With these four measures, you can increase your sales in the long term.

Why high sales aren't everything

Measures to increase sales are essential for every company, regardless of whether they operate primarily in the B2B or B2C sector. All decision-makers dream of organic growth. However, experience has shown that you shouldn't entirely rely on this.

Nowadays, e-commerce offers you opportunities that were rarely available before. The numerous interactions with your customers give you a lot of data that allows you to get an extremely detailed picture of your buyers. It allows you to tailor your measures to your customers' needs like never before.

It is important to see these measures as a long-term process. Your business needs a clear direction to achieve the desired revenue growth over time. You're probably familiar with this: you've just visited an online shop, and new customer discounts are popping up. It's simple and effective - but is it sustainable?

Luring a few new customers here and there with discounts is - at best - a small part of the strategy for increasing sales. For sustainable growth, a long-term mindset that includes all relevant touchpoints is crucial. The increase in sales should always be in a healthy relationship to profit. If the measures boost sales, but cause large costs and lead to stagnating or even shrinking profits, the marketing or sales strategy must be reconsidered.

Measures to increase sales

Companies have a whole range of options to sustainably increase their sales, even in a difficult environment. The following four measures could provide you with valuable ideas to give your sales growth a long-term push.

1. Cross-Selling

For the cross-selling approach to work, it is important not to sell customers just anything. If you only offer your customers a few random products unrelated to the main product, you are not creating a unique shopping experience. A broad distinction can be made between the two methods with which you can develop the potential of cross-selling measures.

... with the help of product diversification

If you offer your customers products that directly complement the main product, this is vertical cross-selling. You need to focus on diversifying your product offering. In practice, for example, this would mean that you also offer bicycle locks in addition to bicycles. Vertical cross-selling increases the likelihood that the customer will buy more from you, so you benefit from a higher shopping cart value.

However, this measure not only serves to promote sales, it also increases customer satisfaction. Customers love being able to get everything they need in one place instead of having to add one online research to the next. This saves you time, and you don't have to register with other online shops. It's also an advantage because fewer and fewer consumers are willing to share their data with many companies.

... with the help of service offerings

The second method is horizontal cross-selling, which offers customers services that indirectly complement the main product. Since corresponding offers are often complex, it is often a good idea for companies to make them possible with the help of cooperation partners. To stick with the bicycle example, it would be worth considering offering customers an additional integrated insurance solution.

Such an offer would have a whole range of positive side effects. It represents a service promise that meets the widespread need for risk minimization and protection. Thanks to smart integration, the company can expand its touchpoints sensibly without having to incur additional costs. On the contrary, insurance companies usually rely on commission models that directly contribute to maximizing profits.

2. Upsell

Upselling is a suitable sales strategy when a company offers products and services for which there are different tariffs or finishes. It is well known, that it is more difficult to acquire new customers than to leverage existing customer relationships. Ideally, you can increase your sales by upselling at no additional cost, as the corresponding offers are part of your range of products anyway.

For sales growth through upselling to work, you must offer the customer recognizable added value. This requires that you know it exactly, for example, that you evaluate customer data precisely. If you are dealing with a satisfied existing customer, the chances are good that you will be able to convince them of a higher-priced alternative offer. Whether you offer them higher quality, more features or other advantages: many customers accept price optimization if the offer fits their needs perfectly.

3. Measures to strengthen customer loyalty

Not all measures to increase sales can be easily represented with key figures. These include customer loyalty, which can only be measured indirectly. However, sales increase tactics aimed at customer care are far from insignificant. Since you have already collected the necessary data at the early touchpoints of the customer journey, you no longer have to invest high costs in customer acquisition. What is more important is a holistic concept so that customer care can become an integral part of your marketing strategies.

The touchpoints that follow the actual purchase are crucial for customer loyalty. If you want to build and maintain long-term customer relationships, this phase of the customer journey is particularly important. Customers who feel well looked after by you will continue to enjoy your offers. Important: Personalization is key to providing your customers with relevant content. Different measures are available depending on the customer and the offer, such as loyalty programs, after-sales services, emails or even classic thank-you letters.

When it comes to customer loyalty measures, it is not only important to address the customer in the right way, but also to focus. As a rule, it is advisable to divide customers according to sales potential (for example into categories A, B or C) to focus on the customer group with the highest sales. It is clear that this group has the greatest potential for repeat purchases or upsells.

4. Automation

It doesn't necessarily have to involve sales-boosting tactics to increase sales. Another approach is to optimize company processes through automation so that fewer costs are incurred.

... of employee processes

Have you ever asked yourself how much time has to be sacrificed for everyday tasks in your company? You are probably no stranger to the experience of employees not doing much productive work for long periods. The laborious, time-consuming, error-prone and one-sided work with Excel tables is just one of countless examples. Given the many small-scale work steps, the question arises whether it could not be done better.

You should also assume that salespeople spend most of their time making focused calls and initiating sales. In reality, however, they often get lost in tasks that have nothing to do with their core competencies. Automation offers a lot of potentials to boost sales. From a strategic perspective, it could be worthwhile for you to look into this topic more intensively. Whether it's internal processes, collecting customer data or communicating with customers: In many areas, annoying work can be done smarter through automation, leaving more time for what's important.

... of marketing and sales processes

Automation can help marketers increase sales. For example, automation programs for email communications with customers are ideal. Thanks to their support, both new and existing customers can be provided with information and offers that are tailored precisely to them and thus make an important contribution to customer loyalty. A newsletter registration with a welcome voucher is also conceivable, or, for example, an email to all those who have abandoned their shopping cart. By the way: Automation also has positive effects internally, as your employees will be grateful when they no longer have to waste a large part of their time on cumbersome hard work.

Conclusion

The four measures outlined represent only a small excerpt of what is possible. In addition, different requirements apply to each company, depending, for example, on whether it is primarily active in retail or e-commerce or whether it works with business or private customers.

For your sales increase measures to work, you first and foremost need a well-developed strategy. You should focus on the important information at the respective touchpoints because they lead to the desired actions.

Ideally, you should proceed step by step without aiming to overturn your entire business processes in one fell swoop. Do you want to focus on new customers or existing customers? Questions like these will help you optimize your processes. Patience is a crucial factor because the success of the measures can usually only be assessed after some time.