One question I’ve received several times is regarding best practices for upselling customers. Interestingly, at Pardot, we didn’t employ any concerted efforts around upselling in the early years. All the focus was on acquiring new customers, and making them successful. In addition, at the time, product pricing was based on email volume and usage of certain features, making upselling difficult as the additional functionality was only compelling to a small percentage of customers.
Here are a few thoughts on upselling customers:
- Ensure that the product pricing and corresponding upsell trigger points are enticing
- Focus most of the energies on acquiring customers and know that as the customer count grows, upselling will become more important
- Strive for customer upsells to outweigh customer churn such that there’s negative revenue churn
- Lead with value and focus on customer success such that upselling doesn’t feel pressured or forced
Customer upselling is an area that I have much to learn. My main lesson learned so far is to have a pricing plan that lends itself to upselling.
What else? What are some more thoughts on customer upselling in the early years?
David Cummings on Startups 
Hey David,
Your second point makes a lot of sense. New owners should focus on gaining new customers first before they decide strategies for getting more out of them. Also making sure what you offer in addition to a sale is related to what you sold in the first place, is very important. Great tips, once again.