Cross-selling is one of the hottest marketing topics today, especially in the gaming industry. During the COVID-19 pandemic, as the world shutdown and numerous sporting events were either canceled or postponed, the need to get players trying out new games became a lifeline for many operators.
Of course, it’s a pretty useful CRM tactic in other verticals. Retail marketers in eCommerce can benefit from cross-selling just as well if done right.
Cross-selling a customer to purchase from a more profitable category is one of marketing’s holy grails and can have a positive long term change in customer LTV.
To better understand the world of cross-selling, marketers must first ask themselves three questions:
Why do we want to cross-sell?
Which customers should we focus on?
When is the best time to cross-sell?
In the video below, you’ll see how to approach these questions the right way.
Based on a benchmark conducted by Optimove marketing data scientists, the answer is simple: Multi-product players/customers (in gaming: those who play both sport/casino/arcade games) are more valuable and have higher retention rates than one-product ones.
The same can be said for eCommerce – customers who shop from more than one product category are likely to be more valuable to your business and contribute to your bottom line.
So, encouraging customers to experience multiple products is definitely worth it.
2. Which customers should we focus on?
First, you can divide your customer base into three segments: new, active, and churn.
Out of three, you should focus your marketing efforts on the active segment as they are more engaged, more likely to try new products, and are more loyal.
However, even among the active segment, there are two different types of customers with two different objectives: low risk of churn (objective is to increase value) and high risk of churn (objective is to prevent churn).
So, of course, you should focus on active, low risk of churn customers.
3. When is the best time to cross-sell?
First and foremost, the best time to cross customers is when they show interest in products you would like to cross them to. For example, a casino player who visited a sports webpage, who hasn’t placed any bets on sports yet – would be a great player to target in a cross-sell campaign.
You can also target players with cross-sell campaigns during the off-season or when significant events like the World Cup, Euros, or Olympics take place.
At Optimove, you can target customers based on realtime data, web and app activity – or use a combination of these.
If you would like to know more about getting the most from cross-selling, reach out to Optimove’s Strategic Services team today.
Don’t miss out on our previous CRM hacks from Optimove experts:
Yotam is a Marketing Data Scientist, serving on Optimove's Strategic Services team. Yotam's expertise focuses on consulting clients, analyzing their data, and helping them in making data-driven marketing decisions. He holds a BSc in industrial engineering and management from Ben Gurion University.
