If you follow exactly the steps I showed you in the previous six lessons, you will be making a good profit within one month.
So now, you have stable web traffic, your site processes orders automatically, a group of affiliates are promoting your product, you also have an opt-in mailing list with thousands of subscribers...
Then what?In this last lesson, you will learn just one thing backend products - which will bring in unlimited income!
• What is backend anyway?
• What's so good about backend?
• Develop or find backend products
• How to promote backend products
Imagine this:
Someone visits your web site and is somewhat interested in what you offer. Like most people, she looks around but is not ready to buy from you yet. Just when she's going to leave your site, a window pops up asking her to sign up for your free newsletter. She fills in the form since it's free anyway.
Over the next several weeks, or months, she receives useful information from you, gets familiar with you, and begins to regard you as an expert in your industry.Some day she goes to your site again via the links in your newsletter and decides to buy the product you are offering.
She's become your customer!
You send her follow up emails consistently providing more information, and recommending other similar products every now and then. Since she's done business with you before and feels comfortable buying from you, she buys from you time and time again.
Anything she buys from you other than the first sell is a backend sale. The idea of backend is so neglected by most businesses that many people don't even realize how powerful it can be.
------------------------What's So Good About Backend?
In reality, it's rather hard to make huge profit with a $15, $20 or even $30 product on the front end.
Even if you have high profit margin, you may have to spend a large portion of the income in advertising and getting customers in the first place. Pay-per-click search engines, paid ads, freebies, software, referral fee paid to affiliates, opt-in list monthly fee...You may easily find out that your cost per customer is $10, $20 or more.
This is one of the biggest problems businesses have.Generally, when we think of building bigger profits, we think about getting more customers. That isn't the whole picture. For bigger, quicker profits, marketing to the customers you already have is also a good, if not better, idea.
Once you've developed a little trust, someone's given you their money - and you've given them value for that, they feel good about you and your product. Your existing customers trust you and their buying defenses are down and it would be so much easier to sell to them again!
That's where the real profit comes from, the backend!If someone does business with you and she likes the experience, what happens is that she actually develops in her mind that she's done business with you once before and is very comfortable doing business with you time and time again.
The best part is that, it doesn't cost you anything more than the time to send follow up emails.The bottom line is, you should realize that the biggest asset your business has is your customer base.
Think of hotmail. The main service they provide is web based email and they don't make much from it since it's free. Yet Microsoft bought hotmail for millions! What Microsoft paid for was not the email servers but the huge customer base with millions of subscribers so that they can send personalized and targeted ads and offers to them.
If you're to write a book, you copyright it, protect it and sell it. You would never throw it away. So why do you throw away your customer base by not having a backend product or service?
You have already spent time and money in getting your customers. You have their names, email addresses and maybe more. You can now sell them additional products or services, for free, for as long as you like!
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Develop Or Find Backend Products
For many businesses, having a backend product determines whether the business succeeds or not. You should have a backend in mind whenever you are planning your web site, developing or choosing a product.
On the Internet, it is easy to come up with backend products!The best way is, of course, you develop another product by yourself. Over the time, you will have a series of your own products.
A perfect example is Ken Evoy. When I bought his eBook "Make Your Site Sell!" years ago, it was his only product. Now he has developed his own product line:
• Make Your Site SELL! - The BIBLE of site-selling
• Make Your Knowledge SELL! - The BIBLE of selling what you know on the Internet
• Make Your Price SELL! - How to choose the right price that can literally triple your net profits
• Make Your Words SELL! - Filling you with mission-critical writing skills to sell on the Internet
• Site Build It! - One-stop Internet business solution for small business owners
If you don't own any additional products or services to place on a backend, then you can simply join an affiliate program or two with a high quality product or find an appropriate company who will drop ship for you.
There are thousands of companies out there that have affiliate programs. Just go to Commission Junction, the largest affiliate program network, and search for products you feel suitable.
You can find more affiliate programs at these sites:ClickBank
Make sure the affiliate programs fit a certain criteria before joining:
* Go for quality
Every time you offer a third party backend, you are not only endorsing it, but also put your reputation in it. So always make sure that either you have personally tried the product or it is of the highest quality at the best price. Don't give your customers a reason to stop buying from you.
Examine the product or service to make sure it is a quality product. Look at the people who are recommending it. Talk to people who have bought it.
Is it really helpful to your visitors? Does it offer valuable information? The better the product or service, the more enthusiastic you will be about recommending it, and you'll have a better chance that people will buy it.
Don't ever promote anything that's going to harm your reputation!* Earn good commission
You will need a lot of traffic to earn a serious income from affiliate programs. And by promoting affiliate programs, you are actually asking people to leave your site. It's only fair that you get something back for doing that.
If someone is paying out 5% or 10% per item sold, this is a pretty low commission. You want to deal with someone who thinks about the lifetime value of a customer and will give you a high commission for your hard work. They can sell their own backend once your visitors become their customers!
Some companies don't realize the value of a customer and don't offer their affiliates a good commission - usually 10%-15%, or even less. You will find that you will be sending tons of people to them and not getting huge commission checks.
* High conversion rateEven if a program is paying out a high commission, if people don't buy from them you're back in the same boat! So you have to make sure that the affiliate program site is a site which turns visitors into sales. In other words, the site must have a good conversion rate.
You want to deal with a site that has at least a 1% conversion rate. There are not many sites out there which are experts at turning visitors into sales, so make sure you go with a site which has sales copy and web site design that makes yourself want to buy.
After all, you are sending them potential customers, but it is their job to turn those potential customers into buyers.* Minimum payout amount
Some web sites pay you only after you have accumulated $100 or $200 in commission. If you have a very busy site, that's ok. For a small site without much traffic, it could take a long time.
