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In this article, we will discuss six tactics that can help put immediate cash in your pocket. These aren’t long-term strategies for scaling your business, but rather quick tactics to employ for immediate revenue. You need to be strategic with the traffic sources you allow as part of your marketing mix. Although, nobody is going to blame a scrappy entrepreneur for doing whatever it takes to keep revenues humming.
Especially with investor expectations and persistent interest rate hikes, having an understanding of tactics that provide immediate revenue and cash flow can help you overcome the ongoing “tough times” in the world of ecommerce.
Here are six unconventional growth tactics for immediate ecommerce revenues:
Related: 3 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Tailor Their Ecommerce Strategy for Maximum Growth
1. Brand partnerships
Your brand has certain assets of value — including your email subscribers, social media followers, customer lists, etc. A very cost-effective strategy is to partner with like-minded entrepreneurs that sell complimentary products to yours. For instance, you can send an email to a portion of your customers sharing information with an exclusive offer from the partner brand, and they will do the same with your brand and their audience. The goal here is for both parties to get a nice revenue bump, and if both parties are happy with the performance, this can also be repeated on a monthly or quarterly basis.
2. Call your customers
Your most loyal customers may appreciate a friendly check-in from the founder of their favorite brand. This gives you an opportunity to share a glimpse of any upcoming product launches, ask for general feedback, share information on upcoming special events, etc. You can also use this time to offer the customer an exclusive offer. This can include free gifts, product samples, free gift cards, etc., as part of a larger bundle. This will give you a revenue boost and can improve repeat customers’ relationships with your brand.
3. Virtual events
Hosting virtual events — like webinars, social media live streams or virtual fashion shows and product showcases — can be an invaluable opportunity to help prospective customers alleviate any objections they have to purchasing your product. Use the opportunity to showcase your products, engage with your audience and provide exclusive offers to your attendees. Virtual events can create a sense of community, generate buzz and lead to immediate sales.
4. Retail takeovers
You may get into a little bit of trouble with this one. Pretty much, stand outside a big box store that caters to a similar audience to yours. Every customer who comes out gets a flier, a coupon and a sales pitch. If you do a proper job educating these prospective customers on your product or service and have a strong audience fit with the retail stores of focus, your conversion rate can be much higher on this channel. Having more than one person scattered across multiple stores can help. However, this would be a more desperate “mayday” tactic to employ in a “need to make payroll” type of situation.
Related: How FOMO Tactics Can Increase Ecommerce Revenue
5. Email networks
Leveraging your owned email lists to drive revenue is one tactic — leveraging the emails of others can prove to be another cost-effective way to generate revenue quickly. Some people and organizations have access to up to millions of emails — for instance, email newsletters, content publications, brand owners, etc. There are also multiple networks that allow email list owners to monetize while allowing brands to promote their products. You can work with dozens of these mailers, either directly or through networks. Each of these relationships would operate on a performance-based model, meaning, you only pay a fixed pre-determined fee for every sale generated.
6. Pre-orders
Money up-front without having to ship inventory until later is a pretty damn good deal. You’re getting an interest-free loan from your customers here. Spin up a landing page for the new product. Make sure to include ample product education and a pre-order offer. The customer is paying the price of having to wait longer to receive their product when they could potentially purchase an alternative elsewhere — giving them a discount, free gift or collectible, for example, can help incentivize customers. Ideally, you have a large enough audience of loyal customers that you can focus on for these offers, as your conversion rate may be much lower if served to a cold audience unfamiliar with your brand.
Having an understanding of the tactics available to you can be invaluable. However, there’s also value in having a level of preparedness — planning ahead, building relationships with vendors and preliminarily testing these channels for their efficacy for your unique brand. When a problem arises, you may not have weeks, but rather days to find a solution. Smaller issues that can come up leading to delays could be detrimental in these situations. You need to ensure that when the time inevitably comes, you’re nimble enough to quickly capitalize on these opportunities.
Related: 6 Ways to Quickly Improve Your Conversion Rate and Make More Money From Ecommerce
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