In helping small business owners and sales professionals “tame the 800 pound marketing gorilla”….these Power Action Quotes will help keep your mind sharp.

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How to Double Your Sales with Backend Selling and Up Selling

The prime purpose of any business, whether online or concrete, is to make and close a deal or a sale, by taking money for a product or service which we provide, and thereby gaining revenue….it’s like I learned in my MBA program “No business makes a profit until something is sold”!

While engaged in business, you should always try to get newer people to buy from you, so that your customer base builds up.

It is also essential that you keep your existing customer base happy so that they keep returning to you. A returning customer is generally a happy customer and making him return over and over again is termed back end selling….and they are FAR more cheaper to earn sales from than creating a new buyer!

Along with back end selling, where people who have previously purchased from you or have used your services return to you for a repeat purchase, it is also important to promote up selling.

Up selling occurs when a customer who has returned to you, comes back for not only the earlier products but more that that, thus effectively have a sale value greater than the last time he or she visited. This reflects that the customer is happy with your products and services over and above that of your competitors.

The lions share of your sales and profits are going to come from a section of your customers which is quite small. It is this small group of people that you need to keep happy and therefore returning to your website.

To make this easy and automated, you need a system (contact me if you’d like to discuss how I can help you in your business! Just make a comment below and we’ll connect)

You also need to pitch hard and ensure that people enjoy shopping on your web site and leave wanting more, in order to bring over people from being casual customers into the group of people who are your primary profit drivers. You want these people to come back over and over again and not go elsewhere, so you need to ensure that the old adage of “the customer is always right” is followed to the maximum, and these prime customers are kept happy.

The next step, after ensuring that your customers are returning, is to get them to buy more than what they were planning to buy. When they are finalizing a sale, offer them some other product along with their chosen product at a discounted rate or a product which compliments the one that they have chosen. This is somewhat similar to what happens when you go to a fast food joint and you are asked if you want fries with your burger! Or “would you like me to super-size that for you”. Over 30% of the time they say yes and that is pure profit!

So, basically you should always try to convince your customers to buy more than what they were planning on doing and then watch your profits soar. Yet just because you are up selling doesn’t mean that you should ignore the needs and requirements of your customers.

Up selling is a tool which should be used for the benefit of both you and your customer and never to their disadvantage as if a customer feels that he was coerced into buying something, he might not return the next time. All sales should always be beneficial to both the buyer and the seller ad never o only one side.

Back end selling and up selling are powerful tools at the disposal of any one into sales and you should use these tools to the best possible use that you can.

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Backend Sales and Email Marketing

You may have scored an early deal from your ecommerce website and want to step up your marketing initiatives to drive home the advantage, and expand the base with more new customers.

Now, while it is indeed desirable to keep a lookout for new opportunities to grab customers, you must take care that you don’t lose your old customers who have actually expressed faith in you and your product by purchasing it. With email marketing you can secure for yourself backend sales numbers without too much new investment on advertising.

But you may ask, how can one expect email marketing to be effective, given the pervasive antagonism amongst email users towards spam? The answer is simple—what is called opt-in emails in marketing jargon. In this variant of email marketing, the person gives you permission to send you advertising emails.

One simple way to secure this permission for your website is to offer some kind of freebies. Ebooks are known to be popular. But it is advisable that you give something that is related and relevant to your ecommerce website. You could offer one of your cheaper products, which would not only be more appreciated but also a sort of promotion for your brand.

One thing to keep in mind is that you should desist from sending direct product advertisements as many people don’t like being advertised to. What you should do is develop interest through interesting write-ups that will give some background information about your product. You should develop an e-newsletter that can be sent to customers.

You must prepare enough material for a 7-day advertising cycle so that you don’t let the customer slip away, while at the same time not boring him or her with repeat content. You may also wish to utilize an autoresponder service in case you have a very long mailing list.

Email autoresponders, apart from making things more convenient for you, also reduce chances that you will be hauled up for spamming. Paid email autoresponders are known to be more effective than the free ones, and also don’t require you to carry another company’s advertising on your autoresponder as is the case with a free service.

So, the crux of the matter is that in your rush to get more, new customers you should never neglect your old patrons. If you have a useful, reliable product, it is these older customers that will bring you more gains, as they have tested your product and are happy with it.

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As a small business owner or sales professional, our ATTitude determines our ALTitude!…let me know when I can help you install automated marketing systems in your business!

Enjoy today’s Power Action Quote from Og Mandino….Remember, to “Persist Until You Succeed”!

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