Tag: strategic internet marketing

Categories
Entrepreneurship

Why Upsells and Downsells Could be the Ticket to Your Business’ Online Success

upsell.jpgFirst, some context. What exactly is an upsell and a downsell and why is it so important to your business?

An upsell is when your prospect has already said “yes” to buying something from you, and then they decide at the same time to buy something else. The classic example of this is the MacDonald’s “Would you like fries with that?’ The customer has already bought a hamburger and now the employee has nudged them into buying something else.

A downsell is when your prospect has said “no” to your initial offer so you present a second offer. Typically the downsell is less expensive than the original offer. So, for instance, the customer decides the MacDonald’s hamburger is too expensive and decides to buy just an ice cream cone.

Now clearly this can and does happen in face-to-face situations. But did you realize this can also happen online?

So for instance, someone buys a product on your web site. Your web site can immediately present them with a second offer, the upsell.

And if the prospect clicks away, because they’re not interested in buying your product, your web site can also present them with a second offer, a lower cost offer than the one they were looking at.

So you’re probably thinking, this sounds a little complicated and I haven’t a clue how to start. Why would I want to do this?

Two reasons —

1. You’ll make more money. When you start using the upsell, you’ll increase your overall purchase amount. For instance, say your product is $100 and you offer a $50 upsell. Let’s say 20% of your buyers take you up on it. Now you’ve made an additional $50 on 20% of your purchases. (This can add up after awhile.)
Now, for the downsell, you’ve saved a sale you’ve probably lost anyway. Let’s say your product is $500, when someone clicks away, you pluck a piece out of the original product, say an ebook, and offer that for $97. Now you’re giving your customers a lower cost alternative, a chance to try your product out before spending a lot more money.

2. If you offer an upsell, you’ll increase customer satisfaction and decrease returns. Yes you read that right. Upsells can actually make your customers feel more satisfied doing business with you and less likely to want to return the product. Why? Because you’re helping them “skip” over buyers’ remorse. We all have buyers’ remorse after we buy something, which is when we regret our purchase. The intensity and the length varies depending on the buying situation. But if you immediately jump into and offer a second purchase, your customers are busy figuring out if they want to make that second purchase versus feeling bad over making the first one.

And if they DO buy, then they’re that much more invested in you and your business and they WANT what you sold them to be what they’re looking for.

And the best part of this whole strategy? It’s automatic. You set it once and it keeps on doing it, over and over again. What could be better?

One final note to chew on as you make up your mind if it’s worth it or not – do you know what the most read page on a web site is? It’s your thank you pages. The page your prospects go to after they sign up for something or buy something. Don’t waste this valuable real estate – put an upsell on that page and watch your bank account grow.

Categories
Entrepreneurs

Business – How Vampires Can Help Your Business

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I recently finished watching Season 1 of True Blood. While I can see why it’s not for everyone, I myself enjoy a good vampire romp, especially when it’s populated by such a nice selection of hot-looking actors (who have no issues showing off their equally hot bodies).

Anyway, it got me thinking about all the vampire stories out there. Vampire legends have been around for centuries and in nearly every society. Vampire movies, shows, books, etc. continually pop up on a frequent basis.
So why all the fuss? What is it about vampires that just won’t die (pun intended)?

Well, I’ve come up with 2 theories:

1. There REALLY are real-life, blood sucking, undead vampires roaming about.

2. There REALLY are vampires roaming about, but they’re HUMAN vampires, sucking the energy, money, health, time and more out of other people. And these vampire stories are actually a combination of cautionary tales (evil vampires we need to kill) and a way to transform and tame our “inner vampire” to something loving and human (the vampire love stories).

For my part, I’ll put my money on number 2. Which leads me to how this can help your business.

Vampires are everywhere. I don’t think it was a coincidence I finish watching True Blood and discover one of my friends and clients was scammed. Con artists and scammers are just another sort of human vampire — typically they’re charming and attractive in some way to their victims (for instance, they’re offering something attractive) then suck them dry of money, energy, time or more.

The thing about vampires is they’re hard to spot. (Vampires look human and in many cases they’re beautiful.) This is why a lot of times you’ll let a vampire in, not knowing it’s a vampire until after you’ve been bit.

