1. Take the time to understand what success means to them.
Before you can attempt to sell additional value to your customer, you need to have a firm grasp on what kind of success is important to them. Early in your relationship, you should set aside time to sit down and discuss what your customer wants to gain from using your product or service. Explore not only the immediate goals, but also the customer's larger, long-term plans.
Cultivating a deep understanding of your customer's priorities is important for building trust right from the start. If you know what your customer values are where he/she wants to go, then you can identify areas where additional products and services can help down the line.
2. Set and track measurable goals.
When you onboard a new customer, make sure you agree upon clear, measurable indicators of success for working together using your product or service. Leverage what you've already learned about your customer's priorities and goals, and develop an action plan with straightforward milestones to keep track of their progress.
To identify a need for additional services later in the customer's lifecycle, you need a way to recognize areas where the current game plan is falling short, or places where he/she could afford to increase up their resources for better results. This is where careful tracking becomes essential.
If you tell a customer that they needs to devote more social media ad spend, you need to have the data to back it up. In terms of upselling, having data to point to will bulk up your argument, and help demonstrate to the customer that you have their best interest in mind.
3. Identify customers with a real need for additional services.
Not every customer is a good fit for an upsell, and you should never, ever try to push additional products or services on someone who doesn't truly need them. As a general rule, if you can't explain how the additional purchase will benefit the customer's overall goals, then it's not an upsell worth pursuing.
For example, if you're considering pitching your customer on an additional email marketing software upgrade, but email marketing doesn't fit directly into her long-term plan to expand his/her reach, you shouldn't force it. If you try to sell products that have a slim chance of delivering a positive outcome to the customer, you risk causing major damage to the relationship and potentially losing her business altogether.
Instead, focus your upselling efforts on customers with an evident gap in their current plan. If a customer wants to increase their reach, but you don't think they going about it the right way, there's probably an opportunity to sell an upgrade.
4. Start providing value as soon as possible with quick wins. Nobody is going to invest additional resources into buying from your business until you've proven that it can deliver tangible results for their business. To set yourself up for a long and mutually beneficial relationship with a customer, you should focus on providing quick wins as soon as possible.
A quick win is anything that delivers immediate value to a customer. Some examples could be an audit of a customer's existing social media strategy, an evaluation of a customer's website to identify new opportunities for optimization, or even creating a content offer and simple promotional plan.
A quick win doesn't require a ton of effort from you, it just has to demonstrate that you're fully committed to bringing real returns to your customer right from day one, and that your products or services can help with that. The sooner you can show your customer measurable success, the sooner you can deepen the relationship and prove your expertise in additional areas.
5. Pitch ideas, not just upgrades.
Your customers need to fully understand why you think an additional purchase is a good idea. If you approach them and say, "I think you need to spend more on social media," they might get the wrong idea and jump to the conclusion that you're just trying to line your own pockets.
Always pitch a new upgrade within the context of an idea. If you see an opportunity to help a customer increase their leads from email marketing, you should come up with a real plan to help them get there. Don't just tell them that they needs to spend more, give an easily understood plan to see where their money will be spent and how it will contribute to the overall success of their business by purchasing an upgrade.
6. Time upsells with milestones.
Finding the perfect time to approach a customer about additional services and products can be tricky, but it's really all about the timing. After the completion of a successful initiative with your product or a big milestone (e.g., reaching a new lead generation goal), take the chance to step back and ask your customer, "What's next?"
Conversations about the future offer a natural opportunity to bring up new ideas and projects you want to accomplish with your customer. Pitching an upsell is especially effective after helping execute a big win for your customer, since they have definitive proof of your expertise.
7. Provide a transparent pricing breakdown.
Put yourself in your customer's shoes for a moment: If someone said you needed to pay them more money for vaguely defined additional benefits, you probably wouldn't bite. In fact, you would probably feel like they were trying to take advantage of you.
When you're proposing an upsell, it's especially important to provide transparent pricing information. Give your customer a complete breakdown of what you're proposing and thoroughly explain the cost and timing involved. If a customer knows where their hard-earned resources are going, they'll feel more comfortable about investing more money in your products. (But if you're not comfortable bringing up price, this could be a good opportunity for your customer to chat with a sales rep on your team.)
8. Identify trends and apply to your sales process.
Once you've successfully upsold a few customers, you'll begin to develop a better idea of what types of customers benefit the most from additional products. Keep track of the timing and traits these customers have in common, and incorporate trends into your sales process to proactively identify upselling opportunities on an ongoing basis.
9. Use social proof to aid you.
Most people need evidence to help them before making big, expensive purchase decisions. After all, that's the logic behind the value of customer reviews.
Before you hop on a call to try to upsell to your customer, make sure you have the data and evidence to back you up from other customers or reviews who've found success using the add-on product.
For example, if you know the percentage of customers that use the add-on product in addition to the product the customer has already purchased, let them know that. If your company has received customer reviews from happy customers using the additional product, tell them that.
Social proof is a powerful convincing factor -- so if you have those resources on hand that suggest the success of customers using both products to make your pitch more trustworthy.