Selling your services as a freelance animator or studio owner can be a difficult task, especially if you just started your animation business.
The animation industry is a competitive industry full of skilled and experienced animators and studios that provide almost the same video styles.
By having a unique selling proposition and delivering on your brand promise, you'll be able to distinguish yourself from other animators and find clients interested in your animation services.
Before you can successfully sell your animation services and provide maximum value to your animation clients, you must have enough marketing knowledge to discuss business transactions. This is when the business terms upselling and cross-selling come into play.
In this article, we explain what exactly is upselling and cross-selling, their pros and cons, and the best ways to upsell and cross-sell your animation services.
What Is Upselling for Animators?
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Upselling is a sales technique that attempts to convince a client to spend more by purchasing a higher-end product, service, or an upgraded version of the product or service that the client originally wanted.
Upselling starts by building trust with the clients, identifying their needs, and then addressing those needs through the right product or service.
This sales technique is normally done at the end of the conversation with the customer, but it can also be given in the beginning as options. For example, E-commerce websites use upselling to visually show the difference between its original and premium version.
If done correctly, then this would lead to customer satisfaction and lifetime value. Upselling benefits from the notion that “Bigger is always better.” It’s like when you order a meal in a fast-food restaurant, and the employee asks you if you would like to upgrade the size of your fries, burger, and drinks.
In the animation industry, upselling is most often done to promote better animation services to a client who’s about to check out, usually at a higher cost.
It can be tricky because it requires you to have strong marketing skills and, at the same time, have an understanding of your animation client. The best way to understand them is to listen to their concerns.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions to your animation client to get to know them better. You should maintain a positive attitude towards them to have a healthy working relationship.
Once you know more about your client, you'll easily be able to match the services you offer to the possible needs of your animation client.
There are plenty of animation services online so look up different types of formats for your animation services. You can use those as a basis for how you want your services to look.
A prime example of upselling is Promoshin’s unlimited video creation. It's a monthly subscription plan that provides quality animation services.
Instead of just paying for a one-time animation deal, this plan allows you to make as many videos and revisions as you want until you cancel. You can have your video made at any length and in any style with no contracts or commitments.
What Is Cross-Selling for Animators?
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Cross-selling refers to the sales practice of selling a product that is complementary to the product that the client was originally going to purchase, like an add on. It’s like when you order a solo meal in a restaurant and the employee asks if you’d like to add fries with that.
To do cross-selling effectively, it’s important to carefully think of the different animation services you can provide. Keep your services simple and easy to understand to give a better client experience.
Also, match your services with your animation client’s goals to enhance the value of your additional services and make them more enticing.
Some examples of cross-sell opportunities are animated logo creation, infographic design, company musical jingles, video series, video promotion, social media content creation, and testimonial production.
Once you’re finished working on a project with your animation client, you can ask them to fill out a survey to see if they’re interested in your cross-sell.
Pros of Upselling and Cross-selling for Animator
1) Increases Profits and Return on Investments for Animators
Image by Looney Tunes via GIPHY
Upselling and cross-selling your animation client allows you to gain more profit and a better return on investments because it lets you earn money faster compared to the usual rates earned.
It’s not guaranteed that you’ll get a steady number of animation clients all the time, so upselling and cross-selling allows you to make the most out of a project with every animation client. This, in turn, lets you increase your rates and leads to earning more profit.
2) Builds Strong Animation Client Relationships
Image by Line of Duty via GIPHY
With upselling and cross-selling, you won’t just earn more, but you’ll also develop a better relationship with your animation clients.
Animation clients develop loyalty for the animators that feel like they look out for their needs. If you make well-done animated videos and provide great customer service, you’ll gain long-term animation clients. This increases their lifetime value because they are willing to spend more on your services.
It is quite common for clients to do just one video project with you and then leave after you're done. Fortunately, upselling and cross-selling can lessen the costs of losing valuable animation clients.
Once you find animation clients who are loyal to you, they can help you advertise your animation services for free. Their client reviews and recommendations to their peers can help bring in new animation clients!
3) Offers Flexibility and Convenience for You and Your Animation Clients
Image by Rick and Morty via GIPHY
Having many options and different animation services is more convenient for your animation clients because they are given the flexibility to choose. As a result, this creates trust and dependency between you and your animation client.
Upselling and cross-selling remove from your animation clients the burden and risk of working with other animators whenever they need new animation services.
It also allows you to innovate and make smarter business decisions. You’re able to have the freedom to determine how you want your business to grow.
Cons of Upselling and Cross-selling for Animators
1) Disrupts Your Animation Client’s Experience
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Poorly timed upselling and cross-selling often lead to your animation client rejecting your offer. Simply upselling without prior knowledge of the animation client's stage in their customer journey would make you look like you're selling for the sake of profit.
