Internet Marketing Business Strategies

by David Hurley

Finding new customers can be very expensive, so it makes sense to squeeze some extra value from as many customers as possible while also offering enhanced value on the extra purchases your customers make. You can do that by adopting a number of profit-enhancing upselling strategies to encourage customers to spend more.

For example, let’s say you’re selling a health supplement for $20 a pop. Each time you make a sale, invite your customers to buy another one of your products for a $5 discount if they add it to their order straightaway. That’s upselling!

Your goal is to squeeze more money out of the first sale of each and every customer. If the transaction is face-to-face the “upsell” could be a simple question such as:

“Would you like french fries with that?”

Here are eleven upselling strategies you can adopt to increase your profits:

Deluxe Upsell: Sell a basic product and tell people that for a little more money they can receive the deluxe version instead.

Money Upsell: Offer people the resell rights on the product they are purchasing from. You could charge an extra $30 dollars to get the reproduction rights. This is especially effective for information products such as e-books.

Discount Upsell: If you’re selling a product that people might order again in the future, such as health supplements, you could offer them a second bottle of the same product at a discount.

Time Upsell: If you’re selling a product or service people subscribe to, a magazine or an e-newsletter for example, you could offer them a 50% discount if they subscribe for two years instead of one.

Quantity Upsell: This strategy resembles the discount upsell, but instead of offering a discount on an extra product purchase you can increase the discount according to how many products they order. If they order three they get a 10% discount, if they order 5 they get a 15% discount, and so on.

Package Upsell: If you’re selling a range of related products you could offer your customers a package deal. Tell them the products are much cheaper when they are all purchased in a single package as opposed to purchasing each product separately.

Affiliate Upsell: Offer a related company’s product as an upsell. This is a good strategy if you sell affiliate products alongside your own products. Offer a discount on the joint purchase as a way to introduce customers to your affiliate products. (Make sure your affiliate commission is bigger than the discount you offer, though!)

Free Upsell: You could offer a free product or free membership package and then tell your customers that if they order the full version right away, or within a specified time limit, they’ll get a discount.

Extra Upsell: There are many things you could charge extra for at the point of sale. It could be gift wrapping, imprinting, customized designs, product cleaners (if you are selling shoes or furniture for example) and so on.

Extended Upsell: If your product comes with a warranty, you could offer to extend the warranty one more year for only $30.

Gigantic Bonus Package Upsell: If you are selling software or information products via the Internet you can offer a huge bundle of extra products for a mouth-wateringly low price. Tell the customer that the special low price bundle will not be offered again if he declines the purchase today.

In conclusion, you can use one or all of these strategies to increase your profits at the point of sale. Don’t be afraid to use your imagination to come up with other profitable upselling strategies to squeeze extra value out of your “dear” (in both senses of the word) customers!

David Hurley
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