Estimated reading time: 16 minutes
When it comes to running a business, your sales should go in one of two directions either up or down.
If it’s going up “good for you” but if it’s going down, you might have to come up with a better strategy.
There are a lot of ways you can increase your sales; some are expensive and some cost you nothing.
So what is the least expensive way to increase your sales?
Well, you would be kinda skeptical if I just throw in some ideas, but I’ve got a perfect example which has proven the success. A great template for e-commerce website development.
If you’re from the Land down under you might already know the mattress company “Koala”, for those of you who have no Idea “Koala” is an e-commerce company primarily selling mattresses, based in Australia and their marketing strategy is our example today.
Why?
Because their strategy is just awesome and it could work out for you too. And also the e-commerce web design company has a huge part in its success.
How is it awesome?
Because they started off their sales in 2015 and in 12 months they’ve made $13 million. Yes, that’s how effective this strategy is.
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Impressive isn’t it?
I first heard about them from a friend of mine who is into marketing and then I’ve looked up about them and the numbers impressed me, so I broke down their strategy. Here’s how they do it!
To start off
It’s the Product itself…
See you can’t just expect people to buy your product if it’s not good. So you need to work on that.
For example, Samsung’s Note 7 which came out in 2016. it was a much-anticipated phone of the year with groundbreaking new technology, it blew away people with its specs and features but when it reached out to people it blew itself. You know what happened next.
But even if your product is great, you can’t expect people to look for you. You need to do some marketing here, to let people know that your product exists. You need to reach out.
Same in case of Koala too, their mattress offers a great value for money. They don’t make $13 million only because of the marketing strategy.
A simple google search will show you the rating and the rating is quite impressive.
No one could stop a person from buying this product with such a rating.
But if you look at the numbers on the rating, how did they do that?
To get ratings at this level, you need to follow up with the customer.
Look! reviews and ratings are a testimonial to your product and ratings are very much important when it comes to sales, I myself go to the review sections before buying a product. I’m sure I’m not the only one and ratings & reviews are there for a purpose.
Follow-up with your customer by sending e-mails to rate the purchase at regular intervals and don’t be a hassle. Send the emails or push notifications if you have an app at regular intervals.
It’s okay to miss out on a couple of customer reviews, but most of the customers to send you a feedback and a good rating if your product is a great value for money.
Make sure you don’t do this. make sure your software doesn’t mess with your customers.
Having reviews with good numbers will indeed catch a lot of eyeballs.
And remember work on your product, make it worth buying.
Deals and Offers
Offering a good discount might sound like an age-old strategy but it does work for you.
And many e-commerce websites and applications are doing a great job at this.
There are ways to provide good deals
- Discount for the first purchase
- Discount for first purchase on the mobile application
- Offer for purchases for a minimum order
- Free shipping
- Free trials and returns for a certain amount of time
You can think of more of these ideas which will certainly bring you more customers and also popularity.
What did Koala offer?
A 100$ discount on your first purchase.
Yeah, you’re greeted with a massive discount and some great interactive content to take the offer.
I love the way the website interacts with you, well more about the content later.
They came up with some great offers, a whopping 120-days of the free trial. As far as I’ve known no e-commerce website has offered more than a 30-day trial. Compared to others Koala took a huge step by offering 120 days of trial.
It doesn’t end there, they offer free shipping which is quite common and also a $100 discount on your first purchase even after their sales blew the roof.
The company is run by some good souls. They support Koala adoption; I’m talking about the real Koala’s which are an endangered species.
Making short demo videos will help a lot of customers to make quick decisions.
Okay! The things mentioned above are just the beginning of why Koala mattress is a great deal.
Which makes it a great deal is it’s after sales service.
It comes with a 10 Year warranty!
And you can buy it in easy monthly installments.
It’s Australian made, which gives the community trust in that particular region.
I’m not going to make any made in China puns here.
Marketing
There are a million ways to market your e-commerce website, but only a right strategy will get you the business
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It’s obvious that I cannot discuss all the strategies, so we will only discuss how Koala got their success through marketing.
Email marketing
Koala’s email marketing is strong and really impressive.
Once you are on their website there are many buttons offering discounts and to claim those you need to enter your e-mail ID, a great way to add a customer in your bag even if you don’t manage to sell the product on his/her first visit.
