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4 Top Tools for Small Businesses Just Starting Out

Finding the right tools is the best way to set your company up for growth and success. However, as a small business, it can feel like your options are limited.

Fortunately, there are plenty of world-class tools that cater to the unique needs (and budgets) of brand-new businesses. By being a savvy shopper, there’s no reason you can’t access the same features and firepower as established enterprises.

In this post, we’ll share advice on how to find the best software for your startup. We’ll then suggest four of our favorite tools for small businesses just starting out. Let’s dive in!

How to Choose the Best Tools for Your Small Business

As a new business, it’s essential that you catch the attention of potential new customers, convert them into qualified leads, and ultimately secure your first sales. To achieve all of this, you’ll need the right tools.

However, as a brand-new business, you may initially be working to a tight budget. To minimize your running costs, you might want to try free software over premium options. Some proprietary tools even offer entry-level or free plans with usage restrictions.

For example, the popular Mailchimp marketing automation platform is free for up to 2,000 contacts:

Another example is the Hootsuite social media management platform. This marketing tool has a single-user plan that’s perfect for solo entrepreneurs.

For small businesses just starting out, these plans provide access to professional tools without requiring you to pay top dollar for features you don’t currently need.

And the majority of these tools are scalable. As your business grows, you can upgrade to a more expensive plan without the added stress and worry associated with learning a new tool or migrating all of your data.

With almost 31.7 million small businesses in the U.S., it’s no surprise there are plenty of tools specifically catering to startups. To make sure you’re getting exactly the features you need, you may want to opt for tools that target smaller businesses rather than a general user base.

4 Top Tools for Small Businesses Just Starting Out

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20% of startups don’t make it to their first birthdays. Let’s give your business the best possible chance of bucking the trend!

Here are four tools that can set your brand-new venture up for success.

1. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a top tool for small businesses just starting out.

When you launch a business website, your traffic will be a flat zero. The quickest way to get off the starting block is to appeal to search engines.

With over 53% of all web traffic originating from organic search, a solid search engine optimization (SEO) strategy can take you from zero to hundreds (or even thousands) of eager customers.

Yoast SEO has everything you need to optimize your business website for those all-important search engines. Every time you add a new page or post, you can use Yoast SEO to specify the keyword(s) that you want this content to rank for:

The Yoast SEO tool for small businesses.

Yoast will then provide actionable advice on how to optimize the web page for the specified keyword or phrase. In this way, Yoast SEO can increase your chances of scoring Google’s coveted number-one spot.

Features:

Readability and SEO analysis
Tools to optimize your Google previews
Automated technical SEO improvements
Ability to boost your branding with title and meta description templating
Full control over your site’s breadcrumbs

Pricing: The plugin is free, with a premium version available.

2. Mailchimp

The number of email users is forecast to reach 4.6 billion by 2025, and those people are spending a lot of time in their inboxes.

According to Adobe, the average American spends over five hours a day checking their inboxes. This makes email marketing a powerful way to promote your startup.

You can use Mailchimp to design beautiful, engaging messages using a straightforward drag-and-drop editor. This is ideal if you don’t have access to a graphic designer or a programmer:

You can also use Mailchimp to create automated email campaigns. This can be a life-saver for busy small business owners, who may not have the time to send a personalized message to every contact.

Features:

Built-in analytics and reporting functionality
Ability to visualize your entire campaign with the marketing calendar
Pre-built automations
Over 100 email templates

Pricing: Various subscriptions are available, including a free plan that’s perfect for small businesses.

3. Google Analytics

Google Analytics provides detailed insight into the people who are visiting your website. This can be invaluable for understanding your audience and the kind of content that generates the most engagement.

Armed with this information, you can fine-tune your marketing and advertising strategies, and optimize every part of your site to drive conversions:

The top tools for small businesses include Google Analytics.

Google Analytics can also reveal how people find your site (for example, via organic search or by following a referral link). You can then focus your efforts on the channels that are proving the most lucrative.

Alternatively, you might decide that it makes more sense to focus on the channels that are currently underperforming.

Features:

Custom reports
Event tracking
Site speed report
Site search tracking
Ecommerce tracking

Pricing: The core Google Analytics platform is free. There’s also a premium Analytics 360 subscription available.

4. Buy Now Plus

Buy Now Plus is one of the top tools for small businesses.

In 2020, worldwide ecommerce sales totaled $4.28 trillion. If you want to tap into this lucrative market, you should aim for a seamless shopping experience.

Buy now buttons can be powerful tools for providing a stress-free purchasing journey and boosting your sales. Today, these simple-but-effective buttons are widely used by some of the biggest companies in the world, including Amazon:

If you want to learn from Amazon’s success, you may want to take a look at Buy Now Plus. You can use our free service to quickly and easily create an Amazon-style buy now button:

You can then deploy this button across multiple platforms. This includes all of your social media accounts and your email marketing messages.

Features:

Option to accept credit card payments from anywhere
Support for recurring payments
Fully-customizable buttons and checkout
Built on top of the Stripe payment gateway

Pricing: You can sign up for free. Note that Buy Now Plus charges a minimal 2% fee for each sale.

Conclusion

Starting a new business is never easy. However, the right tools can help you secure those all-important first customers and sales, and set your business on the path to success.

If you’re not sure where to start, let’s quickly recap our top four tools for small businesses that are just starting out:

Yoast SEO: Make sure your site is appearing in relevant search results with this free WordPress plugin.
Mailchimp: Use a popular mailing platform with a focus on automation that is perfect for the busy small business owner.
Google Analytics: Get insight into your audience and learn how to drive more people to your site with this widely-used analytics service.
Buy Now Plus: Ensure that the purchasing process feels effortless by creating buy now buttons for your website, social media accounts, and email marketing campaigns.

Do you have questions about any of the tools mentioned on this list? Let us know in the comments section below!

If you liked this post, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

How to Start Your Own Affiliate Marketing Program (In 3 Steps)

It might seem like influencers are everywhere these days. However, you're not just seeing things – working with these representatives is a popular and effective way to promote a brand.

You might be wondering how to leverage this power by starting your own affiliate marketing program.

Fortunately, the process doesn't have to be difficult. By following a few best practices and focusing on the essential elements, you can build a profitable affiliate program for your brand.

In this article, we'll cover a few reasons you might want to consider starting an affiliate marketing program. Then we'll show you how to create your own in three simple steps. Let's get to it!

Why You Might Want to Start an Affiliate Marketing Program

An affiliate marketing program is a network of influencers. You connect with respected people within your niche, and they promote your products to their followers. In return, you pay them a commission from any resulting sales.

There are many benefits to running an affiliate program. For one thing, it's a simple way to spread the word about your products. You also don't have to pay unless a sale is made, so using influencers is cost-effective.

Influencers also get a lucrative deal. On top of commissions, affiliate links can be a passive and flexible income stream.

