Friday, June 06, 2008

Upselling...

This week, I’d like to share an custom-tailored snippet from an interview I’m doing on upselling for a client’s training CD …

Interviewer:
So if you are upselling a customer, do you show him the next size up from
what he has now?

Phil:
I think showing him just one size up is a disservice to your customer. You’re limiting his choices and your chances of getting a bigger order. I like the good, better, best approach.

How’s that work?

By showing your customer say an X, Y and Z version of the product, you’re showing a range of options. Given choice of good, better, best, most people will gravitate to the middle choice.

Really?

Some will want the biggest and best just because it’s the biggest and best. And some will be satisfied with the lower-end choice because it better fits their needs or their budgets. But in most situations, more sales will fall in the middle -- unless the pricing is way out of line or something like that.

Can you give too many choices?

Absolutely. I saw research showing that given too many choices, people will sometimes not buy anything at all. There’s a certain level of analysis paralysis with too many choices.

Can you give too few choices?

Absolutely. Given just two choices a little more than half of people will choose the lower-end choice (again assuming pricing is inline). So you are directing a lot of people to the lower end.

But, often that’s preferable to giving only one choice where the only two options are to buy or not buy. You see what I mean?

Homework: Does your marketing approach have upselling opportunities built in? Are you taking maximum advantage of upselling without overwhelming your customers with choices?

- Phil Sasso

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