Archive | April, 2023

Guaranteed, you’ve been on the customer side of this equation. You buy a product and you think you’re going to be directed to the download page. Instead, you find yourself on an upsell page trying to sell you another product.

No problem, you scroll to the bottom and click the ‘no thanks’ link, thinking you’re about to get to the download page.

No such luck. You’re on another upsell page. You scroll down and click ‘no thanks’ again, and you’re taken to…

… yet another upsell page. Now you’re getting irritated. You scroll down, click the ‘no thanks’ button, and you’re finally taken to…

… another upsell page! @#$%&

You’re no longer just irritated, you’re annoyed, mad and even downright ANGRY. Odds are you are talking to your computer and what you’re saying is not very nice.

Who can blame you?

Now then, let’s look at this from the marketer’s standpoint: The more offers you as the marketer can make, the more money you will make.

Today, that is.

But when you make your customers angry, what happens? They remember how you made them feel. In fact, they will remember how you made them feel long, long after they’ve forgotten your product. And the next time you try to sell them something, they’ll decide they’re going to stay far away from your offers because they do NOT want to get caught in upsell hell ever again.

So what’s the solution? Offer ONE upsell. Just one. Then take your buyers straight to the download page.

On the download page, you can offer them another product with a nice discount. You’re not holding their purchase hostage at this point because they’re able to download it. So they’re not going to resent you for making them another offer, especially if they get it at a reduced price.

Then in your autoresponder sequence, you can offer them all the upsells, down sells and cross sells you like interspersed with helpful info, news and so forth.

The bottom line comes down to this: If you want to be a flash in the pan and make all of your money today, use a ton of upsells. No one will buy from you again, but it won’t matter because you’ll be living on the beach somewhere carving coconuts.

But if you want to build a long term business, then respect your customers and never, ever put them through upsell hell again.

This idea has been proven to work GREAT for insurance agents, and it can work phenomenally well for other businesses as well. Imagine you walk into Joe’s insurance to sell your marketing services. Joe is sitting at his desk, looking bored and sad. “Joe,” you say, “How’s business?”

“Not great, he answers.”

“Joe, I’ll bet you a steak dinner that I can get your phone ringing off the hook in days.”

Joe takes you up on your bet. You then launch an advertising campaign via social media or traditional media, in which Joe offers a big steak or shrimp dinner if he can’t save a customer money on his or her insurance. Because the offer is so attention getting and so bold, the phone does indeed ring off the hook.

Just make sure before you run a promotion like this that Joe can indeed save most people money.

You can do something similar with other trades, too, such as tax preparers, travel agents and even auto repair shops. That’s right – auto repair. The offer might be – “Bring in your estimate from any other shop. If we can’t do the work for less money, we’ll buy you dinner.”

Can you do something like this with online marketing? Why not?

“Follow my step by step system. Show me you did all the steps, and if you aren’t making “x” amount of money in 6 months, the course is one me.”

Or…

“Follow my recommendations, keep an exercise and eating journal for 6 weeks while following the program, and if you haven’t lost 10 pounds, I’ll send you my competitor’s program for free.”

The possibilities are endless. By making an offer no one else is making, you will stand out from the crowd, get noticed and make sales.