That means these marketers can promote your content even if they've shifted to remote work. Additionally, the influencer's audience might appreciate an informed recommendation.

With advantages for all parties, it's no wonder that affiliate marketing is a booming business. Statistics show that this market is expected to reach a value of nearly $8.2 billion by 2022. That means getting started now will be an investment in your brand's future.

How to Start Your Own Affiliate Marketing Program (In 3 Steps)

We'll now use this simple guide as a kickstart for affiliate marketing. If you're interested in promoting your business with affiliate marketing, chances are you already have a website up and running.

If not, you'll need a basic WordPress site ready before you get started with the Easy Affiliate plugin, which we'll be using in this tutorial.

Step 1: Install and Activate Easy Affiliate

Starting an affiliate marketing program can be a bit complex. It can be hard to juggle links, payments, and ads.

That's why we highly recommend you use an affiliate program management product, such as Easy Affiliate, to take care of everything for you:

Easy Affiliate enables you to host your affiliate program on a WordPress site. It's a simple way to integrate referral marketing infrastructure into your page.

Some other powerful features that you'll unlock with Easy Affiliate include:

Detailed progress reports to help you perfect your approach
Email marketing to spread the word about your program
One-click payouts to make commissions easy for you and your influencers

Additionally, Easy Affiliate doesn't charge any transaction fees. Once you purchase your plan, there are no additional hidden costs. The only per-transaction fee you'll pay is to PayPal, which the plugin uses to process payments.

The program also carries a 14-day money-back guarantee, so it's safe to give it a try if you're on the fence.

First you'll want to decide on your pricing plan. The options are Basic, Plus, and Pro. We suggest starting with Basic if you're new to affiliate marketing. However, Plus and Pro might also be worth considering if you have a few sites.

After you've made your choice, download Easy Affiliate. Be sure to grab your license key as well, because you'll need it to receive crucial plugin updates. Then install and activate the plugin.

You might also want to take some time at this point to consider your strategy. Understanding the essential elements for affiliate beginners can set you up for success.

Step 2: Customize Your Main Settings

Before you get started, there are a few settings you'll want to adjust. We'll take you through the most important ones. However, you might want to thumb through Easy Affiliate's helpful articles for more information.

Let's begin with the basic settings. You can find them in your WordPress dashboard under Easy Affiliate > Settings. Your screen will differ slightly depending on your plan:

If you'd rather use the built-in setup wizard, simply scroll down to the bottom of the page to find that option. You can also add elements such as your basic business info.

If you keep scrolling, you'll find an option to decide which pages will act as your affiliate pages. These pages will generate automatically when you add Easy Affiliate. However, you can also edit them from this area.

Next up, we'll take a look at the Commissions tab:

The Easy Affiliate commissions tab under settings..

Here you'll decide on your affiliate program commission structure.

You can choose to pay out commissions as a percentage of sales or as a fixed rate. Your payout settings are also in this tab. Feel free to take your time here – payments are essential for both you and your influencers.

If you want to add integrations, check out the Ecommerce and Integrations tabs. For example, you can set up one-click PayPal functions under Ecommerce.

Finally, head over over to the Advanced tab:

The Easy Affiliate advanced settings tab.

It has several useful fields, but we'll focus on the essentials for now. We encourage you to set up email notifications to keep affiliates in the loop.

Additionally, you'll need to adjust international settings if you work on a global level.

Step 3: Prepare Resources for Your Affiliates

Finally, let's get to the heart of your program: your affiliates! Supporting your influencers is the best way to help them succeed.

On top of showing them how to do things like accept credit cards without a website, you can also provide other resources.

Remain on the page from the last step. This time, navigate to the Affiliates tab:

First up is Registration Type. This is where you'll determine whether affiliates can join automatically, will need to apply, or will need direct administrative approval.

For your first program, we recommend requiring an application. This will help you screen for the best candidates directly.

The Form Fields section enables you to decide what information you'll collect from influencers. You can also make it so that users are automatically added as affiliates – which is perfect if you've built your WordPress site solely for your program.

Finally, you can change the affiliate dashboard. We suggest that you take the time to add your brand's colors and a custom welcome message. Doing so is a simple yet essential part of any new website branding checklist.

Next up, we'll change gears. Easy Affiliate enables you to expand your brand with professional-looking links and banners. Go to Easy Affiliate > Creatives > Add New:

The creative creation screen for Easy Affiliates.

Simply fill in the fields to create your new link. If you'd like to add a visual element, choose Banner from the Type drop-down menu. You'll then see an option to upload an image.

Try to make several links and banners. This can help make your marketing varied yet consistent. Once you've made a few creative assets, you can provide them to affiliates so they can advertise your business in places such as their social media accounts.

Conclusion

Affiliate marketing spending is on the rise. That means there's a lot of potential for using influencers to advertise your company. Fortunately, starting your own affiliate marketing program can be simple with the right tools.

In this article, we showed you three steps to begin your affiliate program:

Choose and install a pricing plan from Easy Affiliate.
Customize the main settings, such as the commission structure.
Help your influencers succeed with a clear structure and dynamic assets.

Do you have any questions about starting your own affiliate marketing program? Let us know in the comments section below!

If you liked this post, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

How to Start a Membership Business (In 3 Steps)

If you sell products online, you can benefit from a strong, dedicated customer base. One of the best ways to do this is by creating your own membership site. However, you might not fully understand what that undertaking involves.

Fortunately, this format can be quite simple and accessible even to beginners. By understanding the basic format of a membership site and using the right tools, you can get your own business up and running in no time.

In this article, we’ll cover a few reasons you might want to start your own membership business. Then we’ll take you through three steps to help you begin with confidence. Let’s get started!

Why You Might Want to Start a Membership Business

A membership site is any website that has member-exclusive content. They make a profit by charging users to become members. One example of this kind of page is You Are Nourished by Lauren Gayfer:

An image of Lauren Gayfer's membership site, You Are Nourished.

Gayfer offers food-focused advice to help people live healthier lives. Her customers pay a membership fee to access the expert content and advice.

However, you can use a membership site to sell virtually any kind of content including physical items, online courses, podcasts, even a personal blog! As long as you have an audience that's interested in your content, the potential is nearly limitless.

You probably won't be surprised to know, then, that this model comes with a range of benefits. One of the major advantages is that running a membership site can enable you to be own boss and pursue your passions.

In addition to this, starting a membership business can put you in touch with other enthusiasts in your niche. Membership sites can be a great way to build an online community and network with like-minded individuals.

Finally, for business owners there's one obvious benefit: profit. Membership sites can be extremely lucrative. For example, a recent study showed that 85% of people are willing to pay for a dating membership that fits their needs. Moreover, nearly a quarter of respondents are willing to pay over $25.

For all these reasons and more, membership sites are an effective way to do what you love and make a living from it.

