This can help you in a few ways.
- You might have initially reached out to a customer when they were early in the purchasing cycle. If they were simply gathering research and information, they might not have been ready to complete their purchase then. By continuing to follow up with customers, you can keep your brand top of mind as they reach the later stages of the purchasing cycle.
- You have the opportunity to showcase your brand’s unique value add. For example, if a customer clicked through to view your product but did not make a final purchase, rather than targeting them with a discount coupon for that product, you could use a follow-up communication to highlight something unique about your brand. Perhaps you offer a different warranty than your competition. Or maybe your business is focused on sustainability practices that would sway your audience segment. Follow-up communications give you the perfect chance to highlight what makes your brand stand out.
- Your sales team might be able to close the deal with a personal touch. Even though consumers are becoming comfortable gathering product and service information online and even completing those purchases online, that doesn’t mean they don’t still appreciate a personal touch during the sales process. Following up via text, phone, or email can allow your sales team to build a relationship with potential customers.
6. Create a Robust Content Strategy
One of the best ways to keep your brand top of mind is to ensure that customers return to your website, engage with your social media channels, and read your emails. To do this effectively, you need to create content that is meaningful and provides ongoing value to your customer base.
For example, during the earliest stages of making a car purchase decision, a customer is most likely looking for information about vehicle makes and models. They are probably comparing costs during this stage, but they are also comparing vehicle features, warranties, and payment options.
If your dealership were to target this customer with a steady stream of valuable content that answers their questions, they would be more likely to turn to you for their final sale, regardless of the price tag.
From videos to blog posts to live events, offering highly targeted content can go a long way in increasing long-term sales regardless of what you sell.
Read More: How to Build a Killer Content Calendar to Reach More Customers
7. Listen to Your Customers
There is perhaps no better way to reach your customers than by simply listening to them. Your customers are a wealth of valuable information, and when you take the time to tap into that information, you have the chance to improve your sales strategy dramatically.
Listening to your customers can take a few different paths:
- Send out email surveys. Use email surveys to glean quick data. Keep these surveys short and focus on answering a few key questions, such as how satisfied they were with their recent visit to your store.
- Read their online reviews. What do your customers love about your brand? What do they hate? Use this information to capitalize on your strengths and improve upon your weaknesses. For example, if every satisfied customer talks about how helpful your sales team was, you can begin to lean into this in future marketing campaigns.
- Pick up the phone. If possible, talk to your customers one-on-one. Gather feedback from both customers who have made purchases and those who have not. What trends can you see in this data? This can help you discover what drives the majority of your sales.
Increase Sales with the Help of J&L Marketing
Too often, brands rely on price slashing and discount codes to increase their sales conversions. While these strategies might work temporarily, they don’t lead to long-term sustainable growth. Instead, savvy brands need to look for ways to increase customer loyalty, building a client base that returns to make purchases again and again.
At J&L Marketing, we can help you increase your sales without lowering price tags. From assisting you with improving your marketing accuracy to testing out new campaign strategies, our goal is to help you create a customer base that remains loyal to your brand for far more than simply the price of your product or service. Reach out today for a consultation to learn more about how we are helping brands increase their reach while lowering spend every day.
