|
|
How To Boost Your Sales Dramatically Using Dynamic Back-end Strategies
Getting a customer is not easy.
Getting a visitor to decide that he or she wants to buy the product or service you're offering, getting out their credit card and giving you their hard-earned money is not a piece of cake.
Most visitor's to your Internet site, 97 - 99% of them if you're lucky, will not buy your product. They turn away from your site, your offer...and they will probably never return. In other words - if you work hard, if you use the right techniques and if you're talented maybe you'll get 1 - 3 % of the people who visit your site to buy. But it's not easy.
First you need to make sure you actually get enough visitors to your site. And if you use paid advertising, like pay-per-click search engines - this will cost you money. If you plan on getting visitors for free, this will take you time.
You need to make sure that your visitor is persuaded to buy. And if he or she won't buy the very first time they visit your site, you need to get them to come back again later.
Getting a customer ? a "first-time" customer ? takes a bit of effort.
But the efforts are worth it. Because once you have that customer, he will be a valuable asset.. Your customer will become your main income source. Why? Because your already existing customers are much more likely to buy from you again and again.
By calling this "customer life-time value", you're putting a name to it. And a value. How much will your average customer buy from you over the next 10-15 years? Customer lifetime value. The online businesses that make the most money are the ones that know how to use their existing customer base to maximize profits.
I guess the old saying that you need to take care of your customer, is particularly true on the Internet.
I'll give you an example.
A guy called John runs a site where he sells a product for $ 100. He gets a small amount of visitors - 100 visitors a day; that's 3000 visitors a month. He manages to sell to 1% of his visitors, which means he sells for $ 3,000 a month. He gets 30 new customers a month.
After a year he's earned $ 36,000 from his 360 customers.
His friend Neal runs a site, too. He gets 100 visitors a day and sells a product that costs $ 100 and manages to sell to 1% of his customers. 30 new customers a month; 360 customers a year. What a coincidence, right? Anyway, Neal has got a really nice product. A product people love. He also offers great customer service. Neal's customers like him very much.
They wouldn't mind buying from him again.
After his first 12 months online, Neal sends all his 360 customers an email offering a second product. A so-called back-end product.
This doesn't take him long. After all, it's just ONE email.
The second product is a little more expensive, it costs $ 300, but it is a product that his customers really need. A product they want. (He knows this because he asked them in a survey what product they would be interested in; what products they really needed.)
Since Neal is a great guy offering great products and excellent customer service, as many 30 % of his customers buy the second product. That's 108 people.
Now here's the interesting bit. The second product costs $ 300, which means that Neal has an additional yearly income of $ 32,400!
Look at the figures! Neal has doubled his yearly income just by selling a second product to 30 % of his customers. He hasn't had to go to great lengths to get new customers, but he's using his existing customers to double his profits!
John makes $ 30,000 a year, Neal makes $ 62,400.
And the one and only difference is that Neal sends out one extra email!
Neal still only gets 100 visitors a day. He still only gets 1% of them to buy his first product, but he offers them all a second, back-end product. He maximizes the profit potential of his customer base.
Strategies like "back-end offers" and concepts like "lifetime value" shifts the focus from the short sighted "take the money and run" strategy that is so much in use on the internet today. You've seen these sites all over. They only focus on getting a massive amount of traffic and then selling visitors an overpriced product that doesn't deliver what is promised.
Customers feel fooled. Why would they ever want to buy from this salesman again?
The more successful sites focus on building a strong relationship with their customers. And your main goal shouldn't be to make sure your customers are satisfied...you want them to be extremely satisfied. If you deliver the goods, your customers will trust you more. And if you have their trust, you can sell them anything.
Here are a just few pointers of how you can establish a great relationship with your customers:
1. Delivering a great product
Give your customers exactly what they want. And then some more. One of the best ways to get people to buy from you again and again is to only sell high quality products. If you ever consider selling a crap, overpriced product, ask yourself why you'd want to loose all that future income from your customers.
2. Responding quickly
When you run an online business, you'll get a lot of email. People will ask you about all kinds of things, and they will expect answers immediately. Set up autoresponders to make sure they get a pre-written email the minute they send you one. Tell them that you've gotten their email and that you will read it within the next 24 hours. And make sure you do. When you've read it, always reply to them, even if you can't answer their questions.
3. Taking care of customers after purchase
Too many online businesses forget about their customers once they've bought the product. And if they take the time to write to them again, it's only because they're trying to push another product. Don't get me wrong, you want to push that second product, but consider at least pretending that you care about how your customer is doing. Sending an email doesn't cost a penny. Why not send more emails where you're not trying to sell them anything. In the long run, this strategy will make you sell more! Ask how they're getting on with their product, give them tips, give them a free gift, congratulate them on their birthday etc. Care more, and you'll sell more.
The bottom line? Think long-term. Realize that your existing customers will buy from you again and again if you just let them. Let them.
