Before we go on, let me just touch a bit on direct sales. Also known as front end sales, it refers to the products that are the focus of your sales campaigns. You would create a unique sales page for each product; designed an Internet marketing strategy or two to drive traffic to them, hoping that the flow of visitors will result in some sales; or you would set up an even more aggressive campaign by introducing an affiliate program.



The above strategy is for your direct sales campaign. So is it the only sales strategy that you can use? Of course not, because front end products are not the only items that you can promote. I will share with you two other Internet marketing strategies that will boost your online profits to its full potential: cross selling and backend selling.

Cross selling

This method is perhaps more common of the two. Generally, cross selling involves supplementing your main product with another relevant item to form a sales package.

Take this for an example: you are selling an e-book about online dating secrets. To make your offer more appealing, you would include a report on the best online dating sites available for your potential customers. Packaging your main product and your report together will definitely add more value to your sales pitch

And if you were to sell your e-book for $45, and charge the same for your supplementary report, you would have boosted your profits by a full 100%. How cool is that?

A lot of Internet marketing experts are taking advantage of the cross selling technique to boost the potential of their online profits. And that is why you should always supplement your main product with another side item, and then market them as a package to rake in more sales.

Backend Selling

This strategy is a bit similar cross selling in a way such that your main product is also supplemented by a side item, and then marketed as a package.

The main distinctive difference between the two is that backend selling involves promoting your offers to potential buyers who are already in your customer base. The idea behind this method is that the people from your customer base have already bought from you before, and they have established some form of trust with you. As a result, you would garner more repeat sales from these customers.

Now, this is why many Internet marketing experts agree that the big money is in the list. They should know, because many of their backend sales are conducted through their mailing list.

But first of all, you would need to set up your autoresponder so that it is capable of handling a number of mailing lists under one account. The backend sales process should go something like this: once a once a subscriber makes a purchase, you would transfer him to another mailing list where the preset messages are composed of offers for supplementary products that he or she might be interested in. Simple, yet ruthlessly effective.

The conversion rate of backend selling is so much higher, because you are selling to people who have already bought from you, and they feel comfortable doing business with you.

However, it is important to note that your supplementary offers must be promoted to people who are in your customer base, and not people who are yet to buy from you. Promoting your offers to people who are not yet your customers will not only overwhelm them; they will probably run away from you, never to return.

Many people who are new to Internet marketing are mainly exposed to direct selling as the main income stream for their online business. But what they fail to realize is that there also other methods like cross selling and backend promotion that can effectively increase your profits to new levels.

These two Internet marketing strategies are based on a very simple marketing concept: people who have bought from you the first time, are most likely to purchase other products from you again. So by integrating backend and cross selling into your marketing efforts, you can indeed boost your online profits to its fullest potential.