6 Strategies To Get Your Sales Back on Track in 2024

2023 has been a tough year for many ecommerce store owners. If it felt like an uphill battle, you’re in good company. While it may be tempting to throw up your hands and blame the economy, there ARE things you can do to adapt and take control of your sales goals.

I was recently joined by Sarah Williams, the founder of Launch Your Box and owner of the successful subscription box Framed, to delve into 6 strategies that are working NOW. As fellow entrepreneurs and friends, Sarah and I share a passion for uncovering the inner workings of businesses and discovering what works.

Read on to get the details, or click here to listen to the episode

Sarah had a rough year 2023. Due to some health and personal challenges, Sarah lost her focus and saw sales take a nosedive in April. By June she realized her business was in trouble, and in July she decided to take the reins and right the ship. Here’s how she did it.

1. Embrace the Basics

In times of uncertainty, it may be tempting to chase after the latest shiny new strategy. But Sarah attributes her success to simply getting back to basics. She focused on 3 things:

• She doubled down on what she knew was already working, which for her was live selling, increasing her live online events from once to twice weekly. This significantly boosted her weekly sales.
• She increased her email frequency, but focused on a single product in each campaign. Surprisingly, that one change boosted email revenue to 65% of her total sales.
• She re-focused her energy on building her list, creating a new opt-in offer (a free phone wallpaper download) and running cold ads to it. This brought in over 6,000 new leads within a few months.

2. Social Media Refresh: Page Like Ads and Live Engagement

Sarah knew that her social media follower count had begun to stagnate, so she re-committed to growing her audience. Sarah initiated a Page Like ad (a type of engagement ad in Meta Ads Manager) to breathe new life into her Facebook and Instagram pages. Then in her live events, she took special care to engage with her new followers–personally welcoming them–which fostered a sense of connection that spilled over to her email campaigns. Since her social audience recognized and liked her, they were much more likely to open her emails.

3. Brand Video

Sarah shared the thing that her students have found is the #1 best growth strategy to use right now: video.

A 90-second “brand video,” highlighting your products and benefits, provides a cost-effective way to grab your ideal customers’ attention and quickly build a huge audience that you can re-target later. Use it in your organic posts, your ads, your e-mails, everywhere! It’s the best way to find and engage your perfect audience.

4. Lead-Gen Quizzes

Leverage all of that new traffic for even MORE list growth by adding a quiz on your site, which can generate and convert new leads at an impressive rate.  Using the App “Shop Quiz” or similar, you can create a short list of questions that lead to an opt-in form so participants can receive their results via email. You can boost your results by running ads straight to the quiz–bringing in $.30-$.50 high-quality leads who are pre-qualified and ready to buy.

5. Amp Up The Email Automation

Sarah emphasizes the importance of personalized experiences through email automations (targeted email flows that are triggered by user actions, such as quiz completions.) So for example, if you learned from your quiz that a customer is interested in skincare, you can send them an email flow featuring your skincare products. Likewise, you can create automations for customers who have bought a product that might be complementary to another. Send them an automation about the benefits of that next purchase, as those customers are likely to make a repeat purchase sooner than later. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box with your automations, use what you know about your customers and create automations to better serve them.

6. Consistency is Key

Regardless of the strategies you choose, Sarah reminds us that consistency is vital. Don’t try something once and give up when it doesn’t change the game–keep going. Your audience responds best when they know what to expect from you, so make a plan and stick to it. If it’s going live, do it on a regular basis. If it’s weekly campaigns, keep it up for several months before you measure your results.

If 2024 is your year to get your business back on track, remember–follow the data. Don’t go chasing after the new, shiny thing until you’ve looked at your numbers and identified what did and did not work. The FIRST step should be doubling down on what was successful, and THEN you can consider innovating based on those insights.

Related Links:

Check out Sarah’s Launch Your Box Podcast: https://www.launchyourboxwithsarah.com/blog/welcome-to-the-launch-your-box-podcast

Build A Massive Audience With A Brand Video: https://thesocialsalesgirls.com/build-a-massive-audience-with-a-brand-video-episode-162/

The Biggest Opportunity To Get More Sales: https://thesocialsalesgirls.com/the-biggest-opportunity-to-get-more-sales-episode-136/

The One Thing Even Smart Business Owners Continue To Get Wrong: https://thesocialsalesgirls.com/the-one-thing-even-smart-business-owners-continue-to-get-wrong-episode-174/