Koala’s way of offering deals was very interesting.
I’ve signed up for my email ID, to see how their email marketing worked.
A few hours after I’ve signed up they have offered me a $100 discount coupon. A click on it would help me claim the discount.
They’ve followed up with the same offer after a day.
Following up will eventually get you somewhere with most of the customers, they have added a countdown on the offer after a couple of days to claim the coupon.
Create a fun and interactive content in your emails, which would bring a smile to your customers.
After a week of subscription, I received an email with a much larger discount coupon which said to last a day.
This for me would let a lot of customers show some real interest and Koala has nailed it!
E-mail marketing can also be used for tracking the abandoned carts.
It is one of the must-have e-commerce website features.
It’s really shocking to see the number of websites not implementing the abandoned cart nurturing, it’s an easy win, it is believed that 75% of the shoppers who abandon the cart do have the intention to buy the product. And it is also proven that 70% of these can be converted into a sale with the right strategy.
And one of the main strategies is email marketing.
Registered email logins could be used to send them an attractive notification and get them to buy the abandoned products in the cart.
An email pattern like below would stimulate a customer to finish the purchase.
No! a simple “forgot something?” email would not do the job, you need to follow up several times, create a cycle and a good strategy to approach.
All you need is a software to execute your email strategy, get it ASAP.
You don’t really have to give out offers on your first follow up email, don’t make it a habit for your customers.
Social Media
Social media is one of the powerful ways to advertise your products.
Who isn’t on social media? Everyone is.
And you see a lot of ads in it which sometimes you accidentally click, and sometimes you click deliberately because it interests you.
Focus on being interesting.
I myself have bought a lot of things through an ad on social media just because if was catchy and interesting.
Koala did the same with a video they’ve made and posted it on their social media channels like Facebook and also YouTube.
A Video they have posted has 2.3 million views on Facebook itself and another million on YouTube.
35K responses.
And a lot of tagging friends which eventually helps Koala with marketing.
What a great strategy!
And I love the way they respond to social media, here’s a witty reply from Koala to a user on Facebook.
You need to apply this strategy, Most recommended and effective.
This video has spread like a wildfire, a minimum of 5% conversion rate is expected through this.
Oh BTW! one of my friends found this cool and tagged me in the video comments. Just saying!
Popular Marketing platforms
There are many other ways to market your product and some of the most effective ways are posting ads on some of the most popular websites.
Google offers Google Adwords which is the most popular choice for digital marketing experts.
Facebook Ads, other than making your product viral, you could also post ads of Koala which will be recommended to the targeted area regularly and prices are listed according to your preference.
Facebook is playing strong with the ad campaigns; it has the largest collection of viral videos after YouTube. Facebook pages like 9GAG and NTD News post some of the craziest viral videos on Facebook and I see a lot of ads being promoted while playing those videos. A click on that would redirect the user to your product page.
Other than these ads on apps like Snapchat and Instagram are also considered most effective by the Digital Marketing Gurus.
Your Website
Keep your website as simple as possible.
Simplicity should be the goal of your design and you don’t have to sacrifice the elegance to achieve it.
80% of your purchases are because of the design of your website, if you confuse them, you lose a customer. Ease of use is most important on an e-commerce website.
The goal of an e-commerce website is to make a sale without any fuss. If the customer likes something on your website he/she should be able to purchase it without any complex process, so eliminate the complex process.
Online marketing has about a minute or less to make a sale. Closing your web page or moving on to a new one is an easy task for anyone, so guys focus on your designs.
Filters and comparisons will keep the users engaged and interested to spend time on your website.
Also easy to find reviews and FAQ’s will make it easy for people to make a quicker decision.
Your eCommerce store should be a competitive advantage instead of a difficult task for the customers.
Koala’s home page is one such example of a hassle-free website.
I agree they do not have many products to showcase, but what I want you to see is the simplicity and the structure of the website.
I don’t have to navigate a lot on this website everything is readily available on the home page itself.
Yes, the screenshot does not have all the information, scroll down and you will know everything they have to offer.
Scrolling is better than clicking on to a new page.
You don’t really need a lot of pages for your e-commerce website unless you have a lot of products.
