How To Get More Sales For Your Business – Expert Secrets

Do you want to maximize sales for your small business?

Before you can get more sales, you need to understand brand touchpoints.

Lisa shares 3 Ways to identify, curate, and measure your touchpoints for your small business brand to maximize sales.

How To Get More Sales For Your Business

Are you frustrated with the lack of sales for your business? 

Before you can get more sales, you need to understand brand touchpoints.

If you’re not quite sure what touchpoints are for your brand? Or how they can persuade and influence opinions customers have about your business, then grab a drink. Because I want to make sure you’ve got a clear understanding of what they are and how to make them work smarter for your business.

Touchpoints can be the branding workhorse for your business if you apply them correctly. Done right, they can maximize sales.

In short, touchpoints are the various ways customers interact with your brand. 

It’s the foundation of your customer experience. From visiting your website, handing them your business card, talking with you on the phone, and even something as mundane as an invoice. It’s those micro-interactions that you can identify, create, and tweak to give your customers a much better experience.

Regardless of whether you’ve got a brick and mortar or you do business exclusively online, customers experience your brand touchpoints throughout their shopping journey.

A shopping journey —formally known as the customer journey — are the connection points a customer has with your business brand as they consider a purchase. 

Those connection points —Touchpoints— underscore the experience your customer feels before, during, and after their personal encounters with your brand. 

As you identify your business touchpoints, ask yourself:

• Will it improve the customer experience? 
• Will it delight them and inspire them to act?

When I had my retail shop, I treated my shop as a luxury experience and my customers were special guests. I wanted my shop to be a destination for my customers. 

Designed with a particular fictional character in mind, every encounter with my brand had to be on point to meet their expectation.  

From the vintage style wooden sign that hung at the front, the powerful scent of leather that hit the nose as soon as they opened the door, the wood floors, deep red walls, black ceiling, spotlights made of retrofitted musical instruments and Parisian music that streamed throughout. 

My handcrafted leather products and gifts were luxury items so it would only make sense to elevate them like you would see at the Prada flagship store in Soho. Certainly not hung on racks like Goodwill.

Walking into my shop instantly transported customers into another era. Each customer who visited said the same thing, “I love your shop. I don’t want to leave; I feel like I’m in Europe.” 

That made my heart sing.

Each of these touchpoints hit every sense: See, touch, smell, hear. Oh yes, sometimes I quietly offered wine to my discerning customers -so that hits taste.

Opportunity to Differentiate

If you’re just starting a new business, then you’ve got a headstart toward crafting intentional brand touchpoints. 

Anything your customer touches or experiences is a brand touchpoint. 

It’s as simple as how you say hello and your warm personality that welcomes customers into your brand ecosphere -say your shop. 

Remember the show Cheers? A sitcom of a bar-based scene set in Boston. Each time Woody answered the phone, it wasn’t hello -it was Cheers! That’s differentiation.

In my retail shop, the first thing I did was greet each and every customer. “Welcome to my shop. I handcraft everything here and it features my art.” 

When you’re differentiating, stay true to your brand. 

As I work with clients on their brand values, I assist them in crafting copy and products to stay on brand. And staying on brand means remaining true to your base value.

Base value starts with identifying whether you’re fast, cheap, or great.

The packaging, tags, signage, and in-person experience were all crafted to create a unique and memorable experience. In my copy, I referred to my products as treasures. My customers resonated with that term once they became aware of my shop. They fell in love with the treasures because they were exclusive OOAK inventions. 

Staying true to my brand, I hand-selected my leather and chose sterling silver for my jewelry components —not a base metal — to build into the treasure. My base value of “great” informs the component quality I select for my hand-built treasures. 

Make Touchpoints User-Friendly

I strived to make my touchpoints user-friendly. From saying hello the moment they walk into the door and making them aware that I’m the designer and I’m approachable, they feel at ease. 

Additional touchpoints I intentionally put into play were:

-Having a mirror conveniently next to the checkout desk. This allows them to tuck their personal items behind the desk for temporary safe-keeping as they try on handbags and other accessories. 

-Having a gift registry that is accessible to their friends and family for easy purchasing. 

-Surprising them with a free CalligraphyPets fine art print with the purchase of $75 or more. 

