In this article, I’ll continue walking you through the Sales Funnel process, and show you how to integrate “downsells” into it.
In the previous post in this Sales Funnel Series, we discussed how the sales process begins with your front-end product. I then showed you how you could integrate the purchase of that product with an subsequent offer to buy your OTO upsell.
But what happens if your new buyer declines to buy the OTO?
The initial sales process is not over, yet.
Now it’s up to you to make an irresistible offer to entice your buyer to make a downsell purchase.
Where Does A Downsell Fits Into The Sales Funnel?
Your sales funnel works like this.
Somebody buys your front-end product (your main product) for, say $25.
Then you offer them an upsell in the form of an OTO, for say $95.
If they buy that, fine and well. They are now a customer of both your $25 front-end product and your $95 upsell.
Your job now is to work on building your relationship with your new customers so that they are (1) happy with the products you’ve sold them, and (2) happy to consider future products you may offer them.
But what if your $25 buyer declines your OTO offer?
This is where a downsell enters the sales funnel process.
What is a Downsell?
As you would suspect from the name, a “downsell” is the process of selling something cheaper than your $95 OTO.
So, to continue the process we just described, your next offer is for something cheaper than the OTO, let’s just say it is a $35 product.
The purpose of the downsell in the overall sales process is to find a price point at which your buyer is willing to increase his/her initial investment.
So, they buy a product for $25. Maybe they’re ready to jump into a more expensive product that will greatly enhance the first one. So maybe they’ll buy your $95 OTO.
But if they don’t, then maybe it’s because, even though they want to enhance the front-end trainings (or whatever it is that your selling)… they’re just not comfortable buying in at that level right now.
So your downsell offer is a chance for them to get more than they bought in for at $25, but make them more comfortable with the cheaper alternative.
What makes this entire sales funnel work, hinges entirely on the congruence factor.
What is the congruence factor in your Sales Funnel?
None of this makes much sense if the front-end, OTO and downsell offers are not congruent with each other.
That means that the OTO and downsell must both enhance your front-end offer, not differ significantly from it.
So, if your $25 product is a diet book by Dr.ZZZ (I assume there is no such person… lol), then the OTO and downsell will ideally enhance Dr. ZZZ’s diet book.
Perhaps your $95 OTO is Dr. ZZZ’s calorie calculator app for your mobile, and it is essential to count your calories diligently for the diet plan to work optimally.
The $35 downsell might be Dr. ZZZ’s audio recording (mp3 or podcast) of a meditation exercise designed to reinforce your will to stick to his diet plan.
All of these things are highly congruent with each other, so that the buyer of the $25 product is very likely to have an interest in the OTO and the downsell.
He may not purchase them at the point of the initial sale, but because they are so congruent, he’ll probably consider buying them deeper into the sales funnel. Maybe an email prompt from you on Day 7 of your email sequence will be the tipping point, and he’ll buy it then.
If your OTO in this example, however, is a cardio-vascular exercise tape, it is clearly less congruent. Your buyers may have little or no interest.
You might convince them that exercise is part of losing weight, and it will make Dr. ZZZ’s program work better, and you may be right. But whenever you have to take time convincing your buyer that an offer is relevant to their interests and problems, you’re fighting a much tougher battle.
How Much Should You “Downsell” Your Offers
Using the same example, you might offer a second, third even fourth downsell.
Maybe you reduce the price to $20, $10… even $1… for similar (but not the same) products.
The purpose of the downsell is to get your buyer to spend more money on the initial sale, even if it’s just $1.
This helps you to increase your earnings per click (EPC), and therefore make your product all that much more attractive to affiliates and joint venture partners. They usually don’t care about anything more than the bottom line profits they can reasonably expect to earn from it. The EPC tells them that.
We’ll discuss additional aspects of the sales funnel, including its relationship to the affiliate process, in upcoming editions of this series.
Even if you’re not actively creating a sales funnel for your own products, it’s important to understand this process if you are marketing products/services online as an affiliate, a company representative or if you have any role at all in online marketing.
I’d like to hear what your experience has been, if any, with the downsell process, even if it’s strictly as a buyer. Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
And, of course, I’d love to have you share this article on your social sites.
Cheers.