Retail business owners are always asking themselves the same question: How can I maximize sales?
There is no magic spell that will increase your return on investment. But there are plenty of sales strategies that are proven to work. These strategies can help you connect with potential customers, and increase the success of your product.
Keep reading for ten essential sales strategies for your retail business.
1. Use Storytelling in Your Sales Strategy
Humans are storytellers. We are often enraptured by a compelling narrative. Employing storytelling in your marketing strategy is a great way to draw customers in.
This is because a good story allows your customer to become part of the narrative. They aren’t just buying a product, they are the latest chapter in a compelling story.
This is also a good way to attract new customers by word of mouth. Your customers are never going to explicitly advertise for you. But they are likely to tell their friends a good story when they get the chance.
Storytelling within marketing can be campaign-specific. You can show how someone had a problem, and how your product solved the problem. But it can also be an overarching narrative that weaves all of your marketing campaigns together.
Caffe Umbria, based in Seattle, Washington, is a good example of a company that uses storytelling in sales. On their website, customers can read of how the Bizzarri family started roasting coffee in Italy and brought that tradition to America.
Even the company’s logo tells a story. It reads, “Three generations, one tradition.” Customers love that they are supporting a family company and keeping the Italian coffee roasting tradition alive.
2. Offer Competitive Wages
If you have a retail business, you likely have employees at a storefront who sell your product for you. Often, retail employees make minimum wage.
What you will find is that retail businesses that do not offer competitive wages to their employees experience a lot of staff turnover. This is more expensive for you because you have to keep training new staff. It makes much more sense for your business to retain a higher paid, but more knowledgeable and professional employee.
Employees are brand ambassadors. Many customers will come for them, not for your product. So it’s important to create an employee culture that will attract high-quality applicants.
3. Build an Attractive Storefront
It doesn’t matter whether your business has a brick-and-mortar or is fully online. You need to create a good first impression. This is almost always a visual experience.
Make sure you have designed an inviting and interesting place for potential customers to interface with your product. It should be clear when walking by what it is that you are selling.
For online companies, make sure you build a responsive website. You want your page to look good whether people pull it up on their desktop or on their cellphone.
There are a lot of different ways to craft an inviting storefront design. So the important thing is to make sure your chosen design is on-brand. That brings us to our next point.
4. Create a Brand Culture
Building a brand culture can increase sales for small businesses and large companies alike.
Your product should fit appropriately under your brand umbrella. You aren’t just selling a thing, you are selling an experience or lifestyle. Everything that you do should be in service of this brand.
Your employee’s uniforms, your storefront decor, and even the fonts you choose for email blasts should all be crafted with your brand voice in mind.
Having a brand culture makes you easily identifiable to customers. It can also attract more potential customers within a specific niche.
5. Sell to a Growing Market
Many sales strategies encourage you to define your niche. This is good advice. Just make sure your niche audience is trending toward growth.
Capitalize on trends that have the potential to grow in popularity. A great example is working from home. More and more people who had office jobs prior to 2020 are working from home.
And many businesses are choosing to stay that way long-term. So you know that there are thousands of employees out there looking to make their home workstations more comfortable.
Can your company’s product line cater to that? Can your marketing campaigns recognize that? Weave growing trends into your sales strategy in order to maximize success.
6. Host Product Demos
Product demos, or product demonstrations, are a great way to engage potential customers. A lot of people don’t buy things simply because they aren’t sure how to use them. You can solve that problem by showing them how.
In-store demos are a great way to engage customers in real-time. But social media has made product demonstrations accessible to all. Posting videos of how to use your product makes your retail sales strategy hit home in an effective way.
7. Connect Your Retail and Marketing Teams
Too often, companies exhibit a disconnect between their retail and marketing teams. This can happen in large or small businesses. It usually manifests as the marketing team promising something that the retail team cannot deliver.
This usually rubs customers the wrong way and demonstrates a lack of coherence within your team. But there are some easy ways to solve or prevent this problem.
Whenever you introduce a new product, train your team on how to use it. Make sure everyone at the company is aware of special deals or promotions and can talk about them with ease. Involving your retail staff in your marketing campaigns is key to sales success.
8. Make Sure You Can Deliver
As stated in the last point, your business suffers when the different arms of your company don’t operate cohesively. So whenever part of your company promises something, make sure it is something your team can actually deliver.
Many businesses think overpromising makes them sound better to customers. But there is actually nothing worse than failing to meet a customer’s expectations. Small business sales will almost certainly suffer if you let even one customer down.
Make sure that whatever you promise, you can deliver it. For example, don’t run a special promotion without enough in-store stock.
9. Use Compelling Signage
Signage is a key facet of marketing that often gets overlooked. But it always pays to have a qualified designer craft signage that conveys your brand and message effectively.
It doesn’t matter whether your signage is in a retail storefront or on your website. It should be consistent and compelling. If there are images on your signs, make sure they always carry the same colours and hues.
If you use text, it should always be in the same font, and use the same tone of voice. Once again, there are a lot of compelling ways to craft a sign. The most important thing is to stay on-brand.
If you’re advertising a special detail or marketing campaign, try to convey the message clearly while using as few words as possible. People won’t stop what they are doing to read your sign. They should be able to comprehend exactly what you’re trying to convey while walking by at an average pace.
10. Include a Personal Touch
Whenever possible, connect with your customers on a personal level. In retail storefronts, this comes part and parcel with hiring good employees. An employee that always treats customers with a welcoming attitude and does well under pressure is very good for your business.
Personal touches involve getting to know customers on a first-name basis and showing interest in what they are doing.
When you can, come out from behind the counter and thank them personally for visiting your shop. Invite them to come again. More often than not, they will.
But this isn’t just a good sales strategy for in-person stores. Online retail platforms should also utilize methods of personal connection. If someone subscribes to a newsletter or email list, email them regularly and address messages to their first name.
And when they buy something, send a thank you email. Always take the time to appreciate customers who buy your product. This helps ensure that they will become returning customers.
Good Sales Strategies Will Maximize Your Success Rate
It doesn’t matter whether you are a large business with multiple storefronts or a small company that sells your product online. Implementing effective sales strategies is key to the success of your business. The above ten tips should help you increase sales and your return on investment.
For more marketing tips to boost your e-commerce sales, click here.