It can be annoying for animation clients if you recommend an animation service that isn't relevant to their business needs. This disrupts their client experience because it doesn't feel like an offer personalized for them.
For example, you had a delay in submission for your final project, yet you insisted on upselling or cross-selling when your animation client is clearly mad and dissatisfied with your service. Before you upsell or cross-sell, make sure that you can properly do what your client originally wants from you.
2) Upselling and Cross-selling Are Hard to Master
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Upselling and cross-selling are sales techniques that require lots of time and effort to master. Practice makes perfect! In addition, both have unique requirements about them that can’t be used in the same situation as each other.
You can’t upsell to an animation client who has a tight budget and can’t cross-sell to someone who is clearly only interested in your animation.
Some of the offers you’ll come up with won't look valuable for other businesses, so you have to think of an upsell and cross-sell offer that they will like.
At the end of every animation project, consider asking your animation clients to answer a customer satisfaction survey to help you upsell and cross-sell offers they could be interested in.
Ways to Upsell and Cross-sell Your Animation Services
There are many ways to upsell and cross-sell your animation services to your animation clients. Below are some great examples you could follow.
1) Animated Logos for Animators
Rocketgraph Animated Logo by Tony Pinkevych for Untime Studio
An animated logo uses video effects to transform a simple logo into a spectacle. It ranges from simple dynamic effects to a short video presentation.
It’s a symbol that builds the brand’s identity and is the first thing recognized in a company. It leaves an impression on customers and creates brand awareness.
You can cross-sell an animated logo by making it an additional animation service, and upsell it by having a simple or complex animated logo options for the animation client to choose from.
2) Subtitles for Animators
Image by Animal Crackers Movie via GIPHY
Subtitles are text normally found at the bottom of a video and encoded from a transcript of a dialogue or commentary.
As an animator, you are not limited to only adding English subtitles but subtitles in other languages as well, especially if your animation client has an international business. Being fluent in more than one language is a big plus. You can use this to your advantage and upsell and cross-sell your subtitling services.
This will not only help your clients reach a bigger audience, but it will be easy for you to do as well since you already know the ins and outs of the animated video.
3) Social Media Content Creation
In this digital era, companies create different kinds of online content to promote their products and services. These types of content range from infographics, animated videos, live action videos, GIFS, and so much more, which can all be published on social media.
With that in mind, consider creating a monthly social media service plan. This type of service allows you to build a long-lasting working relationship with your client.
Before cross-selling your creative social media content creation service, you need to learn to keep up with the current trends in creating social media posts.
This knowledge will help you understand how to make videos go viral, convince your animation client to purchase your cross-sell offer, and eventually help them grow their business.
4) Infographic Design for Animators
Image by Rebecca Hendin via GIPHY
Infographics are graphic presentations of information and data intended to present information clearly and visually. Infographics are visually presented with graphs, charts, diagrams, texts, and images.
They are used to create more interesting presentations for business meetings and marketing purposes. Advertisements normally use infographics to prove the legitimacy of the product being sold and to persuade viewers to buy it.
There are different types of infographics such as: statistical infographics, timeline infographics, geographic infographics, and many more.
By knowing how to creatively put together text, image, chart, diagram, and animation, you can cross-sell custom infographic designs with unlimited revisions to entice the animation client on your offer.
5) Company Musical Jingles for Animators
Aside from animated company logos, businesses get recognized by their company jingle like McDonald’s famous ad outro. A company jingle creates brand identity .
They are normally short tunes that are fifteen to sixty seconds long. Companies use them in advertisements, infographics, social media posts, and animation. The right jingle creates an emotional connection with the customers.
Company jingles create brand awareness because the words are easy to remember. The jingles normally have a catchy tagline to sing along to.
They leave a positive impression on the listeners and promote your animation client’s business in a fun and creative way. Having this additional service to your animation client also helps them create a better brand identity and is cost-effective.
If you’re already great at making tunes, consider cross-selling your musical jingle creation services to your animation client. Another option you can do is find sound designers and partner with them in their projects. Sound designers usually look for animators to help them with music videos, films, and shows.
6) Testimonial Videos for Animators
Image by The Kelly Clarkson Show via GIPHY
Testimonial videos are videos of clients talking about their experience using the products and services of a company.
They project authenticity and build a deeper emotional connection with the company. They also allow customers to become brand advocates and build brand reputation which compels more consumers to support their products and services.
If you cross-sell testimonial video services, all your client has to provide are the video clips of their clients sharing their story or video clips of the company or product. Create a story outline that makes the video flow better.
In the editing process, use images, icons, text effects, and sound effects to create a more engaging and visually pleasing experience for the viewers.
