Customer retention is one of the most crucial and expensive tasks of the marketing landscape where less or more, hefty efforts are required to acquire a new customer and retain an existing one.
Being an entrepreneur you would frequently ask yourself how to ladder up sales in business or if you are a salesperson this question would never get out of your head.
Selling a product or service is inevitable in the field of marketing and only those can succeed in the race who think differently, stand out, remain calm, and can anticipate the needs of their customers and also the competition.
Upselling and cross-selling are the two sales strategies that are aimed to convince a buyer to spend more than he originally intended. Significantly, these effective methods have led many businesses to liquefy their revenue streams where Amazon reports 35% of their revenue is contributed by cross-selling and upselling techniques.
Let’s break them down in a bit of detail:
Upselling:
To encourage a purchaser to buy an upgraded version of a product/service or an add-on or a premium version. Say, upselling may have led you to have 54” TV instead of 48” that what you planned for.
Cross-Selling:
To encourage a buyer to purchase another product along with the primary selected one(s) or something that the customer already owns. Such products fall into different product categories but are related. Say, adding up socks while buying a pair of shoes or artificial flowers while buying a vase for your living room.
Now, let us jump on to the explanation of the article title that made you click on it.
How to Effectively and Successfully Upsell and Cross-Sell?
#Narrow Choices for a Smart Upsell
“Too many choices often confuses the buyer.”
Undoubtedly, it’s a universal fact even if we relate it rationally, say, to buying a perfume.
It is very crucial and mandatory to implement that one must never bombard the customers with ample options. If they haven’t shown interest in an upsell option, don’t be aggressive to convince them for the same.
Be Helpful, Not Pushy!
Upselling must always be kept as a suggestion and not a pushy sales tactic.
#Qualify Every Purchase
Qualifying every purchase or order is similar to qualifying a lead to determine whether they can become a potential customer or not.
Likewise, it’s essential to vet orders to know whether they make practical sense to customers and are appropriate and fruitful for upselling/cross-selling strategies. How to qualify a purchase?
Ask these questions:
- Is the product/service relevant to the original purchase?
- Will the customer reap benefits out of the product/service?
- Will the customer see value in further product/service versions if any?
If the answers turn out to be Yes, certainly your upsell and cross-sell tactics will work and prove to be excellent opportunities to raise revenue growth. Furthermore, be mindful of the fact that the end customer should not be alienated in setting up any strategy or considering a marketing scenario.
#Demonstrate Value
Telling how things work and results were old school. Now is the time to demonstrate what the product is, how it renders and value, and what the final consequences would be if a user acquires it.
The audience today is driven and moved by real-world examples and user-generated content, so back up your upselling and cross-selling with awe-inspiring customer testimonials or their success stories or visual reviews that build up trust and loyalty and is influential enough to don’t get any second thoughts on purchasing the upgrades or add-ons.
#Reduce Customer’s Decision Complexity
Seen frequently, user actions are associated with complex decision making where they tend to consume time in making a purchase or end up filling and abandoning carts to make a worthy decision on their product buy.
Thus, it’s necessary to reduce the number of actions in a buying decision and could be effortlessly done by bundling offers.
By this we imply, you can offer products by bundling them as they bring up related products that are of much relevance to the user and his purchase. We can well relate that buying individual products consume more time and energy and are more decisive.
Nonetheless, bundling is potentially attractive, less complex, and customer-friendly too. One can reduce the decision complexity of consumers while understanding how we (as a salesperson or entrepreneurs) make decisions as customers.
#Pitch Ideas, Not Upgrades
Well, even though you are convincing a customer to buy an advanced version of the product/service, you as a sales executive should not give the customer an impression that you are trying to get them to spend more in any way.
Pitch for the idea behind the product that’s on sale, frame recommendations as opportunities, and help them see the possibilities of advantages they could reap out of their purchase.
Upselling and cross-selling are all about helping customers see the added value and benefits of your offerings, at first and then help yourself make profits out of that final buy.
#Don’t Forget Post-Purchase Cross-Selling
Never forget, marketing opportunities don’t end even after the purchase is made, one can pitch for related or upgraded versions of the product afterward which forms a key moment in the customer journey.
Never leave a chance to showcase them offers that could be availed even post-purchase. Continue to maintain healthy post-purchase communication with customers to offer them value and opportunities to develop loyalty.
Are you Upselling and Cross-Selling the Right Way?
Upsell and cross-sell strategies are the result-oriented techniques that help customers make better decisions over making a purchase and also drive maximum improvement in sales.
If you are relying on guesswork and not applying these techniques the right way, surely you are missing out on optimizing them as per the customer requirements and analyzing their purchasing patterns.
To deploy the right ones at the right place, CodeGlo’s digital marketing experts are there to do it the easy way running A/B tests wherever needed. To know where you lag or tips to boost upsell/cross-sell/resell results get in touch with our marketing pundits.
About The Author
Arjun Angisetty
If CodeGlo were a car, I’d be the engine: crucial, behind the scenes, and most importantly efficient.
