At this stage, your goal is to generate repeat buys and real profits. While your entry-point offer was designed for conversions, your ascension offers should be geared for profits—because if you’re serving your customers well, they’ll want to buy again and again.

Ascension offers may be simple upsells made after that initial purchase… bigger, better solutions… or “done for you” add-ons.

So now we must ask ourselves, what is our core flagship offer and how do we continue to deliver value after the first sale is made? What is the thing that we are selling? 

How we continue to deliver value after the first sale is really important, because having upsells and cross sales gives you the ability to sell to customers you already have. It will give you higher Average Customer values, which is going to give you higher margins. Which means you can spend more to acquire new customers. 

Why does this matter? It matters because of this universal law of marketing and customer acquisition, he or she who is able and willing to spend the most to acquire a customer wins.

Very often the business with the best product messaging very often is the business that can throw the most into customer acquisition. Now there are two ways to do that.

The first way is to just raise a lot of money. The problem is if you have a lot of money, that doesn’t last forever. At some point you need economics. 

The second way, and the most timeless and predictable approach, is to simply have the highest value customers of anyone in your market. If your customers are worth more to you than they are to your competitors, you can spend more to acquire them at the same margin. 

If a customer is worth twice as much to you than it is to your competitor, you can spend twice as much trying to acquire them to make the same margin. You can invest in your customer acquisition, because your customers are investing in your business. You can invest in your customer experiences, and when we invest more into the customer we build brands that have greater value. Meaning, people are more likely to choose you over someone else, which can actually lower acquisition costs. 

Happy customers refer others to us, which is called zero dollar customer acquisition, and generally just ensures you’re making a bigger impact. You can invest more in the customer experience and customer acquisition process if you don’t have high margins. 

If you deliver a preview experience, you can utilize revenue maximizers like up sells, cross sales, and bundles. These are things that would follow up the initial sale or are combined with the initial sale to increase the Average Customer Value.

The best example of an immediate upsell is the classic McDonalds, “would you like fries with that?” You got just a burger, do you also want fries with that? 

What distinguishes an upsell from other types of follow up offers is the upsell promise, the same end result for a bigger and better end result. 

What’s your desired result when you go to McDonalds? It’s not to eat healthy food, and it’s not even to eat a small amount of food. When you go to McDonalds your job is to have a tasty, greasy, predictable inexpensive meal. No one is going there because it’s healthy, you’re going there because you want to eat good. 

It’s predictable. It’s not going to break the bank for a hamburger, neither will adding fries or a Coke. It’s the same experience, but it’s BIGGER and BETTER. 

Amazon does this all of the time with their “Customers Who Bought This Also Bought …” But this one is algorithmic. The point of a cross sell is that it is relevant to the consumer, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be aligned with the original purchase. What you don’t want to do is start someone down one path and confuse them.

You can make this process easy with Bundles and Kits. With a bundle or a kit you’re essentially saying to someone, “you can buy just one piece, or you can get this bundle that does all of these other things for a little bit more. And it’s a higher value.”

The idea behind bundles and kits is that we are adding to the primary offer, not offering them something different. We’re simply promising to get them this desired result in higher definition. 

The Elements of High-Converting Revenue Maximizers (like our bundles and kits) are:

1. Fart

Om du är ett e-handelsföretag och säljer en fysisk produkt kan det se ut så här: erbjuder gratis frakt för beställningar $X eller mer. Vi vill ge dina kunder samma önskade resultat, men med mindre arbete för dem.

2. Automatisering

Om du är ett möbelföretag och vill lägga till en Intäktsmaximerare kan detta se ut så här: Just nu för en extra $X kommer våra högutbildade medarbetare och sätter ihop detta åt dig. 

3. Tillgång 

Människor kommer att betala för snabbhet, de kommer att betala för mindre arbete, men de kommer också att betala för en titt bakom ridån. Tänk på människorna som betalar för Backstage Pass. Dina kunder kommer att betala för en VIP-upplevelse bara så att de kan se hur allt fungerar. 

Kom ihåg att uppstigningsstadiet inte behöver sluta. När du väl har en kund bör du göra ditt bästa för att göra dem till en kund för livet. Du bör fortsätta servera dem. Fortsätt att fråga dem, "vilka behov möter vi fortfarande inte" och försök att möta dessa behov. 

Det är ditt jobb som marknadsförare att söka upptäcka dessa behov, föra tillbaka dessa till produktteamet, för det är det som kommer att göra det möjligt för dig att fullt ut maximera det genomsnittliga kundvärdet. Vilket kommer att göra det möjligt för dig att ha mycket mer att spendera för att skaffa dessa kunder och göra ditt jobb mycket enklare. 

Nu när du förstår vikten av uppstigningsstadiet, låt oss tillämpa det på våra exempel.

Hazel & Hem skulle kunna ha gratis prioriterad frakt över $150, ett "Boutique Points"-belöningsprogram med exklusiva "double point"-dagar för att uppmuntra till att spendera och ett exklusivt "Stylist Package" som inkluderar en komplett outfit anpassad för kunden. 

Cyrus & Clark kan behålla nuvarande kunder genom att erbjuda en årlig strategisk plan, "Klar för dig" marknadsföringstjänster som utförs på den strategiska planen, och den högsta nivån skulle tillåta kunder att vara det exklusiva företaget som Cyrus & Clark servar i specifika geografiska territorier.