💰 How to increase revenue with upsell and cross-sell email automation

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Do your customers only buy from you once or twice and never return?

Yes? Well, that’s a bad sign.

This means that despite all your marketing efforts, the customers you have acquired have brought you very little revenue. No wonder you are stuck in a cycle of constantly spending money to acquire new customers to increase your revenue.

You need to break that cycle. And focus on how to retain your customers and increase your customer lifetime value (CLV).

One way to do this is to get your existing customers to buy more than once. You can achieve this by upselling or cross-selling. 

What are those? Well, in a nutshell:

• Upselling is getting your customers to buy a more expensive product. 
• Cross-selling is getting your customers to buy more products that are accessories to or work in tandem with their previous purchases.

But exactly why should you upsell or cross-sell?

• Companies that use upsell/cross-sell strategies have been shown to have a 60-70% repeat purchase rate. But companies who don’t do it only have a 10% repeat purchase rate. (Source: Gitnux)
• Cross-selling techniques can potentially increase sales by 20% and profits by 30%. (Source: McKinsey)

The most reliable method for upselling and cross-selling is setting up an email automation flow. In this newsletter, we’ll dive into the strategies and email templates you can use in each stage of the email flow.

Basics of an upsell/cross-sell email flow

The goal of this flow:

The overarching goal of this sequence is to get customers to buy more from your brand by

• Getting them to buy a more expensive/premium product.
• Getting them to buy add-ons or other products that will enhance the one they have already purchased.

Recommended emails in this flow: 3-4 emails

Optimum flow time: 2 weeks

Who should you send this flow to?

For cross-selling, you can send it to people immediately after they have made a purchase or a few weeks after the purchase. For example, if they have bought a t-shirt from you, show them some pants, belts, and shoes that’ll go well with it.

However, you might have to wait a bit longer if you want to upsell. For most products, customers are not likely to buy a similar product again immediately after their previous purchase. 

For example, if they just bought a shampoo from you, they might not buy it again immediately. But you can get them to upsell to buy a more expensive shampoo in a few months when they are halfway through it.

Now, let’s get into the emails to have in this flow.

Email #1: Introduction Email

As the name suggests, introduce customers to complementary products that enhance their original purchase for cross-selling. Or show them products that are a bit more expensive but will work better than the one they have (for upsell).

Here's how Google upsells its latest phone to its customers.👇

Email# 2: Discount Email

People usually don't buy high-end products because it might be out of their budget. So, give them exclusive coupons or a one-time discount to encourage them to purchase.

You can also make this discount email more interesting and engaging by adding a gamification element like the one below to provide the discount. So buyers would play the game and win a discount as the prize at the end of it.

Email # 3: Social Proof Email

If they still haven’t purchased, the price is probably not the cause of their hesitation. They just might not be sure about the product, so send them an email showcasing testimonials, reviews, and user-generated content to provide social proof.

Email # 4: Nudge Email

Finally, send a nudge email asking them to make a purchase. This need not be a new email but rather a duplicate of one of the previously mentioned emails, tweaked a bit to encourage immediate purchase.

This is important as sometimes people may have missed your previous emails. So, by sending one last nudge email, you can increase the odds of them seeing it and converting.

Bonus: All-in-one email

If you don’t want to do a flow, you can also do something like this where Surreal has introduced the cross-sell, provided discount and even created a sense of FOMO as well, all in a single email. 

We would only recommend this if you are tight on bandwidth. Typically, email flows with at least 3 emails get 75% more orders. So, you might lose out on potential revenue by just sending one email. But something is better than nothing, so choose what suits your needs.

By implementing these email strategies and creating a well-crafted email flow, you can effectively upsell and cross-sell to your customers, increasing your revenue and customer satisfaction.

However, this is just one way to increase repurchases from your existing customers. To read about the other ways to do it, check out our resource, “CRO school,” where we help you improve conversions and increase your revenue.

That's all, folks! We'll see you next time with more tips and ideas. If there is something we can do better for you, please let us know in the comments.