10 Tips for Exploding Your Backend Profits
| Category: Top 10 Tips | Date: 2003-08-05 |
So what exactly is backend selling? OK. Here’s an example: Say you’re selling an ebook about how to make money marketing with autoresponders (a very lucrative idea). Some lucky person buys your ebook for $19.95.
Not bad! There are no postage and packaging costs and the ebook was downloaded instantly. That’s 100% profit and $19.95 straight in the bank. Right?...
But wait a minute. It costs you $8 to find a paying customer through advertising, so that’s your profits down straight away. Plus you have to take into account your monthly fees: hosting, autoresponders, ISP fees and the like.
On average, after everything’s accounted for, you might make $7 per sale. You’re going to have to make a lot of sales…
That’s where your backend can come to the rescue. What if you were also selling e-mail management software. The kind that will send autoresponder messages, deliver your newsletter, automatically post to newsgroups…that kind of thing? (Something like Mailloop: http://www.businessexpander.com/mailloop.htm).
And what if you sent an e-mail to everyone who bought your ebook telling them all about this great piece of software with a link at the bottom?
Before you were selling 20 ebooks a week. At a profit of $7 each, that’s $140. Not bad, but it’s hardly a living wage is it? Now though, 1 in 5 of your customers is purchasing your e-mail management software at $50 a pop…
And these sales are for free. You’ve already paid the advertising costs in finding the original ebook buyers and taken your overheads off these sales as well. You’re weekly profit just shot up to $340. Now we’re talking.
So you see, how well you work your backend sales can easily make or break your business.
Now for those top tips you’ve been promised:
1. The best place for your backend sale is right after your customer has bought your product. This is also known as an upsell. Simply place your complimentary product on the thank you page of what you just sold. In the example above, the Thank You page might read something like:
Thank you for purchasing ‘Double Your Sales with Autoresponder Messages’.
You may be interested to learn that we also have for sale mail management software that will allow you to send autoresponse messages and deliver newsletters straight from your computer. It’s called ‘Super Mail Manager Pro and is available from www.yourURL.com
2. Another great time to include a backend offer is along with the product delivery. With a downloadable product, payment and delivery may happen together, so this might not be possible. But with a product you are shipping, such as a set of audio marketing CDs, it would be simple to slip in a flyer or catalogue detailing your other products.
3. Send a Thank You letter. After the sale, send an e-mail to your customer’s inbox thanking them for making the purchase. This doesn’t have to be straight after the sale. It could be a week later, asking them how they’re getting on with the product and if there are any problems.
They’ll be impressed by your courtesy, as well as any extra offers you may wish to include. For offline products, a snail mail letter will work just as well if not better.
4. Don’t have any suitable backend products to promote? Promote an affiliate product. There are loads of products to choose from in numerous categories at http://www.associateprograms.com. You’re bound to find something that goes with your product and will offer you a good percentage of the sale price.
5. An alternative to affiliate products is drop ship products. Here you offer a product produced by a company who send the product out for you when you sell it. As with affiliate products you don’t need to worry about fulfilling the product, even if it’s a physical one.
Good drop ship partners can be a little harder to find, but it can definitely be worth it. Your best place to start is The Drop Ship Source Directory, available here: http://www.businessexpander.com/dropship.htm. (I highly recommend that you download the free ebook: Start Your Internet Business RIGHT from this web page. It really is one of the best free ebooks I’ve ever read.)
6. Studies show that it is 7 times easier get a sale with past customers than new ones. With most products it’s best to send a new offer every three months or so, but this will vary from product to product and it’s always important to do plenty of testing.
7. Present special offers to you customers. It’s always important that your prospect buys very soon or they will probably not buy at all. Send your new customer a special offer or a coupon that must be used on one of your products in the next week to instil a sense of urgency in them.
8. You could even try selling your initial product for no profit at all. There are many marketers who sell as many products as they can at cost and then concentrate on making money purely from backend sales. This sounds risky at first, but if you give it some thought, it does start to make sense.
9. What do you do with people who request more information from you but don’t buy? Just forget about them? Big mistake! They’re obviously interested in what you have to offer, perhaps just not that particular product.
Try contacting them about something similar but different, perhaps they’re looking for something cheaper are more basic, or a top-of-the range pro version? You’ll never find out if you don’t ask.
10. A great tip for ebook sellers is to put plenty of their affiliate links into the ebook, mixed in with the text. There’s not much point having a page which just features a list of affiliate links as few people will click on it, but if you can weave the links into your words of wisdom, recommending resources at suitable points, then there are great possibilitiesfor backend sales through this method.
So, what are you going to do? Settle for what you’re making now, or try some of the tips out above and watch your profits soar?
© Joe Beaven - All Rights Reserved
About the Author
The Top Info Products Information and Software Available with Resale Rights Anywhere, Now on a Money Saving, Time Saving, Incredibly Convenient CD successgold.com
Joe Beaven has been making money online since 1998 by various methods including Internet auctions, information products and affiliate marketing.
