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Your EnterQuest Bulletin - Issue 356
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| Thought for the week: "A sure cure for seasickness is to sit under a tree." Spike Milligan |
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In this week's issue:
How to up-sell to your customers
What's the best way to increase your profitability?
Your confident answer will probably be: "By attracting more customers."
And you'd be right. Of course, attracting new customers is an essential part of making a business succeed. But there's another equally important way to increase your profits without spending loads of time and money on the advertising and promotional efforts needed to bring your business to the attention of new buyers.
Up-sell to your existing ones.
Up-sells are offers made to customers for bigger, better, and of course, pricier products and services, premium versions of the same product or service, or an extra premium package of products and services. The up-sell products and services cost more, so the key is to add enough to the up-sell offer that it becomes irresistible.
The 'science' behind up-selling relates to the 'value quotient'. This can best be expressed by the following equation:
Value = perceived benefits divided by price.
Successful up-sells increase the benefits that customers believe they will get from a product or service more than they increase the price. The customer then believes they are getting better value for money by taking advantage of the up-sell offer.
Here are a few ways to offer up-sells to your customers:
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Create an up-sell web page on your website that visitors are directed to after they click on the 'buy' link. The page could contain a snappy sales pitch designed to persuade them to upgrade their choice to a premium version, or information about an additional, complementary product or service.
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Use direct mailshots to up-sell by putting your up-sell offer in a second envelope inside the main envelope. Customers considering responding to your main offer will be intrigued enough to investigate.
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Every time you make a sale to a customer, include a sales letter or catalogue in the packaging to encourage customers who are happy with their initial purchase to buy more from you.
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Follow up previous customers with regular mailshots that include offers to upgrade their product or service or buy additional goods to go with it.
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Make sure your customers have incentives to respond to your up-sell offers. For example, create a premium package of products and services that collectively cost more than the customer's original choice, but represent a discount on what they would normally cost, or would cost when bought separately.
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Experiment to find an up-sell formula that works. Remember and record the up-sell speeches, mailshots and web pages that got the best responses and tailor these winning formulas to use again and again on all your products and services.
Each week we provide you with summaries of some popular or emerging business ideas in the UK and elsewhere around the world.
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Mycorrhizal Systems is a truffle cultivating firm, which has an offshoot business specialising in training dogs to truffle-hunt. It also gives dog owners tips on where to find truffles in Britain.
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Catwalk Genius is a crowd-funded fashion business that asks customers to buy 'shares' in a designer so they can design a new clothing collection. When the collection goes on sale, the designer and the shareholders (along with Catwalk Genius) get equal shares of the profits.
Each week EnterQuest highlights business and consumer topics that are currently buzzing on the Internet.
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Latest figures from Hitwise show that Facebook has overtaken Google as the largest website in the US for the first time. The unrelenting rise in popularity of the social networking site, which has more than 400 million users, points even further to Facebook's growing importance as an advertising medium for small businesses.
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Among the top ten searches on Google on 17th March (St Patrick's Day) were 'Guinness', 'shamrock', 'Irish blessing' and 'Irish quotes' - clearly a short-term trend, but one that indicates the surprising impact that saints' days have on people on or around the day itself and the business opportunities these can bring. For a list of other saints' days go to Wikipedia.
The following topical business issues have been recently reported in the media. Did your radar pick them up?
1) The Treasury Committee has questioned the Payments Council on its decision to phase out which of the following methods of payment by October 2018?
a) postal orders
b) cheques
c) contactless payment cards
d) pre-paid payment cards
2) A recent survey by law firm DLA Piper for its European Hospitality Outlook Report 2010 has revealed that more than half of representatives questioned from which industry believe it will not begin to recover from the economic downturn until 2011?
a) catering
b) leisure
c) hotel
d) outbound travel
3) Industry experts have called for the Government to give tax breaks to businesses designed to encourage them to hire more of which of the following?
a) apprentices
b) graduates
c) non-graduates
d) women
Answers at the end of the Bulletin.