How to Start a Membership Business (In 3 Steps)

Starting a membership site can be a great way to make money, and it doesn't have to be complicated. The steps below should give you a general idea of how to get started.

Most importantly, you'll need a basic WordPress website set up before you begin.

Step 1: Choose a Profitable Niche

A niche is your area of focus. This is the field in which you'll offer expertise or products. With so many options available to your customers, it's a good idea to fully embrace your niche right from the beginning.

We highly recommend choosing a focus that you have a real passion for. This will make it easier to produce the large volumes of high-quality content that members may expect. However, there are other considerations as well.

It's important to consider how profitable your niche is. Even if you love something and put out stellar content, you'll need an audience that's willing to pay for it. A smart way to gauge interest is to see how many affiliate programs exist for your niche.

Moreover, it's also important to set yourself apart from competitors in your niche. Try to think of why a customer should choose your membership site over another.

For example, the popular code-learning site Codecademy offers a membership model based on computer languages. However, its landing page also emphasizes how the service will help users with the learning process:

The Codecademy membership site home page.

Codecademy also offers value in terms of user growth. This service offers multiple different coding languages. So, a user doesn't have to find a new membership site once they complete a course.

Also, consider going with a niche that is fairly broad and can be easily scaled up. Doing so may provide opportunities for business growth and increased profits in the future.

Step 2: Establish Your Membership Plans

Once you've chosen your niche, you can start thinking about your membership offerings. Most membership sites offer several pricing plans in different tiers. This system gives your audience the option to pay more for additional content.

It can also be helpful if your niche is skill-based. This is because you'll be able to target different people based on their expertise.

Alternatively, you might create tiers based on how long users will gain access to your content. The piano learning program Pianu demonstrates this approach with its pricing plans:

Pricing tiers for the membership site Pianu.

Multiple membership plans also enable you to cross-sell and upsell. As long as you don't overwhelm your audience, more tiers can mean more profit potential.

Nevertheless, a freemium model can be equally powerful. With a freemium site, you provide some of your content free of charge. Other content is placed behind a paywall.

Free content can give interested customers an idea of what your membership site is like. If you're not ready for multiple pricing plans, consider offering only one that includes a freemium element.

However you decide to organize your plans, the most important part is also the hardest: setting a price. The aim is to strike a balance between good value and healthy profits, which isn't always easy. Try keeping the anchoring effect in mind to find the perfect balance.

Step 3: Install and Set Up MemberPress

While our Buy Now Plus tool can help you accept online payments without a dedicated page, you'll also want to download a tool that can help you to set up your site for members. Fortunately, there's a powerful WordPress plugin that makes this easy – MemberPress:

MemberPress is the all-in-one solution for starting your membership site business. You'll have access to all the infrastructure you need, including:

Fine-grained control over who has access to what content
The ability to sell everything from online courses to digital downloads
A long list of integrations to help you leverage your favorite tools

MemberPress is also user-friendly. There's no need to worry if you're not a tech whiz – that won't stop you from starting an excellent membership site business.

First, you'll need to choose your pricing plan. Each option has different features and limitations, so we recommend you read through each one closely.

Afterward, you can download the plugin, then install and activate it on your WordPress website. When the program is ready, there are a few main steps that you may want to take care of first, such as:

Establishing a payment method
Adding restricted access rules
Creating a registration page

For more information on how to perform these tasks, we highly recommend following the MemberPress setup guide. This document can help you start your membership site business in as few as five minutes. If you need any additional help, we recommend checking out WP Tech Support for all your support needs.

Conclusion

Starting a membership site business can seem like an overwhelming task. Between the technology involved and the planning required, you might feel like it's too much to keep track of. Fortunately, you can simplify the process by taking the right approach.

In this article, we covered three steps to help you get started with a membership website:

Select a niche that is both enjoyable and profitable.
Lay out your membership plan structure.
Choose powerful software such as MemberPress to equip your website.

Do you have any questions about starting a membership site business? Let us know in the comments section below!

If you liked this post, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

4 Tips From Successful Small Business Owners

Many people dream of becoming their own boss. However, with 31.7 million small businesses in the U.S., your new venture will likely face some stiff competition.

By making smart decisions early on, you can give your business the best possible chance of finding a place in today’s crowded market.

Regardless of your entrepreneurial idea, there are several universal best practices that can set you up for success.

In this post, we’ll share four tips from successful small business owners. We’ll look at how to drive more customers to your website, reduce those sky-high cart abandonment rates, and even explore how your closest competitors can actually help your business succeed. Let’s get started!

1. Prioritize Customer Support

Customer service is the direct connection between you and your customers. Get it right, and you’ll have no problem transforming one-time buyers into loyal repeat customers.

When it comes to delivering five star customer service, speed is everything. According to research, 66% of shoppers state that valuing their time is the most important factor in customer service. In fact, when they reach out for help, 82% of consumers expect a response in ten minutes or less.

If you’re going to meet these expectations, it’s vital that you make customer service a priority. However, as a busy business owner, it may not always be feasible to respond to support requests immediately, especially if you don’t have a large customer service department.

If the ten-minutes-or-less rule feels impossible, a chatbot may be the answer. With the help of a bot, your customers will have instant access to support at any time of the day or night.

These bots can be a lifesaver for overstretched small businesses, but they also appear to be popular among consumers. According to research, over 67% of shoppers used a chatbot in 2019.

There are various WordPress chatbots to choose from, including the Tidio plugin. This popular chatbot is customizable, so you can update its User Interface (UI) to reflect your company’s branding:

Many small business owners choose to use a chatbot plugin.

Alternatively, you can create your own chatbot. This may sound complex, but there are services to help you build your bot, including the Botsify platform and HubSpot’s marketing plugin:

Self-help resources can be another way to provide around-the-clock support. Online documentation, FAQs, knowledge bases, and video tutorials are all popular self-help methods.

2. Learn From Your Customers

No matter how much time and effort you invest into your small business, there’s always room for improvement. To keep moving forward, you'll need to be willing to learn from your customers.

This may involve asking consumers for their feedback. Wherever possible, it’s smart to integrate these feedback requests into your normal workflows. For example, you might use your email automation software to request a product review every time a customer makes a purchase.

Some customer-focused tools can even request feedback automatically. For instance, it’s not uncommon for chatbots to ask the customer to rate their interaction when they try to exit the chat window. This can generate valuable information, which you can then use to improve your small business.

However, this information can be biased. Humans are subconsciously influenced by social conventions, and may tailor their feedback to align with the expected response.

For this reason, you may also want to monitor your audience using a tool such as Google Analytics. This can provide an insight into subconscious customer behavior, and how users respond to your content and campaigns:

Many small business owners use a tool such as Google Analytics.

By deploying these two techniques simultaneously, you can gain a deeper understanding of your target audience. This is essential for improving the overall customer experience and optimizing your business website.