Here are some signs of common vampires that can be sucking the life right out of your business:

1. Are there tasks you do in your business that drain you? Typically these are tasks you don’t like doing and you’re probably not much good at them either. Yep, you’re looking at a vampire. The good news is these vampires are selective in who they bite. (Or maybe these would fall into those vampire love stories — one person’s dream vampire love is another person’s worst nightmare.)

Solution — do a bit of vampire matchmaking and outsource, find the people who love those tasks and let them take over.

2. Are there people who drain you? Maybe they’re a vendor or a client you really have trouble working with. They suck up a lot of your time and energy (and maybe even money) and you’re always exhausted after your encounters.

Well, this could be 1 of 2 things — either you have a real human vampire on your hands who makes a habit of sucking the life force out of everyone they meet, or this is like a task vampire. They don’t do it to everyone, in fact they probably don’t even want to be a vampire, but some people bring out the worst in them.

Solution — it’s the same, these people are toxic to you for whatever reason and it really doesn’t matter if they’re toxic to everyone or just to you, you still need to remove them from your life.

From time to time it’s always a good idea to scan your business and your life for any vampires, and if you find any, to send them on their way. Remember, vampires are seductive, so unless you’re looking for them you just might miss them.

Categories
Online Business

How to Screw Yourself Up on Social Networking in No Time Flat

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Have you heard any of these?

* A guy who works part time for the Eagles Football team updates his status report by saying something to the effect that the Eagles suck due to a trade they made. The Eagles fire him.

* A woman gets a job offer from Cisco. She tweets “Got a job offer from Cisco. Now have to decide between a fatty paycheck versus a long commute and hating my job.” One of Cisco channel partners sees it on Twitter and comments. I didn’t hear how it turned out but I’m fairly certain Cisco rescinded the job offer. (And chances are she’s going to have a heck of a time finding another job since this story was all over the place to such an extent it will take awhile to get it out of Google.)

* A guy who I think is the agency owner travels to the headquarters of one of his biggest customers for a presentation (ironically on social networking). He tweets an unflattering tweet about the city where his client is headquartered. The employees spot it, call him on it and he ultimately loses the account.

I’m sure there are more of these stories, but you get my point. Social networking can give you credibility, visibility, leads and can help grow your business. It can also lose you jobs and customers.

So what do these stories have in common? Simple — the person forgot social networking was public.

And that’s the point of today’s article. What you do on social networking is public.

Now, I know that sounds obvious but, like most obvious things, it gets overlooked. And it’s easy to see why. I mean, half the time (or even more) you get no response to things you do on Twitter or Facebook. So it’s easy to start thinking no one’s watching.

And the moment you slip and think no one is watching, no one cares, that’s when it bites you. You think you can say whatever you want, and you do. Only to discover much to your dismay that people really ARE paying attention.

The same thing that makes social networking such a powerful networking tool is the same thing that can ruin you.

Remember, your biggest strength is your biggest weakness. And that’s true here as well. The power social networking has to get your name out there in a big way can also replicate your unfortunate choice of tweets or posts in a big way and ruin your reputation faster than you can say “to tweet or not to tweet.”

Now, I’m not saying you should run scared of social networking. This isn’t about you agonizing over every comment, tweet, post, etc. you put out there. This is about being smart. It’s about never forgetting you’re dealing in a public arena and people are paying attention, even if there are days where you wonder where all that social networking love went.

And if you DO screw up and say something you shouldn’t? Well, depending on what exactly it was, you might have to do some damage control, and/or just come to grips you’ve put a black mark on your reputation and have to do some cleaning up. You CAN come back, it might not be easy or fun, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world either.

Categories
Branding

How Strong is Your Customer Loyalty? What AT&T and Apple Can Teach You

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Apple or AT&T?

I’ve recently run into an interesting dilemma — will my loyalty to Apple win out against my disgust with AT&T?

I admit it. I’m been a lifelong Apple lover. My parents bought the family an Apple 2E in high school. (Remember those)? The first computer I bought was a Mac Classic. I own an iPod, not a MP3 player.

It’s Apple all the way. There’s been no turning back for me.

So of course I’ve been salivating to get my hands on an iPhone. However, to get an iPhone means I need to do business with AT&T.

Hence my dilemma.

I actually tried to order the iPhones and had such a horrible experience with AT&T’s customer service what I really want to do is cancel the entire order and do something else while I wait for Apple to (hopefully) open the iPhone to more carriers.

