Targeted Upselling & Persuasion Key To Personalisation

Digital technology has spurred a number of radical trends that have changed the face of marketing and retail. It has now advanced so far that e-commerce marketers have a wide array of tactics at their disposal to provide the personalised experience users are increasingly demanding – and targeted “upsell” and “persuasion” are two tactics that are key to this strategy.

Targeted upsell refers to the offering of products at a price higher than usual to customers who are willing to buy and thus drive conversion at the same time. Delivering the right message for this tactic is of the utmost importance; in this case, the right message could take the shape of a recommendation for another product, free shipping, insurance, gift wrapping or simply a discount on another item. Product recommendations save users time and services like free shipping lead to more purchases as customers hurry to take advantage of the limited time offer.

Also, any marketing messages should be persuasive in order to be effective, says Ian McCaig from the marketing software provider Qubit in an article for Econsultancy. Moreover, persuasion rests on six principles: reciprocity, commitment, social proof (the belief that others’ decisions and actions are reflective of the correct behaviour for a certain situation), authority, liking and scarcity. In practice, these translate into flash sales, data regarding the number of buyers taking advantage of an offer, and information about recent purchases. McCaig compares this to an e-commerce version of bestseller lists, which highlight the most popular products and therefore urges users to buy them.