If you are looking to expand your consumer base, cross selling needs to become a part of your business strategy. Consumers’ reliance on digital discovery when looking for a product or service is growing, so companies with a strong digital presence are at an advantage. But for non-digital companies, the competition makes it difficult to generate brand awareness.
What is Cross Selling, Exactly?
This rise of competition in the digital marketplace makes acquiring new prospects challenging, but cross selling is a proven way to build a solid sales pipeline. In the most basic sense, cross selling is reaching out to existing customers and engaging them with other products or services you have to offer. Although this method of outbound marketing seems pretty simple, it can exponentially increase new sales opportunities.
So yes, cross selling can be extremely successful, but only when it is done effectively. There are a few ways to get started.
Cross Selling Past Customers
The most effective method to cross sell customers is through a re-engagement campaign. Below are three of the top re-engagement campaigns that you can use to build new business:
Recent client re-engagement
Former client re-engagement
Personal re-engagement
These three methods are easy to implement and consist of a few simple parts. Generally, a re-engagement campaign includes a four email sequence that allows for educational and engaging messaging.
The messaging itself is fairly simple in structure. You first want to identify where you know them from. This can be as simple as, “Hey, we’ve done business before in the past and we want to see what you are doing now.”
This gives your email context. The next part of the messaging is sharing what you are working on, “I thought you might be interested in our new platform…”
This gives your prospect context for why you are contacting them again, seemingly out of the blue. It also establishes the opportunity to share some of your company’s new offerings and any recent product or service announcements. You’re looking out for their best interests, of course.
This also has the benefit of increasing your customer service. We’ve found that many past customers are thankful to companies who simply touch base every now and then.
Finally, your messaging needs a call to action. After all, you want your prospects to raise their hand, so to speak. This can simply be a request for a phone call or an email response. You want to be personally invested in your customer. Do not send them to a form to fill out or a landing page. You want to engage them on their own terms. A happy customer is a good customer!
Cross Selling Existing Customers
A direct cross selling email involves reaching out to your current customers and notifying them of the latest and greatest you have to offer. The most effective format is to send a plain text email, which is a simple four to five sentence email with no graphics.
Of course, emailing is just one channel of communication. You can also use direct mail or try to incorporate calling in the process if you want to create a personal connection with your customers. Plus, there are always other mediums such as LinkedIn that can do the trick. LinkedIn is an especially valuable resource when reaching out to a previous contact who has moved to a new company.
Cross selling isn’t a hard sell. You want to establish rapport, create a personal touch, and really let your personality shine. You want your clients to like you, not tolerate you. For example, you might say, “Hey Bill, how’ve you been? I’m always looking to make your day better, and since you’re in the data space, I thought you might be interested in…”
This personal touch makes the recipient more likely to continue reading. Each email should typically be about one specific topic. You don’t want to bombard your customers with a wall of text and no clear goal. That’s how you land in the dreaded “read later” pile (hint: they don’t read it later).
The first email’s goal should be to convey your central message clearly, concisely, and without all those frilly, messy, listless, and superfluous adjectives that make up sentences like this one.
When you’re cross selling, it’s always better to give examples of other companies that have used your products or services so it seems more like you are sharing a customer’s success story rather than just trying to sell them something. Always add value—you can’t ask a customer to pay attention to you without giving them something in return; they need a reason to care.
Why You Should Cross Sell
In our experience, most companies fall short when marketing their services or products to existing customers. Some of our clients may offer 20-30 complimentary services, but their clients only know about a handful of them. And in those situations, it’s a lot easier to get more business out of your existing clients than it is to find new clients.
Cross selling can increase the profitability of services or products your company provides that may typically go unnoticed by your current clients. Additionally, re-engagement campaigns are an excellent way to boost your cross selling efforts and are one of the most effective methods to build new business and turn past customers into current clients.
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