Increasing your small business sales

Every small business owner is looking for ways to increase their sales. An increase in sales can come from advertising more to your existing customers or it can come by attracting new customers to buy your products. Here are some tips to help you increase your small business sales:

• Market to your existing customers. Several studies have proven that over 80% of your revenue stream comes from marketing to your existing customers. Look for ways to gain their attention. Thank-you mailers, discounts, and newsletters are all great ways to market to your existing customers. It's also a great way to boost your sales, even if it is for a short time frame.
• Set some goals for your monthly sales. How much do you need to break even? How much would you like to see the company making? Are you looking to expand the business soon? Try to set some goals for every different situation so you can build your small business up and boost your sales.
• Have a plan to achieve your goals. When you set goals, it is important to be realistic. It may be easy to set some high expectations on the company, but you do need to be realistic about your goals. How will you be able to meet these expectations?
• Create a system to track your goals. If you don't track your progress, how will you know if you are staying on target and if your goals are even working?
• Conduct market research and know who you are marketing to. Market research will allow you to find out more about your target audience and their buying patterns. This is a great way to know when you need to launch marketing campaigns and what types of campaigns you should use.
• Revamp your products or their packaging. Many customers are motivated to buy products based on the packaging alone. Your packaging should convince your customers to buy your products over your competitors. Simply upgrading the packaging will give your products a fresh look and this may convince some customers to buy your products.
• Use incentives to boost your sales. Incentives are a great way to get your existing customers to refer your company to their friends, allowing you to gain a new audience to market to. The best part about incentives is that they often entice some of your customers to come back and purchase your products again. The one-time buyers may even pay attention to the incentives and they too will be convinced to shop from your company again. Use some inventory items that have been collecting dust to give away as incentives or consider another method like offering small discounts.
• Learn a little bit from Amazon.com and other online retailers that allow customers to create wish lists. This is a great way to send out email promotions and encourage the customers to buy some products they really want. Have a tracking cookie installed that will track all the things they view on your site and automatically have them appear next to the shopping cart during checkout so your customers will think twice about perhaps adding an extra product to their cart.
• Use newsletters and email notes to talk to your customers. It's important to let your customers know what the company is up to, this helps them stay in the loop and it keeps your company on their minds more. Newsletters have actually been shown to improve customer loyalty. Be careful with newsletters and email promotions as many customers will unsubscribe from your list if you take advantage of it.