Month: July 2022

Upselling and cross-selling are two ways to do the same thing: grow your revenue by getting customers to spend more. It’s a mutually beneficial deal where customers get a better experience, and you get a fatter bottom line.

But many businesses jump in too early, neglecting their buyer’s intent, choosing the wrong method, and annoying customers instead of enhancing their experience.

In this article, you’ll discover what everyone’s missing about cross-selling and upselling, so you can apply today’s best practices to delight customers, deliver more value, and drive revenue growth.

What everyone’s missing about cross-selling and upselling 

Cross-selling and upselling are similar, but not synonymous. 

Cross-selling involves additional product recommendations: “If you like this, you might also like this.” 

Upselling is about upgrading the customer’s original purchase: “That’s a good choice, but this one is better, and here’s why.”

Both cross-selling and upselling can take place during the initial sale, or further down the track, once the customer relationship has been established.

Used effectively, the two techniques can maximize customer value and improve key revenue metrics like LTV (customer lifetime value) and AOV (average order value).

Maximizing value: What is cross-selling? 

Cross-selling occurs when you recommend additional products or services on top of what the customer is already purchasing.

The archetypal example of the cross-selling technique is the McDonald’s cashier who asks, “Do you want fries with that?”

The additional item you’re selling is complementary to what they’ve already agreed to buy—not just any additional product. You’re helping the customer maximize the value they get from that purchase or improve the customer’s experience when using it.

For instance, a sales rep at Mailchimp could cross-sell blocks of email marketing credits to a customer signing up for a Website package.

The email credits are a complementary item that benefits the buyer who will want to stay in touch with the leads they capture.

This cross-sell could take place at signup, or an account manager could reach out at a later point (having identified a cross-sell buying signal).

Where cross-selling goes wrong

The best cross-sells are enhancements, not requirements. 

Apple provides a good example of each. New iPhones no longer ship with a power adapter or headphones.

You don’t need headphones to use your phone, making them complementary to the core product. So, headphones like Apple’s AirPods are a great upsell opportunity.

You can’t, however, use an iPhone without charging it.

The exclusion of a power adapter creates a cross-sell opportunity, but it’s a forced one and not a good example of a cross-selling strategy you should pursue.

There’s also a reason why you don’t see a pop up for the latest Apple Watch or MacBook on its iPhone checkout page: this would be a poor example of a cross-sell. These are not relevant products, and they may also be a good deal more than the customer was willing to spend (we’ll explore price anchoring in a moment).

Ensure cross-sell offers are highly-relevant to…

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Let’s be honest: Without a social media marketing strategy, you might not see your hard work on social media pay off. It’s easy to fall into the trap of posting content just for the sake of keeping your accounts “alive,” but that’s unlikely to generate real business results for your brand.

What goes into an effective social media strategy? Understanding your goals, knowing your audience and what they like, posting relevant content at the right time, and more.

The good news is, creating a smart social media strategy doesn’t have to be difficult if you have a good process in place. In this guide, we map out a 7-step plan to help you create an effective social media strategy for your brand — in no time.

What is a social media marketing strategy?

A social media marketing strategy is a document that outlines all your social media goals, the methods you’ll use to achieve those goals, and the metrics you’ll track to measure your progress.

In addition to that, your social media strategy should also outline the following:

• All your existing and planned social media accounts
• Marketing goals that are specific to each social media platform you use (these goals should fit in with your company’s larger digital marketing strategy)
• The roles and responsibilities of your team members
• Your reporting cadence

How to create a social media strategy in 7 simple steps

Below, we cover all the steps to creating a social media marketing strategy. If you’re in a rush (or you’re just not a big fan of reading), watch this video where Hootsuite’s Senior Manager of Social Media Marketing, Amanda, breaks down their free social media marketing strategy template:

1. Set social media marketing goals that fit in with your business objectives

Set S.M.A.R.T. goals

The first step to creating a social media strategy that works is to set your goals. Without goals, you won’t be able to measure your performance and return on investment (ROI).

However, to see the best results, your goals must be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Timebound

This is the S.M.A.R.T goal framework, and it will guide your marketing efforts and ensure that you get real results.

So instead of saying: “We want to drive traffic to our website through social media marketing.”

You say: “We will use LinkedIn to increase our website traffic from 10,000 pageviews to 20,000 page views by the end of this quarter.”

That’s a S.M.A.R.T. goal.

Track relevant metrics

Many brands get caught up in measuring metrics that don’t contribute to their marketing goals at all. Vanity metrics like the number of likes and followers are easy–exciting, even–to track, but they rarely have real value (except you’re trying to increase brand awareness).

Metrics like engagement, click-through rates (CTR) and conversion rates are much more relevant metrics to track as they contribute…

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Social media is a powerful marketing channel. But planning and executing an effective social media strategy takes a lot of work. You need to set up goals, plan a content calendar, track your results, run regular audits…

But here’s some good news: There’s a template out there for nearly every aspect of a social media manager’s job. In this article, we’ll be looking at 15 free social media templates that will save you a ton of time (and migraines!).

15 social media templates to help you save time

1. Social media strategy template

Whether you’re a one-person social media team or you have multiple people in charge of your social media marketing efforts, this template will help you plan and/or improve your social media marketing strategy.

The social media strategy template makes it easy for you to:

• Set SMART social media goals that contribute to business growth
• Create or improve your social media profiles
• Target your ideal customers better
• See what’s working and what isn’t
• Analyze your competitors so you stay ahead of the curve
• Craft an effective social media content strategy and publishing schedule
• Sell social media packages to new clients
• Measure your progress and tweak your methods accordingly

Get the free social media strategy template.

2. Social media content calendar

A social media content calendar is a document that helps you plan and schedule social content in advance. This makes it easier for you to meet deadlines, manage your content creation team, and be transparent with your boss and/or stakeholders.

This document is one of the most important things in your social media toolkit.

Every social media content calendar is different, and this template should be customized to fit your own social media strategy. This social media content calendar template will help you:

• Find your ideal content mix for the major social media networks (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, etc.)
• Identify and fill gaps in publishing
• Remember important dates and events
• Ensure your content is performing well
• Collaborate with team members
• Allocate resources to the team effectively

Get the social media content calendar template.

If you need help using the template, check out our guide to creating a social media content calendar.

3. Social media audit template

Social media networks like Facebook and Twitter modify their algorithms often. And users are changing their behavior and interest just as fast. So the strategies that worked yesterday might not work today.

To help you navigate these…

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