4 Ways Of Using Upselling For Your SMB

Recently I was getting some spa therapy when an attendant offered me a deal: If I went for a full body Thai spa treatment, I could get a complete manicure and pedicure for half its normal price. I hadn’t come in looking for a manicure, but the price was irresistible. So I splurged.

This is a prime example of a good upsell. When done wrong, upselling can feel like a pushy sales tactic. When done right, it helps customers discover added value at a price point they can afford.

The trick with a good upsell is offering extra value that is worth the extra cost.

Here are four ways you can leverage upselling for your SMB.

1. Change in Payment Plans

If you have a service or product that runs on several plans, then suggest an upgrade by upselling a moderately pricey plan. More plans, in a way, is already an upsell because you are providing a better mix to your cheap plan with the additional features. Having just one plan can be bad for selling because there is no way your customer can differentiate between cheap or expensive plans.

Here you can also use a plan price comparison where you can show a side-by-side comparison of various features and upgrades you provide in these individual plans. This is a great motivator for the customer to buy extra, to gain extra. For instance, your business might have four plans – Free, Starter, Regular and Enterprise. You can include best plan or top plan tag to “Regular” plan to add that extra proof. Now, see how your customers will pick this extra value plan over the basic one.

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2. Bring in Customization

Use paid customization of your product as an upselling method to increase the price value. Many car dealership owners use this trick to upsell customized paint or seats or car interiors in general. Basically, what you are doing is offering your customer a full customization of your product to fit their need but at an extra cost.

However, this extra cost of customization is not included in the actual price, which increases your margin.

For instance, you can offer customization by adding an extra upgrade or feature to your customer’s plan but at an extra value. Now the customer will pay extra to add that extra feature/upgrade in the plan. It’s a win-win situation, customer added value to the already existing product and you made extra money.

3. Offer Additional Services When Required

You can upsell by offering additional services to the already existing product/service exactly when the customer needs it. Use the features that are unavailable in the current service/product and show customer what he/she is missing. However, it is essential that the upgrade offer is sent at the right time–when the customer is the most need of it. Understand that the upselling won’t work unless and until it is adding value to the product/service or till the time the customer feels the need for it.

Like using online sites for publishing purposes where multiple plugins can be downloaded for free but only for a limited time period. So here when the limited period is about to expire, send a notification to extend the limit for a few more months by paying some amount. Now all you are doing here is being proactive and quick in understanding that the customer is in need and you are rescuing him with something beneficial.

4. Give Free Feature On Trial Basis

Most of the products require regular feature upgrades to work well. You can use this as an upselling technique by offering a free trial of a new feature for a limited time and then when the customer gets accustomed to this feature, he needs to buy the feature for continuous usage.

Let’s say you have a product where customers can easily save pictures and videos online. Now you are introducing this new feature where your customers can easily share these pictures on various social media directly. So you give them a free trial and once the customers are accustomed to this feature, they will buy the paid version.

The secret of successful upselling is delivering value at extra cost. You need to make the offer irresistible for your customer so that he/she is ready to skip the original offer and take the new offer instead. Consider that if the benefit of upselling is more revenue for your business then it needs to be more valuable for your customer.