About The Author
Steve Atlas writes regularly for the Internet Marketing Dictionary - http://www.internet-marketing-dictionary.com
How To Make It Easy For Your Web Designer To Build Your Website
You have an idea for a website and you are now looking for somebody to build you the site. You want it to be a smooth ride, and want to have a good working relationship with your web designer. You are also looking for a low cost website, so how will you make all of this possible?
How to Get Your Visitors to Create Content for Your Website
An ongoing challenge for webmasters today is to provide fresh content that gives visitors a reason to return to their site. Unless you have a full-time staff dedicated to creating regular content, the time involved can be crippling.
Secrets to Using Color on Your Website and Common Pitfalls to Avoid
Colors have long been known to have psychological affects on mood and interpretation. So, when you are designing your website, you should keep in mind the influence color might have on your visitors. Do some research to find out which colors promote your product and services best as well as which colors make visitors interested in buying your products. You should take all of this into account in order to create the best atmosphere for buying that you can.
Caveat Scriptor: Use the Advice of Those Who Know Before You Build a Site
~A man [woman] is a success if he [she] gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he [she] does what he [she] wants to do. Bob Dylan~
Power of Squeeze Pages for Realtors
Squeeze pages are a very hot topic in the internet marketing scene. What a squeeze page is is a page that is built to get someone to take an action. You have a newsletter but visitors to your site are not subscribing to it enough for your liking so what you do is on each page of your site you offer some kind of freebie, lets say on your buyers page you can offer to send the kind of listings that the person is looking for (if your MLS offers the service this may be very very easy to do) or maybe on a page for sellers you could offer a free download of a "Make more money be properly preparing your home to sell".
Developing Your Winning Web Site Strategy
Your web site is the key to your success on the Internet. You can use your web site to build your brand, increase sales, generate more leads, slash costs, and much more. In fact, you probably have very specific goals that your web site is helping you to achieve for your company.
Creating Quality Websites
Websites, there are literally billions of them out there in cyber-space. How many of them do you go to and just think this is boring, bland, or hard to use? It seems like too many to mention. So what makes a good website? I reckon it's about interaction. You've got to make the visitor interested. You've got to grab their attention. Many sites use plenty of bright and shiny gimmicks to attract you, but once you make it through to the content of the site it's just not worthy. A good site uses easy navigation, relevant content, and interactive media like comments and message boards. If you're fortunate, whoever builds your site may even have a few tricks up their sleeves to make it really fun with sound, video, and other interactive fun stuff.
How To Get A Pay Raise From Your Web Site
How many of the visitors to your web site take the action you want them to take? Whether you want them to buy something from you, sign up for your newsletter, enter your sweepstakes, or give you contact information to follow up on, you want them to do something. The percentage of visitors who actually do that something is called your "conversion rate."
Images: How To Make Them To Load Fast On Your Web Pages?
1. Use .gifs rather than .jpgs. GIFs are smaller in size when compared to JPGs.
How To Attract People To Your Web Site and Leave Their Contact
If you have a website, you want your visitors to stay longer on your website and get more sales. Here are 10 ways you can do to improve it.
Revising Your Site - What Happened To My Search Engine Placement?
As of September, Smartads went through what so many have done before. I changed the entire site. I knew what it meant. It means that your search engine placements your probably so proud of are probably going to be lost in the process.
Make it Clear What Your Website is About
Just about every list of the "Top 10 Web Design Mistakes" includes at least one reference to either
6 Reasons Why Web Templates Are Todays Trend
As the Internet blooms at an alarming rate, so as the number of websites out there. Appearance, layout, presentation and loading times are just a few of the main essential characteristics of a successful website. It would seem that it is generally manageable if you own a wide level of knowledge on web / graphics design. But the main question of today's online trend, is how you can eliminate the need of going through the traditional web designing processes and timeframe.
Do You Own Your Web Site Design?
Your web site has been up for a few months and you are making money hand over foot. While surfing sites one evening, you are shocked to find a competitor using your design. You find out your designer sold them the same design. They must be breaking the law, right? It all depends on whether you own the copyright to your web site design. Many site owners are shocked to find out they do not.
Keep Your Navigation Consistent!
One of the single most important aspects of effective navigation is consistency. Why? There's a simple reason.
How to Design Website Which Google Likes
Are you going to design or redesign new website or thinking for it, then first read below given points, which google likes in a website, Google Information for Webmasters.
How Not to be Ripped Off by Your Website Designer
As web designer my self, I have had the unfortunate luck of speaking to too many of my clients who have been ripped off by a web designer somewhere along the line. Whether it be that the designer never really finished the website, took the deposit and was never heard from again, or finished the website with less than promised quality.
Technology vs. Usability
When JV Media Design was formed, the year was 1995 and the Internet was a very different place than it is today.
Website Sales: 10 Strategic Tips To Maximize Your Profits
If you've a website but not making a lot of profit from it, cheer up because I have 10 website sales secrets that can help you maximize your sales and profits, starting now:
Content - the Key to Long Term Success
Every day internet marketers are inundated with the latest fad or must have program. But the one tried and true asset which is vitally important to the long term success of your online business is valuable CONTENT. In fact, content can do more to build your business and profits than just about any other resource or service available.