Upsells. So where does this come from? In reality we all want to sell more stuff. We actually want to make more profit. But for most that equates to getting more sales.
There are only 3 ways to get more sales or to get more revenue rather. So increase your revenue. Only 3. Now if you haven’t sat down and thought about this, then you are going to think, ‘Nah. There’s loads.’
But consider this, first of all you can increase the number of customers, the number of buyers. So, obvious yeah. So more people buying will increase the sales.
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The 2nd one is to increase the number of times that they buy, the frequency of purchase. Again if someone buys once every 6 months, great. But if they buy once every 3 months, that doubles the number, their sales. You know the revenue from them.
And the 3rd one is to increase the average revenue or the average basket value, in ecommerce terms, your shopping basket, your shopping cart, the average amount that they spend at each purchase.
Now you’re going to say, ‘Well hang on you can put up prices’, but if you put up prices that increases the average amount that they spend. And if you, you say well it can get them to buy more stuff at once. That increases the average they spend at each purchase.
Think about it. If this comes from J Abraham’s, the guy is pretty smart. He’s generated for his clients at well over a billion dollars. Pretty much the father of a lot of the modern marketing methods specially internet marketing things.
So think about that. Now the best way, or one of the best ways to get people to spend more at each time is to add upsells. So an upsell meaning when someone wants to buy something, you add something else. Get them to then buy something else while they’re in the buying mood.
Now this is, this is not sort of taking advantage of them. You should be helping them. You should be providing things that they need.
Providing a service, providing a good product. So you shouldn’t, if you think you are taking an advantage, if you think you are taking someone off then you need to take a look at what you do. Because that’s not good, that’s not going to do for long.
But quite often you may not be. You may just think you are. And that’s not good either. So take a step back and write things down, write down why you think that.
But quite often, and in my experience, okay let’s take my fire protection online, we sell fire safety equipment, we sell safety signs, fire extinguishers, smoke alarms, fire alarm systems, products, fire seals, all these kind of things.
Quite often people will come along and buy something without knowing that we sell the other products. There’s of course clever ways to do this to show them.
But we have over 2000 products. And you really can’t put everything in front of them, and keep saying how about this, how about this one .we don’t know their situation.
They are buying, we are similar, amazon, quite often they are, obviously not that similar. But there will be quite often buying in their own timing in evening, and just doing their own thing, and adding stuff to the cart.
But if they are opening, say a new store, they might buy some fire extinguishers, some signs, some stands to put them on.
Maybe then they’ll forget or not realize that they needed a logbook. They would not perhaps not look, realize that we sold first aid kids that they need as well.
Things like this or perhaps they don’t even know that they actually need them, or require them.
So it’s our job to help them comply. Our job is not to sell our customers stuff. Our job is to help them make their fire safety easy. And we do this by making sure that they comply with everything. And helping them gain the knowledge. So that they can comply. So it’s our job to tell them what else is available.
The best way to communicate with customers surprisingly in this day and age other than face to face or over the phone is by email. Now you may be thinking its social media but not really.
People are not really buying from social media. It’s via email. Email is not going away anytime soon. If you are not building a list, then you’re missing out. This is your, probably your biggest mistake.
If you have customers, if you are in business and you do not have a list, go on to our site at www.MarketingforOwners.com and find the search, the search thing, it’s on the right hand side.
Just scroll down to find a box and then look up list building, or email marketing, and then there will be plenty of information on what that actually means. Because if you’re not doing it, you want to make sure that you get the right information before you take a guess at how to do it.
So once you’ve got a list, you’ve got customers. Now if you haven’t a business, you can actually, if you have email addresses, you can instantly add them to a list. And email them.
You are not going to email them offers, you are going to email them information and value. You are going to enhance the services you give. You are going to demonstrate your expertise and so on.
But in those emails there is not an issue with selling, with occasionally adding upsells. Little extra bits so did you know that you also need.
