Driving more sales is the ultimate goal of most, if not all businesses. However, surprisingly many marketers are not developing their plan and strategy according to that goal.
A common assumption is that most traditional marketing activities will in the end produce more sales, and while there is certainly some truth in that statement, there are some tactics that work better than others in driving more sales.
Here, we will share five of those tactics, and you can implement them in developing a solid marketing plan aimed to produce more conversions.
Let us begin
1. Proper Value Proposition
Fact is, your customers are not exactly purchasing your product and/or service, but the benefits tied to what you are selling. This is where the importance of value proposition comes in. Value proposition, in essence, is how you communicate the unique values and benefits of your products and/or services to your audience. If you can convince them with your value proposition, the chance of conversion will rise significantly. So, value proposition is a statement that:- Specify the unique benefits of your products or services. In short, explaining your quantifiable value
- Clarifying how your specific product or service can solve the current problems of your audience and/or improve their quality of lives. Here, you communicate the relevancy of your product
- Presenting the unique differentiation of your product compared to your competitors’. Here, you persuade your audience to purchase from you instead of your competitors.
2. Content marketing
Although most people won’t directly convert after reading a content, you can use content marketing in various ways to maximize conversion. More often than not, people are more likely to purchase things from companies they can trust. Consistently publishing relevant, valuable content pieces is one of the most effective ways in establishing credibility. This is a concept we know as “inbound marketing”. Second, we can effectively use content marketing to educate your customers about the unique values of your products and/or services, and how they differ from your competitors’. Also, we should consider the fact that content marketing is significantly more affordable compared to other marketing channels, especially advertising. So, how can we effectively use content marketing to increase conversions? For starters, your content must have visibility, and the best way to achieve this is through SEO. Use various keyword research tools to find keywords that are relevant to your business and have enough search volumes, create content based on these keywords, and optimize it. Besides SEO, you can use social media marketing and influencer marketing among other tactics to promote your content. So, keep in mind that promoting your content is just as, if not even more important than the content development process.3. Collecting Valuable User Feedback
Your customers, at the end of the day, are the ones purchasing your product or service. So, their honest feedback is very important in evaluating your current situation and finding the right strategies. It is no secret that more often than not, we view our own brand with a tunnel vision where we don’t realize our flaws before our customers did. However, gathering customer feedback can be easier said than done, especially when you haven’t implemented the required tools and automate the process. In general, we can collect customer feedbacks from surveys and interviews, email, forms (contact us page, etc.), social media engagements, and reviews. One of the most effective ways to do it is by offering incentives, and thanks to various tools, we can automate the process. Ask your audience what they liked and what they didn’t like from your brand. Discuss your sales process: the difficulties they faced, and the number of steps they took. Also, it’s important to learn how they learned about your brand, so you can optimize that specific channel. Check out this guide by Moz on how to get more customer feedbacks.4. Videos and Podcasts
Both videos and podcasts have seen enormous increase in popularity in recent years, and we can expect them to get even bigger in the years to come. Both videos and podcasts have one obvious benefit over textual content: you can consume podcasts while driving and you can watch videos while working out on the gym or other activities. In short, they save time. Video and podcasts are very effective in encouraging conversions, with some studies even suggested that a video on the landing page can increase conversion rate by more than 80%.
Here are a few ideas on how to use audio and video contents effectively:
- In video content, put your lead capture form in the first 10 to 20% of your video length
- Tutorials highlighting the key features of your product is always effective. You can also produce behind-the-scenes content like the story behind your brand/product or a showcase of your team.
- For videos, use an interesting thumbnail. Thumbnails showing humans, especially smiling humans are generally better
- Produce contents that are comprehensive and not too long. If it’s quite long, make sure the beginning section is engaging. Aim to capture their attention within the first half-minute to a minute.
- When resources allow, send personalized video to your prospects. Personalization is extremely effective in driving more conversions.
5. Live Events
In this world where most of our marketing activities are online, offline events can be extremely effective in maximizing your sales. Live events allow you to engage with your customers physically, and in-person engagement can be extremely valuable nowadays.
You wouldn’t necessarily need to present overly-complicated events. You can simply develop events presenting things they love. For example, if you found out that the majority of your customers love dogs, you might want to consider hosting a dog festival. So, the key here is to truly understand your audience.
Event marketing can be an effective tactic to keep your presence in your customer’s mind. You might want to check out these statistics compiled by Bizzabo covering some interesting facts about event effectiveness. Here are some notable ones:
- 80% of C-level executives are planning to invest more in live events
- 80% of marketers believe that live events are extremely effective
- 63% of overall marketers are planning to invest more in offline events
- 75% of marketers believe that offline events will become even more important in the years to come
