How to Increase my Offline Sales | Is it High Time we Adapt Online Marketing
How to Increase my Offline Sales | Is it High Time we Adapt Online Marketing
Traditional businesses are now facing a stiff competition from new-age online business ventures. The increase in the use of internet and the rise in smart phone users have been considered as the two major factors influencing this. Traditional businesses which mainly thrive on offline and word-of-mouth marketing are facing the heat because of this trend. Numerous businesses which did not upgrade according to the current trends have shut doors as they were unable to increase offline sales. On the contrary, several offline businesses which catered to only a specific area have now expanded their business all over India, as well as overseas! How did that occur? With a mix of old experience and newer adaptations! Yes, it’s high time we adapt to online marketing!
What’s Online Marketing?
If you are looking to increase offline sales, then online marketing could be one of best options. In simple terms, online marketing refers to any of the channels used online to market your products – it may be using social platforms Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Quora etc, or advertising over search engines such as Google, or even connecting with your buyers using a simple app such as Whatsapp. The ultimate goal of all these online companies/websites/platforms is to increase sales of different products in the market. So you can use any or all of these channels to push adverts regarding your business and increase offline sales.
Modes of Online Marketing
Online marketing is the current trend and one needs to quickly join the bandwagon as getting online will definitely increase offline sales. There are several modes of online marketing
- Making your presence felt with a website
- Increasing the page visits by engaging online users
- Understanding customer needs through online surveys
- Improving your credibility through customer rating
- Commit to service through online customer support
- Reach a wider audience through online advertising
Lets know how these modes of online marketing can help increase offline sales.
Website for Online Marketing
Having a website is one of the first step to increase offline sales and having an online store is an added advantage. With an online store you can expect the business to multiply in a much higher rate compared to offline stores. Nevertheless, you can still increase offline sales with just a simple website too! People now tend to check out for a shop/business over the internet before actually visiting the shop/ business premises. Hence, having a website is an important step in online marketing.
Engaging Online Users
While having a website is the first step, drawing online users to your website is the next step to increase offline sales. People love to browse the internet for more information. Hence, creating online content in the form of blogs, having a social media handle such as Twitter, and setting up a community page on Facebook, etc can help in engaging online users. Being active on these platforms and responding to customer queries regarding your products can help increase the awareness about your brand/shop/business.
Online Surveys for Understanding Needs
Being online can also help you understand customer needs and expectations. Conducting online surveys is one of the best methods to reach a wider audience within a short duration. Also, it cuts cost on printed forms, and time spent on analyzing results and understanding trends. With the availability of numerous online survey portals, it is easy to create online surveys and much more easier to understand or evaluate the outcomes. You can then make changes to your business to increase offline sales. Often, subtle hints become the stepping stones to a grand success.
Online Customer Rating
With a wide number of online stores offering innumerable amount of products, it can be confusing for the buyer to decide. Ratings and reviews come handy in such situations. A large fraction of the online buyers leave feedback for the products or services used. This helps others decide not only about the quality of the products, but also the credibility of the business. This is also considered as a form of online marketing to increase offline sales. Higher credibility would mean better walk-ins; and ones who walk-in based on reviews would be more confident about your product (and thereby higher chances of buying your product) than those who haven’t read your reviews.
Online Customer Support
Another important aspect of online marketing to increase offline sales is customer support. Your website and social channels should have the option to connect with you or your support team to address customer queries and solutions. Answering queries at the right time not only helps the buyer decide about the product to buy, but also helps them in making the right choice. It can also help save time in your offline sale as the buyer would know what he/she exactly wants while stepping-in to your store.
Online Advertising
Online advertising is an essential part of online marketing. Advertising can be direct or indirect. Direct advertising involves putting up paid advertisements over different social channels such as Google, Facebook, etc, while indirect advertisements can be initiated through social influencers. There are several individuals who have a large number of online followers. Providing them with samples of your products or inviting them over to your business/shop and asking them to publicise it on their page can help you get more customers. Paid advertisements in social media can now be targeted towards a specific population and hence increase offline sales in a better manner compared to traditional advertising.
The best part of online marketing is that all the above mentioned modes of online marketing can be carried out at the comfort of your home/shop/business establishment. With the number of internet users on the rise and a proportional increase in online stores, it has become highly important for offline businesses to engage the online population to increase offline sales. In contrary to the traditional mode of business where buyers would be confident only after physically spending some time at your store, they now spend more time reading reviews about a business before actually walking-in. Hence, it can be wisely said that it’s high time that we adapt to online marketing to increase offline sales.
