SFM: Ep9 – How To Add Upsells Into Your Marketing Funnel Without Pissing Off Your Customers (Part 1)
Most people want to add an upsell sequence into their marketing funnel.
However, there is always a little bit of hesitancy that comes along with it. After all, we don’t want our customers getting mad at us!
In this first series (of 5), I’ll take you step-by-step through exactly what you need to do to create an “invisible” upsell funnel that helps you increase your back-end sales without pissing off your customers.
In this first edition we’ll focus on using surveys and buyers autoresponder sequences.
Listen To The Podcast Now!
[powerpress]Transcript
Hey, this is Jeremy Reeves, from the Sales Funnel Mastery podcast. I want to welcome you back to another episode of the Sales Funnel Mastery podcast. This is actually going to part one of a series of five podcast right in a row. What we’re going to talk about is how to add upsells and how to add cross-sells; essentially, how to increase your lifetime customer value and average order size and things like that without pissing off your customers.
Having the typically upsell funnel, where you buy the first product and you went to a “Thanks for your order. Here’s the second thing to buy.†A lot of people don’t even say, “Thanks for your order.†They just send them to a page. It really does nothing to confirm that they just got the first product. It does nothing to reassure them that they’ve just made a good decision, nothing like that. It’s so sales-y. They click the “buy now†button and boom, they get another offer.
I don’t really love to do stuff like that. It’s kind of just disingenuous. It takes people out of the flow that they’re in, out of the buying frenzy that they’re in and is a little bit too much. It’s a little bit too pushy for a lot of markets. What we’re going to talk about in this series, again, it’s going to be a five-part series; is how to add upsell without pissing off your customers.
Even though the typically funnel works really, really well, everything has to be worded properly; if you’re not comfortable doing that or if you have a market that just doesn’t respond well to that, because some don’t, actually. Typically, in older audiences, sometimes they just don’t respond that well. You have to think of different ways that you can still get those same offers in front of your audience, but without doing it in a way that seems sales-y, sleazy, that kind of thing.
The first thing that we’re going to talk about, part number one of this, is doing it through surveys or buyers auto responder sequence. The reason that this works so well is because what you’re doing is just bought product number one, the original offer that you have. You’re taking them and segmenting your list, depending on what they want, specifically. Not only that, the big “ah-ha†for all this, is that they’re actually telling you what they want.
You’re not segmenting them based on a click or something, which is awesome. Segmenting, based on what they’re clicking on or pages they visit, is great. I always recommend that to clients in both prospect and buyer auto responder sequences. In this case, it’s the difference between making a call to a client and having that client call you. J. Abrams talks about doing that in a certain way, that we’re actually going to talk about in part two or three. I can’t remember off the top of my head.
Having people call you versus them can increase the results you get by making outbound phone calls. I think it’s about three to five times. I’ve never actually personally tested it. I just know that its better getting people to call you. The point of this is when you get people to actually self-select. They’re telling you what to sell them. Your conversion rates can go way, way up because they’re already engaged. They’re telling you. It’s a completely different mindset.
What you want to do is the typical person has the upsell funnel. They have them buy the original product; you go to an upsell funnel page. Maybe you have a little box that says, “Thank you for your purchase.†You have a little thing confirming that they just bought the original product.
Instead of doing that, instead of the typical upsell funnel, what you do is send them straight to a thank you page. I know this flies against everything you’ve heard about before and it’s something to test in your market. This isn’t some kind of gospel that it’s going to work in every industry. Test it in your market versus a typical upsell funnel and see what works for you.
What you do is on the thank you page, you have at the top “Thank you for your purchase;†and then you have a video under that. The first thing you do is confirm what they just bought. “Thanks for buying product X. You’ve just made a great decision.†You reaffirm the buying decision. “We’ve already received X number of testimonials. Everybody says that it’s the best product that they’ve ever bought in this industry.†You go through all the different reasons that they just made a great purchase.
Then what you do is say, “While you’re here, I would really appreciate it if you could fill out this really short survey. We’re constantly doing market research and helping you to better solve problem X,†whatever that X is, whatever problem you’re solving with your product or service. Tell them that you’re going to use their results to help them, give them the better solutions, faster results, better results, that kind of thing.
What you say is, “We have a gift for filling out this survey.†You could even say it’s a surprise gift. “We have a surprise gift. I’m not going to tell you what it is now. The survey is only going to take you ten seconds to fill out anyway, so there’s no point in not doing it.†Then you have the survey underneath that video. Then what you do, you get something like survey funnel. Survey funnel is a WordPress plugin, or you have your developer custom code something where depending on what button they click, they go to a different upsell page.
For example, if you’re selling weight loss and you say, “What are you most interested in: A strength training manual, a weight loss manual or a guide to the proper supplements.†You have three different options that you’re giving to people. Depending on what they click on, you send them to that upsell page. If you think about it, this really is kind of like a pre-sell page for your upsell. Instead of going, first order, immediate upsell number one. You’d go first order, and then you could think of it as a survey customization page and then upsell number one. That’s how you do it with a survey.
Another thing that you can do is do this through email. If you just want to send them right to the “thank you†page, which gives them access to the product and that kind of thing. What you can do is in the first email that you send them, and hopefully, you have a buyers auto responder sequence in place. If you don’t, you need to get one in place now.
What you do is in the first email, again, you say, “Thank you. Here’s your link to go download your product;†or “Here’s your link, we’ll be sending you,†if it’s a physical product, “We’ll be shipping it out within 24 hours;†whatever your confirmation is. There’s too many examples to get into right now.
What you do is just have them, “Hey, just so we know, so we’re sending you the right emails, what are you most interested in? A, B, or C?†Whatever they click, you could think of that email as your survey; whatever link they click. If they click on supplements, boom, they go to a supplement upsell page. Again, that says, “Thank you for letting us know what you’re choosing. I saw that you clicked that you’d like some more information on supplements. I don’t know if you already knew this, but we already have a guide to picking supplements for weight loss,†whatever the case maybe. That’s pretty much with surveys.
Another thing that you want to do with surveys, actually, is you can manually, like a one-time promotion or if you’re doing an evergreen sequence, like an automated sequence. One thing you can do is share the result of surveys. You could even have this second video, so if people don’t buy the upsell after they click on the survey link, then you can actually send them to a second video.
“Just in case you’re curious about the results of this survey, go here and you can see what you and what you’re fellow student or whatever you call your tribe, what you thought, what you’re most interested in,†click here. Then you can have another video that shows you the results and goes right back into that upsell number one video.
That’s it. That’s part number one, how to add upsells without pissing off your customers. It’s either using surveys or buyers auto responder survey’s to send them to a buyers upsell page. I hope that helps you. If you have any questions, let me know!