You can actually display everything you would want the customer to notice in a single scrolling page.
Content is the KING
Content is not just the text or the words, content is everything you use to convey a message to the user.
It could be the pictures, words and also videos.
Hire a creative content writer, who could play with witty sentences which will interest users to engage more with your website, Use pictures and videos to demonstrate more about your product.
Below are a couple of screenshots which show some of the most interacting questions about Koala.
And also pictures which demonstrate Koala’s comfort, its content like this which wins the heart of a customer.
Even the toughest ones!
“120 nights to fall in love” is a sentence used to convey a message to the user that, they offer a 120-day trial on these mattresses. That’s just the beginning and if you scroll through there is a lot of information that is conveyed is the best possible way!
Be Responsive
A website isn’t the only way an e-commerce store is available on, isn’t it?
We are at a stage where the smartphone usage has surpassed the desktop usage, so you need to be available on all the platforms.
I know a mobile app development is a heavy investment and it’s a difficult choice when you have just started your business. So get your website optimized so that the user could at least use a mobile version of your website for time being and later when you have some business running a mobile app should replace it.
Making your Website responsive will only get you more audience at the end of the day.
Purchase, Billing, and Checkout
A purchase should be hassle-free for the customer, keep it simple a one-click purchase is what the e-commerce community is following which is literally not a single click but it’s really short.
Add as many payment options as you can for the purchase, options like
- E-wallet payment
- Debit/Credit card payment (Option to save for future purchases)
- Cash on Delivery
- Easy EMI’s
Are just a few e-commerce payment trends you need to follow.
It may not sound important but the billing information page should have all the information that a customer needs to know. Taxes, packaging charges, and shipping charges.
It’s sad that there are many hidden charges on some of the e-commerce websites and the customer feels cheated.
Never ever go through that path, provide all the information of the charges be it taxes or add-ons like insurance or something else.
And yes be gentle on the shipping charges, Koala doesn’t really charge anything for shipping considering its price they don’t really have to.
But if your product costs less and shipping is a burden, set a base price at which you could do free shipping. It does encourage people to buy more products, saves your shipping costs and also you’re on the gains in terms of business.
Returns and after sales service
As mentioned above, Koala has really pushed the free trial or return policies really high, where other big brands are able to do this for only 30days, Koala multiplied that time period by 4 folds.
It is incredible and it might not be possible with all the products out there, but a minimum time period of 2 weeks is actually a good period to start with.
It shows how much confidence you have in your product, which also gives confidence and assurance to the customer to go for your product.
And after sales service by Koala are just as amazing as their product and marketing strategy. They provide a whopping 10-year warranty.
Who does that?
For a new company in the market, it’s a bold step, but they’ve done it.
And they provide a great service, their chat is very responsive just to their customer support numbers.
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What else can you do?
There are many platforms where you could get some attention from the people, all you have to do is be responsive and be a little creative in the things you do.
I’ve already shown you the witty replies Koala gives their customers on their Facebook page. There are other places or platforms you could be on.
Like on Twitter, I love the tweets by Koala, they are just hilarious.
You could utilize other platforms like Instagram, Quora, Reddit and much more.
Blogs
You could write blogs on topics related to products, you did not expect a mattress company would have anything to write didn’t you?
Yeah, they wrote blogs. On how the mattress would help you.
Optimize your website and apps
Optimizing your website and apps would give it a chance to come out into the limelight of search engines and app stores. Hire an SEO or ASO they would do the job for you.
Newsletters and push notifications
If you have a new product or an offer coming up and you would want to have a good start with it, newsletters by emails and push notifications on apps are a great option to notify your existing crowd.
Conclusion
A newbie with sales blowing over the roof might sound unrealistic or feels they got lucky, but from my perspective, it’s a great e-commerce company with an amazing strategy. Every step Koala has taken has something to learn and it can be done by anyone.
Koala has surely nailed it with the digital marketing strategies!
They are a great inspiration to others in the market who could not do well or someone who is interested in e-commerce, hope you’ve picked up something from here. Happy Sales!
I might not help you with all strategies but I can surely help you build your website.
NMG is a company who could do that for you, they are amazing at providing e-commerce solutions for your business ideas. Do contact them, I’m sure it will do good to you.