How to Create Complementary Products and Services

(Nurhafihz (BBA, Marketing) is the guest writer for abangabu.com for Marketing Mondays)

Perhaps the greatest line in marketing is this: “Do you want to have fries with that…?” This is the art of upselling, and today I will share with you the idea of creating complementary goods and services.

Complementary products and services are things that are related to your primary product which your customers might find useful in addition to. For example, if you sell kuih, complementary products would be tissue, plastic bags, kuih cookbook, so on.

How do you go about thinking of complementary products? Here are three questions you need to ask:

1. What are the customers doing before they consume my product
2. What are the customers doing as they are consuming my product
3. What are the customers doing after they consume my product

It’s that simple. So for example, if I’m selling kuih online using a blog, using the above framework, here is the result (in order):

1. Customers are looking for wedding caterers most likely. Maybe venue people. Maybe I should set up a complementary venue service in addition to my kuih product.
2. Customers while surfing in the site might get hungry. Maybe I can offer free trial.
3. Customers after ordering my product might feel happy. Maybe I can send them a card.

Creating complementary products increases your variety of products and value that you are able to give to your customers. They sometimes give reminders to customers who, at the point of purchase, might not have thought of buying that extra service or product. This is win-win, as you create a solution for your customers before they realise that the problem arises, and of course for you, it means more halal earnings.