How to Increase Sales Without Extra Marketing Costs
You don’t need to break the bank in order to increase sales.
Before I continue, I like to quickly mention that it is not enough to increase sales, each sales increase should also increase your profits. That is why small business should be very creative when it comes to marketing.
As important as marketing is to every business, small businesses don’t have much funds to invest in it. This makes it difficult or impossible for them to compete with large companies. Large corporations can afford to spend thousands of dollars for the promotion of their products. But a small business that is just starting out has many things competing for the little cash at its disposal.
However, lack of funds should not mean an end to marketing. One way a small business can increase sales with no or little marketing budget is through referrals. If you have not considered referrals as a ways to increase sales, you possibly don’t know how much sales you have been losing. It is easier to set appointment and close a sale with a referred customers. So, how can you get customer referrals in order to increase sales?
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You can increase sales through referrals by consciously taking the following steps:
Ask for it
Every small business owner has somebody he knows. These people can be your customers, friends, relations or other people you are connected with. Some of them may not need your product or service at the moment. But they may know somebody that needs it. Do you see this as an opportunity to increase sales? If actually you want to increase sales through referrals, you need to ask for it. If you don’t ask for it, it is not automatic that they will refer customers to you. This is not what you do once. You need to keep reminding them.
Give them support
If you are asking somebody to refer customers to you, then you need to arm such person with necessary information about your business. Educate them about your offerings. You can give them your business cards or brochures containing the descriptions of your services or products. By this, it will be easy for them to confidently tell others about your business.
Be referable
It is natural for people to refer somebody that is good at what he does. If you want to increase sales through customer referrals, you should be referable. Your responsibility is not limited to the customers in this case. You also have the responsibility of ensuring that you don’t disappoint the person that referred customer to you.
Offer incentives
Do you want to increase sales through referrals indeed? Then, prepare to offer incentives. If you have a good number of referrals, it can equal to hiring a sales person. After all ,if you hire a sales person, you must definitely pay him salary or commission. Apply same to those who refer customers to you. This will encourage them to do more. Please, you should know how to balance this so as not to be misunderstood. To some, it may just be an expression of kind gestures by saying ‘thank you’ as a recognition of their efforts.
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Give referrals
Do to others as you want others do to you. If you wast to increase sales through referrals, you should learn how to refer customers to other people too. Respect is reciprocal. If youu refer a customer to someone, he will be glad to refer people to you too.
With the methods above, you can be sure that you will increase sales with little efforts on your part.