Completing the first sale sounds straightforward enough, yet the optimism and reassurance it brings can make it the biggest turning point in the life of your business. Obtaining that first customer can sometimes be a long, arduous battle. To make the battle easier to win, below are 25 sure-fire ways to make your first sale, and then some. The Internet is packed with influential bloggers, journalists, entrepreneurs, and vloggers from a wide range of industries and niches.

Sending a free sample of your product to such influencers, who are either within your industry or related to it in some way, gives you an opportunity to let them know you appreciate their work with a small gift. Also, hopefully, you will get a mention on one of their sites or platforms. By producing free, valuable content, you will create trust in your brand and keep people informed. Blogging also gives you something to share on social media and helps you rank in search engines. A simple yet highly effective way to get started with content marketing for your business is to think of all the starting-point queries people have about your products and industry.

Using your blog, you can answer these queries as individual articles. As an example, visitors to the Shopify blog are interested in learning about e-commerce and drop shipping among many other topics. Additionally, you can use your blog to offer tips, tutorials, and resources related to your products and the lifestyle around your products. Having a list of emails from previous and potential customers means you can get your information, products, and content into their personal mailboxes.

In contrast, updates made to your Facebook page and Twitter handle will almost never be able to reach your entire following, due to time zone differences and other factors. Start building your email list today by including an email subscription form somewhere noticeable on your website. Skinny Teatox offers the chance to win a free product every week, so they showcase that offering to encourage people to join. In some cases, sponsoring an event can work wonders. In other cases, it can be an immense waste of time and resources.

First, you should ensure that you select the right event to sponsor.

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Search for events where attendees actually will be interested in your products, and then find out how many consumers will be in attendance.

Once you get a rough idea about the different event types and sizes, you can begin sorting them by cost. Demonstrate some of your most interesting products to tell your story, get people talking, and provide on-the-spot rewards like coupons and free stickers in return for email list subscriptions and social media follows.

Here are some tips from Inc to help you maximize your return when sponsoring an event. Remember the importance of content marketing I mentioned earlier? Well, interviewing an industry influencer is a prime example of how to create epic content. Interviews work because they are win-win situations. The interviewee gets more exposure, while the interviewer gets their hands on some hot content for their publication, which in this case, is your blog.

Make the most of the interview by asking relevant questions surrounding not only their lives and careers, but also the industry as a whole. This will ensure that fans of the influencer get a taste of their personality, while others will value their expert advice.

As a popular name in the world of photography, her interview made perfect content for the online photo vendor. Much like viral videos, which are based on the same concept, a PR stunt has the potential to propel your brand into fame. Essentially, a PR stunt consists of doing something unusual, outrageous, hilarious, or remarkable enough to be worthy of media attention.

If done correctly, your store could benefit from tons of links from authority news sources, which is great for both traffic in the short term and SEO in the long term. No company pulls a better PR stunt than Virgin. Their founder, Richard Branson, has dressed up like a wedding bride, jumped off a casino roof, posed as a zulu warrior, driven a tank down Fifth Avenue in NYC, and flown a balloon around the world, among many other newsworthy things.

It just requires creativity. Note that the first result is a paid ad from Samsung. The beauty of AdWords lies in its speed and massive reach. In as little as a few minutes, you can set up and launch an advertising campaign which gets your text, image, or even video ads seen by browsers all over the web.

Using the AdWords campaign options, you can create targeted ads which are triggered and displayed alongside Google searches when Internet browsers search for predefined keywords. Additionally, your ads also will appear on websites and articles which contain similar keywords. Trying to sell your products alone can be a difficult task, so why not share the load with others?

Affiliate marketing is when you let other people market your products and send you website traffic. In return, you pay them a percentage of any sales that originate from their efforts. Their marketing efforts can be kept track of by giving them unique hyperlinks which they can post on their website containing an ID code at the end of the link, just for them. For example, a website owner may post your affiliate link for a blue sweater that is for sale on your website. The success of affiliate marketing schemes depends greatly on the types of products you sell, as well as the commission percentage you reward your affiliate partner.

One of the main advantages of selling wholesale is the obvious increase in cash flow. In other words, selling wholesale could indirectly boost your consumer sales. It goes without saying that to get ignored by every single news outlet when distributing a new press release is demoralizing and often a huge waste of resources.