3. Spy on Other Small Business Owners

Chances are your business has several close competitors. While these organizations may feel like the bane of your existence, they can also be a valuable learning tool.

With over 40% of revenue for most stores originating from organic traffic, it’s important to get your SEO right. You can set yourself up for SEO success by using a tool such as Keyword Explorer to discover the terms your competitors are ranking for.

You can then analyze those high-performing keywords and identify any that are relevant to your business:

By targeting these keywords, you may be able to improve your search engine rankings.

Backlinks are another valuable way to boost your traffic and secure extra sales. You can identify competitor content that has generated lots of backlinks using a tool such as Link Explorer:

Link Explorer can be a useful tool for small business owners.

This can help you pinpoint topics that generate the most buzz. If you can produce similar content to a higher standard, then you stand a good chance of earning valuable backlinks.

Once you’ve refined your SEO and content marketing strategies, it’s time to turn your attention to social media. With over 2.7 billion monthly active users, Facebook can be an effective way to reach new customers.

If you’ve created a Facebook page for your small business, you’re off to a good start. However, it’s not enough to simply post content and hope for the best. It’s also important to identify the days and times your customers are online, and the content that generates the most engagement.

You can use Facebook’s Pages to Watch to record when your competitors post, how often they post, and the subsequent engagement. You can then use this data to create a more effective social media strategy, without having to learn through trial and error.

4. Simplify the Purchasing Process

Cart abandonment rates are a serious problem for online businesses. Some industries even report a 96.88% abandonment rate! There’s also evidence to suggest that some customers may fill their baskets with no intention of completing the purchase, making it the digital equivalent of window shopping.

This is where buy now buttons come in. These simple-but-effective buttons completely eliminate the add to basket stage, and whisk the customer directly to the checkout. This gives the consumer less time to reconsider their purchase, which is great news for your conversion rates:

You can create a range of high-converting buy now buttons using our free Buy Now Plus service.

To create your first buy now button, just register for a free Buy Now Plus account. If you already a existing Stripe account, you'll be prompted to connect the two accounts in the sign up process. If you don't have Stripe yet, you can automatically create a new one during the signup process.

Then, just create your buy now first button to publish on your online store, website, or even your social media platform. One of the best things about Buy Now Plus is that you don't even have to run a website to use it!

Conclusion

Launching a new business isn’t easy, and the line between success and failure can be fine. However, with the right tools, techniques, and know-how, you can achieve start-up success.

Let’s quickly recap four tips from successful small business owners:

Prioritize customer support by using chatbots.
Learn from your customers by requesting feedback.
Spy on other small business owners by doing keyword research.
Simplify the purchasing process by using Buy Now Plus.

Do you have any questions about how to grow your small business? Let us know in the comments section below!

If you liked this post, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

How to Keep It Simple and Keep Your Customers (3 Tips)

In today’s always on, always connected world, you have more opportunities than ever to communicate with your customers. However, you also have more chances to overwhelm and even alienate your target audience.

With the typical internet user suffering from information overload, you may be able to stand out from the crowd by doing less. By stripping your marketing down to its essentials, you can help even the most overwhelmed shopper make a smart purchasing decision and inspire customer loyalty.

In this post, we’ll discuss why keeping it simple may be the key to retaining your customers. We’ll then share three tips on how to do less while achieving more. Let’s get started!

Why Keeping It Simple May Be the Key to Retaining Your Customers

When trying to appeal to today’s tech-savvy consumer, more isn’t always better. There’s a misconception that the more content you provide, the greater your chances will be of holding the customer’s attention.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that a constant stream of marketing campaigns is the only way to grow your audience. However, this may not always work.

For many shoppers, the sheer amount of online content can be completely overwhelming. If you bombard people with even more information, you may be putting them off rather than drawing them in.

With this in mind, it makes sense to focus on decision simplicity. This is where you provide your customers with just enough data to make an informed purchasing decision – and no more.

For people who are already feeling overwhelmed, this can make your business far more appealing than a competitor who is pumping out content 24/7.

How to Keep It Simple and Keep Your Customers (3 Tips)

While it’s tempting to try and wow the customer, information overload is a very real phenomenon. By taking a less-is-more approach, you can cut through all of the noise and help your audience make stress-free purchasing decisions.

Let's take a look at how to keep it simple and keep your customers, in three easy steps.

1. Personalize the Customer Experience

When you’re trying to appeal to your entire customer base, it’s easy to overwhelm the individual with irrelevant information. Instead of taking a one-size-fits-all approach, you may want to focus on delivering a personalized experience.

This can help minimize the amount of content the visitor has to deal with, which can simplify the purchasing decision.

If you want to provide a personalized shopping experience, it might make sense to offer customers a membership service. This is often essential for creating a complete record of the individual’s preferences, habits, and behavior.

All of this data is invaluable for delivering a highly personalized, highly persuasive customer experience.

There are a number of membership plugins available for WordPress, but MemberPress is leading option:

You can use this plugin to display different content depending on the shopper’s role and capabilities. This can be a quick and easy way to hide information that’s irrelevant to the individual, and prioritize the content that’s more likely to make them convert.

Meanwhile, if you’re using the popular WooCommerce ecommerce platform, there are a number of add-ons that can help you tailor your website to each user. This includes WooCommerce Customer History:

The WooCommerce History add-on can help you keep your customers.

The Customer History add-on records how each visitor browses your store, and maintains a full purchase history log. You can then use this information to strip out all the unnecessary content and create a more streamlined purchasing journey.

2. Simplify the Purchasing Journey

By reducing the number of screens the shopper has to navigate, you can reduce the amount of information they come into contact with. This is where a buy now button can be your secret weapon.

These call to action (CTA) buttons promise to simplify the purchasing journey by transporting the customer directly to the checkout page. You can quickly and easily create this button using our free Buy Now Plus service.

Simply connect Buy Now Plus to your existing Stripe account, or create a new free Stripe account right in the Buy Now Plus setup process. Then you’re ready to create a wide range of high-converting buy now buttons:

After creating a button, you can even deploy it across multiple platforms. This helps you provide a consistent and seamless experience regardless of whether the customer is making a purchase from your website, social media accounts, or marketing emails.

By providing this kind of omnichannel shopping experience, you can make the purchasing process feel effortless and intuitive across multiple platforms. This can help you improve your customer retention rates.

3. Segment Your Email Campaigns

According to Adobe’s Email Usage Study, Americans spend over five hours a day checking their emails. That’s a huge window of time where you could be promoting your products.

However, most businesses are fully aware of this opportunity, so your typical shopper is probably already drowning in marketing emails. If you add to the pressure, it’s unlikely to end well. The consumer might ignore your messages or unsubscribe from your email list.

