Today’s Discussion will be on how to increase sales with existing customers – it’s going to be a useful topic for those who are either getting started or have something set up to offer to the customers.
Did you know:
It’s easier to convince users who are already your customers?
You’re existing customers, who you ‘already’ acquired are more likely to buy something from you. It’s simply because they trust you.
Marketing and upselling to these users is simpler than acquiring new customers. Since they already trust you, they are more likely to convert and respond to your upselling and cross-selling initiatives.
Of course, customer retention cost is also lower.
In short, if you’re focusing on getting new customers – that’s great! But, you should also focus on your existing customers. You should focus on increasing your sales by offering them value.
That’s what we’re going to discuss today – how you can increase sales with existing customers.
Why Are Existing Customers So Important?
Existing customers are important for a couple of reasons:
It’s Easy to Sell to Them
Existing customers are already sold on your brand – so, it’s easier to convince them to buy something from you. As a matter of fact, studies show that you have a 60 to 70% chance of selling something to existing users.
But the chance to convert a new customer is somewhere around 5% to 20% – it’s a minimum 40% lower chance of success!
Higher Cost of Acquisition
There’s nothing wrong with acquiring new customers. As a matter of fact, if you’re good at it, there’s a good chance you’ll be more profitable!
However, some studies suggest that the cost of acquiring new customers can be 25x more expensive!
Although it’s a good practice to continuously grind and sell to more customers – sometimes, it’s more than enough to work with your existing users.
Value in the Long-term
Nurturing user connections can offer great value in the long run. Acquiring users and then maintaining relationships with them can be super beneficial for your business.
Your Voice Online
Your existing customers are your voice online. They are your advocates – if you manage to convince and maintain their trust. These folks will help grow your business.
Because Word-of-mouth is a very powerful form of marketing. And your existing customers can help create a pipeline of new customers for you!
You now know why your existing customers are important. It’s now time to talk about the tactics you can use to improve your sales.
What Strategic Tactics should You Follow for Increasing Sales with Existing Customers?
There’s a question I will answer before we begin:
Will these tactics only work for existing users?
No, not exclusively. You can mold these tactics and deploy them to acquire new customers.
1. Why is Building a Connection with Customers So Necessary?
You need to understand how your customers feel about your products and/or services.
Once a customer is on board, it doesn’t mean they will buy from you in the long term. In many cases, if you’re unable to maintain the relationships, they will be ‘one-off’ customers.
It means once they purchase something from you – that’s it. The chances of them buying from you again are very, very small.
You need to treat your customers like ‘individual’ brands. That way, they feel valued.
How can you build customer connections?
There are several things you can do to build connections with your customers. Here are a few important things to take into consideration:
- What does your customer value? You need to understand it – what do they expect from you and your brand? what type of products and services do they prefer? Social media posts and feedbacks can be a great way to learn about this.
- Be calm, quick, and empathetic. Respond to customer queries fast. Stay calm and hear them out – be empathetic and provide authentic solutions.
- Exceed expectations! Offer better value. Make the users feel that they’re getting their money’s worth.
I came across this great article on proven customer connection building strategies. You can check it out here.
Hope you find it helpful!
2. Does Your Sales Funnel Need Optimization?
Your Sales Funnel is what helps drive your business. It’s an absolute necessity, especially in the online space.
Optimizing this funnel increases the possibilities of gathering actionable leads and sales. You need to identify the steps of your funnel, when customers fall out of the funnel, segment the audience for effective targeting, and keep fine tuning the funnel.
There’s a great piece of content from Adobe. You can check it out here.
3. How to Set Up Pricing to Increase Sales with Existing Users?
Pricing is a very sensitive thing – both for existing customers and new customers. There are some considerations for sharing realistic pricing:
Calculate Product Costs: Determine the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) – that’s the first thing to do. Furthermore, you need to consider the cost of overhead and operations as well. Also, there are other factors like taxes, gateway fees, currency exchange fees, etc. for pricing considerations.
Analyze Target Market Pricing: You need to check the competitor pricing. This will give you a clear idea of how to proceed with the pricing. This also helps understand customer needs as well – how much are they willing to pay?
Select Optimal Pricing Strategy: There are different types of pricing considerations – it all boils down to what type of business you’re running and how your product placement is – value-based pricing, competitive pricing, and psychological pricing are just a few options. There are plenty you can consider.
There’s a useful little guide on pricing – Here’s the guide to setting prices for your products.
Pricing in WooCommerce: Pricing on WooCommerce will depend on the factors mentioned above. However, there are other considerations on WooCommerce like the product types, attributes, linked items, etc. You need to make sure you’re on top of these things as you release the pricing for your WooCommerce store.
Last but not the least, you need to be transparent about the pricing of your products. There’s no scope for hiding anything!
4. How Can Upselling Improve Sales Online with Existing Users?
Based on your user base, you need to consider how you’re going to upsell lucrative items to them.
Upselling is the practice of offering up pricier items to the users – things that have better specs and or services you’re trying to push to the customer.
