Like most business owners, increasing sales is at the top of our goals list for the year. However, if you’re implementing the exact same strategies that you did last year, you may get the same results. It’s time to shake things up!
Increasing your online sales isn't about making a few tweaks to your website, or even about improving your SEO. It's about creating a whole new experience for your customers that makes them want to come back again and again. The best way to do that?
You can try new marketing strategies, but if you don’t know what success looks like for those marketing strategies, you’re wasting your time. Below are three metrics that you can use to improve your sales and revenue.
Quality Lead Volume
A good lead is someone who has shown an interest in your product and is ready to buy it. A quality lead is a potential customer that has already done their research and has a high likelihood of buying. The more quality leads you have, the greater your chances are of closing sales.
A quality lead is a customer who has expressed interest in your product or service. They've clicked on your website link, read through your blog, watched one of your videos—they've engaged with your brand! And this means they're much more likely to buy from you than someone who hasn't had any contact at all.
But in a world of oversaturation, How do you get people's attention when they're bombarded with so many choices?
Make sure you are entering spaces that have a surplus of potential clients that match your target profile. For Optimized Reality, I know there are tons of service-based female entrepreneurs on Instagram and TikTok and I am only interested in being a guest on podcasts that have a focus on female entrepreneurs.
Ensuring that you’re in the right spaces to attract quality leads is critical. I strongly recommend against the “spray and pray” method because it costs your time and money, only to attract people that may not be interested in what you are offering. Focus on the marketing strategies and tactics that are audience-first…. YOUR audience first.
Conversion Rate
We talk a lot about conversions in the business/entrepreneurial world, but we don’t talk enough about conversion rates and why they’re important.
Conversion rates are a key indicator of how well your business is performing. They show you how many conversions you’re getting after someone visits your site or consumes your content. Conversion rates tell you about the effectiveness of your sales funnel. They're important because they help you see where potential customers are dropping out, and when that happens, you can make changes to fix it. In a formula, conversion rates can be:
= conversions / impressions
= conversions / clicks
= conversions / site visits
If your conversion rate is low, it means that people either aren’t ready to commit to what you have to offer or aren't finding what they need or want, so they jump ship and go somewhere else. This could be due to an unclear/weak offer, poor user experience, or unqualified leads (see how important quality leads are??).
If you have a high conversion rate, then you are doing something right. However, this does not mean that you should not try to improve it even further. By looking at your conversion rate, you can find out what your customers really want and how they can be satisfied better.
Return on Investment (ROI)
It's important to understand the importance of ROI in business because it is a way to measure the success of your company.
A business that does not have a good return on investment (ROI) is destined to fail. Basically, you can't run your business without knowing how much money you're making. If you don't know how much money you're making, then how can you know if your service is valuable?
ROI gives you an idea of how much profit your business is making, which means it can help with making decisions about whether or not to expand into new markets or change business offerings in order to meet demand. It is the ratio of profit over the cost of an investment.
So if you invest $100 into something (marketing, advertising) and you make more than $100, that’s great! Your investment paid off. However, if it’s less than $100, it means that the cost of running the business is higher than what it generates in revenue. This can be caused by many factors including inefficient marketing campaigns and lack of brand awareness which leads to poor sales.
So if you're trying to decide whether or not to invest in a new marketing campaign, for example, you can compare the revenue generated by that campaign with its cost. If the gain is higher than the cost, then you know it was worth doing!
Finally
If you consistently track these three metrics – Quality Leads, ROI and Conversion Rate – you should be well on your way to increasing your sales and revenue. Of course, there are many other factors to be aware of when it comes to growing a business—but these three relate directly to who is buying your product and the revenue they’re bringing to your business.
Start tracking these three metrics today and you'll have a much better idea of where your business is headed, especially in the face of changes to your service that you're planning. Hopefully, monitoring performance will give you more confidence in your ability to generate revenue as both a company and an individual.
Comments