opinion

Making the Most of Your Sales Opportunities

Making the Most of Your Sales Opportunities

The compliance road has been full of twists and turns this year. For many, it’s been a companywide effort just to make it across that finish line. Hopefully, most of us can now return our attention to some important things we’ve left on the back burner for months — like driving revenue.

With just four months left in 2024, we are all looking for ways to increase volume during this last quarter. The best and easiest place to increase volume is with your active member base, so this month, I want to highlight some ways to “make the most of what you’ve got” as you shift gears and focus on boosting sales.

Don’t forget to add upsells or cross sales to help bolster your revenue. There are many white-label cam programs and gaming programs that you can implement in your member area.

Optimize Your Rebill-Retry Process

The rebill-retry processing/dunning management process manages your declined or failed rebills. There are several ways you can optimize it to keep rebills going.

Implement smart rules, a retry process on rebills that return specific failed responses like insufficient funds or just a general decline. Simply using smart rules can help you pick up an additional 20 to 30% of declined rebills.

Another strategy is to remarket to customers who experienced a declined rebill. Some merchants already track declined customers, but if you’re not tracking yet, you can easily gather this data from your payment service provider. Then, reach out to those declines and offer them a special promotion or present them with an alternative payment method. You can also just send a simple alert to customers who experienced a problem with their last payment and provide them with a new link to sign back up.

Lastly, scan your database for card expiration dates. Then, send those customers an easy way to update their card information.

Cancel/Keep Offers

Cancel/keep offers can be implemented on your own or with your payment service provider. Here’s how it works.

When a customer opts to cancel, cancel/keep offers them a discounted price, or a different website that might be of interest to them. Payment processors may offer this feature and can often customize it to your needs.

We’ve seen merchants who take advantage of this tool retain 9% of their customers presented with a cancel/keep offer, and 60% of the original subscription value. We even encourage call center representatives to present a cancel offer, and compensate them on the saves. Everyone likes a little incentive for a job well done.

Get Reactive

Another useful feature is the ability to reactivate a customer who has previously canceled their membership or access. This feature can be built on your own or you can reach out to your payment service provider for help. With reactivation, you can build a marketing campaign directed at canceled members, offering a simple one-click activation link so customers can easily sign up again.

You can also implement a loyalty discount. For repeat purchasers or customers who have high engagement on your website, present them with special offers or discounts for new programs to help drive up additional revenue.

Add More Options, Boost Revenue

Don’t forget to add upsells and/or cross sales to help bolster your revenue. There are many white-label cam programs and gaming programs that you can implement in your member area. Let your members use one-click options so you can earn affiliate revenue and increase the value of your member base.

You can also add member-area upsells, of your own programs or those of your content partners, for your members to take advantage of. These are easy to implement and a good source of additional income.

Another great option is adding a cross sale or upsell on the payment page. There is nothing wrong with presenting an additional offer at the time of checkout as long as the terms are properly disclosed.

Merchants are always looking for upsell partners. Check with your payment service provider for help in this area. Merchants with a compliant upsell can typically pick up an additional 20% or more of revenue. That’s a nice bit of extra income, demonstrating that with just a little bit of effort, you can make an impact on your bottom line.

Cathy Beardsley is president and CEO of Segpay, a merchant services provider offering a wide range of custom financial solutions including payment facilitator, direct merchant accounts and secure gateway services. Under her direction, Segpay has become one of four companies approved by Visa to operate as a high-risk internet payment services provider. Segpay offers secure turnkey solutions to accept online payments, with a guarantee that funds are kept safe and protected with its proprietary Fraud Mitigation System and customer service and support. For any questions or help, contact sales@segpay.com or compliance@segpay.com.

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