First of all, make sure your news actually is news worthy. Also, a press release should be presented in a way that is concise and professional, without being too monotonous. Copyblogger has pieced together six ways to write a killer press release , explaining everything from avoiding jargon to creating a magnetic headline.

Reviewing and acting upon website analytics is paramount. Your website stats or analytics will show you what your customers are doing on your site, including which web pages they enter, the time they spend on particular pages, and the route they take to leave your site. Occasionally, some tools will display additional information, for instance how frequently a customer visits your site. Google Analytics is a completely free service, allowing you to measure your traffic in more ways than you can think of.

You can see steady traffic up until early January when there is a huge jump. They looked at their data and saw that the jump came from StumbleUpon, which could be a good indicator that the social channel is worth pursuing further, either organically or via paid placement.

If you need a hand getting a grip on the world of analytics, Simply Business offers a comprehensive Google Analytics guide , covering everything you need to know. Learning about the common pain points and desires of consumers can help you make all the right moves going forward.

Consumer surveys are an ideal tool for obtaining honest feedback. Unlike your friends and family, consumers have no qualms about hurting your feelings by picking at your web design or your marketing material.

To run your very own survey, you can make use of online apps like Survey Monkey and Qualaroo to create online surveys. Econsultancy has picked up on some important practices to be used when conducting e-commerce consumer surveys , which can help you get the most out of your feedback. Online discussion forums are great places to give out industry tips and advice, answer questions, and acquire a customer or two.

Use Google to search out some active forums that may directly relate to your niche. Get to know the limits and restrictions of the forum, and stick to them. Using your forum avatar, signature, and profile page to promote your brand are usually well within the rules.

You may feel the temptation to post and promote wildly, but keep it professional. No forum will tolerate constant promotion or posts full of links to your website. Bedsides, acting in such a way online will damage your brand in the eyes of other forum users. So, keep it simple by posting just enough for people to notice your activity, but not enough to constitute spam.

Two popular business focused forums worth getting active on are Digital Point and Warrior Forum , both of which have thriving, helpful communities. Find a group of complementary but not competitive retailers and agree to promote and support each other.

For example, if you run an online clothing store, ideal cartel candidates might include jewelry and footwear outlets. Essentially, the stores you would partner with are similar enough to be able to cross-promote and share advice, but not similar enough to create a conflict of interest.

You can opt for a completely private setup, keeping things small and tight-knit, or you can branch out and publicize your online cartel in order to attract more members to help build a supportive community of online merchants.

Take The e c ommerce Group for example.

Operating via a Facebook group, they have over 2, members sharing advice, giving feedback, and providing a helping hand whenever possible. Building the right relationships, both online and offline, can act as your portal to success. No matter what type of product you sell or which industry you work within, there always are like-minded businesses out there, and you need to befriend them.

The trick is to build relationships with others that are closely aligned to your business but not direct competitors. For example, suppliers, blogs, and websites that focus on your industry would be ideal, as they can help provide you with consumer feedback and offer promotional deals, without stepping on your digital toes.

To learn more about how to build a positive relationship with your supplier, All Business offers a great relationship building tutorial. Not only can contests and giveaways help you build valuable inbound links, they also are a great way to show potential customers that you can be trusted and that your brand means business.

Tease Tea is a new online tea store running a simple contest on their Facebook page. Online services like ViralSweep and Gleam allow you to run such contests and giveaways online, helping you to keep things simple and professional without all the added work. An excellent method for finding potential customers is to proactively search for people tweeting questions about your industry and reach out to them in a helpful way.

The idea is not to pitch or even mention your products — just be helpful. All he did was offer advice; he never pitched. As a result, people would be grateful and naturally look further into who he was, and ultimately discover his business on their own.

This is just one of many Twitter strategies that can work wonders for your sales figures. If you need some real life examples of how to nail Twitter marketing, take a look at the Twitter profile of online jewelry store Lola Rose , which could teach you a thing or two.

LinkedIn is the office block of the Internet. LinkedIn Groups also are a stellar way to engage with other business owners in your industry. There are vast amounts of public and private groups set up for specific niches, allowing you to post questions and converse with other members. When it comes to representing personality and creativity via social media, the three big visual platforms do it best.

