Learning how to get more customers online is essential for the success of any wholesale WooCommerce business. And yet, this can be challenging, especially if you’re new to the industry. Landing wholesale deals may feel impossible, considering the number of competitors that vie for the attention of B2B buyers.
No worries though, we’re here to help! In this article, we’ll walk you through key strategies on how to get more customers online and boost your B2B sales. As a bonus, we’ll also teach you how to negotiate with wholesale buyers, ensuring you secure the best deals! Ready to learn? Let’s get right into it.
9 Actionable Tips On How To Get More Customers Online
The e-commerce space is continuously growing. In fact, there are currently more than four million live stores leveraging the WooCommerce platform. This presents a valuable opportunity for you to keep growing your online business.
Below, we provide key tips on how to get more customers online so you can expand your reach and land wholesale deals effortlessly:
1. Search for prospective wholesale buyers
Sounds easy, but a simple search can make all the difference! Leverage the power of the internet to look up prospective wholesale buyers who are looking for similar products and have the same customers as yours.
According to SBA, “Search the Internet –Search for wholesalers by product to help you pinpoint suppliers, then add your zip code to the search so that your results are localized. You can also search YellowPages.com and online associations, trade directories, or wholesale directories such as Wholesale Central or Wholesale Network.”
You can also check online forums and other sites such as Quora to check how other similar businesses have found wholesale customers.
2. Use social media to expand your reach
Promote your online store on various social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube, and other channels. You can also list your business in Google Business so that you can be searched by customers via Google Search and Google Maps.
Set up or update your social media pages and accounts to keep attracting new subscribers. You can also start a blog to highlight the pain points or problems of customers that your products can solve.
3. Offer special discounts or promotions
One of the most effective ways on how to get more customers online is by offering special discounts and promotions. After all, wholesale customers are always seeking the best deals. Considering the value of their transactions, they’re likely seeking bulk discounts and deals to make the most of their investment.
You can leverage tools like Wholesale Prices Premium to easily set up wholesale prices and discounts for bulk buyers. With this powerful plugin, you can easily set tiered wholesale discounts, implement minimum purchase requirements, and create unlimited wholesale user roles to segment B2B customers.
4. Optimize your website for search engines
In this day and age, it’s crucial to invest in SEO optimization to make sure your website gains optimal visibility for B2B clients. This is one of the most powerful ways on how to get more customers online. Start by identifying keywords and phrases that your potential customers are likely searching for. You can leverage tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to discover high-volume, relevant keywords for your niche or industry.
Then, make sure you optimize the pages of your website with targeted keywords in titles, headings, meta descriptions, and overall content. This will help search engines understand the relevance of your website to the search queries of potential customers.
5. Invest in content marketing
You can attract more wholesale customers online by building industry thought leadership through quality content. This strategy entails creating blog posts, articles, infographics, and other forms of content that resonate with your target audience.
In relation to the previous tip, ensure that every content you distribute is SEO-optimized. By doing so, you can maximize the visibility of your content and make sure it appears in relevant search results.
Here are some quick tips:
- Add your chosen keywords naturally into your content, including the title, headings, meta descriptions, and body text.
- Don’t forget to add relevant internal links to your content – this can improve overall SEO performance and help customers discover related information within your website.
- Also optimize your website’s loading speed to provide a better user experience and improve your search engine rankings.
6. Leverage the power of email marketing
Another powerful way on how to get more customers online is by building an email list. With email marketing, you get a direct line of access to wholesale customers. It’s an effective platform to share promotions, content, and relevant updates. In fact, according to industry insights, 59% of B2B marketers consider email as their top channel for revenue generation.
You can get started on building an engaged email list by leveraging opt-ins with lead magnets. For example, you can offer industry guides, coupon codes, or downloadable content to entice prospective customers to sign up. Then, once you have built your subscriber list, you can send out targeted emails to engage your customers and move them through the sales funnel.
7. Provide flexible payment terms
WooCommerce wholesalers should not overlook the power of providing customers with flexible payment terms. By doing so, you remove financial barriers to purchase and increase the likelihood of conversion. Options like installment payments, net payment terms, and customizable payment plans make bulk purchases lighter for their cash flow, giving them more reasons to partner with your business.
