Are there any other former Scouts out there? I came late to scouting going straight into the Senior Scouts. I still remember the motto, though, as I’m sure you do too: “Be Prepared”. It’s a great motto for many other aspects of our lives too. The thought behind it is that we shouldn’t just blunder into things but plan ahead so we are ready for any eventuality. Ideally, we should have a plan of campaign to get us through or, at the very least, be ‘tooled up’ for anything that the situation throws at us.
In internet marketing the first offer we make to a potential customer is likely to be a low cost item (sometimes even free). Even though the financial outlay for the customer may be low the quality of the product must be high. This is your first chance to impress a customer by giving the best possible value for money. Once a customer has received a low cost item you will then have their contact details and can begin to build a relationship with that customer.
Following on from the ‘frontend product’, as it is known, more offers are made to that customer with the ‘backend products’. These are items from within the same niche which continue the value of the frontend product but are more substantial both in content and in price. By the time you launch your frontend product you should have your first backend product all ready to go, complete with sales letter and other promotional material. You should be clear on your way forward; you should: “Be Prepared!”
A particular strategy popular with internet marketers is to use, say, two or three DVDs from a 12 Disk set as a frontend product. These should be valuable as a stand-alone set. For those who take up that offer we then follow up with an offer to purchase the remaining disks in the set: “If you enjoyed those disks, here is the rest of the set.” This backend offer can be made to the customer either as a one off purchase or as a disk-a-month alternative. It is a good idea to offer both options simultaneously to give the immediate option.
For customers who take up this second offer we can assume that they are clearly attracted to the particular niche in which we are operating. We can then follow up with even more substantial offers. Internet marketers refer to this process as a “Funnel System”. All those who take up the first offer go into the top of the funnel. The second offer will be purchased by some of those people which forms the second layer of the funnel. Some of those will then purchase again. As you go down through the funnel there are diminishing numbers of customers but the cost of the offers increases. Even though there are fewer customers the income generated is significantly greater.
This is why it is so important to grow your List. Once a customer has bought from you, they are more likely to buy again. As I said earlier in this article it is important to give excellent quality to you customers even for low cost items. If customers are happy they will stay with you and probably buy from you again further down the funnel where the rewards for you as a marketer are much greater. But always stay ahead of the game in your online business. Like a chess player thinking several moves ahead, always know where you need to go next and do the work well in advance. To quote again the Scouts motto: “Be Prepared!”