How to Get Started with Sales for Small Businesses

Published on: 20.06.2022

As a small business owner or startup founder that wants to give a boost to sales, you may know that people love to buy, but don’t like to be sold. Just compare the way how you feel when you get a cold call (telemarketing or door-to-door salesmen) about a product and when you see that product used by someone you follow on social media. In the second case you may be thinking ‘I didn’t know I wanted that.
Your experience as a customer and your business intuition can help you find the right ways to set up a compelling offer for potential customers. On the other hand, as a small business owner, you might be doing a little of everything, from finance to marketing. Therefore, these steps might help you find the most practical way to increase your sales.

Create compelling content that ranks

You are writing blogs, making videos, doing podcasts, and some nice infographics. So are hundreds of thousands of people offering a similar service or product. How to make sure that your content reaches the people that are looking for it and not get lost in internet clutter? The last option can happen even though what you wrote or created was a really good blog post or video. The downside here is that you can get demotivated. To not let this happen and to make the time you spend on writing worth it pay attention to these tips.

Search intent
You can optimize your content through search intent practice.

If you type ‘handmade jewelry’ Google will list different keywords related to your search based on the most common intents

You might want to Buy handmade jewelry
You might want to Learn how to make handmade jewelry
You might want to Find a business that makes handmade jewelry to empower women/give back

Try it yourself. The top search results for ‘handmade jewelry’ are e-commerce category websites. This means that the main intent Google finds is people looking to buy handmade jewelry.
What does this mean? If you want to rank for a specific term, your content must address that need. Are you looking for readers that want to buy or people that want to learn something? The readers’ mood is key.

Therefore, if you’re writing a blog post or making a video it should include a keyword that shows blog posts in search results. For example, you can use ‘handmade jewelry ideas’ or ‘easy handmade jewelry’.
Moreover, also the format of your content is important. If you’re looking for readers in a ‘learning mood’ you can use formats such as:

Listicles: 20 Unique Handmade Jewelry Ideas
Listicles are easy to make because of their simple structure and require minimal efforts

How-tos: How to Care for Your Handmade Jewelry
These are short simple articles that explain in steps how to do something.

Facts and statistics: This Is How Much People Spend on Jewelry
These are also easy and simple articles to write, just make sure to have your numbers right and get them from reliable sources.

Tips: My experience with handmade hemp jewelry
If you’re knowledgeable in a specific industry, tip articles are a good option. They could also help establish yourself as an expert.

Other content format options include guides, reviews, testimonials, comparative articles/videos, pros/cons, best/worst, myths debunking, etc.

What is your content angle?
As it was mentioned above, there can be many businesses sharing information about the same product or service. The content angle is the element that can help your content stand out from content clutter. It’s the way how you say something that hundreds of marketers can be saying too, that makes the reader click and read it.
The content angle is usually targeted to a specific reader/potential buyer. For example, if you search ‘how to make jewelry’ you will get results that target beginners:
Jewelry Making For Beginners
Jour angle must be searchable, sharable, strong, original, and relatable, and it must address the reader/customers’ main questions.

Focus on your intro, content writing formulas

A good intro will keep people reading. It’s so important that content writers use numerous formulas to tell fascinating stories.

Promote your product/service on social media and search marketing networks

Social media and forums are excellent places where you can interact in person with your customers. You could also use social media to run surveys and get insights into customers’ desires and needs. A strong point of online surveys is that customers provide honest feedback. This is something that family and friends are not good for.
You can also ask for the support of micro-influencers who are ready to promote your products. You can send them free samples or offer discounts. You can find more ideas on how to get started with online sales in this article by Neil Patel or learn more about search engine marketing. Also, pay attention to the way how he writes and think about what you learned in this post.

Social media and online presence are great ways to help you accomplish something. If you are participating in the  Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition, the voting process can be tried for you as an aspiring entrepreneur to get people’s attention and convince them to vote for your idea or project. Being an entrepreneur is not easy, and convincing people to do something isn’t either. But you can find a way to get other’s support and if you’re brave enough in your arguments, they can come back and vote for you many times.