Signs of a thriving business include steady revenue streams and repeat customers. But even when there’s little risk of the money drying up, companies could be leaving vast amounts on the table. Ignoring abandoned online cart rates, applying the wrong pricing strategies, and failing to leverage customer data are everyday examples.
Letting go of revenue opportunities, such as abandoned online carts worth hundreds of dollars, can eventually hurt a business. This practice might cause a company to struggle financially or even fold. Fortunately, reclaiming what appears to be lost revenue is possible. Here are four ways to do it.
1. Re-Engage Customers Who Abandon Their Carts
Online shoppers leave their carts behind for many reasons, including expensive shipping options and a desire to compare prices. It’s not uncommon for online stores and businesses to experience high abandoned cart rates. But if you don’t make an effort to figure out why it’s happening, those rates may continue to go up.
Using retention marketing tools that automate abandoned cart workflows is a way to uncover the sources of customers’ resistance. Abandoned cart emails and text messages can remind shoppers who are comparing prices to come back and buy. Offering a subscription or one-time discount may prompt these customers to convert. Or those email reminders may expedite the checkout process, eliminating the need to create an online .
Whatever the source of resistance is, creating personalized abandoned cart messages shows shoppers your business wants to engage with them. While many tools that design and automate these messages employ first-party data, some can also use anonymous information. This includes data from identified or unidentified customers who use multiple devices to browse and save items. Your company can reclaim lost revenue across platforms and types of shoppers.
2. Compete on Something Other Than Price
Certain well-known mass-market retailers flaunt the fact that they have the lowest prices around. And they’re successful at using a low-price strategy to draw customers in and keep them. Yes, lower prices might be part of the attraction, but there are usually other angles to these retailers’ strategies.
It might be overall value, a wider product selection, or an appeal to aesthetics. Competing on low prices alone rarely works as a long-term strategy. That’s because a competitor can come along and undercut another company’s low price. Plus, customers tend to equate lower prices with cheaper quality, whether it’s true or not. The stigma associated with generic or store-brand products can persist for this reason.
Customers may flock to lower-priced products during difficult economic times or because of supply chain disruptions. Yet some shoppers will find ways to keep buying favorite name brands because they don’t want to risk product quality. Constantly using lower prices to outdo your competitors can reduce your profit margin and create the wrong brand image. A “cheap” brand identity might erode your customer base over time and repel the leads you want to capture.
3. Use Customer Data to Create Strategies
It’s not that businesses don’t collect customer data. Many companies gather client information effectively. However, they fail to synchronize and filter it so that it can inform and build successful strategies. Often, customer data becomes scattered across multiple platforms and sources, and businesses forget that it’s there. As a result, decision-makers fail to see the connections between the information they have and may reach the wrong conclusions.
For example, sales teams may make incorrect assumptions about high customer churn rates. Reports might cause leaders to believe customers leave because they no longer live in the company’s service area. Yet marketing surveys reveal problems with billing practices and miscommunications with sales reps.
By combining these data sources, teams may realize churn reports aren’t as accurate as they thought. They can begin to address the real reasons for customer loss and create strategies that improve client communication and education. Examining all your customer data helps put you on the right track and improves your retention efforts. You won’t be overlooking opportunities to increase or revive customer loyalty and sales.
4. Offer Upgrades and Add-ons
Businesses can also restrict sales by offering limited products or services. While you don’t want to try to be too many things, customers may grow dissatisfied with scarce choices. For instance, an Italian restaurant that only serves one type of pasta dish probably won’t satisfy a family’s preferences. They might want the option of ordering pizzas, different kinds of pasta, breadsticks, and salads as well.
By offering upgrades and add-ons, your company can drive repeat and larger purchases from customers. Shoppers may come to you for a core product or service, but it may not make them loyal to you. Once you’ve satisfied a single need, customers have few reasons to purchase more. Companies usually must keep delighting customers and serving additional needs to encourage repetitive buying behaviors.
More than half of customers will spend up to 57% more with businesses that turn them into loyal shoppers. Not having related products or services leaves upselling opportunities and additional revenue streams behind. If you sell car insurance, you can offer policies that protect homeowners and renters. You might also decide to branch out into investment and retirement solutions. Doing so solves several concerns and encourages loyalty through bundled discounts.
Don’t Leave Money on the Table
Missing a few chances to make sales and increase business income may not seem like a big deal. However, these ed-over possibilities add up and will impact a company’s bottom line. Abandoned cart rates, competitive strategies, customer data sources, and product or service offerings are things you can address to reclaim and expand revenue. When you embrace these opportunities and methods, your business won’t continue to leave money on the table.
