How Social Media Selling Can Help You Up-Sell Current Customers

Since the sales business is the relationship business, social media can significantly increase upsales for current customers. Social platforms encourage steady, repetitive and interactive relationships with customers – but in a low-pressure, fast and enjoyable way.

Salespeople can share advice, stories, product updates, product research and sales promotions. They can also solicit feedback from current customers. This activity can go on for years, allowing current clients to get to know a salesperson in such a way that they feel loyal and invested to continue buying from him.

Here are four ways social media selling can boost upsales.

1.       Use Hashtags to link peripheral products to popular products. 

Twitter supports a steady stream of brand and product chatter.  Customers often tweet love for products they are using by mentioning the product name or model with a hashtag. By analyzing what products are currently being talked about, a salesperson can let buyers know if they enjoy using a #CurrentProduct, they might be interested in an #AssociatedProduct or a promotion pushing that associated product.

2.       Talk directly to the customer, providing customer service by answering questions about current products (then, add a call to action) 

Often, users of a certain product seek advice or insight online. As a salesperson provides help, he can also append the message with prompts and links to purchase or save money on additional products that would enhance the customer’s experience with the other wares.  The beauty of social media selling is that thousands would see this call to action and may click associated links – not just the one customer.  This can work not only with Q&A, but also with any direct customer dialogue.

3. Pay attention to your customers’ social media.

Whether on Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, a salesperson often runs across messages from current customers which indicate an expansion or some other opportunity for an upsell. This could mean auxiliary product sales, upgrades, or a replacement of the entire line you sold them last year. By following your best customers closely, you can catch these opportunities early, before they even start looking for a solution in earnest.

Likewise, a current customer might review and praise one of your more advanced/expensive products or services.  Sharing these reviews on your own social media sites is as easy as clicking the “share” button on Facebook, or retweeting on Twitter, and could attract bigger sales as their associates want “all the bells and whistles” as well.

 4.       Feature videos from customers who combine multiple products in cool ways

Customers are ingenious, especially Millenials. They often consider ways to use certain products in tandem in a way the company never intended. When a salesperson sees such innovation in a YouTube or Vine video, he should highlight the link between products and offer special sales for those who buy that specific combination.

The salesperson can embed the video to the company’s official video-sharing page, and, if the person is interesting enough, feature the customer’s video in a promotion.

Once current customers embrace salespeople or a brand on social media, they usually follow for years, and this can become an important source for repeat business. Pay attention to these conversations, they are a goldmine of upsell leads.