Therefore, it’s important to minimize the number of times you contact the customer, while still using email marketing to drive conversions. The best way to achieve this tricky balancing act is by using segmentation.

A segmented email campaign is where you send targeted messages to your subscribers based on their characteristics or actions, such as their purchase histories. This enables you to replace multiple generic messages with a single email that speaks to the individual shopper’s needs.

Even if the customer is feeling swamped, highly-targeted messages can still spark a positive reaction. In fact, segmented email campaigns experience 74.53% higher click rates compared to non-segmented campaigns, and companies report a 760% increase in revenue from segmented emails.

All of the major email automation programs support segmentation. Many WordPress plugins also have built-in support for targeted emails, including the free MailPoet plugin:

The MailPoet plugin can help you send targeted emails.

MailPoet comes with an easy-to-use newsletter builder and a selection of responsive templates. It also enables you to send automatic WooCommerce emails.

For instance, you can welcome your new customers, send emails to shoppers who purchased a particular product, and reach out to those who abandoned their carts.

Conclusion

When it comes to selling your products, the customer needs just enough information to make an informed purchasing decision – and not a single word more.

While it’s tempting to try to dazzle your audience, your typical internet user is already suffering from information overload and won’t thank you for adding to it.

Let’s quickly recap how you can avoid overwhelming your customers:

Personalize the shopping experience by creating a membership site with MemberPress.
Simplify the purchasing journey by using buy now buttons with Buy Now Plus.
Segment your email campaigns by using a WordPress plugin like MailPoet.

Do you have any questions about how to keep it simple and keep your customers? Let us know in the comments section below!

If you liked this post, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

How Stripe Protects You From Fraud (5 Ways)

Enabling debit and credit card payments is one of the most effective ways to sell products online. However, it can also put your business at risk for fraudulent purchases.

Fortunately, you can use a reliable ecommerce platform like Stripe to ensure that you and your customers are safe. Stripe has many checks and balances in place that can help prevent fraud and alert you to suspicious activity.

In this guide, we'll take a closer look at Stripe and how it works with Buy Now Plus. We'll then look at five ways Stripe protects you against fraudulent payments. Let's get started!

An Introduction to Stripe

Stripe is one of the most popular ecommerce payment platforms on the market. It offers a complete suite that enables you to receive payments, send invoices, track your business analytics, and access financing:

Stripe is also very flexible, and you can use it with most application programming interfaces (APIs). It has pre-built integrations with leading ecommerce systems, so you can easily adapt it to your business' needs.

Buy Now Plus actually runs on Stripe. That means when you use it, you get access to all of the fraud protection and secure payments Stripe offers. Additionally, Buy Now Plus has a 3% flat fee for transactions and is incredibly user-friendly.

To get rolling, all you need to do is click “Start Selling” on the homepage.

When you enter the signup process, you'll get the option to login to your existing Stripe account, or you can create a new free Stripe account, all from within the BNP signup interface.

Getting back to the point at hand… online payment fraud is unfortunately common. In 2020, ecommerce businesses worldwide lost approximately $17.5 billion due to fraud. In addition, experts predict this amount will increase to more than $20 billion in 2021. Therefore, it's in the best interests of your business to choose a platform with fraud protection, like Stripe.

How Stripe Protects You From Fraud (5 Ways)

As we've seen, Stripe helps protect your business against fraudulent payments. Next, let's look at the strategies that it uses to do this.

1. Stripe Chargeback Protection

Stripe Chargeback Protection can be an essential tool for ecommerce sites. This service can protect your business if a customer issues a payment dispute:

For example, a customer may claim that you have falsely charged them or overcharged them. Whether the claim is fraudulent or not, Stripe can cover the disputed amount and any associated fees.

As a bonus, Stripe doesn't require you to submit evidence against chargeback requests. This means that you won't need to waste time or money on resolving these issues.

Stripe can thus protect your business against fraudulent claims. In turn, it can prevent you from losing money on legitimate transactions. You can add Stripe Chargeback Protection by enabling it in your Stripe Checkout.

2. Device Characteristic Signals

Stripe has an in-built fraud detection service called Radar. It uses machine learning to analyze billions of data points on payments made across the globe. By doing so, it can identify potentially fraudulent transactions:

Device characteristic signals are some of the key data that Radar analyzes. This information refers to signals that come from customers' internet browsers, screens, and mobile devices.

This device characteristic data can tell Stripe what typical browsing behavior is for users. If a transaction and its associated signals fall outside of this behavior, it could signal fraudulent activity.

Radar collects this data continually in order to improve its understanding of consumer behavior. If it notices a high-risk fraudulent purchase, it blocks it automatically. With elevated risk payments, the payment goes into a review process for further investigation.

3. Activity Indicator Signals

Stripe's Radar also analyzes activity indicator signals. This data looks at how long users spend on pages, and how long they take to complete transactions or fill out the information in forms.

For example, a bot can navigate pages a lot faster than the average person, and often inserts card details with the copy-paste function. If Stripe picks up that a potential purchase is being processed too quickly, it can identify that it is a bot and not a real person.

Like with device characteristic signals, Stripe's Radar continually collects and analyzes activity indicator data. In this way, it can identify new patterns and protect your business from fraud.

4. Card Verification Code Checks

Cards have various details that a customer must provide in order to complete a purchase. One of these is the Card Verification Code (CVC), which you can find on the back of a debit or credit card. Customers need to enter this number when they complete a transaction, as well as the card account number and expiry date.

Radar protects against fraudulent purchases by automatically denying any transactions that have the incorrect CVC. Therefore, it can stop payments made from leaked card information.

5. Address Verification Checks

Stripe's Radar also verifies the address attached to a card account. It checks the data held by the card issuer and determines if the postcode and street address are consistent with the account details.

Radar automatically denies payments that don't have the correct postcode. It can thus prevent fraudulent payments with stolen cards.

It may also block legitimate purchases where the customer has entered the address incorrectly. You can opt-in or out of this verification check by enabling or disabling it on your Stripe dashboard.

Conclusion

Stripe is one of the most secure ecommerce platforms available. It has various checks and balances to prevent fraud and notify you of suspicious purchases. Moreover, Buy Now Plus is totally powered by Stripe.

Let's quickly recap the five ways that Stripe can protect your business:

It prevents fraudulent chargebacks with Stripe Chargeback Protection.
It identifies unusual browsing behavior.
It analyzes activity indicators and identifies bots.
It runs CVC checks.
It performs address verification checks.

Do you have any questions about using Stripe with Buy Now Plus? Let us know in the comments section below!

If you liked this post, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

5 Small Businesses You Can Start for Under $200

If you're tired of working for an employer, you may be looking to start your own business. However, this can be expensive, with many small businesses costing at least $2,000 to set up. If you don't have that kind of capital, you may be looking for more affordable options.

Fortunately, there are plenty of business ventures you can explore without spending a lot of money. You can tap into your creative side, share your professional expertise, or coach other people.