All of these micro-moments saved them time, saved them energy and rewarded them with unforgettable peak experiences. These peak experiences flooded the brain with dopamine and persuaded them to buy and become regular clients. Intentional micro-moments increased my sales.

If you’re a product developer, how can you take these ideas and make them your own? 

If your business is exclusively online, think about the journey your customer is taking. 

Your business needs to meet them where they’re at. 

Think in terms of how much time they’ll need to invest —or commit — at each stage of their buying journey. I view these as micro-commitments.

If they’re at the info-gathering stage, consider creating low-commitment items to help educate them. These can be in the form of articles, explainer videos, checklists. 

As they move thru their journey, have other pieces ready for them to consume like white papers or case studies. These items require a little more commitment.

As they evaluate services, give them a taste of what that experience might feel like. Is it:

• The first chapter of your book? 
• The first lesson in your online course? 
• A free no-pressure discovery call?

Each of these interactions should help them move forward in their journey with you, eventually leading them to purchase. 

If you’re benefiting from at least one tip I’m sharing today, please give me a thumbs up and watch thru to the end. It helps to feed the YT algorithm gods and I would be utterly grateful.

Also, I would ask that you leave a comment. Not for me, but for you! If you want to learn why that matters to your business, check out this video here when we’re finished.

Measuring

Do you wonder how your brand touchpoints measure up with your customer?

Measuring where you’re going right or going wrong will help you better engage with your customers and maximize sales. You always want to be aware of what your customer’s experience is and how to improve it.

There are many ways to measure how your customer feels before, during, and after their personal encounters with your brand. 

When I go shopping, the cashier at the register will ask, “Did you find everything all right?” Another example of a brand touchpoint that results in a decent customer experience. By asking if I found everything all right, they’re implying that they will help me if I say no.

Ever wonder about secret shoppers? They exist to secretly measure a customer’s interaction along the shopping path.

For example, here’s how not to respond to a customer’s concern. 

I remember having lunch in my workplace cafeteria. I purchased a blueberry muffin and couldn’t wait to dive in. Upon unwrapping the cellophane from the muffin, I discovered it was moldy. Ack! So I returned to the cashier and said, “Hey! I just discovered this muffin is moldy.” 

Her response was in a flippant tone, “So! What do you want me to do about it?”

This is why secret shoppers exist -to evaluate a customer’s shopping experience.

Observe, Measure, Tweak to Improve

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Follow each step of their journey to ultimately making a purchase. What were some of the hiccups and detours they had to take? How can you remedy them?

If you have a brick and mortar, this is an excellent time to observe them in your shop. Something as simple as finding a price or grabbing a pen that doesn’t work to sign their receipt can be annoying. Don’t let that happen -or at least, have immediate backup pens. 

Do you recall a time when you had dinner at a fine restaurant? 

Was it raining? Did the restaurant have a valet? If not, that’s a brand touchpoint. Albeit a bad one, but a touchpoint nonetheless. If you’re a restaurant owner, this is a great opportunity to build in a valet service.

In my retail shop, I encouraged customers to leave their purse and packages behind my counter to enjoy their shopping adventure. I use SquareUp as my merchant service and after the customer made a purchase, Square would follow up with them and ask them to rate their experience in my store. 

If you have an in-store experience, you could give them a Self-addressed stamped postcard that asks them to evaluate their shopping experience. Or if you were able to capture their email address, follow up email asking them about their experience.

If you’re a virtual business, you can create a simple survey through one of several survey tools out there.

Supporting your customers with curated touchpoint experiences throughout their buying journey will make them feel special and appreciated. Appreciated customers buy and that will help maximize your sales.

At the end of the day, you want to: 

• Identify, curate, and make touchpoints the workhorse for your business. 
• Differentiate your touchpoints to form an emotional connection with your customers
• Observe, Measure, Tweak to Improve each micro-moment, forming a peak experience to maximize sales. 

If you’re starting a new business or have been established for a while, grab your copy of the BYO touchpoint checklist to start building and evaluating your brand connections. This checklist will move you from being uncertain with chronic low sales to confidently identifying and improving experiences. It will show you where to be mindful before, during, and after the customer journey as well as identifying the items you can create to meet them where they’re at to move them toward purchase.

Remember, great things take time. 

I can’t wait to see you in the next video.

#keepbuilding

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