Can Cross Selling Be Harmful?

Can cross-selling a book or a product really be marketing suicide? Frankly in my opinion, yes it can. When visiting a website and seeing near the bottom “customers who bought this book also like” or “we also recommend reading” or “frequent purchases with this book” tend to be quite irritating. What this exposes to me is more of a marketing ploy than taking the actual time to understand your customer’s needs.

Okay so you bought a book and may need some other compelling texts on your website to market along with your newly (or soon-to-be) published work. This is not exactly the best way to go about your book marketing. You have now indicated that you don’t feel confident that your new text can lure your intended audience and you need a “big name” to bring it in. Moreover, often times I believe most have not even read texts which they cross-sell. It may be the same subject matter or be from the same author or have a term such as “Chinese seamstress” in the title so both texts must share the same likeness right? Of course we all know this not to be the case.

Final Thoughts: It would be in your best interest not to cross-sell your first of many texts with other irrelevant material. If you feel the need to cross-sell at least do so with your own works. If you are having trouble coming up with that next big idea, join a book club or attend a seminar for some inspiration. By doing this, you can easily fill the pipeline and start on your road to success!

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About The Author
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