Upselling and Cross-selling Online
Now that you know the kinds of services you can upsell and cross-sell to your animation clients, it’s time to think about which platforms you will use to market your offers. Since you’re just starting out, you might not know where to sell your animation services because of the thousands of websites available.
Freelance animators use different types of websites to sell their services such as Fiverr, Upwork, and Behance which are great starting points in upselling and cross-selling your work. These platforms are powerful tools that will help you to reach clients around the world.
1) Upselling and Cross-selling Animation Services on Fiverr
Image via Fiverr
Fiverr is a website that promotes different types of services from freelancers ranging from voice acting to animation. The great thing about this website is that the website provides upselling and cross-selling services.
For upselling services, consider making packages that consist of time + effort = rate just like Fiverr user davisvegas.
Image via Fiverr
Davisvegas creates animated loops for streamers and music videos. His packages have different rates and qualities ranging from 290 to 490 dollars.
In upselling, it’s important to correctly word your rates in order for the client to further understand the value of going premium. For cross-selling, consider selling different animation services. Get creative in the animation styles. You can develop different services such as the once mentioned in the article.
For instance, Davisvegas creates animation loops for music videos and streamers but he also creates sci-fi scenes and sci-fi loops. Find animation services like Davisvegas, that would make you stand out.
Image via Fiverr
Also, consider adding revisions as an add-on for your animation services as another way of cross-selling.
Image via Fiverr
2) Upselling and Cross-selling Animation Services on Upwork
Upwork is an amazing website where freelance animators can upsell and cross-sell their services. It connects businesses with freelancers around the world. This website allows clients to post a job, browse and buy projects, and search for professional freelancers.
This is a great website for animators because there are constant job offers being posted by animation clients that work for big companies.
The first thing you have to do is create an eye-catching profile to help you match with the work you want. You can incorporate upselling and cross-selling in your profile by sharing your animation services and your rate.
Image via Upwork
New job offers are constantly posted by clients but the competition for each job is intense, so you have to respond quickly. It’s a good idea to apply to as many job posts as you can to have more chances of getting work.
If possible, you could handle multiple projects depending on your workload. Create irresistible offers that you’re sure would land you the projects and make sure to have your resume and portfolio updated. Don’t be afraid to upsell and cross-sell when you think your client is happy with your work.
Read the emails that Upwork sends you because they are tips for writing proposals that will get you jobs.
It will be worth the time and effort when you have established yourself as a known animator on the website because credibility earns loyal animation clients and gains more clients, which makes upselling and cross-selling easier.
3) Upselling and Cross-selling Animation Services on Behance
Behance is a website where you can discover a community of people who showcase their creative works such as photographs, illustrations, graphic designs, animations and so much more. It’s a social media network that lets you connect with other artists from all over the world.
This is a great website for you to share your work and get feedback from different creators. Members can follow your profile, and you also can follow the profiles of others. When you follow someone, you will be able to see their updates in your feed.
Image via Behance
Another great thing about Behance is that it also offers a “Jobs” section, where you can find potential animation clients looking for freelancers like you. When looking for clients, you can use the filters in the search bar to find your job type, job location, and creative field.
Be open to applying to jobs that are from different parts of the world. It’s a good idea to also apply to work that has flexible pay because that gives you more chances to upsell.
You should apply to as much work as possible because not all clients respond immediately. Make sure to have your notifications on so that you can respond quickly.
To upsell and cross-sell your works to potential animation clients, make sure to create a professional looking profile that contains your portfolio and your business contact information.
Since Behance is also a social media platform, consider gaining more followers by making sure to post all the animation services you’ve done like, an animated logo, or an infographic design.
Your Behance profile acts as a resume to your animation clients, so showing the range of your services would be beneficial when you upsell and cross sell.
In Conclusion
In order to be successful in upselling and cross-selling, you have to understand your animation clients, and know what they’re looking for. Learn and hone your animation skills to create irresistible upsell and cross-sell offers for your animation clients. Make sure your offers are clear and concise.
Let your animation clients see the value of your work not just through your skills, but also in the way you interact with them. You should be ready to quickly answer your client’s concerns.
Practice upselling and cross-selling with your friends and families until you're confident enough to use them on animation clients.
Don’t be afraid to educate your client. Look up questions that an animation client would ask for the services you offer and take note of the answers. You can also ask advice from freelance animators who upsell and cross-sell. Use those answers when they come up in a conversation with your animation client.
Remember not to rush the process of upselling and cross-selling your animation services. You’re not just learning about how to market your animation services, but you’re also building strong relationships with your clients.
Don’t let it worry you though. In time you will be able to master these techniques and stand out from other animators and studios.
For more tips and information about animation and its business side, join our free masterclass and get your copy of our marketing handbook.