Did you know that the 60% of our customers come back to us on a second visit to buy items such as first aid kits, or logbooks, or so and so because they didn’t realize that they required them, and found out later.
Yeah. Now if these are new customers, say someone buys something and they are added instantly to your list because they are a customer and in same way, you know when you buy something from amazon, you then get emails a little while later recommending other stuffs.
Now again I don’t recommend you send out offer after offer. But Amazon is amazon. They can do what they like.
But when you send an email such as the receipt with the invoice which is the norm, this is expected. Why not add in a message, say, ‘Hi, thank you very much for your business, for your order.
You’ll find your invoice attached or below, etc., etc. but did you know that the vast majority of our customers didn’t realize they needed these items, and these items.’ And just in case you’ve forgotten, you are now going to think or come back and have to pay delivery charge.
‘So as a special if you, if you come back to our store within the next 48 hours and place an order and a second order. We will give you free shipping or we will give you a 5 pound discount voucher or we will give you a 10% off’, or we something like that. And you will be amazed at how many people come back and buy something.
Obviously give them a discount voucher in there and make it one that applies to everyone. And try and make this sort of generic so that it applies to them.
Of course some of the people will have just bought that. And it may look silly. So mention more than one item and make it very very short. Do not make it look like you are trying to sell them something.
Give Them An Offer
But give them an offer. Now if those people, if for every 10 of those customers if one comes back and buys something. That’s 10%. That’s pretty good. And you’re thinking, but I’m going to give them a discount. Hey, they already bought. They’ve bought extra.
This is their second purchase. You’ve made them a repeat buyer. That’s a second opportunity to prove how wonderful you are. This is going to encourage them to buy again and again. Because they appreciate, they won’t buy it if they don’t need it. So they are appreciating that you help them. And this is a simple upsell.
There are other upsells you can add in, carefully you can add them in a P.S, you can add them quietly. You do not have to make a big deal about this. Alright, say if you’re a landscape gardener, you can send them, you can send them an email afterwards and say thank you for your order.
I would, we offer a quarterly survey of your to see if anything needs doing. It’s only at so and so cost. If you’ll like to know more, something like that.
If you are a photographer, you could offer whatever they ordered in an album on a cd at a special price. These kind of things, things that you didn’t offer at the start.
There are many ways of doing it. And you can incorporate this in. it doesn’t have to be the whole email, it can be a list of P.S or something like that. So don’t make it a big deal.
But you want to aim to increase the average spends, so you want to look for upsells. They are usually small products that add on.
This works and by the way, in the first case, if you’re of the type they say, well hang on I am giving them a discount on something. If they needed it, they would have come back and bought it anyway.
Hey, they didn’t buy it when they just made the first order. So just assume they weren’t. You’ve prompted them. Don’t go thinking like that.
That’s not the way to think. Trust me, many people do. They are not successful. Just take the order, doesn’t matter if they got a discount. Appreciate the customer. Appreciate. You just want people to buy as often as possible because then they become regular buyers, and that is fantastic.
Tuesday Toolbox Tip
Now it is Tuesday, and it is time for a quick Tuesday Toolbox Tip. And here’s a good one again. This is an app, it’s called Awesome Note. So not only is it note taking, but it’s also schedule, it’s got everything, it’s got calendars, it’s got lists, it’s got to dos, it’s got everything. It really is clever. It is actually a paid app but when I say paid, I add a quick look. Awesome note 2, it’s what it’s currently called, you’ll find it in the app store and everywhere else. Click here to instantly download our FREE Book “The 71 Ultimate Marketing Tools”
Well it’s on iPad and everything. It costs $3.99. Yeah. If you can’t afford that then just skip a Starbucks coffee and go buy that instead. Awesome note, highly recommended. I’ve had it for years actually. So when you get it, I think it updates all the time. So it’s good stuff.
I will be back with you sometime soon with another great tip. It will be on Thursday, the real Thursday. Bye bye.