Simple ways to increase your revenue

In today’s blog, we’ll explore simple strategies to boost your revenue because sometimes, you just need more money coming through the door.

To increase sales without breaking the bank or consuming your days, we teach these 5 simple ways to increase your revenue that have made a significant impact in businesses in lots of different markets. From brick and mortar businesses, to online stores, right through to consultants. These strategies have allowed our clients to achieve instant sales and hit their financial targets, whether it’s for the quarter or the month.

In business when we near the end of the year and review our sales performance, many of us feel uncertain about whether we’ll meet our goals. Today, we’ll implement one, two, or all of these strategies to help you cross that finish line and reach your targets.

Let’s go through the strategies now.

Strategy One: Sponsor a local event.

This strategy is incredibly effective. Find a group, organisation, or business that aligns with your target audience. For instance, if you sell bespoke garden buildings, a good demographic would be a garden centre in your local area. Discuss setting up an event in the summer, get an ice cream van to come in, put some toys and chairs in one of your garden buildings onsite and promote your business. Offer the garden centre a small commission for any building sold, it’s a win win for both businesses.

You don’t need to organise the event; you can simply be the headline sponsor. Most garden centres run events in the summer so you could just tag onto one of theirs for a fee.

Many organisations are not looking for a substantial sponsorship fee. You can often secure the headline sponsorship by simply providing food, such as pizzas or ice creams, for the event. What I love about this strategy is its non-traditional nature, which allows for negotiation.

You can ask for a lot. In many events, I simply say, “Hey, I’d like a table and I’d love to put up my banner. I’d love to address the audience for a few minutes, maybe give a mini workshop, or even run a contest to give away some of my product and raise awareness.”

You can provide the awards and plaques, and a portion of the award could include a sample of your business or services, a discount, or a voucher. The key is to get in front of an audience in person, which allows you to build trust quickly.

You’re gaining exposure, finding your target audience, and becoming a household name to many potential clients.

I like to take a step further because I value a return on my investment and enjoy having a table at local events. I’ll distribute swag and engage in conversations with people.

You could encourage people to sign up for a free account or a free trial or whatever. I highly recommend this, and you can make it a contest. So if you sign up, you enter the contest, and the winner gets [a special prize], a massage package or something.

I’ve found that sponsoring events can be a great way to boost business. For example, I’ve spent between £300 and £500 on an event, and I’ve often gotten tenfold in return. There are many organisations, sports teams, reading clubs, and more that have the audience you’re looking for and are already sponsoring events.

Strategy number one is to find these organisations and sponsor an event.

Strategy Two: Offer swag bonuses.

People love bonuses, especially when they get more than they bargained for. One way to get more sales is to tap into your existing customer base. You can offer your current customers swag, such as a T-shirt, hoodie, or cap, with your brand on it. This makes them feel proud and shows that you value their business.

We use Printful to create and sell our swag. In fact, we’re launching our own swag store called Be a Purple Yak to make this easier. You can give away swag that you’ve ordered to anyone who upgrades their account, buys another product, or takes advantage of an offer.

To make your swag even more special, consider making it limited edition. Only have 100 pieces of each item, so people want to get their hands on it.

People love something that’s special, so make sure your swag is unique and memorable. Don’t just put your logo on a T-shirt – make it something that people will actually want to wear.

Go to Fiverr or Freelancer and hire a graphic designer to create a cool design for your swag. Something that you would wear to dinner or a night out.

People love to see something cool, so make sure your swag is visually appealing. Have fun with your brand and let it shine through in your swag.

Once you’ve created your swag, put it on a piece of clothing or a piece of swag and show it to your audience. Tell them that they can get it if they upgrade their account, take advantage of an offer, or do something else. By the way, it costs almost nothing to do this.

You can get someone on Fiverr for £20 or something to design a beautiful T-shirt. You can then mock it up digitally on Printful or Custom Ink and show your audience what it looks like. You only fulfil the order when they buy. If you’re wondering the logistics, don’t overcomplicate it. You don’t need a digital store or Shopify store to try this out.

You could literally just manually do it. When someone takes on the offer, you take their name, email address, and mailing address. You can then simply email them to ask for their mailing address so you can send them their bonus, order the bonus, and send it out. You could even hire a VA or do it yourself.

I did it myself in the beginning. Swag bonuses were a huge winner for my business.

Strategy Three: Provide an experience.

You can also host your own live event but let me be clear I don’t mean a big conference or some sort of small lunch and learn.

You could, and you probably would do pretty well out of it, but instead what we are after is an experience for your clients.

You might be thinking, “how will this make money?” You do this by packaging your event tickets. So, for example, if someone buys your coaching, course, product, or service, you can create a package called the experience package.