By identifying your skills and strengths, you can monetize them and start generating income.

In this guide, we'll take a look at five different small businesses that you can start for under $200. We'll also outline the skills and resources you will need for each one. Let's get started!

1. Consulting

Many companies hire experts to help them with their business strategies. If you have expertise in a particular area, like finance or law, you can offer your consulting services to different companies in your industry.

For instance, Bain & Company is an international consulting firm that works with organizations in various industries, including finance, healthcare, and retail:

Homepage of a consulting company called Bain & Company

In the United States, freelance consultants make an average salary of $78,922. Therefore, if you have the skills and knowledge to offer, you could potentially set up a very profitable business.

To get started, you'll need to set up a website to promote your services. WordPress equipped with a membership plugin is a great option.

You'll also have to spend some money on a domain name and web hosting service. However, many hosting companies offer very affordable plans for first-time buyers.

2. Tutoring

Tutoring can be a lucrative business if you're qualified in a particular field. For example, you could teach a foreign language to students or professionals.

Tutors make an average of $18 per hour. However, if you have a degree you may be able to charge much more.

To get started, you can sign up with an established tutoring company, such as Tutor.com:

You could also create your own website to advertise your services. Remember that you'll need to pay for a domain name and a hosting service to keep it running.

As a tutor, you can create your own lesson plans and host your lessons online or in person. You don't need a large investment to set up this business, and you can purchase additional resources like textbooks as your company grows.

3. Freelancing

Freelancing is one of the most flexible businesses you can start. Rather than working for one company, you can deal directly with different clients and work on your own terms.

There are many freelancing options, including writing, blogging, graphic design, programming, and working as a personal assistant. You can also draw upon your skills and experience from previous jobs .

Freelancers make an average of $21 per hour. However, if you are an expert in your field, you may be able to charge much higher rates.

There are various ways to find jobs as a freelancer. For instance, you can join an established freelancing marketplace like Fiverr:

Alternatively, you could try to source your own clients through advertising and reaching out to your personal network. You might also want to set up a LinkedIn account and pitch your services to potential clients.

4. Selling eBooks and Other Digital Products

If you have writing talents and great ideas, you could make money by publishing ebooks or other digital materials. You can write in any genre, from short novels to travel guides, depending on your interests.

As the creator, you can set your own prices for your ebooks. In 2020, customers purchased more than 191 million ebooks in the United States, so there's a large market for this material:

Creating and selling ebooks doesn't have to be expensive. You can create the template for free through an application like Canva. Then you can approach publishers or use a self-publishing service like Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing.

Alternatively, you could sell your digital products on your site. We recommend using our Buy Now Plus service to add high-converting buy now buttons to your product pages:

Our program is free to use and very easy to install. Moreover, Buy Now Plus is powered by Stripe and charges a flat 3% fee on your transactions.

If you want to maximize your ebook sales on the cheap, you might want to consider setting up an affiliate program. To do this, you can use a plugin like Easy Affiliate, which helps you create a self-hosted affiliate program and manage your affiliates from a user-friendly dashboard.

5. Fitness Coaching

If you love fitness or have professional accreditation, you could create an online fitness program. For example, you could upload videos of yoga routines and workouts:

At the end of 2019, the online fitness market was worth approximately $6 million. Analysts predict it will grow in value to $59 million by 2027, so there's an opportunity to make significant profits in this industry.

An effective way to make money from your online courses is to build a fitness membership site.

With this type of site, you can upload instructional videos and customize your subscription settings so that only paid members can access this content. Additionally, you can offer a discounted or free trial period to attract new business.

Conclusion

Starting your own business doesn’t need to cost a fortune. By capitalizing on your existing skills and interests, you could quickly set up a small business and start making money.

Let's recap our main ideas for starting a business for under $200:

Offer your consulting services to other companies.
Give online lessons to students and professionals.
Freelance in your area of expertise, such as web design and photography.
Write e-books and sell them on your site, using Buy Now Plus.
Create an online fitness program and set up a membership site.

Do you have any questions about starting your own business? Let us know in the comments section below!

If you liked this post, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Join the Great Resignation (Start Your Ecommerce Business in 3 Steps)

In 2021, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a record number of resignations. You may dream of joining the great resignation, but quitting your job is never a decision to take lightly.

Fortunately, there is an industry that’s going from strength to strength. By starting your own ecommerce business in 2021, you can finally become your own boss without feeling like you’re taking a massive gamble.

In this post, we’ll look at why more people are quitting their jobs than ever before. We’ll then show you how to start your ecommerce business in three easy (and affordable) steps. Let’s get started!

An Overview of the Great Resignation (And Why You May Want to Join It)

The number of people quitting their jobs is on the rise. There are many reasons why so many employees are joining the great resignation, including burnout.

While exhaustion has always been an issue within the workforce, 67% of employees feel that burnout has worsened over the course of the pandemic. For tired and overworked employees, a change of career may seem like the perfect solution.

The seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic has inspired many people to re-evaluate their lives, including their jobs. The historic rise in resignations could signify that employees are taking actionable steps to improve their work situation.

Whatever the reasons for it, this trend shows no signs of slowing down. The job site Monster reports that 95% of US employees are currently considering a career change. If you’re one of these people, then it may be time to start your own ecommerce business.

While the pandemic forced many physical stores to close their doors, it also sparked an online shopping revolution. In 2021, over 2.14 billion people are forecast to purchase goods and services online. That’s a lot of potential customers for your new venture.

In fact, with the global population expected to reach 7.87 billion people in 2021, these figures suggest you could be promoting your online products and services to around 27% of the world’s inhabitants.

If you already run a website, you could add ecommerce functionality to your existing content. For example, if you run a successful membership site, you might consider creating a members-only store. This can be a way to monetize your audience and turn all of your hard work into profit.

Join the Great Resignation (Start Your Ecommerce Business in 3 Steps)

According to Microsoft, 41% of people plan to change jobs in 2021. If you’re eager to join them, then starting your own ecommerce business may be the answer. Here’s how to become your own boss in three easy steps.

Step 1: Find Your Niche

Running an ecommerce business offers many opportunities, but there’s also lots of competition. With more and more online stores opening every day, you may get the best results by focusing on a specific niche.

Choosing a niche immediately reduces the competition and gives you a stronger brand identity. In particular, it helps differentiate your venture from ecommerce giants such as Amazon, which already excels at being all things to all people:

By promoting products that have huge appeal to a very specific audience, you can often achieve more conversions and a higher Return On Investment (ROI). With this niche approach, you can also tailor every part of your business to speak to the deep needs of your target audience.

If you don’t already have a niche in mind, then the next step is identifying some products that you’re passionate about.

By specializing in items that you’re genuinely interested in, you can tap into an authentic drive and enthusiasm that will influence your business. For example, this passion can enhance your marketing and advertising campaigns.

