Second Tier Marketing
In this article we will review the principles of second tier
marketing or selling to your existing customers. We will also
discuss how to cross-market and find potential customers that
you may not have been aware of.
Importance of Back-end Selling
Considerable effort is required to get customers for your
products. You design killer web pages, work hard for high search
engine rankings (or pay for them), submit classified ads, etc.
but still do not manage to sell enough. This is where the
concept of back-end sales is useful.
Most marketers are successful because they apply back-end
selling into their marketing efforts. Back-end selling is when
you sell other products or services to your existing customers
after they have purchased an initial product.
It is always easier to sell products or services to your
existing customers because you have developed a relationship
with them when you sold your first product or service to them.
You will find it less expensive to sell to old customers as
compared to selling to new customers.
Your conversion ratio will be dramatically higher with existing
customers. Every time you continue selling back-end products or
services to existing customers, you will be building a life-long
relationship. You should continually bring out new back-end
products or services to sell to existing customers.
Many businesses sell their front-end products (initial products)
at almost zero profit in order to generate back-end profits.
These businesses do not care even if they lose money on the
front-end products or services; they want the back-end profits.
How do you make backend sales? There are several ways. When you
order a product from a mail-order company, they'll send you a
catalogue along with your order, or put you on a mailing list
and send you new catalogues from time to time. They might also
send you a sales letter for another product. This may be related
to the first product in some way. Many companies implement such
a strategy.
To implement this technique on the web, you can put the sales
pitch for your backend item in the email to the customer to
confirm their order. If you have an online catalogue, you could
include a link to it, or even include a coupon or special offer
"for all valued customers".
For a faster response, you should put the backend offer on the
"Thank You" page that is generated by a credit-card sale. The
customer just bought something from you and has a credit card in
his or her hot little hand! Why not ask for another purchase
while they are in the mood to buy. In case you do not sell more
than one product or service, affiliate programs might come in
handy. This way you can back sell products promoted by your
affiliate programs as well.
Back-end selling can also be integrated with "Up-Selling"
wherein you introduce more expensive products or services to
your existing customers in similar ways as those mentioned
above. This will almost instantly raise your sales and profits.
Cross Selling
Another successful strategy similar to the ones discussed above
is Cross Selling. One of the best examples of cross selling via
the web is on Amazon.com. If you search for a book on the Amazon
site, a message will appear on the same page, saying 'Customers
who bought this book also bought...' and will list half a dozen
other books for your consideration. This is an excellent way to
cross sell additional services or content to your members.
You can also direct visitors to other parts of the site, to
consider products and services that they hadn't previously
considered. Successful cross selling is the result of
recognizing a customer need and meeting that need with a useful
product or service. Customers benefit from needs-based cross
selling efforts because they receive the services they need and
want.
Cross selling can help your business realize its objectives:
providing useful services, retaining customers, attracting new
customers, and staying competitive with other websites.
In conclusion, you can offer a range of products and services on
the Internet. The key is proper research and a great marketing
plan.