Customer Cross-Sell Initiative

01 — Challenge

With 12 key add-on products in our catalog, an overarching strategy for cross-selling was a necessity.

By creating customer segmentation based on each customer's specific needs, we sought to deploy personalized recommendations for additional offerings in a clear, concise, and automated way via email, retargeting, and in-product channels.

02 — Process

We had to find a way to communicate available offers to customer cohorts, without overwhelming them with options, and without damaging customer trust in our brand.

In other words, we didn't want Bluehost to be known as the brand that just constantly tried to sell, sell, sell to existing customers. Rather, we wanted to build trust with our customer base by providing relevant offers, at the right time, to the right customer. And most important, we wanted our marketing materials to educate and nurture, rather than push with pricing promos and urgent messaging.

With that in mind, we initially built a series of customer segments, based on overall goal with Bluehost web hosting, experience level, and engagement level (behavioral tracking of key events in the lifecycle). Through collaboration with our Product Marketing team, we bundled a series of relevant add-on products for each customer cohort.

These offers were first communicated to customers via email and in-product banner ad A/B testing. The communications were benefits-focused, with an educational tone. With the learnings gathered there, we were able to work with the Product team to create a product marketplace within our app that dynamically displayed products and services relevant to each specific customer cohort.