While it’s a good idea to keep your business tightly focused, it’s important to find a big enough niche to generate healthy revenue.

Here, you can use tools such as Google Trends to evaluate the level of interest in the products you’re considering stocking:

The Google Trends dashboard can help you join the great resignation.

When crunching these numbers, keep in mind that you’ll want to grow your business over time. This means there should be enough interest to support your future expansion.

Step 2: Create a Business Plan

A business plan is a written document that defines what your ecommerce business is, the activities it’ll perform, and its core objectives. It also details how you’re going to achieve those aims.

By creating a business plan now, you can verify that your grand idea has the potential to be a viable ecommerce company before you start pouring time and money into it.

This document can also help you secure funding without a proven track record if you're seeking external investment.

Every business plan is different, but most documents start with an executive summary. This outlines your ecommerce business and its mission statement.

Next, you’ll detail your products and pricing, how your business benefits the customer, and your Unique Selling Point (USP). If you’re focusing on a niche, this is the place to stress that you’re offering a specialist, focused service.

This is also the perfect opportunity to demonstrate a deep understanding of your target audience and prove the demand for your products.

Even if this document is for internal use only, it’s a good idea to include a section on financial planning. This can help you budget and balance your cash flow. Otherwise, you risk negative cash flow completely derailing your operation.

3. Generate Buy Now Buttons

It’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming that your new ecommerce venture requires a website. While many successful businesses do operate an online store, this isn’t a necessity.

Designing, developing, and launching a digital shop requires a significant amount of financial investment. This includes purchasing web hosting, securing a domain name, and potentially even hiring specialist designers and developers.

If you want to minimize your running costs, then you can operate an entire ecommerce business and sell anything from anywhere, thanks to Buy Now Plus:

You can use our free online service to generate a wide range of buy now buttons. Buy Now Plus operates on top of the popular Stripe payment gateway, so you can even accept credit card payments without an online store:

The Stripe checkout can be useful tool for joining the great resignation.

After creating these buttons, you can post them to any location that accepts text, including all major social media platforms.

You can even sign up for an email automation service such as ActiveCampagn, and run email campaigns featuring your buy now buttons.

Conclusion

Quitting your job is never a decision to take lightly. However, if you’ve always dreamed of running your own ecommerce business, then now may be the perfect opportunity.

Let’s quickly recap how to launch your own ecommerce venture and join the great resignation:

Find your niche.
Create a business plan.
Generate buy now buttons, using a tool such as Buy Now Plus.

Do you have any other questions about how to start a successful ecommerce business? Let us know in the comments section below!

If you liked this post, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

4 Ways Accepting Cash Can Cost Your Business

Statistics show that modern consumers overwhelmingly prefer to pay by card, yet millions of small businesses still only accept cash. As a result, these businesses are missing out on an estimated 11.8 million customers.

For many retailers, the decision to operate on a cash-only policy is based on the belief that it will save them money. They assume it will enable them to avoid hefty card payment processing fees.

However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. On the contrary, accepting cash can actually hurt your bottom line.

In this article, we’ll reveal four ways that accepting cash can cost your business money. Then we’ll discuss how you can avoid these risks by going cashless with the help of Buy Now Plus. Let’s get started!

1. It Can Lead to Revenue Loss

According to recent research, 73% of customers said they’d leave a store without making a purchase if there were no card payment terminal and they didn’t have cash on hand. This is especially significant now, given that people are carrying less cash than they were pre-pandemic.

Not only that, but nearly half of Australians feel inconvenienced if they can’t pay by card. The upshot of this is clear: if you’re not offering a card payment option, you’re not giving your customers what they want.

This can indirectly impact your revenue, since customers who feel they’ve had a negative experience are less likely to act as brand advocates for your business. They might even leave a negative review, thus deterring other customers from doing business with you.

Even those customers who are happy to pay with cash tend to spend less when doing so, as they feel more connected to the purchase. Physically handing over cash feels a lot more “real” than just touching a piece of plastic to a payment terminal.

2. It Exposes You to Increased Security Risks

Accepting cash can expose you to additional security risks that may cost your business money. These include:

Accidental acceptance of counterfeit notes. Providing your staff with adequate training to detect and reject counterfeit notes takes time, which increases labor costs.
Internal theft. Accepting cash and holding it on your premises puts you at risk of internal theft by your team members.
Change scams. Some customers may attempt “change scams”, in which they try to confuse you or your staff into giving them more change than they’re entitled to.
Break-ins/robberies. Holding cash makes your premises a more attractive target for burglars. This doesn’t just put you and your staff in physical danger; it also exposes you to significant financial risks.

Aside from the above. you may also have to spend more money on security-related costs, such as:

Theft-prevention measures. This includes CCTV, alarms, theft prevention officers/security guards, etc.
Courier costs. Cash deposits of large amounts need to be handled securely. In many cases, this means paying a secure courier to transport it safely to the bank.
Higher insurance costs. Handling cash may increase your business' insurance premiums.

Not accepting cash payments minimizes the above risks or avoids them completely. A recent report shows that the risk of robberies decreases with the use of digital payments.

3. There Are Hidden Costs of Handling Cash

The idea that accepting cash is cheap is a myth. Many business owners think that accepting card payments is expensive. However, the reality is that handling cash costs a lot more.

Credit card processing fees typically range from 1–3%, whereas cash handling costs around 5–15%, according to research from IHL Group. These hidden costs of cash handling come from:

Higher labor costs. Labor is one of the biggest costs of handling cash. Employees must spend time giving out change, calculating floats, keeping records, and performing other banking-related tasks.
Working capital tied up in business cash floats. This could be reduced significantly if transactions were handled electronically.
Administrative errors. Humans aren’t perfect – we all make mistakes from time to time. Unfortunately, simple administrative errors can cost your business money.
Bank fees for cash deposits. Some banks charge business customers fees for large cash deposits.

These costs quickly add up. However, once again, you can avoid all of them by offering digital payment methods instead of cash.

4. It Leads to Operational Inefficiencies

Finally, accepting cash can also lead to operational inefficiencies that eat into your potential profits. For example, dealing with cash at checkout takes much longer than processing contactless transactions.

This can lead to longer lines and limit your ability to serve as many customers as possible – and fewer customers served means fewer sales.

If you don’t have enough change on-hand in your store, you might have to temporarily close the store (or at least, leave it understaffed) while you go out to get some. In the time you’re closed, you might miss out on potential sales.

How to Go Cashless Using Buy Now Buttons

Businesses can avoid the drawbacks of accepting cash by going cashless. However, if you’re a small business owner, the prospect of implementing cashless payment technology may seem a little daunting.

Don’t worry – it’s not as complicated or costly as you might think.