Pinterest, Instagram, and most recently Vine, all allow you to take a slightly different approach to engaging with consumers. These platforms are the perfect place to present the creativity and passion that goes into your business behind the scenes.

Snap pictures of your products, take videos of the manufacturing process, tell a story with images. Always aim for beauty if possible.

Need some visual inspiration? Melt Cosmetics is a new brand that already has over , followers on Instagram. They are doing a great job of Instagram marketing, building up a brand image and a following with their beautiful photographs. It may not be what it once was, but make no mistake, Facebook still is a social media powerhouse. Leverage your personal Facebook profile and your business page to engage with friends, family, and acquaintances and to get people talking about your products.

Get creative with status updates and interact on public groups and fan pages relevant to your niche. Much like with AdWords, you can create targeted campaigns to attract Likes, make sales, and promote your brand.

A popular blow drying salon in Toronto called Drybar has an extremely engaged Facebook community of over 80, who talk all things blow drying. Many, if not all, consumers like to shop around before making a purchase, and that includes a visit to comparison shopping engines. Popular engines include The Find , Google Shopping , Nextag , and a range of others, all with thousands of products and stores being simultaneously compared. To get noticed, you need to play by the rules of each engine, stay competitive in terms of price, and play the waiting game while you experiment to find out which engine suits you the best and gives you the best ROI.

PC Pro has put together a detailed guide on how to get noticed on Google Shopping , and Shopify has a list of the 10 most popular comparison shopping engines with a brief explanation of each one. An infographic is exactly what the name implies, a graph of information, or a visual representation of facts and statistics in a form that is easy to digest.

First impressions are everything, and when it comes to selling online, first impressions rely heavily on web design. Based entirely on your website design, visitors need to be able to grasp your brand and products without too much scrolling or exploring. Furthermore, navigating through your catalog should be easy, if not enjoyable. Additionally, making your store responsive to mobile devices is nothing short of vital. Perhaps more so than having a website built for standard PCs and Laptops.

So, looking the part on all devices is an absolute must. A pop-up store could be just what you need to compliment your online presence. Unlike traditional bricks-and-mortar premises, a pop-up store is far less of a financial burden, thanks to its temporary nature.

Like most kinds of physical stores, a pop-up store is all about location. You can open a pop-up store at farmers markets, art fairs, shopping malls, galleries, and any other place people gather. A pop-up store also can act as a great offline marketing outpost. You can use your store to hand out coupons to be used via your online store, and you can collect email subscriptions and social media followers.

For some ideas on how to get your pop-up store going, Business Insider has compiled no less than eighteen creative pop-up store ideas to get you thinking. Reddit is a socially powered news and entertainment website where registered users submit content. Also, and more importantly, Reddit is a place where you can attract a large number of dedicated followers and customers. The process has to be one of give and take, though. Walk those entrepreneurial redditors through your journey, take them behind the scenes, detail your mistakes and expose some personality in order to gain not just customers, but fans, too.

A brilliant example of using Reddit to promote an online store is what the guys at Beardbrand did. Note how many upvotes and comments this post received. Reddit can be an extremely powerful tool, not only for gaining valuable educational resources to help you start your business, but also for helping you make your first sale. The 25 strategies listed above are stellar ways to kick-start sales for your online store.

Also, check out a guide I wrote with Sean Work of KISSmetrics titled 50 Ways to Make Your First Sale. With the right approach, you will need only a handful of the strategies listed above to make the first of many sales.

Mark Hayes , the Head of Communications at Shopify , the author of The Ultimate Guide to Dropshipping , and an expert in marketing, communications, social media, hot sauce, and pinball. Send triggered emails to users to nudge them toward engagement. Learn more about the newly-released Kissmetrics Campaigns. Sign in with Google to get early access to our new free Google Analytics app. Email to a friend or colleague.

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A free Google Analytics app! Get the free iPhone app. Measure people, not pageviews! While building my store I used quite a few of these tips and they worked quite well. I only know how to place a check out cart. That seems like a lot of work for a first sale. This is only for my case, at least. Divine Rizardo — totally, doing all 25 is not necessary. As you pointed out, picking 5 or 10 is a great starting point. Just my 2 cents….