There are different ways you can do this – here are a few tried and tested methods you can try:
Using the Spending Goal Progress Bar: The spending goal progress bar is a good way to upsell products on your WooCommerce store. One of the best tactics in this case would be to offer free shipping.
For example, you could offer “Spend $50 more to get free shipping”.
WowRevenue has a spending goal bar feature you can use to create offers like these.
Time-sensitive Offers: Time-bound offers are a great way to improve and grab extra sales. This works on both existing and new customers – simply because it creates a sense of ‘urgency’ among users.
Such offers typically work on ‘popular’ items in your store – items that are season-bound or the ones that are not typically available.
So, you can offer something like “30% Discount on Product ‘X’ is going away in the next 30 minutes”.
Generally, you have a countdown timer that can display the time counting down. This is another specialty of WowRevenue you can explore – there’s the ‘countdown timer’ facility with different types of discount offers.
Exit Intent Upselling: Exit intent upselling is a special type of discount offer that can be super useful for users looking to leave your website.
For example, you can offer a pop-up with a special offer like this: “Wait, don’t miss out on this deal – 50% OFF just for you.”
WowOptin is a great option you can explore for things like these. Exit-intent popups are super easy with WowOptin!
These are just a few things you can do. There are other well-known tactics you can use as well. For example, you can:
- Offering rewards – free shipping can be the way to go
- Offer special discounts to loyal customers
- Use discount tiers – users are likely to buy higher tiers if planned correctly
It’s all about how you can leverage offers, especially with things like related products in WordPress.
5. Can Bundle Offers Work Wonders for Improving Sales?
Product bundles are a great way to improve sales as well. You can offer tiered pricing – one of the most effective tactics to improve sales.
A bundle discount offer can be like this – “Single Product: 50, Pack of 3: $90 (Save $60)”
You can schedule such offers with WowRevenue. There are other plugins UpsellWP, SureCart, etc. that can help you with these things.
And if you’re in the Wholesale business, then WholesaleX can be a great choice for you as well.
6. Offer Free Shipping When Necessary
Free shipping can be lucrative for your existing customers – though it needs to be sensitive enough for buyers to feel welcome.
There’s a full breakdown of the pricing considerations and setup process here. It’s super simple since you can use AI for pricing calculations.
But that’s not all.
If you want, you can offer free gifts as well. This can be very popular among your users. You can follow this guide to do so.
7. Bulk Purchase Rewards: How Effective are They?
Offering discounts on bulk purchases can be beneficial to your customers. There are advantages for the store owners as well:
One, these types of discounts help to reduce unnecessary stock – particularly helpful if you’re in the seasonal business.
Two, you can make ‘quick profits’ on bulk purchases.
But, the question is, how effective is it for existing customers?
Users nowadays like to be more ‘efficient’. If a product they like is available in bulk, with a discount, chances are they would be more than happy to complete the purchase.
And if there’s a free shipping offer, then the appeal improves by at least 2X. Here’s a useful guide on offering bulk purchase shipping!
8. Do Personalized Discounts Offer Better Value?
Personalized discounts can go a long way. This helps to create:
- Build trust among your users (both old and new)
- Help move products from your store faster
- Build a user base who will spread your brand
So, offering custom discounts has its benefit, especially from recurring users. Plugins like WowOptin can help you identify these users effectively – allowing you to identify specific users and send them users via email (integrations are available).
As for wholesale users, WholesaleX allows you to share custom quotes on wholesale products using the built in messaging system.
9. Social Media Connection: Gather Insights from Users
Social Media Platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. are great platforms for gathering user insights. Based on the interactions – likes, shares, comments, and impressions, you, the owner (or manager) can get a pretty good idea about the response ‘on’ your products.
The great thing is, it’s not just for existing connections. Such platforms are a great place to get new leads for your business as well.
Though social media can be distracting at times – navigating through the bustle and getting real-world insights can be super beneficial! It’s what improves your sales online.
10. A Clean Purchasing System
A clear-cut purchasing system is enough to improve profits of your business. It’s a requirement for both new and existing customers.
If you plan on retaining customers and get new customers at the same time, your purchasing system needs to be clean and easy. Try and design it in ways that takes out the guesswork. Users should find it easy to complete purchases.
Otherwise, you may find it hard to retain your existing customers!
Other Things You can Do…
There are some other considerations you can take into account:
- Building a loyalty program and a reward system can be super useful
- Using custom discounts like mix-and-match, frequently bought together will definitely have a positive impact
- Price revision is also a consideration – down the road, based on the user feedback, you may want to revise the price of your products.
- A/B testing will be a big part of the job.
Want to Increase Sales with Existing Customers…
If you want to increase sales with existing customers, then you need to ‘act’ on these recommendations I shared today. You can work with different WooCommerce plugins if you want – it’s up to you. There are plenty of great options out there.
However, the strategies matter. It’s all about personalization and making the right decisions. Strategize, deploy, test, and redeploy – that’s the cycle you should worry about!
Have any thoughts to share? The comments section is open!
