Jan 18 What We’ve Learned from Helping Top Clients Scale To 7-8 Figure in Sales per Month
As a digital growth agency, we have had the privilege of working with hundreds of e-commerce brands over the years and helping some of them to scale their businesses to the 7-8 figure in monthly sales. Through this experience, we have learned a great deal about what it takes to build, grow and scale a successful e-commerce brand. It is definitely no easy task, but by implementing a combination of high-level strategic thinking, business acumen, proper resources, and hard work, it is achievable. In this article, we will share some of the key things that we have learned and detail some of the specific strategies that we have implemented to help our clients achieve this level of success.
BRAND STORY
One of the most important things we have learned is the importance of having a clear and compelling brand story that resonates with your target audience. A strong brand story helps to establish trust and credibility with customers and sets a business apart from its competitors. We work closely with our clients to help them develop a brand story that reflects their values and mission, and then ensure that this story is communicated consistently across all marketing channels. This helps to create a strong emotional connection with customers and can be a powerful driver of sales and growth.
Not paying enough attention to developing a clear and compelling brand story can be detrimental to the growth of an e-commerce brand. Without a strong brand story, e-commerce brands tend to plateau early, struggle to break the revenue ceiling, and achieve sustainable growth. We’ve seen this scenario played out over and over again way too many times. Some less experienced clients had their business plateaued at 6-7 figure ANNUAL revenue and no matter how hard they tried tweaking the ads, adding new products, running promotions, sending emails/SMS more frequently, nothing seemed to work out, at least not consistently.
Our best of the best type of clients understand the importance of brand story very well. They take their time to continuously develop and refine their brand story as well as properly use it in all elements of their branding assets and advertising to the right people, at the right time and platform.
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Another key element of our top clients’ success has been their extreme obsession with improving customer experience. Your business could get away with providing mediocre customer experience when you’re just starting or the level of your business is still relatively low (under 7-figure monthly sales). However, at the higher level, your business can go under very quickly if you don’t have this element in place. The best of the best e-commerce businesses rely heavily on repeat customers, and that customer satisfaction is crucial to achieving this. Our clients at 7-8 figure monthly sales level consistently generate roughly about 50-60% of their sales from repeat customers every month, for many years. It is not realistic for businesses to get this level of success, generating 7-8 figures every month solely from new customer acquisition alone. Your margin would suffer as the cost of acquiring new customers keeps getting more and more expensive over the years. As such, we work closely with our clients to help them build a customer service team that is responsive, knowledgeable, and dedicated to providing the best possible experience for customers. This helps to build loyalty and repeat business, which is critical for sustainable growth.
LTV
A key strategy that we have implemented with many of our clients is a focus on increasing the lifetime value (LTV) of customers. We do this by implementing a variety of tactics such as upselling and cross-selling, creating loyalty programs, and offering personalized deals and promotions to repeat customers. By increasing the LTV of customers, businesses can achieve significant growth without having to rely as heavily on acquiring new customers.
However, increasing LTV can get very complex and technical is that it requires a deep understanding of customer behavior and preferences. This involves properly collecting and analyzing data on customer demographics, purchasing habits, and feedback, which can be a time-consuming and highly-technical process. Additionally, LTV can be affected by a wide range of factors such as product pricing, shipping costs, and return policies, which all need to be taken into account. This is why many brands hired us as consultants and stayed with us for many years because of the value we bring, including our expertise on increasing and maximizing the LTV for them.
AOV
The next key strategy that we’ve implemented for our top clients is a heavy focus on increasing the average order value (AOV). Statistically speaking, 8 out of 10 customers who have purchased your store WILL NEVER come back. Only 2 out of 10 will come back and purchase from you for the second time or more. Therefore, it’s EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to make sure that you’re not leaving money on the table by failing to maximize the order value from every single customer, including those who buy from you only once. We do this by implementing custom-tailored tactics such as offering free shipping on orders over a certain amount, including special offers and promotions with orders, and upselling and cross-selling during the checkout process.
Increasing AOV can be a very complex and technical process that requires a deep understanding of customer behavior and preferences, a multidisciplinary approach, a robust data infrastructure, sophisticated data analysis tools, a strong understanding of the psychology of upselling and cross-selling, and testing and experimentation. It’s not something that can be done overnight, it’s a continuous process that requires expertise, time, resources and commitment to get the best results.
DATA & ANALYTICS
One key aspect of our top clients’ success has been the focus on data and analytics. Our clients understand that to make informed decisions about a business, it’s crucial to have access to accurate and actionable data. As such, we work closely with our clients to help them build a robust data analytics infrastructure that allows them to track and measure key metrics such as website traffic, conversion rates, customer engagement, attribution, ROAS, and customer lifetime value. Leveraging our proprietary technology in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to collect and analyze data helps them identify areas of their business that are performing well and areas that need improvement, allowing them to make data-driven decisions that have helped them to optimize their operations and improve their bottom line.
STRONG & DEDICATED TEAM
Last but not least, building a strong and dedicated internal team is one of the main keys to success for e-commerce businesses. A strong internal team allows businesses to effectively utilize and manage technology and data, move quickly and adapt to changes in the market, provide excellent customer service and support, and create a positive and supportive work environment. Our successful clients understand this and invest in building the right team with the right skills, resources and culture that aligns with the company’s vision, and mission.
Growing an e-commerce brand to 7-8 figure monthly sales is no small feat, and it requires a combination of high-level strategic thinking, business acumen, proper resources and hard work. We hope that this article is helpful, and should you have any questions you can call the office at +1-213-986-8582 (M-F 8am-5pm PST), or email us at info@wearedivisa.com.