How do you get a total stranger to ethically part away their hard-earned money for the exchange of your product or services online?
If you are selling online or you are planning to start optimizing the full potentials of online tools and resources for your business, one of the challenges you might face is convincing total strangers to buy from you.
It’s much easier to sell to family and friends, it’s also easier to sell to a referral from a friend or relatives. You friends and family already know you, they already know if they can trust you or not. And also, the referral your friends or relatives will likely be comfortable dealing with you because they have someone to hold responsible if things didn’t work out as anticipated.
But, if you want to scale your business online your customer base needs to exude the circle of friends and relatives and the referral they bring, you need to have a strategy to reach out to total strangers and convert them into buying customers.
When it comes to marketing online, there are different strategies to reach total strangers and start them on the journey to buying from you, actually, you can reach more people online content marketing and paid advertising.
But the challenge with selling online is not just about reaching total stranger and driving them to your sales funnel, one of the challenges you will also be facing is making your potential customers comfortable with buying from you.
You know, when it comes to selling online the environment is different compared to selling in the real world.
Even though selling online has proven to be viable than selling in the real world, which is mainly due to the opportunity we have to reach over 4.5 billion online with the help of the Internet.
But regardless this there are many things that can make it difficult to sell online, one of them is the trust factor.
When selling online you will likely be selling to people who don’t know you from origin and are not physically present to access you or your offer, this kind is challenging.
Your potential customers are not just trying to get a good deal from you, they are also worried if they can trust you and if you are competent to deliver on your claims – which might actually be the reason they got interested on your offer.
Buying from a brick and mortar store or office is much comfortable for most people because they get to be physically present to access things – product quality or service provider.
But you can’t just throw your hat on the hanger and just give up on selling online because of physical barrier, hopefully, there are some marketing strategies to increase your chances of encouraging potential customers to buy or do business with you online.
6 marketing strategies that can help you sell more online:
1. Content marketing
In a previous post, I explained in details what content marketing is all about, but for a quick glance, I will briefly explain it here.
Content marketing is simply the act of creating and distributing valuable and useful information, educative and entertaining contents for the core purpose to attract, nurture, build trust and convert strangers into buying customers.
You can tell that this post you reading right now is part of my content marketing strategy. By writing and publishing this post on my blog and indexing it on search engine like Google, I’m not only reaching out to total strangers who might be interested in selling online, I’m also showcasing my expertise when it comes to online marketing.
When a potential customer is still considering whether to buying my paid resources or not, and he or she found and read this post maybe on google or any of the social media platform I have shared it on, what do you think will be his or her impression about me?
Of course, it will prove to them that I know a thing or two about selling online and that will probably help them develop more trust in me and make them more comfortable in taking me on my offer.
You can see the whole idea of content marketing playing out here, and you can see the reasons why content is king when it comes to marketing online.
Content marketing helps to address the two major questions potential customers nurse in their mind when they are going through a buyers journey with a business online.
These questions are:
- Is this person or business competent enough to deliver on their claims?
- Can trust this person or business?
If you are hoping to encourage people to buy from you online content marketing is one marketing strategy you need to start implementing in your business online.
By putting out useful and valuable contents in your niche, it can be a blog post on your blog or post on social media platforms your ideal customers hang out on, you can reach total stranger, build trust with them and possibly convert them into buying customers for your offers.
Nothing helps potentials customers convert better than seeing a person or business that they are trying to buy from providing useful content on issues they are seeking a solution for, it helps potential customers feel relaxed knowing fully well that they are buying from someone or business that is capable of delivering on its promise, not someone or business that is just after the money of potential customers.
2. Being Reachable
Unlike selling in a brick and mortar store where potential customers can come face to face with a sales rep. to get all the information they need to make a buying decision, selling online is different.
When potential customers don’t get a responsive reach with you or your business they are unlikely going to be encouraged to buy from you online.
The feeling is that, if they don’t get to easily reach you now when they buy from you and things go wrong they might not reach you for support.
The idea of being Reachable is to reply to comments on your platforms and provide access for people to get help and all the information they need about you or your business.
3. Offer Discount
Who doesn’t like a discount? Everyone loves discounts.
It feels great to buy a product service below its regular price.
People go beyond their budget for a discounted offer, this is why top online store often use discount and discounted pricing on their store.
When you use discounting in your marketing communications it makes people feel eager to buy, it creates a sense of urgency and arose the fear of missing out FOMO.
4. Efficient delivery system
If you are selling physical products, offering free shipping can encourage people to buy from you. People tend to find a product too expensive when paying for products and delivery cost separately.
But this will greatly depend on the kind of products you are selling. When selling high priced physical products it’s best to add delivery cost to the product.
The best strategy is to charge inclusive of delivery within your state and charge below standard delivery charges outside your state to make up for the extra cost of delivering outside your region.
Also having a system that delivers orders fast and efficient can also encourage people to buy from you if you are selling digital products this is easier because you can give customers instant access to their purchase once they complete the payment process.
5. Risk reversal
Using risk reverse in your marketing communication like a money-back guarantee can encourage people to buy from you online.
Of course, you can’t offer a money-back guarantee for a product you are not sure of the value it contains. To offer a money-back guarantee for your products you need to be confident that your products can meet up to your claims.
It’s also essential to state terms and conditions if you are offering a money-back guarantee, because some potential customers may like to abuse the privilege.
But offering a money-back guarantee plus being reachable can make potential customers feel comfortable to buy from you even when they are not too sure about the value of your offer they will feel safer to part their money with you because of the options they have on getting their money back If your claims are not met.
6. After-sales support
After-sales support can be crucial to encouraging people to buy from you online.
People want to be sure that there’s someone to reach out to when they get stuck or confused in using or experiencing your offer.
Offering support in form of one to one chat or call, private group or customer care services can make people feel comfortable buying from you.
Summary
These are some of the marketing strategies that you can implement in your business to increase your chances of turning sceptic potential customers into buying customers.
The bottom line of all these strategies is that to increase your chances of selling to total strangers online you need to come from the place of value, you need to come to potential customers not to just sell your products or services, but to add value to your potential customer and with the goal of earning their trust, once they trust you they become more comfortable buying from you.
What strategies are you using to encourage people to buy from you online? Please share with us in the comments section.
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