Anytime you can inspire your customers, build them up or catch their interest, it can lead to sales. If you’ve been promoting your business for any length of time, you may feel a bit burned out with your marketing efforts. It takes a lot of traffic and advertising to gain just one new client. However, you can take a step away from the advertising and let it run on autopilot while you work to draw in people who truly appreciate your creative genius.
Inspiration is an elusive beast. What inspires one person might not necessarily inspire another. Fortunately, there are a few things that seem to be almost universally appealing. Try these ideas and see if they take you to new levels in your sales numbers.
1. Going Above and Beyond
One thing that can inspire potential customers is seeing how you’ve gone above and beyond for your customers. People listen to what others have to say when choosing whether to do business with a company. It starts with your customer service philosophy at the core. If you have a customer-first policy, you and your customer service people are naturally going to go above and beyond to make customers happy. Once the customer is thrilled, you can ask for a review or testimonial to include on your site.
No company can foresee every issue that might crop up, but JetBlue is on it when customers post comments on social media. See the screenshot above of a passenger posting that his flight is 20 minutes late taking off. JetBlue immediately assures him that they’ll be going soon. Though you can’t see the time of the response in the screenshot, it was almost immediate. This example shows other passengers the company cares enough to respond. While there might be issues at times, they are trying to make things right.
2. Build a Rapport With Buyers
Who would you rather buy something from — a person whom you like and have a connection with or someone standoffish? It is important for businesses to build a rapport with leads. You can do this in several ways. It starts with getting the person’s name and finding out what problem you can help them solve. From there, you can further build rapport by showing empathy for their situation, offering the information they need to make an informed decision and being honest about which option is best for them, even if that means buying the product elsewhere.
3. Insider Advice
Who doesn’t love a bit of insider advice to make your buying decision flawless? Take time to hire team members who understand buyers often like to be educated about a product before they make a purchase. This can take the form of buyer guides, a salesperson who is highly knowledgeable about all options or insider advice that shows the buyer the best course of action.
Look at how Cliffside Industries accomplishes this goal. They show a kitchen with ideas for both contemporary and modern designs. This is an insider look at how to design a kitchen, no matter your personal style or what suits your home best. The guide goes into great detail about the history of both contemporary and modern designs, what is different about the two, a look at other designers and what they’ve done, and ends with some solid advice for those wanting to design a kitchen.
4. Use the Data You Have
Take the customer data you’ve collected use it to make more targeted sales efforts. If you know Jane Smith in Dayton, Ohio, has purchased multiple blue shirts from your site, you can show her every blue shirt you have to offer the next time she visits. Another option is to show her what pairs well with blue, such as that gray scarf you have on sale today.
Segmented email campaigns are a smart way to drive more sales, too. A segmented campaign with a relevant message results in 100 percent more clicks than a non-segmented email.
5. Value-Add Content
Content is called “king” for many reasons, but one is that it can engage your site visitors and inspire them to buy the product discussed in the article. Showing the user exactly how other buyers can and are using your product allows the site visitor to consider how they might also use that product in their daily life. Content should have a purpose, and at the end of the content, you should offer a CTA to convert the reader into a customer.
Ulta is a good site to study for ideas for inspiring customers with content. They have a beauty guides area with various articles on topics related to beauty. So, if you read an article that is a step-by-step glow guide, Ulta gives advice and recommends specific products. In one article, they might have a phrase such as “try these cleaners,” then list the products and what type of skin it works for. This approach is quite effective at inspiring sales.
6. Go Social
Start a social media campaign. Ask your most loyal customers to upload photos of themselves using your product and to tag that photo with a hashtag you choose. You can then highlight these posts on your social media account. This is like a testimonial within a photograph. It not only creates social media buzz for your brand, but it gives you instant testimonials to draw upon to lead to more sales for your brand.
Get Creative
Try to think outside the box and figure out how to reach potential customers in new and interesting ways. People are bombarded with marketing messages day in and day out. If you can stand out from the advertising deluge, you stand a good change of inspiring consumers to consider your product or service. Try to look at your sales strategy as a reflection of your customers. If you were buying from yourself, what would speak to you, and how would you want to be treated?
Author
Lexie Lu is a designer and writer. She loves researching trends in the web and graphic design industry. She writes weekly on Design Roast and can be followed on Twitter @lexieludesigner.
