Business Owner Roundup: What Strategy Has Helped Increase Your Sales the Most?

Business owners try lots of different strategies to increase sales, but which ones actually work?

We asked business owners their top strategy that has helped them boost sales and revenue the most in recent months. Here’s how they responded:

Sending personalized emails to new leads

Previously, I relied almost entirely on search traffic from Google to get new customers. However, lately, I’m finding it to be much more successful to do individualized outreach to potential customers with emails that are highly tailored. How I do this: I participate and add value in multiple online communities where my customers hang out. Since I am authentically helpful to them and answer many questions, they naturally check out my site and sign up for my email list. Then I send everyone who signs up personalized emails. This personal touch is paying off. In 2022 so far, this has resulted in a 30% uptick in new customers compared to last year.

—Mike Hinckley, founder, Growth Equity Interview Guide, San Francisco

Providing delivery details

​​Thanks to labor and supplier shortages everywhere, the first question out of most customers’ mouths is: “When can I get it?” To help answer this question, we recently added delivery dates to every product page. This shows the customer exactly when they’ll get their order (guaranteed). There is something about this transparency that gives the customer the confidence to order. Since adding this simple piece of information to every page, we’ve seen our online conversion rates improve by about 13%.

—Bret Bonnet, co-founder and president, Quality Logo Products, Aurora, Illinois

Engaging through content marketing

We help owners of rare, classic, and custom 4×4 off-road vehicles sell their vehicles online. In the beginning, we just ran our business using social media posts, but last year, we launched a website and started producing five or more long-form articles and videos per week to promote different vehicles we have listed. Each article includes a full image gallery and generally about 1,000-plus words on the model’s history, details about the specific restoration or customization and the vehicle’s specs—along with a link back to the seller. This content marketing has boosted our sales by helping drive traffic to our site while enabling new advertising options that appeal to vehicle sellers.

—Brian Ellis, co-owner, Fourbie Exchange, Mount Airy, Maryland

Rolling out a special offer

The business strategy that’s helped me the most in recent months is the addition of a low-price offer that’s a perfect stepping stone to my full-price service. We include this offer on the thank-you page for the email opt-in, and it’s converting new leads into sales regularly. And those new sales, while initially low revenue, are converting into my full-priced service at a higher conversion rate than many of my other marketing initiatives.

—Rachel Lindteigen, founder and president, Etched Marketing, Phoenix

Doing A/B testing on website

The thing that’s helped the most lately for me is focusing on conversion rates and A/B testing my website to maximize them. Some simple adjustments on placements, like moving my blog to the bottom since no one outside of Google really cares about that, have doubled my income almost overnight. All business owners should know what their conversion rate is and how to increase it.

—Mark Aseltine, founder, Wine Club Reviews, El Cerrito, California

Increasing social media advertising budget

As a relatively new online boutique, we have found Facebook and Instagram are powerful tools to broadcast our mission, build awareness of our brand and acquire a new audience. However, we have also discovered that in order to effectively advertise and promote our posts on those sites, we’d have to spend several thousands of dollars per month to really compete for attention. After performing small-budget tests over several months, we increased our advertising budget on Facebook and Instagram and have seen greater traffic to our website and, in turn, more sales.

—Marialuisa Garito, founder and CEO, Affordable Chic, New York City

What strategy has helped your business increase sales the most recently? Share your insights in the comments section below!