HSE launches website for businesses and employees
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has launched a website aimed at encouraging awareness of health and safety in the workplace. Do Your Bit highlights the types of action that businesses can take to engage their employees more effectively when discussing or managing health and safety.
Tools for customising Windows 7
This article highlights 21 tools that can be used to customise Windows 7 and add Windows 7 features to older PC operating systems. Some are more tech-orientated, others are more practical, such as the virtual desktop tool Hedron. All the tools are free.
PDF to Word document converter
There are plenty of free services for converting Word documents to PDFs, but reversing the change is less common. PDF to Word is a simple, free, web-based service that takes an uploaded PDF and e-mails it back to the user as a Word document.
Free website redesign kit
This free website redesign kit is aimed at those looking to redesign a website. It provides guidance on how to get the most out of a website redesign and what to be aware of when carrying out the process. It includes a video webinar and white paper entitled 'Doing a Website Redesign for Marketing Results'. Registration is required.
What good are accounts that are produced so late?
Would you like your business accounts updated daily and accessible to you online?
Contact Paul & Co now on (020) 8204 9911 or visit www.paul.co.uk. |
British Library Business & IP Centre in London
The Centre can help you from that first spark of inspiration to successfully launching and growing your business. It offers free access to business and intellectual property resources, workshops, networking events and one-to-one advice sessions.
Find out more at www.bl.uk/bipc. |
Success Tools
We have a simple yet marvellous purpose: to help people realise their full potential ... to make them successful and happy.
The goal is self-improvement ... the vehicles are audio, DVD, MP3 and video programmes.
Click on any of the Success Tools on the website page and see for yourself and start building your path to success now. Also, visit our 'Knowledge Pool - The Resource'.
Visit the website at www.cavendish-mr.org.uk. |
Claim Three Business-Building Reports Worth £90
Visit the link below to claim over 75 pages of FREE content, plus details of my Maverick Marketing Newsletter: fortnightly advice on practical client attraction strategies you can apply and profit from.
www.maverickmarketingconsultancy.co.uk/newsletter.htm |
To promote your products or services in EnterQuest Classifieds, call us on (0191) 461 8000 or e-mail enterquest@cobwebinfo.com.
Win an I.R.I.S. package worth over £200
EnterQuest has teamed up with mobile office products manufacturer I.R.I.S. to offer readers the chance to win a package containing IRISnotes 1.0 and IRIScan 2 Express worth over £200.
The IRISnotes 1.0 converts scribbled notes and diagrams into editable text on your PC, while the IRIScan converts paper documents such as invoices and receipts into editable and searchable text files.
To be in with a chance of winning this great prize, just answer the following question:
Q: The Payments Council is comprised mainly of representatives from which type of institution?
a) credit unions
b) banks
E-mail your answer, together with your name, address and daytime phone number, using 'I.R.I.S. Competition' in the subject line, to enterquest@cobwebinfo.com.
All entries must be received by 31 March. Full competition rules are available on request.
Also from EnterQuest's publisher
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The UK Small Business Marketing Bible contains hundreds of tips and tactics for boosting your sales using proven marketing strategies that work no matter what product or service you sell. |
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Visit www.enterprisequest.com to access all back issues of the EnterQuest bulletin. If you have any feedback or suggestions for us to make this service more relevant please e-mail your comments to enterquest@cobwebinfo.com.
If you wish to discontinue your subscription to EnterQuest please click on the 'SafeUnsubscribe' link at the bottom of the bulletin.
Remember that we guarantee never to sell or give your e-mail address to anyone else.
Good luck
The EnterQuest Team
This information is meant as a starting point only. Whilst all reasonable efforts have been made, the publisher makes no warranties that the information is accurate and up-to-date and will not be responsible for any errors or omissions in the information nor any consequences of any errors or omissions. Professional advice should be sought where appropriate. |
