🛒2024 guide on cross-selling & upselling

In partnership with

Happy Humpday, my friends. Let’s get about the business of upselling and cross-selling. That’ll make a good Feature Story because I hear the holidays are rolling in like the Four Horsemen hauling hell with ’em (aka sacks of credit card debt).

Also on tap today is…

• The Knowledge Base 

• Self Help 

• Facts & Stats  

• Get Hacking 

Now, let’s get into the Feature Story.

Prime Time

There’s never been a better time to enhance your upselling and cross-selling skills. One reason is the oncoming holidays, but the other reason is… 

Why not make more sales without putting in a lotta effort?

2024’s Upselling / Cross-selling Basics

Upselling is just offering an upgrade to the original purchase.

Cross-selling is recommending complementary purchases to the initial purchase.

Why bother with either tactic?

Upsells are 68% more profitable than acquiring a new customer (Optinmonster). Chasing new customers is costly and “efforty.” 

Cross-sells make up 7% of e-commerce store visitors and account for over 26% of their revenue (Investpo).

Upselling and Cross-selling Don’ts

Being pushy doesn’t produce bonus sales. Being helpful will.

Tough to be helpful without knowing what your customers want. So, you’ll have to wade through any customer data you’ve got. 

Another don’t is don’t give away too much. Look for upgrades that cost you little time or effort, but impress clients and give more value to customers.

A Free Cross-selling Clinic

If you’re new to product recommendations, don’t fret. 

You likely have a how-to in one of your browser tabs right now. Amazon.com. Put a couple items in your cart and see how the Bezos pros do cross-selling. 

Also, check your old emails for Amazon’s pitches to buy related items.

Then, think about your most obvious cross-sells.

That helps create a road map for adding a variety of cross-selling opportunities. A/B test (if you’ve the resources) to optimize the process.

A vital part to getting conversions on cross-sell items? Sticking a positive review or two next to your recommended items (use the options below).

Example Emails of Keen Upselling 

Other vehicles for upselling and cross-selling:

• Triggered and transactional emails

• In-app notifications

• 📦Packaging inserts

• Direct mail

• SMS campaigns

Make Upsells and Cross-sells Easy Decisions for Shoppers

Ask yourself what would be a no-brainer offer if you were shopping for specific items.

Also, when cross-selling, items well below the price of the original item work best (studies show). 

If you track average order value and customer lifetime value, you should be able to track the payoff from product and service upgrades / recommendations. 

Not tracking those metrics? No worries, you’ll probably hit the lottery, and going out of business won’t matter 😅. Jokes, folks.

Data Won’t Come Easy 

Beg, borrow, or steal to get your audience to complete surveys so you’ll know what to cross-sell, what to upsell. 

Look at services and items that don’t exactly fly off your shelves too. That's the best survey, I think.

Stand-out Stat on Sales

Odds of upselling an existing client is 60%-70% versus 5%-20% chance you’ll successfully pitch a new client (Marketing Metrics book).

Repurposing content isn’t just for adding content. How many useful guides could you create from past newsletters, then cross-sell in a sexier form (no nudity please)? Or give away via the email options mentioned above.

Timing Upsells and Cross-sells

The best time to upsell could be after someone leaves your brand a positive review. That works online, but also, when a client sends a thank-you note to your organization… send a note back!

Monitoring LinkedIn activity can reveal ideal times to introduce new offers to clients too. Watch for… 

• When they land a nice contract

• An employee your brand has worked with gets promoted 

• The company expands its products 

Seasonal timing. But don’t wait until the winter holidays to pitch related products to buyers. 

There are opportunities on a weekly basis. From the obvious lingerie recommendations with chocolate for Valentine’s Day, to not-so-obvious marriage counseling with those chocolates (roughly 37 months after the wedding).

Reverse Psychology on Upselling & Cross-selling

This Psychology Today post gives advice on not getting sucked into impulse buying. 

Read that. It’ll save you money personally and help you understand how people avoid your offers. One of the article tips is below.

“Apply mindfulness to finance.”

Make your upsell / cross-sell offers no-brainers financially, and mindfulness won’t stop those sales!

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Self-Help

Make time for something today that makes life easier beyond today.

Hard but possible. I did it last Sunday with a 6-hour audiobook.

Won’t change my life, but will make it easier if I USE the advice in it.

I made notes (below) so you can use ’em too, but save the six hours. 

• Define what done looks like before you begin any project

• 1 step > improving 7 steps

• Only do what is required (where possible)

• Convert linear action into multiplied output (not a cliche, but you gotta be creative)

• Use daily mandatory pacing (set a min. & max. output for your day, stick to it)

The book is Effortless if you want to gobble it all down.

Facts & Stats

Bonus: 45% of email recipients say they “like brands that ____________________.” Answer at end of email.

Get Hacking

A specific strategy to implement today

What if you have a diamond in the rough in your stable of employees or even a freelancer you hire frequently?

What if they could be turned loose to help improve your branding efforts?

It’s worth testing out (not with any loose cannons, obviously!). Proof? Oktopost reports that companies using employee advocacy generate 25-40% more engagement than those that don't. 

Imagine having a young Josh Allen or Coco Gauff on your team but never putting them in the game.

Inbox Hacking is read by brilliant marketers like yourself at ESPN & Red Wing Shoes. Please share this newsletter to spread the word.

Shane McLendon, Copy Kingpin 

Bonus answer from Facts & Stats section: 45% of email recipients say they “like brands that don’t take themselves too seriously.” (Snov)”

P.S. TrafficGrid uses 30 intent signals to find proven newsletter junkies. These are the type of subscribers who will make the most loyal readers for your newsletter (Book a demo. CPL is under $1). You need 15k active subscribers to qualify.*

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