OTO Cross Sell – The truth about one-time offer upsells

If you forced me to make a sweeping, blanket statement, I’d recommend you NEVER buy a one-time offer cross sell…. Especially if it’s for an infoproduct (like a how-to guide).

This advice is sure to piss off a lot of marketers as there’s a lot of profit in these additional buys. Markeing “gurus” like Dan Kennedy and Jay Abraham tout one-time offer upsells as the fast path to easy cash. And this is absolutely true. Some buyers are in “heat” and are going to gobble up anything you offer just after they’ve taken the plunge to buy your original offer…

… And that’s the big problem here — emotion. Most people buy irrationally. They get sucked into a purchase without properly analyzing it.

There are 3 super-simple reason why buying OTO upsells is are colossal burden on you:

You’re throwing money down the drain – Surprisingly, most people who buy info products let their new-found purchase sit on their computer hard drive. It’s even worse for the upsell product as almost no one even opens it (because they still haven’t opened their original purchase).

The quality is poor – Most infoproduct owners invest most of their time creating a great introductory product. That’s because the low-cost lost leaders are meant to impress (and also help pay those hefty affiliate commission… anywhere from 50% to 100% of the purchase price). Unfortunately, these “gold nuggets” don’t carry through to the upsells… usually these are thrown together at the last minute (and it shows).

You’re being manipulated – Marketers are using heavy-handed psychologically shenanigans to trick you into buying something that’s always available at the exact same price. Through the use of the principle of scarcity, a one-time offer IMPLIES a superior deal you’ll only get access to once… nothing can be further from the truth as you can ask for the “one-time” deal in the future and almost 100% of the publishers will honor it.

Just say no to one-time upsells.