When you’re trying to figure out how to grow your business, it’s really easy to get sucked into drilling down to specific tactics that “help” you generate more sales.
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You get the idea.
Just a simple search will bring you enough of this information to keep you spinning your wheels until your business collapses.
Beware the lure of BSOs (Bright Shiny Objects), or as one of my favorite marketers calls them BBSOs…
That’s not to say that the information isn’t valuable, or won’t be valuable at some point along the way…
But, particularly as you’re in the earlier growth phases, there are only 3 things you really need to be thinking about to get to the next level.
They are:
- Purchase Frequency
- Average Order Value
- Number of Customers
These are the first things that you need to increase in order to grow your e-commerce business.
And they’re simple, but the effects can be profound.
Purchase Frequency
Unless you’ve never been in business before, you’ve probably heard that it is far more expensive to acquire a customer than it is to sell to a current customer.
So it would stand to reason that one of your first goals would be to get your current customer list to buy from you again.
They already know you… If your product is good, then they also (hopefully) like and trust you!
You already have their email address, and probably a physical address as well, so talk to them!
Make them an offer.
Cross-sell a complementary product.
Get them to buy again (and again, and again).
Average Order Value
Hopefully, you know what your average order value is.
And since you do… brainstorm ways that you could increase it.
The simplest way to do this is to raise your prices.
And yes, that will result in some people complaining about it, but chances are, your price shoppers are not your best customers anyway (they never are… no matter what type of business you’re in).
Most of us tend to undersell ourselves and our products.
We just assume that people won’t pay more than we think something is worth.
But the beauty of e-commerce is that it’s extremely easy to test.
Just go into your shop and change the price.
Watch what happens.
If sales completely crater, lower it some.
However, if you continue to make sales then you’re good to go! (Remember, you need fewer sales to make the same profit at a higher price point).
Alternatively, you could offer cross-sells, package deals or some other incentive to entice your customers into buying more.
Number of Customers
And the final no-brainer way to increase sales is to have more customers.
This one is the most likely to involve spending money on stuff like paid ads (and dipping your toes into the sea of tactics!), however, this is not entirely necessary.
You can institute some kind of referral program that motivates your customers to tell their friends.
It’s likely that any incentive you provide for referrals will be cheaper than the cost of paid traffic, and more likely to convert.
And of course, the more people you have buying your product, the more money you will make.
Conclusion
That was a brief overview of the only three things you need to worry about to start growing and scaling your store.
Try to avoid the tactics unless they are directly related to one of these three areas.
And of course, email can play a tremendous role in these areas.
Contact me today to discuss the best way to work email into growing these three areas!
