Ecommerce Milestones: Top Tips and Tricks for Making Your First Sale

Building an ecommerce business is tough. You’ve got to create your product, brand it, market it, build your ecommerce website and build awareness of it. That takes a lot of work, but all of that effort won’t amount to much if you can’t make a sale.

And sales don’t usually just come out of nowhere. You have to work for them, especially that first one, which can often be the hardest one to get. That being said, it is doable. Here are some of the top tips for making that first ecommerce sale.

Get Social

Social media is popular today among almost everyone and, therefore, it’s also popular among marketers. Without a social presence, your business will be missing out on tons of potential customers.

Start out with the site that’s most relevant to your business. If your target audience is business people, make a LinkedIn account. If it’s related to arts and crafts, get a Pinterest. Facebook and Twitter are often suitable choices as well. Long story short – go where your customers are.

Optimize for Search

When people open up their Internet browsers, a search engine is often the first place to go. There are lots of search engine optimization strategies you can implement to get your site to the top of the results. These strategies include using commonly-searched keywords that are specific to your product and getting other pages to link to your site.

Connect With Influencers

Within social networks, certain people have more influence than others. This is especially evident on social media. In order to reach more people online, connect with those social influencers. Find people who frequently talk about something related to your business and reach out to them. Send them a free sample and ask them to review or tweet about your product.

Start a Blog

Starting a blog is a great way to boost your search engine rankings as well as your visibility on social media. If you write blog posts that feature content people like or find valuable, it may spread on social media or get linked to which improves your search engine rankings. You could also guest post on social influencer’s blogs to reach even more people.

Build an Email List

Although a lot of attention is given to social media, blogging and the like today, email is still relevant in marketing. People that sign up for an email list have expressed a higher level of interest in your company and, so, are more likely to become customers. Just make sure your subject line is catchy and that your emails contain strong calls to action.

Utilize Data

There is a ton of data available to us today and tapping into that information can do wonders for your marketing. Revenue intelligence, as it’s sometimes called, shows you where your product ranks on marketplaces like Amazon and eBay and can help you figure out how to price your products. Marketing and sales data can also help you learn more about your customers and which of your marketing tactics are most effective.

Show up (Offline)

Although online marketing is increasingly popular in today’s world, that doesn’t mean you have to neglect the offline world completely. Making a name for yourself in your local community is important for an online business, especially when it’s just getting off the ground. Get a booth at a local flea market or other event. You might even consider sponsoring a local event.

Pull a Stunt

A PR stunt is an old marketing tactic that works on the same principle as viral video.  Do something newsworthy, and it could launch your brand to fame and help you get that first sale (and more). Doing something outrageous, doing something generous or conducting some interesting research are all strategies that can make for successful PR stunts. Film it, and you might get a viral video out of it too.

Get Feedback

If you try all of these tactics and nothing works, just try again. First, though, get some feedback. Ask anyone who will listen for their opinions on your product, website, marketing and other aspects of your business. Once you have your feedback, make some adjustments and give it another go. Even if your strategies did work, it wouldn’t hurt to still get some feedback. There’s always room for improvement!

Starting an ecommerce business is hard, and making that first sale is often the hardest part. If you’d like some making that first transaction, try the ideas listed above and feel free to come up with your own too.