Cross-selling is one of the most efficacious methods of boosting the profits of a business. It is a powerful tool for expanding the reach of your business, acquiring new customers and enhancing customer lifetime value by encouraging them to buy something that adds to the value of their chosen product. When done right, cross-selling can benefit a business like never before. Here are the best practices to make the most out of cross-selling:

Leverage customer data:

Customer data holds a lot of importance for any business. It helps to understand your customers better, identify their pain points, eradicate these shortcomings and provide an exceptional service. Data such as transaction behavior, lifestyle factors, and demographics can be used to segment customers so as to make the most out of cross-selling efforts.

Cross-sell relevant items:

Cross-selling can be effective only when you offer something relevant along with what your customers are buying. You need to make sure that the additional items that you offer to complement the original product. Customers would love to buy something that creates an additional value with whatever they are buying.

Incentivize your offer:

Another method of making your cross-selling efforts more effective is incentivizing your offers. It can be done by offering free postage on orders more than a particular price or giving a discount or gift voucher for orders over a certain amount or other such offers. Incentivising gives your customers that extra little push required to buy something additional.

Suggest same style products:

E-commerce sites such as Flipkart, Snapdeal etc. actively use this cross-selling strategy. It involves driving customers’ taste by suggesting products similar to what they have chosen. There is a high possibility that you might show them the products they have not seen and in the most favorable cases, they might end up buying them as well.

Leverage bundling:

Bundling refers to the process of encouraging a customer to purchase the whole set of complementary products. The technique is beneficial in selling such items which would not otherwise be sold.

Guide your customers:

This one is quite similar to WOM marketing. For this, you have to curate expert opinion on which two or three products are most effective when used together and then share it with your buyers. You can even use quotes from other experts and articles you’ve come across so as to encourage your customers to buy additional products.