How Do You Automate Your Upselling Process?

If you want to increase your average order volume, you should be upselling.

Upselling is when you offer customers an additional product or service on top of one they’ve already purchased.

Often, this comes with a discount or some other kind of incentive. Think: ‘For just $10 more we’ll include an extended warranty.’ Or, ‘Add this additional software program to your order and get it for half the price.’

“It’s all about profitability,” says marketing expert Ivana Taylor of DIY Marketers. “Upselling allows you to add additional value to the customer and additional dollars to your bottom line.”

But it’s also a strategy that takes time. If you’re constantly creating unique offers and going back and forth with every customer, it can get to be a bit draining. Instead, you can automate parts of your upselling strategy. Save time and reap the benefits.

1. Create a Flowchart that Matches Your Upsells with Core Products

To effectively upsell, you need to match your high profit margin products with your products that sell a lot. If your core products are mainly ebooks but you’re trying to sell more online courses, pair a course with an ebook that has a similar topic.

But it’s not just about what you WANT to sell. It also has to make sense for your customers. Don’t pair an ebook about fashion with an online course about marketing. Make sure the products you group together have relevance to the same group of people, while still offering value beyond what they got with that initial purchase.

2. Create Templates with Offers

With those groups or pairings in mind, it’s time to begin automating. This requires you to craft some messages to customers based on their purchases.

Taylor says, “Use your email marketing platform to create email templates based on the upsell offers you are offering.”

So basically, your CRM tells you which customers have bought what. And your email marketing platform sends out messages to the people who have bought specific products. You need to connect the two or use a CRM that also has an email marketing function. Then you can set the emails to go out directly after a customer has purchased a particular item or within a specific timeframe.

3. Update Your Marketing Materials

You can also work upselling into your marketing strategy. Feature new offers or upsells in any newsletters that you send out to your customers.

For example, if you’re an author and course creator, you might have a segment of your list that’s just for people who have bought your marketing ebook. Once you’ve created a new online course that’s all about marketing, send that offer out to that part of your list. You can even include a deal that’s just for the people who have already bought your ebook.

One final point: Be careful to avoid upsell products with no clear connection to the core product your customers have already bought. Be sure your upsell is relevant to your customers’ previous purchase so you don’t appear to be spamming them with unrelated offers.

Recap of Steps:

1. Pick the right products. Identify the high profit margin items you want to sell more of. Then pair them with popular or core products that have the same target buyers.

2. Prepare your marketing message. Create email templates designed to promote your upsells to buyers of your core products.

3. Automate your process. Connect your CRM and email marketing platform to send emails to those who have purchased your core products.

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