So this ends up being an interesting business lesson. Will my loyalty to Apple win out? Or will my anger with AT&T win out?

But the real question is where are YOU with your business? How loyal are your customers to you?

And what kind of experience does your customers get with you? Are they happy or just putting up with you?

Clearly the idea here is to build customer loyalty like Apple and avoid customer service issues that turn you into AT&T.

So how can you be like Apple? Well one (big) way is to give your customers what they want.

Apple’s customers want cool. They want innovative. They want a product they can rely on. Apple gives them all of that and more.

Your customers may not want cool and innovative (although I’m sure they want to rely on it). I mean, a computer company should be innovative, right? If you’re not a computer company then innovation may not be at the top of your customers’ list.

Your job is to find out what your customers want and give it to them. Do that, and you’ll be on the first step to creating powerful customer loyalty.

Now what about the flip side. How do you NOT create the AT&T experience? Well, amazingly enough it’s the same as creating customer loyalty — listen to what your customers want and giving it to them.

When you boil it down, people aren’t getting what they want from AT&T. What do they want? To make it easy to do business with them.

Right now, it’s not. You have a problem and it’s very difficult to get it resolved.

How easy is it for your customers to resolve problems with you? Do you listen to them? Are you hearing the same problem over and over again or is it always a different problem? If it is a different problem, what is the common dominator?

And, most importantly, if you KNOW that, what steps have you taken to fix it?

It’s a 2-step process. First, find out what your customers want most and give it to them. Second, find out what your customers AREN’T getting from you, and fix that. That’s how you can create an amazing experience for your customers and have them keep coming back to you again and again.

Categories
Entrepreneurs

Business Success — When it’s okay to quit

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The other day when I was running/walking a 10K race, my knee started hurting. It had been troubling me off and on for about a month but I thought I had it under control.

My initial reaction was to grit my teeth and walk through the pain. That’s what I normally do, and it’s what I do when I walk marathons.

But then I reconsidered. I had just passed the 4K marker when it really started hurting so I had more than half the race ahead of me. And then I started thinking, why am I doing this?

Clearly I had an issue with my knee. And I could force the issue and hurt it worse. Or I could quit and work on healing it.

I opted to quit and live to walk another day (sooner rather than later).

So that got me thinking, when is it okay to quit and when should you muscle through it? How do you know if this is the time you should throw in the towel or is this just more of your demons popping up to torture you?

Here’s a little system you can follow to help you know the difference:

1. How important is this? Are you talking about the life of your business (i.e. quitting it all and getting a job) or are you talking about dumping a product that isn’t selling well (and to be honest, you never liked much anyway)? If it’s the product, then yeah — quitting might be the smart thing to do. If it’s your business, then it’s probably your demons doing a jig in your brain.
In my case, doing a 10K isn’t that big of a deal. I’ll do a 10K on a weekend. So to cut this race short wasn’t an issue. Not tearing my knee up was far more important than finishing the race. Which leads me to my next point:

2. How important is it for you to quit? Or what is the cost if you don’t quit? Is there someone you work with (like a customer or a vendor) who is toxic to you? (For example, they’re costing you tons of time and/or money and you’re getting very little in return. Or, worse yet, they’re involved in something unethical that could hurt your reputation, or worse, something illegal.) Depending on the severity of the issues, you probably want to dump that relationship. Or are you just feeling uncomfortable or discouraged or stuck with your business? Nope, not a good reason to quit your business.

In my case, not being able to walk for a month was way too high of a trade off then quitting the race early.

So, here’s how this works. When you’re faced with something you’re thinking about quitting, ask yourself both questions, then compare the answers. If the answer to number 1 is high, and the question to number 2 is low, then you shouldn’t be quitting. If the answer to number 1 is low and the question to number 2 is high, then you should be quitting.

Where it gets a little tough is if the answer to both questions is the same. Then, you need to dig a little deeper. One is got to be stronger than the other (for instance, if you’re looking at something that’s really important to you, is the cost not to quit as high as you’re really saying or are you just scared right now?)

My other rule of thumb is answer to the first question is probably the way you should go. If what you’re looking at is very important, then you probably shouldn’t be quitting. If what you’re looking at isn’t all that important then you probably should be quitting. (After all, why are you wasting your time with it if it isn’t that important?)