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There’s a well circulated understanding in the business world that the best source of increased revenue is your current customers. It’s harder to acquire a new customer compared to selling more to existing customers. The psychology behind this explains that your existing customers do not face the same level of resistance because they have already taken out their wallets and bought from you and experienced what you offer. Those who were satisfied will be eager to buy again.

While not quite as powerful as selling to a converted customer, the next best thing is selling to a person currently in the point of conversion.

Action Taken

The point of conversion is any time where a person has taken an action and interacted with your website. While it’s preferable that the conversion action is a purchase, it can also refer to an opt-in for something free. The point of conversion is also a point of escalation, transforming a visitor into a prospect or a prospect into a customer.

A similar psychology is at play at the point of conversion as to selling to existing customers, because the person has taken an action and therefore more likely to take a second action and even a third action.

Let’s look at some classic examples of how to take advantage of the point of conversion to generate more dollars.

The One Time Offer

I have to credit Mike Filsaime for widely introducing this concept to the Internet marketing community in his Butterfly Marketing product.

He didn’t invent the one-time-offer (OTO) of course - offline marketers have used it for years - but until Mike created his script that allowed people to easily implement OTOs and wrote about the success he was enjoying applying the OTO in the manuscript that came with Butterfly Marketing, it wasn’t widespread.

The OTO is a simple idea. After the website visitor has clicked the buy button or opted into a form or taken any type of action, they are directed to a second page that presents a congruent offer of a limited nature. It’s congruent because the offer makes sense based on the action just taken. If they are in the conversion process for buying a product, then they are offered additional products of a similar nature, as a one time offer.

The offer is limited and as per the name, is only available one time - at the point of conversion. The visitor is “threatened” that the offer will never be made again, so if they want it, they have to take advantage of it now.

OTOs if done well, consistently convert in double digit percentages, which compared to standard sales page conversion rates, is very high (on industry average). Most conversion processes can benefit from a OTO, but they must be monitored carefully so as not to erode the overall conversion of the original action taken. Some people will leave the conversion before completion if they feel they are being sold to too aggressively, so as with all things in Internet marketing, OTOs must be tested.

The Upsell

The upsell is very similar to a OTO and in fact may follow a positive response to a OTO in the conversion process. The upsell is also offered at the point of conversion but in this case is usually an increase to whatever is already being purchased. Here’s some examples -

• Instead of one month membership, would you like three at this discounted price?
• Would you like to supersize your value meal?
• If you buy two, we give you an extra one for free

The idea here is that offer more of what is already being taken. The person is already saying yes, so offer more of the same since they are likely to say yes again.

The Downsell

The downsell is sometimes presented after a rejection of a OTO or an upsell. In many cases marketers use the downsell to reduce the price to help convert price sensitive customers. The idea here is that the visitor was very tempted by the OTO or the upsell, but it was just a bit too pricey for them. Present a similar offer with slightly less content and a reduced price and that may force them over the line into a conversion.

In the information marketing world, one common method for implementing the downsell is to offer the same product in a different format. For example, sell a physical home study package at $997 and offer a downsell of a digital only version of the same product at $597. Other examples include offering a shorter timeframe of use for things like membership sites or subscriptions, or dropping some of the higher end product components of a large package.

Putting It All Together

You can combine any or all of these techniques together into one conversion process. Here’s a very basic flow chart of a conversion process using each of the techniques once.

In most case studies I’ve read of people adding any of these point of conversion techniques to their process they have significantly increased their income. This has come without an increase of traffic since you leverage your existing audience base for more.

To make these techniques work you need to think carefully about what you offer and how you offer it. The copy, price and offer content must logically flow on from the initial offer. The OTO, upsell and downsell should be tested and I recommend testing each component independently, starting at the top and working your way down (Initial Offer –> OTO –> Upsell –> Downsell).

If nothing else, use this article as inspiration to come up with a OTO to present to your current customers immediately after they make a purchase. This is usually a “low hanging fruit” method to increase your revenue since you already have a conversion process in place that you simply leverage for more.

Yaro Starak
Internet Marketer