Emmanuel — Word of mouth is extremely important when promoting a brand new online store. I especially like to utilize word-of-mouth via personal social accounts Facebook, IG, Twitter, etc.. Great tips on how to make your first online sale. Thanks for the post. Thank you Mark for share with us. As Google showing dance each month now we should aware of branding. So blogging and social media play the big role for this.

You hit the nail on the head with this one. Every business should be doing all of these things. Especially this day and age by getting this amazing like from media and so forth. It is a sure fire way to create a successful campaign. That is one awesome article!! I have now shared this article with everyone in my network!

Luv reading articles on KissMetrics! Jay — Thanks for sharing with everyone in your network! I really appreciate that. For some one just starting out I would definitely advice to pick 5 or 10 of these to begin with and then gradually apply all of these tactics at a later stage. But, as sales continue measurement because extremely important. Thanks so much for reading and commenting Eddie! This is a very comprehensive guide for online marketing — readily informative, understandable, and workable.

You mentioned content marketing and implied about social media marketing; these are the trendiest today. Online marketing is a tricky business really. For one thing, you are given the illusion of ease because of the connectivity of the medium which is the internet. While this is true and a push in itself, still there are others aspects of this which needs considering too, not least of which is the amount of competition you have to go against because of the vastness of the playing field.

Then, along with that illusion of ease, you may have to face the challenge of threats — hacking is probably the best example. But then, you are also gifted with the idea of the world being at the tip of your fingers in this venture.

You have put up some really fine tips here. They are sound and doable. And with this range of tactics to choose from, any marketer will be able to find a handful which will work for his business in the long run, while helping him get his first online sale to get things rolling for him.

Thanks, Mark, this is one awesome article for anyone in the online marketing business. You have the most helpful tips to be tried out. I appreciate you taking the time to comment.

I think the best advice to store owners would be to engage people in their industry and create and share relevant content. If you sell t-shirts, you should have a blog and social accounts that cover everything that t-shirt consumers would find interesting. Sorry i must confess i am new to all of this.

Good suggestions, especially the popup store. Henry — Pop-up stores can be an incredibly powerful sales and research channel for online merchants. Of course you expect sales from selling in-person but the most underrated benefit is the communication between merchant and customer.

Thanks for reading and commenting Henry! According to me you need to be where they are which means figuring out where your ideal customers and clients hang out online and this is the most important bit where they might be looking for you and what you offer. What I would however add is that first time entrepreneurs should first start with the above recommended points that do not require too much of an investment.

This should also be GEO optimised, as not the same aggressive approach to sell something to someone from the US will work for customers from the UK. What people can also do these days is take affiliate marketing offline. Thanks for the awesome tips. I recently launched my new online store selling handcrafted and hand painted ceramic wares and arts.

Too many social media channels, blogging, newsletter, email list building, ads via fb and google, outreach to bloggers and magazine editors, SEO…. Hanna, just take it slow and learn along the way. Fairly useful piece of writing, cheers! Especially when it comes to setting up a new online business, optimism okay; works with positive start will also require to be embedded with such effective steps as displayed over here.

It is what market has proven with successful track records. Branding your service onto the right online platform with the right marketing strategies is your next move upwards. Free samples mainly product offers do bring in more eyeballs back onto your store and a talk-of-the town charm. Social media optimization through a gradual and smart presentation of blogs, PR or content management on social medial websites — what you offer is surely a way back for many of your viewers.

Email, event marketing works wonders too. Apart from an organic way of earning an online traffic, there are some paid options that also convey good results, if being combined cleverly through SEO with each other! Just remember most companies are not similar. Rather these articles should be read from afar and pull tiny bits of info from them. This article is heavily geared toward male audience.

It would absolutely not work for most female genre. Where can I find a solid, reputable company to get my business off and running. I spoke to one company that wanted an exorbitant monthly flat fee. Well written article, few good pointers I will try to implement.

I have designed our online store by myself and Currently we are working on setting a standard uniform packaging for all of our products.

We were so focused on delivering the quality and making sure that all of our items are organic and natural. One think we forgot is the presentation of the products. We have top quality , made in UK bath products however i feel like they need better packaging and branding. What is the best place to hold an online focus group? I want people to decide how my brand will look. Is that a good idea or should I stay away from that?