When they buy our product or services, they will also get the “experience”. It will be a little bit more expensive because it includes the product and the experience. For instance, if I was offering an online course, I normally charge £250 for it. I have another tier for £350 which includes worksheets and documents related to the course, but then I have a £1,000 tier that includes the course and all the materials, as well as this live experience, this “live event”.

And here’s the best part: it’s exclusive. First of all, you’re gathering like-minded people and becoming a connector, which is huge. Second, they’re going to have fun.

Organise an event that’s interesting and unique, like dedicated time together in a small group, if this is online it could be special curtains closed Q&A sessions where they can ask anything, if you can arrange in person in your local area then you could meet up for a lunch or dinner in a fancy restaurant, it a private sectioned off area to allow socialising and networking on top of the meal you’re providing. The goal is to provide a reason for people to network, meet, and have fun together. By buying this event, they’re essentially purchasing your product.

The event itself acts as a catalyst for the purchase because it offers an exclusive opportunity. People who love meeting new people but need a structured setting will be drawn to this package. Since you’re charging for the event, all you need to do is plan it, market it on your website, and secure the funds when they make the actual purchase.

To ensure profitability, make sure you charge more than the cost of running the event per person. Conduct some research to determine the expenses and ensure you’re making a profit to give yourself some leeway.

Strategy Four: Run a competition.

You can do this from the comfort of your office or online. Email your list, share on social media, and keep the contest simple. For example, you could say that anyone who signs up, buys a product, or spends £50 or more enters to win, the prize could be an iPad, an experience, or a trip for example. In my opinion, start with something small and not overly extravagant. People love contests and the thrill of winning something.

You can even have multiple winners. For instance, you could have a raffle for five people, with a simple prize like a pair of AirPods.

Now, let’s talk about sales. You need to set a budget for prizes that you’re comfortable with. For instance, if your budget is £500, you could give away five prizes, each worth £100. These prizes could be anything from Kindles to sunglasses, depending on your audience’s preferences.

Strategy Five: Raise Your Prices

This is actually quite simple and won’t cost you anything.

Before you start with the whole that won’t fly with my customers. I know, I know, it sounds scary. You might think, “Mick, I can’t raise prices. I’ll lose my customers.” But just hear me out and think this through properly from a math perspective.

I understand your concerns. I’ve been there too. I’ve done this several times across multiple businesses as well as almost all of our clients. If you’re not increasing your prices regularly, at least every 2 years, you’re losing a lot of money because of inflation.

Your expenses are increasing, so you need to increase your income. However, many people don’t realise that raising prices can actually increase sales before you raise them.

So, set a date for the price increase, even if it’s a small increase like 5%, 10%, or maybe more. Then, give your customers or audience a heads up. Say, “We’re going to be raising prices.”

This creates a sense of urgency because you’re actually raising prices. It’s not manipulation; you’re genuinely going to do it, so it’s in their interest to buy now. This will result in increased sales and revenue before the raise.

When the price increase happens, most people don’t notice a dip in sales because most price increases don’t significantly impact the buying decision for your customer. For you, a 10% increase makes a big difference across all your sales, but for the customer, the difference between spending £90 and £100 a month doesn’t really change their decision to stay with you or not.

If they like the service, product, or community, they’ll stay with you, and the £10 difference won’t put them off.

Think about this in the context of your own lives, how many times have Netflix raised their prices and you’ve still stayed?

The value is great, and you don’t really notice the difference between £7 and £9. It’s in the same place in your head. But for the business, it makes a massive difference.

So, raising prices is actually one of the most effective ways to boost your business. You can’t do it every day, but you can definitely do it every couple of years or so. Any customers you do lose by the price increasewill be covered by revenue from customers staying so overall even if you do lose some customers you’ll still have more revenue at the end of it.

Let’s quickly recap the five strategies to increase revenue and sales without breaking the bank:

Strategy One: Sponsor a local event.

Strategy Two: Offer swag bonuses.

Strategy Three: Provide an experience.

Strategy Four: Run a competition.

Strategy Five: Raise Your Prices

Most of these strategies don’t cost much money, but they do require effort, energy, and courage to put yourself out there. Remember, you need to get out of your comfort zone sometimes. In life and business, if you want a different result, you have to take different action and steps.

By doing different things, you can achieve new outcomes. Gradually step out of your comfort zone and reap the benefits. Trust me, you’ll feel better about yourself and proud of yourself for stretching yourself.

Got a burning question? Reach out on our social channels or email me at michael@purpleyak.co.uk

Thank you so much for reading.

Take care.