Marketing Advice
Effective strategies for higher traction
You may have seen him speak at Printwear & Promotion LIVE! earlier in the year, now Colin Sinclair McDermott, aka The Online Print Coach, offers his top advice to help our readers succeed.
I
n this issue, given that we’re all looking for ways to increase our sales, I thought we should take a look at driving up the value of your average sale as this can have a huge impact on your overall margins.
The up-sell
One of the first things we want to look at is your up-sell. For every product you have, you need to have an up-sell for every scenario. Ideally you want to have at least one. For example, you have a client who’s looking to produce polo shirts. With their initial spec, they want them produced on a basic polo shirt. You want to upsell two up from this so perhaps offer them a nice luxury stretch piqué polo, but if that takes it over budget, you can drop back down to a mid-range polo. You’ve still managed to charge more which is what you were looking to achieve but you still have something higher to fall back on just in case.
Draw up a checklist of all the products you sell and mark against them potential upsells you can promote to drive up your average sale by at least 10%.
The cross-sell
From the other perspective, consider what other products sell with the one your customer is buying. It’s good to create a checklist for all of your products so that you know what else you could be selling at the same time to drive up your average sale. If you’re selling into a
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salon for example and they’ve enquired about embroidered tunics, could they be interested in bib aprons or waterproof gowns? If your client is a restaurant and they’re looking for printed DTF shirts for their front-of-house staff, consider approaching them about their chefs in the kitchen and offering them branded chef whites. Hopefully, you get where I’m going with this.
As above, create a second checklist and list out what products can be married up with others to drive up your average sale.
The down-sell
At times, it will go the other way. A customer will come in with an unrealistic budget and you need to have an alternative, cheaper option to send them to if possible. Too often, I see companies lose customers because they simply don’t have anywhere for them to go. I understand customers can sometimes just be unrealistic but if you are able to offer another solution, it’s worth having a list of down sells available too.
Having a grade focus
Something you might want to look at is how you are marketing to your existing audience.
Is it positioned at the top 20% of your customers or is it aimed at scraping the bottom of the barrel? If your marketing is constantly showing you promoting entry- level products at super low prices to get people spending, guess what? That’s the type of work you are going to get.
Make sure, with every marketing message you put out that you’re constantly thinking about appealing to your Top 20%. Aim high and you’ll drive that average sale up.
Stop discounting – add value As you may have guessed from the headline, I’m not a massive fan of just offering discounts for the sake of it. Discount codes have their place but the difference of adding a few percent to your margin can be monumental however on the flip side, if you are constantly discounting for your customers, it can be highly detrimental to your overall company profitability. So rather than simply throwing around discount codes as many of us are guilty of, think about how you can add value instead to drive your average sale up. For example, a customer might be looking to order five T shirts but you offer them a ‘buy eight get two free deal’. The perception is they are getting a 20% discount but in essence, you are increasing your sales and margin with minimal outlay. The price to you is not a massive increase but the perception to the customer is of massive value. The purpose of this content is to get you thinking differently about how you can increase your average sales value. Think about the marketing message you are putting out there, are you trying to appeal to the Top 20%. Make sure you draw up those product checklists and always be prepared to up-sell, cross-sell, or if you really need to, down-sell.
www.printwearandpromotion.co.uk
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