It’s not the easiest time for small business owners – many are finding that customers are harder to come buy and those that are buying are bargaining hard. However it is still possible to grow your business in these difficult times. Here are 5 top tips to help you increase your business’ sales, turnover and profitability.

1. Free samples
Let your product speak for itself – send out free samples to your target demographic. If your product really is as good as you claim it is, sales should follow. The one caveat is that you should target your audience as much as possible to maximise sales – there’s no point sending out samples to uniterested parties as the sample will rarely convert to a sale.

2. Free trial
Similar to the point above, consider offering a free trial of your services so that people can see how fantastic your company is. The caveat here is that you must give them excellent customer service and an overall favourable opinion of your company otherwise they will not sign up past the free trial period.

3. Referrals
Offer a referral scheme to existing customers – if they refer a new customer to you, you will reward them. A discount off their next order is useful as it ensures that they will continue to buy your products or services, however you could offer cash, vouchers or an actual gift instead.

4. Bulk Order Discount
Offer quantity discounts – that is discounts if the customer orders a high number of units or spends over a particular amount of money. This way you are encouraging them to spend more money with you.

5. Discount voucher coupons
Offer customers discount vouchers for future purchases if they spend money with you over a particular time period. This way you are giving them an incentive to come and spend money with you again in the future and they are also more likely to spend money in the short-term too to get the voucher in the first place.

If you are going to offer any form of incentive to try and encourage higher sales, it is important to analyse your current customers to ensure that you make a profit in the long-term – it is all very well encouraging turnover, but you need to make a profit. Sometimes making a small loss in the short-term is OK as long as the customers are likely to give you boosted profits in the longer-term, however analyse your sales figures carefully to ensure that any promotion you do will not be detrimental in the long-term.

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