Have you ever been to the market or store to buy a specific product, but brought home 1 or 2 extra items? If you have experienced this, it means that you participated in a cross-selling action. And it’s time to start applying it to your sales!
Many companies treat the consumer as a one-dimensional figure who only has one need to satisfy.
The customer enters the store, purchases the product and leaves. End of interaction.
By doing so, companies miss out on huge opportunities to increase revenue at minimal cost.
If the same thing happens to you, don’t despair. You can change this situation with just 2 questions:
- What is required for my product to work?
- What are its consequences?
Confused? Don’t worry. Keep reading and you’ll understand how these questions can increase your income!
What is cross selling (and what isn’t)?
Imagine you walk into an electronics store new zealand telegram data and tell the salesperson that you are looking for a new phone.
Your only requirement is that it has a powerful battery because “you hate running out of battery or carrying the charger everywhere.”
The salesman then shows you the most autonomous phone on the market and before going to the cashier to pay, he asks you: “why don’t you take a power bank too?”
Then he explains the deal: “For another $100, you get a power bank home and always have enough charge to double your battery life.”
Cool, right?
Then, in the checkout line, you see another customer talking to the same salesperson. But this customer wants a cell phone with a great camera because he loves taking pictures.
After the salesman presents you with the best camera phone and closes the sale, he asks you, “Do you already have a selfie stick ?”
You must have gotten the idea by now.
So what is cross-selling? Cross-selling is the technique of making an offer for a product that is complementary to what the customer has decided to buy in order to increase the store’s revenue.
That is, (taking the example as an explanation) you wanted a cell phone with a good battery and you also got a power bank and the other customer wanted a device with a good camera and bought a selfie stick to complement it.
So yes, this type of strategy can play a vital role in increasing your company’s revenue.
Harvard Business Review conducted a study among companies in Europe and the United States and found that all companies that implemented cross-selling strategies increased ROI results for each customer.
Difference between upselling, downselling and cross selling
Remember that it is important to differentiate you can earn money on photos cross-selling from similar techniques with similar names, such as upselling or downselling.
While cross-selling focuses on offering a complementary product to the one initially chosen by the customer, upselling consists of proposing a better item than the one selected by the consumer.
In our mobile phone example, you would choose mobile phone X and the seller would offer mobile phone X pro edition which would have better battery life.
Downselling, on the other hand, is the opposite, offering a cheaper product that meets a customer’s needs, as they would otherwise not make the purchase.
Imagine the customer wants a cell phone with good battery, but he can’t afford the Phone X pro edition. A good idea would be to offer the cheaper version instead of losing the sale, don’t you think?
How to use cross selling correctly?
Understanding the definition of cross-selling lack data is simple, what is a little more complicated is implementing it in your marketing and sales strategy .
By definition, cross selling is about offering a product that is complementary to what the customer has already chosen.
When we look closely at this explanation, we notice two key points, which are: the consumer and the product . Therefore, it is these factors that you should take into account when using cross-selling in your marketing strategy .
Want to understand how? Check out our tips!
Analyze customer needs
In our mobile phone example, it was clear that cross-selling only works when the seller knows the consumer’s desires.
When the customer wanted more battery, the seller offered him a power bank and to the consumer who wanted a phone with a good camera to take photos, the seller offered him a selfie stick.
To be clear about what to offer and which client, you need to develop a well-defined buyer persona for your marketing strategy, listing their goals and needs.
Map your opportunities
In addition to looking at the consumer, also look at your products. Analyze them and see how they work together.
This is where those two little questions from our introduction come into play :
- What is required for my product to work?
- What are its consequences?
From there, you’ll start to get a better idea of how your products work together and which customer might be interested in a joint sale.
For example:
Imagine that your company sells printers and other office supplies. What would be the answers to the above question?
Well, this is easy:
For your printer to work, it needs paper, and after several prints, it will need more ink.
A simple cross-selling strategy would be to offer ink cartridges or wads of paper to the customer interested in purchasing a printer.
Don’t forget that if you know your product well, you will recognize more of these combos and formulate different offers for different people.
Be measured
Always remember that cross-selling is an attempt to incorporate a complementary product into an already closed sale.
So be measured and offer the deal only once, without insisting and trying to push multiple products to the consumer. Besides being unpleasant, you risk losing the entire sale.
See what works and what doesn’t
Not every combo you put together to sell your products will work. However, sometimes consumers may be interested in offers you haven’t thought of (or planned for).
Therefore, it is important to do a frequent analysis of what works and what doesn’t. If a specific offer worked well for one person, then continue it. If not, stop offering it and consider alternatives. This will keep your planning profitable and optimized.