We’ve all experienced the less appealing aspects of upselling in the past. If you’ve ever struggled to say “no” to a sales rep who simply won’t stop asking you whether you need extra “bonuses” with your purchase, you’ll know how off-putting it can be.

However, upselling isn’t always as headache-inducing as it might seem.

Just like any tool for brand growth, upselling works best when you know how to use it to your advantage. The right upselling strategy will highlight the values of the extra purchase for your customer and convince them that they’re getting a great deal from the secondary purchase.

Upselling can improve your average order value and even generate more loyalty and support from your target audience.

The tricky part is figuring out how to create a strategy that your clients actually appreciate.  Here are some tips for developing an upselling strategy without overwhelming your clients and customers.

1.    Know Your Customers

Whether you’re launching your first startup or just trying to thrive in troubling times, there’s nothing more important than understanding your target audience.

The better you know your customers, the easier it is to tailor your upselling strategies to their unique needs and expectations.

Whenever you start a new relationship with a client, build a user persona for them that you can track and add information to on your CRM system. Gather as much information as you can about the key performance metrics that matter to them and the goals they want to achieve by purchasing your product or service.

Once you have a good idea of what your customer wants for you, adapt your upselling suggestions with a focus on helping them to reach those goals.

For instance, if you know your customers want to improve brand loyalty with an email marketing service, you could consider upselling them with social media to boost those relationships.

The better you can tailor your offer to your customers’ unique business needs, the higher the chances they’ll accept your offer.

2.    Identify a Pressing Issue to Solve

When working with your company, customers are generally looking for evidence that you can solve their problems with as little risk as possible.

However, every client has their own needs and expectations. Understanding what kind of problems your customers are facing will help you link your upselling opportunities to the concerns they need to overcome.

If you want to truly position yourself as an indispensable partner, approach your client with a solution to a problem they didn’t even know they needed to solve.

For example, if you know your customers are struggling to get the best outcomes from their marketing because they only rely on paid ads or social media, you can inform them of the benefits of using SEO to expand their reach.

Before offering extra service packages, demonstrate the benefits by using case studies and statistics, and link the benefits specifically to the issues you know your customers face.

Your clients know that you’ve helped them achieve their goals before, so any new idea you approach them with will seem like less of a risk if you can demonstrate how your new offering will help them too.

3.    Focus on Benefits, not Features

This is an important aspect of successful selling but something that many companies often overlook.

Your customers aren’t interested in what kind of features your products or services have to offer. Instead, they want to understand how those features correlate to genuine benefits for them.

Rather than telling your customer that purchasing your product will give them access to more social media marketing services and analytics, show them how those features will strengthen their bond with their target audience and help them understand the purchasing journey better.

If you’re trying to convince your customer to purchase the higher-tier package for your SEO and content marketing services, explain how more content assets produced per month will lead to faster company growth.

Your fancy features mean nothing to your customers unless they can see how this will pad their bottom line. Make the offer more appealing by highlighting the exceptional results they can expect from using those features.

4.    Reduce the Risks

When your customer buys something from you, they’re already taking a risk, believing that the product or service you’re offering will be worth the price they’re paying.

If you ask them to buy even more items or services, the risk is going up, so the reward needs to increase too.

Explaining the benefits of each of your items carefully will help your clients understand why they should consider this purchase in the first place. However, you can also reduce the risk aspect by offering free demos, discounts, or trial periods to get your audience member started.

If they’re not totally convinced that they need a higher-cost tier of your service, but you offer it for a discounted price, they’ll be more likely to take the risk.

Remember, if you’re selling subscriptions, your customers should always have the ability to change their package and reduce the amount that they spend in the future too.

Having a “no strings attached” policy seems less risky than signing up for a service they can’t discontinue if it falls short of their expectations.

5.    Create a Loyalty program

A loyalty program is an excellent way to upsell your customers and make them a more dedicated part of your business community. With a loyalty program, you can convince customers to spend more on their purchases with special offers tailored to their needs.

You can even use your customer relationship management system with your loyalty app to track your customer behavior.

To make it as easy as possible for customers to collect rewards and points, consider implementing such a program through a mobile app. This is much easier than using cards and stickers because your customers don’t have to remember to carry something else around with them.

Loyalty programs enable you to reach out to your customer at the right time with the right offer. For example, if you know your customer regularly purchases ink cartridges for their office, you can offer periodical discounts, bulk deals, replacement parts, etc.

An app also means that you can easily send targeted messages and offers to your customers when they’re on the move.

Because your customer will usually rely heavily on their smartphone, you have an easy way to keep your brand in front of their minds, especially if you send push notifications around the time they need to restock.

Master Your Upselling Strategy

To get the most value from your target audience, it’s important to make sure you’re using your upselling strategy as carefully as possible.

Upselling is an excellent way to improve your average order from customers. Still, you’ll also need to ensure that you’re not scaring your clients away with overly aggressive sales tactics.

The tips above will help you develop an upselling strategy that delivers better outcomes for your bottom line without harming your relationship with your target customer. You might even find that creating loyalty is much easier with these strategies.

Once your customers see that you have their best interests at heart and not just revenue, they’ll be more likely to hand over their hard-earned cash.

Author bio: Heather Redding is a part-time assistant manager and writer based in Aurora, Illinois. She is also an avid reader and a tech enthusiast. When Heather is not working or writing, she enjoys her Kindle library with a hot cup of coffee. Reach out to her on Twitter.