Art of the Cross-Sell

Cross-selling is a major revenue generator for businesses, it’s part of how product development is steered. That being said, a lot of the time businesses will fall flat when trying to execute the cross-sell marketing campaign. It’s a matter of sticking to these top three cross-selling strategies:

1. Be Reactive

It’s not unheard of to receive an email that markets a service that’s broadly (if at all) relevant to your life. Maybe it’s your bank reminding you that they have special financing for mortgages, or your cable provider telling you about a new sports package. The point is, often times the marketing material we receive is considered “general” because we didn’t express interest in the product or service at any point in time. Sometimes we even receive marketing material for products or services we already have. This is the kind of stuff your team needs to avoid at all costs.

Marketing and sales engagement should be reactive to your leads behavior. That means if they look at a product on your website and then sign up for your newsletter, try sending them an email (in a timely manner) about that product or service, and how it can solve some problems they may be facing. Shy away from the old “batch and blast” methods when delivering important marketing content (save the general content for general campaigns).

If a lead makes a purchase of a good or service, make sure to remove them from future marketing campaigns for that good or service, you don’t want to make them regret giving you their email.

2. Make it Matter

A lot of the people who interact with your business have done some sort of research on their own before calling you (even if it’s just looking up some different numbers to call). That means they’ve probably ran into a few different ads and banners that give the standard sales pitch for your offering, as well as your competitor’s. Because your leads are somewhat familiar with your standard “salesy” pitch, don’t send follow up content with that same type of language.

Instead, focus on the content that will inform your customer. They’ve already made a purchase with your company, so now you need to explain how investing more will continue to provide benefits for  them.

Customers who have purchased one item are much more likely to purchase another if it integrates well with an existing system. Send your customers information about how other goods or services will compliment their existing ones.

3. Do Some Testing

In order to see how your customers go from not wanting anything from you, to making a purchase of an enterprise system, you have to do some testing. Send slightly different versions of the marketing material to similar customers to see which one gets better engagement. Why did they engage it better? Is there a certain sequence of purchases that your most qualified leads are making?

It’s important that you introduce your customers to the right features at the right time. Your offering wants to meet relevant concerns and challenges that the customer is facing, and what better way to do so than to offer the same product a customer of similar nature has purchased!