How video marketing can improve upselling processes

Summary

In digital companies, upselling processes are of central importance for revenue generation.

The starting point for building this type of campaign is the analysis of the Customer Journey using a very careful and deep collection of data that can go as far as the individual person.

The next step is effective one-to-one communication.

In this sense, the tool that guarantees the absolute best performance is video. The ultimate boost? Personalized and interactive videos, built on the characteristics of individual recipients, and that allow you to insert tailored call-to-actions that point to upsellinging campaigns.

The role of digital transformation

Digital transformation has changed all the cards on the table in the world of business and for all productive sectors.

We’re talking about a revolution that didn’t start yesterday, but that still has enormous possibilities to offer to those who have the ability to look ahead, sensing trends before others and embracing a perspective of continuous and permanent improvement.

But what is the point on which to base one’s choices?

The answer, in the first instance, is very simple: the customer. This is not a slogan: in the digital world, individuals are the very center of the business. This is because the online world is becoming increasingly tailored to individuals and it’s because, in an ecosystem characterized by great fluidity, rapidity, and elasticity, individuals have more and more choices.

So, what is the challenge for today’s companies?

First and foremost, that of knowing one’s audience in depth, but also with staying dynamic, keeping track of evolutions in the short, medium, and long term.

Attention: this is something essential, even when we are talking about a very large audience.

And how do you get to know this audience?

By following its “digital traces.” This is what we mean when we talk about the collection and analysis of Big Data.

Starting from these “traces,” in fact, it is possible to have a complete picture of the characteristics (demographic, geographic, social, psychological), behaviors, choices, habits … and, consequently, possible needs and desires.

Let’s take another step forward.

All of these operations must be put on the runway with this awareness firmly in mind: Today we’re no longer talking about a generic, non-specific “target.” We’re talking about many segments, clusters, and micro-targets that are increasingly specific.

The point of arrival is clear: to know the individual people who make up your actual and potential target.

Today this is possible, and that’s what is meant by “personalization” (and we will focus on this in the closing of this post).

Let’s advance further.

Once you understand who you have in front of you, you need to know how to establish a tailored, intimate, one-to-one and two-way dialog; as in a good and healthy relationship.

This is where the path to engagement, retention, and loyalty begins. This path always translates into an increase in turnover and revenue.

This also happens in very concrete ways.

One example? The possibilities offered by targeted upselling campaigns.

And it is precisely on this fundamental aspect that we will focus in the continuation of this post.

What are upselling processes and why are they so important?

You may already know what upselling means.

Beyond the technical language, it’s something very simple: selling a higher and more expensive version of a product service, or experience that the customer already owns or is about to buy. In short, we’re talking about the widespread “premium” versions, which are fundamental in business models based on subscriptions…but not only.

But how important are upselling processes for companies? We’ll answer that with some up to date data.

• Upselling processes increase a company’s revenue by an average of 10% to 30% (source: Forrester Research)
• Acquiring a new customer costs – again, on average – 68% more than upselling to an existing customer (source: SaaS Survey).
• The probability of selling products or services in upselling to an already acquired customer is 60/70%. The probability of selling a product or service to a new customer ranges from 5 to 20% (source: Altfeld).
• Let’s close with one last piece of data concerning Amazon, a giant that everyone looks up to. The company has stated that 35% of its revenue comes from upselling and cross-selling strategies (source: ai eCommerce).

A quick parenthesis: this last point also introduced the concept of cross-selling. This is a strategy similar to those of upselling, but it is based on the sale to the customer of a related product or service (therefore, we are not talking about a premium, or at least superior, version of the same).

We’ll come back to this type of strategy in a future post on our blog.

But let’s conclude this paragraph by underlining very clearly that both upselling and cross-selling strategies have a main goal: to bring a surplus of value to the customer, new opportunities. This is bringing new sources of revenue to the company, simultaneously.

The perspective is – and must be – win-win. These techniques must be handled with care, because the risk is that they will backfire like a boomerang.

The key to success, again, is to know as much as possible about who your customer is. How they behave. What they want. What they’re looking for, and – above all – what they might be looking for or want.

Once again, therefore, we return to the importance of personalized dialog, which we will return to next, focusing on a formidable tool: video.

First, however, a piece of advice that we feel is fundamental: the first step in creating and seizing upselling opportunities is to analyse your customer’s Customer Journey.

Of course, the perspective you must embrace is the multi-channel one (better yet, omnichannel).

To do so, it’s essential to equip yourself with Artificial Intelligence systems and the interpretation of data that is always up-to-date and calibrated to your specific needs.

Once this is done, you can then move on to target segmentation based on homogeneous characteristics, pushing them up to personalization, the ultimate boost, which is offered by specialized companies like LittleSea.

On this point, as promised, we will close the post.

But what we want to focus on now is the medium, the most effective tool for conveying their messages and through which to pass their upselling campaigns.

The video, precisely.

Video is your best ally for upselling: The data says so

So, the secrets to a great upselling strategy? Know your target, down to the individual.

And therefore be in the right place, at the right time, with the right communication to the right people.

And the most effective tool to do this is video. We don’t say that, the data does. And here is some very significant data:

• Today, about 82% of all internet traffic is generated by video. In 2017, this percentage was 72.3% (source: Cisco Annual Internet Report).
• More than 1 billion hours of video are viewed each day on YouTube alone (source: YouTube).
• About 100 million hours of video is watched daily on Facebook, and this figure is steadily increasing (source: 99firms).
• On Instagram, posts containing videos have a 38% higher average engagement than those containing images (source: Mention.com).
• TikTok is a social network launched in 2016 and based entirely on micro-videos. Its growth has been impressive: according to the most recent data, monthly active users are now over 800 million (source: ScreenRant)
• Overall, 78% of online users watch at least one video every week. As many as 55% watch a video every day (source: HubSpot).

Let’s move on, dwelling on the attention front:

• 55% of people pay more attention when approaching videos than any other type of content (source: Omnikick).
• When viewing a video, the average user retains 95% of the message it contains; when it comes to text, this percentage plummets to 10% (source: Insivia).

Finally, then, it’s not surprising that video is the preferred tool of all marketers.

This data shows this fact very clearly:

• 85% of marketers consider video the best tool for gaining attention online (source: Animoto).
• 87% of marketers use video in their strategies (source: Wyzowl).
• And 88% of them are satisfied with the ROI generated by video marketing campaigns (source: Wyzowl).
• According to 97% of marketers, video is essential for ensuring that customers have a better understanding of products and services (source: Hubspot).
• Today, 81% of businesses use video as a marketing tool. That’s an increase of 63% over last year (source: Hubspot).

At this point, we’re ready for the final step: to associate the effectiveness of this tool with personalization. The ultimate boost for your upselling campaigns has a name: personalized video.

Personalized videos are the real game changer for upselling

Personalized videos are videos built entirely around the characteristics of the individual recipient.

They can be distributed through a wide variety of channels (from email marketing to smartphone apps, messaging, and social networks). And they can be targeted to a huge number of recipients at once; upstream – of course – is careful, deep, and smart data collection.

This type of video, moreover, is built to be interactive. The narrative changes based on the individual’s browsing choices.

Needless to say, they’re the perfect place to insert tailored calls-to-action that target one-to-one, customer-oriented upselling campaigns.

Specialized companies such as LittleSea with its dedicated platform Babelee, deal with personalized videos.

The end result? A breakthrough in terms of loyalty, conversion rate, and effectiveness of upselling processes.

The individual person is really put at the center of the business, and this time it’s no longer a slogan.