More brands than ever want to increase their digital sales and online presence but are struggling with doing so without using price discounts. The on-going usage of price discounts it’s not only hurting the margins, it also hurting the brand perception. Of course, a discount code will boost your sales short-term but is it possible to boost digital sales without using discounts? Of course it is! 

With a highly competitive market, where prices are being pushed, margins squeezed and with increasing acquisition costs - how can eCommerce brands build a sustainable Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) strategy to drive and boost their sales without using discounts and diluting their brand value and margins? 

Discounts are usually a short term solution to boost sales. Not only will you in the long run be seen as a discounting brand, you are also spending money, time and effort on the customers that will probably leave you if they find a better deal somewhere else. In other words - it’s not a sustainable growth strategy - especially if you are looking to increase your customer lifetime value (CLV) and build long term relationships with your customers. 

The ongoing economic uncertainty is causing a shift in customer spending behaviour. Today customers are being more intentional with purchases, making fewer impulse buys and considering more brands before making a decision. By taking below success factors into account you can focus on increasing CLV by actually spending time and efforts on the customers that are interested in your brand and products - and therefore be willing to pay full price for your products and keep returning - even during tough times.

1. Data-driven and customer-focused

First of all, use your data to get to know your customers. Look at your data and ask yourself; Who are my customers? What are they interested in? What are they buying? What buying trends can I find? What are they doing on our site? By leveraging this information, you can create a customer profile and use it to make data-driven decisions that prioritize customer needs.

2. Invite the right visitors to your site 

Look deeper into your traffic sources, to find where most of your valuable visitors are coming from. By setting a clear visitor strategy based on your customer data, you can stop spending money acquiring visitors that are not interested in your brand and start focusing on the ones that are interested. Focus your marketing efforts where your audience spends most of their time and invite them into the site by using these factors. 

3. Compete on customer experience

No matter if you are an e-tailer or a brand site, start competing on customer experience instead of prices. Treat your e-com store as a flagship store - be the place where your customers always find full assortment, detailed images, product descriptions, inspirational content, 24/7 customer support, multiple delivery and payment options. Remember that your store should function as a sales person providing the best customer experience possible:  you do this by adding the right features to ensure site usability, provide up-sell and cross-sell functionality, relevant content and services that fits your customers needs and your brand.

4. Focus on adding customer value instead of discounts

Implement the mindset of always adding value to the customer into your team, instead of having the discount mindset. When taking action, creating content or adding a service or new feature - ask yourself if this is adding value to your customer, or not? Set priorities in the team based on the customer needs. Make the customer journey as easy and smooth as possible. And don’t forget to constantly ask your customers about their feedback, as well as implement a strategy for A/B-testing, so you can get both qualitative feedback, and quantitative.

5. Be content-driven rather than product-driven

Get to know your customers in order to solve their problems with your product. Instead of focusing on selling your product - focus on selling a solution by putting your product in a content that is relevant to your customer. It could be as easy as choosing the right copy and call-to-action on the startpage, or building an informative landing page with content around the product use. Keep being relevant!

If you need help in your commercial organization with anything from operational excellence to strategic input. Don’t hesitate to contact us. We can support you with interim solutions and-/or work on a project basis to advise on your next steps.