If you want to start accepting digital payments online, the simplest way to do so is by using Buy Now Plus to add a buy now button to your business website or social pages:

Our Buy Now Plus service makes it easy to sell your products or services anywhere on the internet through stylish buy now buttons. It offers super-low fees, and only takes a few minutes to set up.

All you have to do is sign up for free. If you already have a free Stripe account, it will be connected during the signup process automatically. And if you don't have a free Stripe account, the signup process will automatically set you up with one.

After that, you can create your buy now button and add it to any compatible platform using the provided embed code:

The 'create a new button' interface on Buy Now Plus

To start accepting card payments in-store, you'll most likely want to use a (POS) card payment terminal. There are many different POS suppliers on the market, so you'll have to shop around to find the best deal.

Most will quote you a basic rate for credit and debit card transactions. This might be a percentage of the transaction value (e.g. 2%) or a fixed rate.

Conclusion

Accepting cash might seem like a smart business move, but it can actually hurt your bottom line. Fortunately, going cashless isn’t as hard as you might think.

You can use Buy Now Plus to add buttons to your website or social pages, and start accepting payments online in minutes.

Let’s quickly recap the main ways accepting cash can cost your business money:

It can lead to revenue loss.
It exposes you to increased security risks.
There are hidden costs of handling cash.
It can lead to operational inefficiencies.

Does your business plan on going cashless this year? Let us know in the comments section below!

If you liked this post, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

4 Ways to Increase Sales That Might Surprise You

When it comes to increasing your sales, you’ll find plenty of advice online. However, the key to grabbing people’s attention is often catching them off guard. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to achieve this when everyone’s using the same techniques.

The good news is there are many ways you can get creative with your marketing, or put a fresh spin on a familiar sales technique.

By stepping outside the box, you can immediately stand out from the competition, and perhaps even secure some additional conversions in the process.

In this post, we’ll share four ways to increase sales that might surprise you. We’ll also discuss tips for implementing each of these techniques, so you can be confident that you’re getting the most out of your marketing activities. Let’s get started!

1. Monitor Your Competitors on Social Media

With over 2.7 billion monthly active users, Facebook offers an opportunity to promote your products and services to a huge audience. Creating a Facebook Business Page is a great start, but it’s not enough to simply post content and hope for the best.

To get the maximum return on investment (ROI), you should identify the days and times when your target audience is online. You may also want to look at the type of content that your audience responds most positively to.

While you could learn from trial and error, you can get a head start by monitoring your closest competitors. Facebook’s Pages to Watch feature can record when your competitors post, how often they post, and their engagement:

Increase sales with Facebook's Pages to Watch feature.

You can then use this data to inform your own social media activities. For example, if content posted on Monday morning generates the most engagement, then it may make sense to publish your own content at this time.

To start spying on the competition, head over to your Facebook Business Page and select Insights > Overview. Then scroll to the Pages to Watch section:

Next, select Add Pages. In the popup, type the first page that you want to monitor and select it:

The Facebook Insights dashboard can help you increase sales.

You can add several brands to your watch list. When you're ready, click on Done. Facebook will now spy on these pages for you, and display all of their activities in your Insights dashboard.

2. Run a User Generated Content (UGC) Contest

Running a contest is a great way to create buzz around your products. However, to get the maximum ROI, you may want to base your competitions around user generated content (UGC). This is content like product reviews and customer testimonials created by someone outside your business.

There are different ways you can put a competitive slant on UGC. For instance, you could challenge your customers to take the most creative photos featuring your products.

You could ask your social media followers to submit content based on a theme, such as photos of their furry friends on National Pet Day:

Alternatively, you could post a photo and ask your followers to come up with a funny caption:

This is already a great opportunity to interact with your audience. However, you can take this engagement to the next level by picking a shortlist of potential winners, and then asking your followers to vote by liking, sharing, or commenting on their favorite entries.

This approach can transform your nominees into temporary brand advocates. That's because they'll probably encourage their friends and family to interact with your content in order to secure more votes.

This exposure and engagement can have a positive impact on your sales. To get started quickly, consider adding a plugin like RafflePress to your site.

RafflePress makes it super easy to create and manage contests and giveaways. It has pre-built templates and a drag-and-drop builder, so you can quickly build your contest's landing page.

It also has fraud protection, so you don't have to worry about cheating. What's really great is that the free version of RafflePress includes a feature that helps you set up contest rules.

With paid plans, you get more features like email marketing and CRM integrations, viral sharing, polls and surveys, and image submission entries.

3. Generate Large Amounts of Content, Fast

With experts attributing over 40% of revenue to organic traffic, it’s impossible to overestimate the importance of search engine optimization (SEO). Having a publishing schedule is an essential part of an effective SEO strategy.

Content may be king, but it can be difficult to publish a steady stream of new material. Thankfully, there are ways to quickly generate content without compromising on quality.

In addition to running UGC contests, you could accept guest posts or partner with third parties who can provide you with valuable content in exchange for backlinks.

You could also collect interesting statistics on a subject matter related to your industry, and then publish them as a post.

Data-driven content can be quick to write, and people love to share it:

Another option is to interview thought leaders and experts in your industry, then publish this content in multiple formats.

For example, you might post the video to your YouTube channel, include snippets in your podcast, or turn the conversation into an engaging article.

If you already have a library of content, it’s always worth looking for opportunities to refresh and republish old posts.

This might involve updating the information in an article, or adding new images. Putting a fresh spin on older posts can be quicker and easier than creating entirely new content.

4. Leverage the Power of Buy Now Buttons

Just because a customer adds an item to their cart doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed a sale. Every step in the purchasing process is another opportunity for this person to change their mind and abandon their shopping basket. In fact, 69% of customers fail to complete the checkout process.

That’s where buy now buttons come in. These enable customers to jump straight to your checkout page, leaving them with less time to rethink their purchases:

You can create these powerful calls to action (CTAs) using a flexible service such as Buy Now Plus. You'll also be able to post the same button across multiple platforms, including social media.

To get started, simply connect your Stripe account to the free Buy Now Plus service. You can then create a wide range of high-converting buy now buttons without having to write a single line of code:

Buy Now Plus provides everything you need to embed these buttons into your site, add them to your email marketing campaigns, and post them across social media.

For more information on how to drive conversions with buy now buttons, you can check out our complete guide.

Conclusion

Creativity can change the way people see your brand, which is a huge benefit when you’re trying to make a powerful impression.

By putting a fresh spin on well-worn marketing techniques, you may be able to convince potential customers to choose your business over the competition.

Let’s quickly recap four unique ways to increase your sales:

Monitor your competitors on social media.
Run a user generated content (UGC) contest.
Generate large amounts of content, fast.
Leverage the power of buy now buttons, using a service such as Buy Now Plus.

Do you have any questions about boosting sales by thinking outside the box? Ask us in the comments section below!

If you liked this post, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.