Plugins like Wholesale Payments make implementing this strategy easier for WooCommerce store owners. With this powerful plugin, you can offer flexible payment terms, create custom payment plans, and streamline the invoicing process for your business.
8. Look at your existing customer base
In some instances, you can find customers who are “good candidates” to be wholesale buyers. You can take a look at the list of your existing customers.
To do this automatically in your online store, you can install the WooCommerce Order/ Customer CSV Export that immediately compiles a list of customers and their respective orders. Take notice of their order volumes. Are there customers that have increased their average order value over time? If there are,
consider reaching out to them and offering wholesale opportunities.
After all, these customers already have experience with your products and have demonstrated a willingness to make larger purchases. By leveraging your existing customer base, you may stumble upon fruitful opportunities to improve customer relationships.
9. Don’t forget to follow up
One of the most important things that you need to do is to follow up with prospective wholesale buyers. For example, do you have old B2B buyers who have shown interest in your products in the past but hasn’t made a purchase yet? Following up with them could reignite their interest and lead to a wholesale deal.
A lot of wholesale buyers might take some time before getting back to you, and some will outright reject you. There are also wholesale buyers who will take an interest in your products but have clarifications or questions before they commit.
Either way, you need to consistently follow up with these prospective wholesale buyers. You can also prepare follow-up email templates to ask them when they are available to discuss or to set a meeting with them. You can also call them to follow up on the status of your request or proposal.
How To Negotiate With Wholesale Buyers
Now that we’ve discussed how to get more customers online, it’s time to master the art of negotiating with your clients. Especially for new online business owners, negotiating a deal with wholesale buyers can be nerve-wracking at times. However, in order to land more wholesale deals, you need to control your nerves and learn how to negotiate with them!
So, here are helpful tips that will help you land a deal with wholesale customers:
1. Decide on the terms and conditions
You must know the requirements, terms, policies, and payment schemes of the wholesale buyer. You must know what you are signing into; thus, the buyer must be transparent as to their conditions for buying wholesale.
You should also decide on your store’s volume discounts, pricing tier, processing time, and shipping and return policies. You can prepare a standard binding contract with wholesale buyers; or, make a modified contract to suit the terms of the wholesale buyers. Then, after polishing the contract or agreement, have your attorney review it before both you and the wholesale buyer sign on the dot.
2. Maintain a good relationship
Discuss with your wholesale customers their wholesale needs. If there are terms that need to be clarified, air them out with your buyer. Have open, constant communication with the buyer so that if there are problems along the way, both of you can easily fix them.
3. Look at your competitors
Assessing the industry landscape is also beneficial. Research your competitors and the wholesale pricing tier that they offer to buyers. It would be great if you know what your competitors are doing to land big wholesale buyers.
4. Don’t be afraid to negotiate for a better deal
Once you’ve discussed the terms and conditions, don’t hesitate to negotiate better terms of the agreement and wholesale pricing with the buyer. Since buyers are also business owners like you, it is expected that they would negotiate the lowest price possible.
Thus, you should think of the cost and profit margin so that you can negotiate better wholesale pricing and payment terms that would be beneficial for both you and the wholesale buyer.
Meet the wholesale buyers to discuss shipping methods, payment terms, wholesale pricing tier, and other related wholesale purchase arrangements.
Conclusion
Learning how to get more customers online is probably one of the key goals of any WooCommerce store owner. And yet, in today’s increasingly competitive landscape, it can be challenging to stand out in the digital crowd. Fortunately, in this article, we’ve covered nine key strategies on how you can achieve this endeavor. To summarize, let’s review them below:
- Search for prospective buyers
- Use social media to expand your reach
- Offer special discounts
- Optimize your website for search engines
- Invest in content marketing
- Leverage email marketing
- Provide flexible payment terms
- Examine your existing customer base
- Follow up
We’ve also reviewed key reminders when negotiating with wholesale buyers:
- Decide on terms and conditions
- Maintain good relationships
- Look at competitors
- Negotiate for better deals
We hope this guide helped out! Do you have any questions about how to get more customers online? Let us know in the comments sections below!
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