Info@SuccessGold.com
http://www.successgold.com
Not bad! There are no postage and packaging costs and the ebook was downloaded instantly. That’s 100% profit and $19.95 straight in the bank. Right?...
But wait a minute. It costs you $8 to find a paying customer through advertising, so that’s your profits down straight away. Plus you have to take into account your monthly fees: hosting, autoresponders, ISP fees and the like.
On average, after everything’s accounted for, you might make $7 per sale. You’re going to have to make a lot of sales…
That’s where your backend can come to the rescue. What if you were also selling e-mail management software. The kind that will send autoresponder messages, deliver your newsletter, automatically post to newsgroups…that kind of thing? (Something like Mailloop: http://www.businessexpander.com/mailloop.htm).
And what if you sent an e-mail to everyone who bought your ebook telling them all about this great piece of software with a link at the bottom?
Before you were selling 20 ebooks a week. At a profit of $7 each, that’s $140. Not bad, but it’s hardly a living wage is it? Now though, 1 in 5 of your customers is purchasing your e-mail management software at $50 a pop…
And these sales are for free. You’ve already paid the advertising costs in finding the original ebook buyers and taken your overheads off these sales as well. You’re weekly profit just shot up to $340. Now we’re talking.
So you see, how well you work your backend sales can easily make or break your business.
Now for those top tips you’ve been promised:
1. The best place for your backend sale is right after your customer has bought your product. This is also known as an upsell. Simply place your complimentary product on the thank you page of what you just sold. In the example above, the Thank You page might read something like:
Thank you for purchasing ‘Double Your Sales with Autoresponder Messages’.
You may be interested to learn that we also have for sale mail management software that will allow you to send autoresponse messages and deliver newsletters straight from your computer. It’s called ‘Super Mail Manager Pro and is available from www.yourURL.com
2. Another great time to include a backend offer is along with the product delivery. With a downloadable product, payment and delivery may happen together, so this might not be possible. But with a product you are shipping, such as a set of audio marketing CDs, it would be simple to slip in a flyer or catalogue detailing your other products.
3. Send a Thank You letter. After the sale, send an e-mail to your customer’s inbox thanking them for making the purchase. This doesn’t have to be straight after the sale. It could be a week later, asking them how they’re getting on with the product and if there are any problems.
They’ll be impressed by your courtesy, as well as any extra offers you may wish to include. For offline products, a snail mail letter will work just as well if not better.
4. Don’t have any suitable backend products to promote? Promote an affiliate product. There are loads of products to choose from in numerous categories at http://www.associateprograms.com. You’re bound to find something that goes with your product and will offer you a good percentage of the sale price.
5. An alternative to affiliate products is drop ship products. Here you offer a product produced by a company who send the product out for you when you sell it. As with affiliate products you don’t need to worry about fulfilling the product, even if it’s a physical one.
Good drop ship partners can be a little harder to find, but it can definitely be worth it. Your best place to start is The Drop Ship Source Directory, available here: http://www.businessexpander.com/dropship.htm. (I highly recommend that you download the free ebook: Start Your Internet Business RIGHT from this web page. It really is one of the best free ebooks I’ve ever read.)
6. Studies show that it is 7 times easier get a sale with past customers than new ones. With most products it’s best to send a new offer every three months or so, but this will vary from product to product and it’s always important to do plenty of testing.
7. Present special offers to you customers. It’s always important that your prospect buys very soon or they will probably not buy at all. Send your new customer a special offer or a coupon that must be used on one of your products in the next week to instil a sense of urgency in them.
8. You could even try selling your initial product for no profit at all. There are many marketers who sell as many products as they can at cost and then concentrate on making money purely from backend sales. This sounds risky at first, but if you give it some thought, it does start to make sense.
9. What do you do with people who request more information from you but don’t buy? Just forget about them? Big mistake! They’re obviously interested in what you have to offer, perhaps just not that particular product.
Try contacting them about something similar but different, perhaps they’re looking for something cheaper are more basic, or a top-of-the range pro version? You’ll never find out if you don’t ask.
10. A great tip for ebook sellers is to put plenty of their affiliate links into the ebook, mixed in with the text. There’s not much point having a page which just features a list of affiliate links as few people will click on it, but if you can weave the links into your words of wisdom, recommending resources at suitable points, then there are great possibilitiesfor backend sales through this method.
So, what are you going to do? Settle for what you’re making now, or try some of the tips out above and watch your profits soar?
© Joe Beaven - All Rights Reserved
About the Author
The Top Info Products Information and Software Available with Resale Rights Anywhere, Now on a Money Saving, Time Saving, Incredibly Convenient CD successgold.com
Joe Beaven has been making money online since 1998 by various methods including Internet auctions, information products and affiliate marketing.
Info@SuccessGold.com
http://www.successgold.com
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