Alejandro Rioja launched Flux Chargers exactly two years back. Today, the product is sold in over 90 countries and generates over $1 million in revenues.
A pipe dream for many entrepreneurs that are working towards reaching that mark and some keep struggling for years.
The problem? There are so many ways to generate sales but no defined path that can lead to a sustainable business that’s growing in revenues month after month.
You can either take your own journey of discovery, try various tactics, or strategically approach growth, just like Alejandro did and continues to do so with his eCommerce brand.
He shared with me his exact strategies and the path that helped him build a $1+ million eCommerce brand. Use this as a guide to scale your own eCommerce brand in the shortest period of time.
Don’t build a store, build a brand
eCommerce stores fade. Brands can be timeless. Building a brand allows you to foster a long-term relationship with your customers.
A brand is the expectation that a customer has of your business. You might associate Apple with its ease of use and elegance.
Another benefit of having a brand is that word of mouth will be more common and easier to achieve. You should aim to have a name that is easy to spell in multiple languages and that is short enough to be memorable.
When creating a name and logo for your company think about how it will affect your customers perception of the products you sell. FastCompany indicates that almost 85% of consumers cite color as the primary reason they buy a particular product, and 80% of people believe color increases brand recognition.
Attract customers for free with SEO and digital marketing
At Flux Chargers, Alejandro tells me, they spent $34 in the past 6 months on ads (which may be good or bad depending on how you view it). All of their sales were made through an affiliate network and a strong brand recognition on the press and inbound leads that come from organic search.
Create content that will rank to the top for keywords of low to medium difficulty when you’re just starting out. Target keywords that have a keyword difficulty of under 30 and have at least 100+ searches. Use SEO tools such as SEMRush and Ahrefs for research.
Set up an affiliate program that’s enticing for your affiliates and treat your affiliate partners with care. Alejandro occasionally sends personalized thank you emails to his affiliates regardless if they made 1 sale or 100. He believes that if they like working with him, they will perform better and send him more referrals.
Reach out to influencers in your space and negotiate win-win deals. They don’t always have to have money involved. For instance, with a few influencers, Alejandro features them on press sites and they shout-out his product on their pages as exchange. You can also send them free products.
Find and connect with writers at various publications where your customers hang out. Connect with contributors first on Facebook then Twitter then email.
Scale the channels that are working
Many eCommerce entrepreneurs are trying to get followers on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, launching campaigns with influencers and doing many more marketing activities at the same time.
Alejandro made this mistake at the start too. He tried to focus on too many platforms and marketing avenues and never achieved anything meaningful.
Instead of spreading yourself too thin and trying to cover all possible social media platforms, figure out which platform is the most profitable and exploit it.
Measure everything and know the psychology of sales
Going from $0-100k/mo is all about knowing your CAC (customer acquisition cost), your conversion rate, the time to checkout, your site load speed, etc. If you can improve even one of those variables, you will be able to generate more revenue.
Here a few proven selling tricks that will lead to higher conversions:
- Offer a timed discount. The scarcity and FOMO (fear of missing out) will bring those customers that are on the fence of buying, one step closer to conversion.
- Include social proof (testimonials, verified reviews, unboxings, etc).
- An easy return process and great warranty.
- Ask yourself, ask others: based on what’s written on my site right now, will my target audience be compelled to buy? If not, you might need to spice up your sales copy.
- Use price anchors and bundle products to increase your average order value. If I tell you a product is $50 you might think that’s expensive but what about when I give you two options one for $50 and one for $150? Now all of the sudden, the $50 product looks like a bargain. Similarly, you can bundle and cross-sell items during checkout to bring in some extra revenue.
Use tools and scripts to automate your work
Understand the 80/20 rule which states that 20% of your tasks will generate 80% of the results.
Delegate, Delete or Defer. If you’re not the best person for the job, give it to someone else. If this task is not crucial or important or something that can help you move the needle, put it out for later.
Eat well and exercise. Anyone that is looking to achieve peak performance must also take a close look at their physiology and health.
Find or develop tools and scripts to increase your output 10x. For instance, you can use Buffer to schedule postings across your platforms, use IFTTT to send an email to your list every time you publish a new blog post, get a script to invite all your friends on facebook to like your page, etc.
Execution trumps everything else when it comes to creating a profitable eCommerce store. Learning something new every day through your support network and constantly re-evaluating your efforts will ensure that you stay on the path towards your goal.