There's even the odd site which won't pay you at all unless you generate a certain level of business. Read the affiliate agreement before you sign up.* Focus on your site theme
The backend products you offer through affiliate programs should be somehow related to your site and front end product.
Some web site owners sign up for dozens of affiliate programs and clutter their site with links so much that it's difficult to see the theme of the site. Some webmasters try "banner farms". Don't waste your time. It doesn't work.
You need original content which your visitors feel helpful. And then blend the affiliate links with your site. Match the product or service to the theme of your site. Make it something that has to do with your site or your industry.
It doesn't make sense to recommend a web site host to your visitors who come to your site looking for fitness advice. Provide links, services and products, which are related to what your visitors want! If you surf around, you will be surprised by many people who build a site and have products and affiliate program that are in no way related to each other.
* Seek good trackingAnother thing to be concerned with is the tracking software or service the affiliate program is using. You want to go with a company which has good tracking, showing your statistics in real time. You want instant real time stats that are easy to understand.
Having real time stats allows you to compare the difference in results between putting a button up and putting up a whole page recommending the product or service. Look for real time stats so that you can go and check anytime and see how your promotional efforts are working and how effective they are. Then you can increase your sales and commissions by concentrating on the things that work.
* Deal with a responsible companyIf you are ever concerned about a company you are thinking about doing business with, ask for references and do some checks on them. You have to make sure they are very professional and responsible.
If you email them, they should respond within a couple of days, maximum, and hopefully within the same day if at all possible. You'd be very surprised at how many companies will not respond to your emails within a couple of days - or not even respond to your emails at all.
If you are asking questions about a company's affiliate program and get no answer, be wary. If they can't even take care of you when you are going to bring them customers, then you probably have a pretty good idea that they won't take care of you when you have a problem. You can also guess that they won't take very good care of your customers either!
So be very careful, the company you deal with should be very professional and willing to help you out when you're in need.By the way, I have my own affiliate program which meets all the criteria above;-). If you are looking for high quality info products on Internet business, check this out. The bottom line is, you have to get your backend! The first sell is the hardest and if you don't have a backend, you're setting yourself up for the hardest sell throughout your whole business where the second, third, fourth are the easiest!
------------------------How To Promote Backend Products?
The most obvious and effective way is to send follow-up emails. But there are surely other techniques.
* Point of purchase
One of the best points for a backend offer on any sale is right after the initial sale while the customer still has her credit card out. For example, whenever you go buy a pair of shoes, it always seems like once you have the shoes picked out, the salesperson will then ask you if you would like laces, polish, etc.
Any smart retailer will figure out what other products they have that naturally go with the purchases most often being made. Then, they will offer an up-sell immediately at the point of sale.
Apply this to your Internet business. Offer the up-sell right after your customer has made the purchase. In other words, put the backend product on the thank you page right after the purchase is made.
At that point, your customer still has her credit card out and is in a buying mood. By listing one or two similar products on the thank you page, you should be able to increase your overall sales by 10%-30% immediately.
* With product deliveryThe second key time to offer a backend is when the product is delivered. Wise marketers send a catalog of other products and services they have with every order.
If you sell info products such as eBooks, you can easily offer one or two similar backend products in the order confirmation email you send to customers. To do this, you should use a credit card processing service that allows you to customize the confirmation letter. Not everyone provide this feature. Observe their service carefully.
Or, if for some reason, you are not using a service that allows you to customize the confirmation email, you can always put your backend at the download page.Possibly offer a 30-day special discount in the package. If they order something else from you within thirty days they get $10 or 10% off or something similar. Just remember that there has to be some incentive to order now.
* Follow-upYou should send out follow-up emails to all of your current customers. Top marketers report that it is 7 times as easy to sell to an existing customer than it is to develop a new one. Put the odds to work for you and start selling more to your current customers.
The correct time to send out this letter depends on what you sell. If you sell a consumable product such as food, nutritional, body care, etc., then you send out the letter whenever the average customer will run out of the current supply.
If you sell other types of products, then the proper time will often be around every 3 months. It depends on your products and your customers. Learn the correct time by testing.
* Leads that don't buy from youThis is an area that most Internet marketers don't even consider, but it could quickly become a new profit center for your business. What do you do with those leads who contact you but don't end up buying?
In most businesses, they just throw them away. The smart marketer who wants to get maximum profit out of every second of their time and every dollar they spend will put these leads to use also.
They are obviously interested in what you are selling since something you have caused them to originally contact you for more information. They didn't want to buy your product, but what if you offer another similar product to them instead once you have finished your regular follow-up system for your main product?
This is definitely an area that you need to try out. Since the cost of follow-up online is virtually nothing, this type of additional profit is definitely something every business should look into.
------------------------Your Next Online Venture
So now, you've got everything up:
• A product you can control and it will solve problems for your customers.
• A well designed web site with sales copy that is proven to sell.
• Real time credit card processing at your site.
• An affiliate program for your visitors to promote your product and earn a commission.
• An opt-in email list.
• Backend products to sell time and time again.
• Active marketing strategy.
Once all components of the system are in order, all you have to do is to spend 1 or 2 hours everyday on customer service and continuous promotion.
Then comes the time to develop your next Internet business. You can repeat your success time and time again which means unlimited income potential ahead of you!
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Thank you for reading this ebook. I sincerely hope it is of help to your online business.
Feel free to use any part of this ebook in your publication or web site. They are prelicensed to you. The only requirement is to include the following resource box:
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Article by Zac Hewlett at Working-At-Home-Business.com Visit http://www.working-at-home-business.com for Internet marketing techniques, home business ideas, free Internet business e-course, eBooks, articles, and more.
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