You already have the sale; you have a committed customer who wants to buy something from you. Now there’s one thing you can add to your marketing mix that will dramatically increase your profits.
What you’re going to do is offer your existing customers more of what they already want. You’re going to offer additional items that complement the core product or service you’ve already sold. This has two benefits: your customer walks out more satisfied and you increase the value of the transaction.
The Up Sell
When you go to buy a domain name, unless you’re with a very poor supplier, you’re going to be buying a relatively low-priced item. Once you’ve bought the domain name, you may well be re-routed to a page on the website that asks you whether you’d like to have your new domain name hosted by them as well.
That’s an up-sell. They already have you as a customer, and now they’re offering you an additional item that perhaps you weren’t thinking of buying, and which certainly wasn’t the original purpose of your visit to the site.
The Cross Sell
You’ve bought the domain name and signed up for the hosting package. Now you get transferred to a web page that offers you some software that drives additional traffic to your site. This is a cross-sell. The additional product complements the ones you’ve already bought.
The Bump
When you first arrived at the site to buy your domain name, you had the option to select the period of ownership. Perhaps there was a drop-down box that defaulted to “2 years (most popular option)”, even though there was also an option to buy for 1 year.
This is a BUMP. The benefit for your customer is that they typically get a lower price per year, plus the bonus of not having to worry about a renewal for two or more years. The benefit for YOU is that you get an immediate cash flow boost, plus two years to sell, up-sell, cross-sell and bump other items to that customer!
What Can I Do Now?
Think carefully about the services and products that you offer. Find new ways to increase your profit per transaction, by offering your customers complementary products and services. If you have a shoe shop, offer socks, polish, brush sets, shoe racks, and anything else that you can think of to complement your core product.
This was a guest post by Mark Shaw who runs his own Business Start Up Coaching blog.
This blog is about business opportunities and ideas that I spot, think of or hear about and think are useful and interesting. It is intended to provide ideas and inspriation for you to help you find the right business idea for you to then grow it into a successful business.
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