For me I get my first sale online from my email list. I have built lists using social media and forums. I have a product I want to market over the internet. Can you help me do this and create a web site for the product?

This was really thorough! I have done a few of the things you have mentioned but I never paid attention to the rest.

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Blog Home Academy Marketing Guides Webinars. Kissmetrics Blog A blog about analytics, marketing and testing. Built to optimize growth. Track, analyze and optimize your growth cycle. Send Free Samples to Influencers The Internet is packed with influential bloggers, journalists, entrepreneurs, and vloggers from a wide range of industries and niches. Many of them have large followings on social media and loyal audiences on their websites.

Build an Email List Building up an email list for marketing purposes is absolutely essential. Sponsor an Event In some cases, sponsoring an event can work wonders.

Interview Industry Influencers Remember the importance of content marketing I mentioned earlier? Pull a PR Stunt If you want that first sale fast, pulling a PR stunt could do the trick. Share the Load with Affiliate Marketing Trying to sell your products alone can be a difficult task, so why not share the load with others?

Publish a Press Release Lots of new online stores push out press releases in order to attract media attention, but fail. The secret to getting noticed is simple. Pay Attention to Stats Reviewing and acting upon website analytics is paramount.

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Run a Survey Learning about the common pain points and desires of consumers can help you make all the right moves going forward. Network on Forums Online discussion forums are great places to give out industry tips and advice, answer questions, and acquire a customer or two.

A small online cartel could be just the trick. This contest costs no money to run and likely took only a few minutes to put together. Make Connections on LinkedIn LinkedIn is the office block of the Internet. Go Visual with Pinterest, Instagram, and Vine When it comes to representing personality and creativity via social media, the three big visual platforms do it best.

Beat the Competition on Comparison Shopping Engines Many, if not all, consumers like to shop around before making a purchase, and that includes a visit to comparison shopping engines.

Create an Infographic An infographic is exactly what the name implies, a graph of information, or a visual representation of facts and statistics in a form that is easy to digest. Design your Store to Look the Part First impressions are everything, and when it comes to selling online, first impressions rely heavily on web design.

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Document your Launch on Reddit Reddit is a socially powered news and entertainment website where registered users submit content. So, what are you waiting for? Related Posts 6 Surprising Ways to Make Your First E-commerce Sale Infographic How to Sell Multiple Products Online: Kissmetrics Campaigns Send triggered emails to users to nudge them toward engagement.

Email to a friend or colleague A free Google Analytics app! Get the free iPhone app Measure people, not pageviews! Emma Feb 11, at 8: Mark Hayes Feb 12, at 5: Divine Rizardo Feb 11, at 2: Mark Hayes Feb 11, at 3: Emmanuel Rosani Feb 11, at 5: Rose Wilkerson Feb 11, at 7: Rifat Rahn Feb 11, at PK Anane Feb 12, at 7: Mark Hayes Feb 12, at 7: Guest Feb 12, at Mark Hayes Feb 13, at 5: Jay Daniells Feb 12, at 3: Eddie Kremanis Feb 13, at 2: Vanessa Feb 13, at 9: Mark Hayes Feb 13, at Nelly Aug 25, at 5: Henry Matlock Feb 13, at Andy Baker Feb 15, at 2: Stuart Feb 19, at 9: Guest Apr 02, at 3: Nicole Carter Apr 05, at Hanna Jun Aug 13, at 1: Neil Patel Aug 14, at 9: Nirav Sheth Oct 06, at 9: Kim Mar 19, at 1: Shilpi Gupta Aug 06, at 5: Harlee Nov 10, at Mark Lewis Sep 14, at Ricky Oct 14, at Paul Jasion Oct 18, at 3: Omar Saady Jan 16, at 9: Marie Feb 08, at 4: Frank Di Silvestro Feb 12, at 6: Zach Feb 13, at Fizzah Iqbal May 29, at 3: Article Categories Academy Advertising Analytics Blogging Branding Conversion Copywriting Design E-Commerce Facebook Infographics Launch Strategies Marketing Release Notes SEO Social Media Testing Twitter Email updates straight to your inbox Get fresh articles, infographics, marketing guides, and KISSmetrics happenings delivered to your inbox each week.

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