What is Cross Selling and Can It Boost your Small Business Revenue?

Getting a customer to spend more money on your goods and services is a priority for small business owners. Fortunately, cross selling can help you do that. This sales technique is designed to get a client to buy something that’s directly related to the purchase they’ve just made.

What is Cross Selling?

Cross selling is a sales technique where businesses promote complementary products or services to a customer, either during or after an initial purchase. The intent is to increase the value of the sale and enhance the customer’s experience by providing additional options that align with their needs or interests.

Cross Selling Strategies

Showcase Accessories

Some of the best strategies can be implemented quickly whether you’re a digital, brick-and-mortar or even omnichannel outfit. For example, if you own an electronics store, having accessories close to bigger ticket items is a great way to cross sell.

Give Examples

You don’t have to look far for examples. In fact, the next time you’re up for fast food at McDonald’s you’ll run right into some cross selling when the counter person asks you if you want a dessert with your food or if you’d like the latest “meal deal.”

courtesy of smallbiztrends.com

Separate Lanes

If you need a little more convincing about how successful this technique can make you, Amazon reportedly gets 35% of their sales from cross selling. That number stretches back to 2006.

Get the Timing Down

Patience is one of the cornerstones of cross selling if you’re using emails or other digital techniques. Getting the timing right means understanding how to schedule a series of emails to sell other services or goods.

Bundle Items

Bundling items together so you can cross-sell them as a package is as easy as using the “frequently bought together,” method online. Offering a discount on packages that complement the existing services is a method you can use in a brick-and-mortar location.

Use the Right Language

Engaging your customers so that you can cross-sell to them is one of the techniques you can’t afford to miss. The language of cross selling communicates on a personal and individual level.

courtesy of smallbiztrends.com

Set Limitations

It’s good to remember that scarcity is one of the cornerstones of making any kind of sale. If you put a time limitation on an offer that you want to resell, you’ll be helping the client to make a quick decision.

Know Your Target Market

Revisiting your target market can help you better understand how to cross-sell to them. Of course you’ve more than likely already done that by now, but it’s a good time to check social media feeds and analytics to see what you can tweak.

Summarizing Key Cross-Selling Strategies

Explore the table below for a streamlined overview of the list above.

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