Are you using an upsell with all of your offers? Did you know that 60% of your customers want and expect an upsell? Upsells are used by all successful marketers e.g. “Do you want fries with that?”, “Do you want caller ID?”, “Do you want regular, deluxe or digital cable?”, “Do you want an extended warranty with your new TV?” The list goes on and on. What can you offer as an upsell?
60 X 60 Rule
Did you know that your customers will buy an upsell 60% of the time for 60% of the original purchase price? Of course, your upsell must be closely related to the original offer e.g. burger – fries, appliance – warranty, automobile – undercoating, etc. Your upsell may have up to three options not including colour or size e.g. fries – curly, spicy, home.
More Upsells
You can and should offer a second upsell for 60% of the first upsell. Don’t forget to keep it related e.g. fries – gravy or poutine.
With the right product, you can even offer a third. Although there is no empirical data for this, observation suggests that this upsell may either be 60% of the previous upsell, or 60% more than the first upsell. An interesting anomaly!
Whether to use 60% more or 60% less for the third upsell is not subject to any hard and fast rule. It will be necessary for you to test this out to determine which is best for your offer. I offer the following as a guide, not a rule. If your offer is for a staple item, use a 60% less offer. If your offer is for a discretionary purchase, use the 60% plus offer.
Upsell Mania
Before you get carried away with upsell mania, let me suggest that you offer no more than three upsells with no more than three options each. As I stated earlier, this does not include size or colour. More than three upsells can cause your customer to think that they are in upsell hell and could dissuade them from even considering future offers.
Conclusion
By using this technique correctly, you should be able to increase your profits by at least 50%. Not a number to be sneezed at considering how little work it can take.