In this blog, we will discuss how to use about upselling, downselling, and cross-selling for your online courses.

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Selling your digital products is indeed a very tough task to do!

You have to learn the art of selling your digital products. You can not simply showcase your online courses to your audience and expect them to purchase them instantly. Honestly, you have to exert a lot to make them purchase your digital products.

The moment a person visits your website and provides their email address, they enter into your funnel. After that, your prospect will go through a journey, and during their journey, you have to use strategies that will bring them to the point where they would feel that they need your digital products. 

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In technical terms, this journey of your prospect refers to the AIDA model which implies that your prospect will move through a series of steps before making a purchase. The AIDA stands for: 

  • Attention 
  • Interest 
  • Desire 
  • Action 

In the first step, you are going to create brand awareness where your prospect will get to know about your brand. Then comes the second step, in which you will try to build interest in the mind of your prospect telling them about the benefits of your digital courses.

In the third step, you will make them feel that they not only like your product but also need it. Once they start feeling that they need it, you can take them to the final step ie, Action where they will make the final purchase. In case they feel that they need the product but they can not afford it, you can use the down selling strategies (explained later) and persuade them to purchase the product. 

As a digital entrepreneur, you will also need to build long-lasting relationships with your learners. And that’s the point where you would need to add one more stage in your prospect’s journey which is ‘R’ (R stands for retention). Because you will want your learners to purchase your upcoming digital products as well, right? So, as a course creator, your prospect’s journey should look like this: 

Attention > Interest > Desire > Action > Retention

We know, that retention is the key to upselling and cross-selling your online courses. Hence, you should definitely include this step in your prospect’s journey. 

We have seen many creators who don’t understand upselling, downselling, and cross-selling. And we have helped them with these confusing terms and they have got great results with the strategies that we had suggested to them.

So, if you are someone who also doesn’t understand when they should use upselling, downselling, and cross-selling strategies to sell their online courses, you have come to the right place. As in this blog, we are going to tell you everything that you need to know about upselling, downselling, and cross-selling your online courses. 

So, let’s forge ahead!

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What are upselling, downselling, and cross-selling? 

Upselling 

Upselling refers to the technique that is used to convince a customer to purchase a more expensive, upgraded, and premium product. Basically, this technique is used to increase your revenue. 

This technique of selling products to generate higher revenue is used on old customers rather than new ones. Since existing customers know about your services and brand, they are more likely to purchase an upgraded product. Apart from this, it will be very easy for you to talk to them which would not be the same in the case of new customers. 

Let’s understand this with the help of an example. Suppose you have an online course membership website and you offer three different pricing plans – 

  • In the first plan, you sell only your online courses, 
  • In the second plan, you provide your exclusive podcast series along with your online courses, and
  • In the third model, you provide 1:1 mentorship along with your exclusive podcast series and online courses

Now, don’t you think that it would be easy for you to persuade your existing learner to upgrade to the highest plan in case they have chosen any of your lower plans? It would be, right? 

On the other hand, it would be very difficult to persuade a potential learner to purchase your highest plan. They would not be aware of your way of teaching and would prefer to purchase the lowest plan in the first go. 

We hope now you are able to understand the meaning of upselling. 

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Cross-selling 

Cross-selling is often confused with upselling.

But, honestly, both of them are very different. If you are upselling, you will try to sell an upgraded version of your product whereas in the case of cross-selling you will try to increase the cart value of your customer by offering them adjacent products. 

In both techniques, you are trying to increase your revenue but upselling means selling an upgrade whereas cross-selling means selling another product with the original product. 

For example, in Starbucks when you order a coffee, they always ask you – Would you like to have cookies along with your coffee? That’s exactly what cross-selling means. 

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Downselling 

Down selling refers to the technique of offering more budget-friendly alternatives to the products that your prospect wanted to purchase initially. 

This technique is used when you see that a potential customer is about to say no to your product because maybe they feel that your product is too expensive or maybe they feel that they can not afford it. So you offer them more budget-friendly options to persuade them to make the final purchase. 

We know nobody wants to sell their products at low prices but, this technique is used to acquire the customer even if you don’t generate the expected amount of profit. 

For example, XYZ wants to purchase your digital course but, they are not willing to make the final purchase because they are not able to afford it. SO, you offer them another course which is similar to the one in which they showed interest. 

By using this technique, you may not generate the expected revenue but, you will acquire a customer for sure. You can use the upselling technique on the same customer later.  

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Use Graphy to market your online courses

Graphy is an online teaching platform that allows you to create, sell, and market your digital products all around the world. With Graphy’s robust features and tools, you can build your very own online education empire even if you have zero tech knowledge. 

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Some of Graphy’s robust features are: 

  • Branded online course website and mobile apps
  • Best-in-class sales and marketing tools 
  • Content dripping 
  • Live classes and live tests 
  • Integrated payment gateways 
  • Completely secured platform 

Along with this, Graphy also allows you to build and grow your online community by bringing them together in the same space so that they can interact with each other, solve doubts and celebrate small wins. 

about upselling, downselling, and cross-selling your online courses

Launch your online course buisness

Got Your Content Ready? GRAPHY is all you need to get started!