Josh Melick is an expert when it comes to business advice for software developers and he has recently penned a brilliant blog post which breaks down some of the issues which these companies are having. What Josh particularly focuses on is the fact that there are not enough businesses which have looked into upselling of their products. There’re in fact a great many ways in which this can be done, and here is exactly what businesses should be looking into if they are to find ways at upselling, at least according to guru Josh.
Adding The Third Dimension to Sales
One of the most important points which Josh seeks to make in his article is that not enough companies focus on what he refers to as the critical ‘third dimension’. What is intended by those is that when packaging up software suites, a time limit is not placed on the purchase. When splitting these packages into bronze, silver and gold, businesses focus on managing the number of users allowed and the amount of usage given for each package. The reality however is that another key feature here is the limiting of time, which gives businesses the perfect opportunity to upsell once that time limit is up.
Lengthening The Time
Upselling is about giving an incentive for the customer and a great way of doing that is to extend the time which they have the product for. After the first year, the business can offer the customer an upgrade and in return they will be given an extended amount of time, let’s say 14 months instead of 12. This will encourage more customers to upgrade their package, spending more money as they do so.
Smaller Price Increase
Another great way to get customers on the hook is to given them a discount on the imminent price rise, in exchange for the upgrade. Let’s say for example that the customer is looking at a 10% hike on their package, you can offer them an 8% hike on the next package up. This will get them to upgrade and you will only lose a small amount of potential income. If you don’t offer this however and they stay on the package below, you will have lost the chance to make more money.
Bundled Packages
And finally we are looking at the possibility of software developers bundling in packages in order to inspire customers to spend more money on the premium packages. Most software developers create a range of suites which they can sell to clients, and so they are able to throw some of these into the sales of others. Make sure that the software options which you include make sense, and will fit the customer well. Get this right and you can certainly get customers to upgrade their packages more often.
Focus on these pieces of wisdom from Josh and you will be able to count on a great deal more revenue coming into the business.
