Online Marketing as a Brand Technology Concept Art

I think Upsells are probably one of the most controversial topics there are in IM because you either love em or hate them. You’d be amazed (or maybe not) at the amount of emails I’ve had when I’ve promoted something and buyers have been hit with the upsells. My response is usually what do you expect when you’re getting a product on the front end for crazy money? Of course the vendor has to try and maximize the profit from his product especially if he’s giving the affiliate the full price of the front end product (and that happens a lot). None of us are in this biz just for the love affair we’re having with the Internet.

One subscriber emailed me the other week to say she wouldn’t do backend funnels as a matter of principle because she hated wading through them so much when she bought a product. Sorry to be blunt, but that’s crazy talk because you’re not doing yourself any favors whatsoever, in fact I’m going to talk below just how you can double your revenue when you use back end products.

It always amazes me when folks moan about upsell hell, Instead of bitching about upsells every time you buy a product watch carefully how it’s done by experienced markers then put it into practice yourself. There’s a reason you get hit with so many upsells when you buy something online and that’s because it works. You’ll also see how some inexperienced marketers do it as well. You can still learn from them by just simply not emulating them.

To double your revenue, we’re going to presuppose you first of all have revenue from something you’re selling, be it your own products, resale rights products, etc. Don’t forget if you don’t have your own product you can always buy resale rights to something and have a practice with that.

Let’s say right now you’re selling a $17 eBook and video course. You might be paying for your traffic or getting it in other ways, it doesn’t matter at this point.

Now watch carefully – this is a two step process. Mind you, you could simply do step 1 and ignore step 2 and it will increase your revenue. But we want to DOUBLE your revenue or better, so I highly recommend doing both if you can.

Step 1: Build up your backend. That is, offer upsells and one time offers on all of your deals. This step alone can greatly increase your revenue, and doesn’t even have to be your own products. Go buy resell rights to products related to your $17 deal and offer those to your prospective customers if you’re stuck. (I’ve done this several times with launches). Note, any back end products or bonuses should always be related to your front end product. If you can’t find anything else to sell what about offering resell rights to your product as an upsell.

Now tweak your sales funnel to maximize that backend. You want it producing as many sales as possible, and simple tweaks can sometimes result in startling increases in your conversion rates.

Step 2: Use some of your increased revenue to purchase more traffic. To be honest I’m not a great lover of paid traffic as we’re so vulnerable to being slapped down. Plus it can get a tad expensive at times if you don’t know what your doing. However at the time of writing, it’s still a viable option, so I’m mentioning it for now. Here’s an excellent resource if you want to learn how to get your traffic for free. 🙂

If you are buying traffic, then avoid Adwords because they’re into slapping and banning at the drop of a hat, plus they can be expensive. There are however plenty of other places you can advertise, such as  Facebook, Bing, www.trafficvance.com  www.pulse360.com mediatraffic.com  and so forth. Do a Google search, there are a number of places online you can buy traffic.

What’s that? You’ve never paid for advertising and don’t know where to start? Like anything new, there is a learning curve, it took me a while to take the plunge I must admit and I’d much sooner get my traffic for free, but it doesn’t hurt to know how and where to go for paid traffic if you need it. Best of all, spend a couple of hours a week on sussing it out and within a year you will be a bonafide traffic expert.

Start out slowly, spending maybe $10 a time, and work your way up. Remember, because you’ve added an entire backend to your sales system, you are already bringing in a lot more revenue than you were. By leveraging this money into yet MORE traffic, you can make more money still. This simple little system can easily be worth $100,000 a year to you if you do it right.

Something to ponder over..


    7 replies to "Does Upsell Hell Really Work…"

    • Torsten Mueller

      Hi Kim,

      upsells are nowadays even more important than they have been before, especially when you see that many of the product owners pay their affiliates 100% – and sometimes more – commission.

      So the backend is the only place where product vendors can make money from.

      As for paid traffic you are right when saying to start with a low budget. Even more important it is to have a proper tracking in place, so that you know which campaign is doing well and which one not. Only then you can decide which one to focus on and expand and which one to drop.

      Cheers,
      Torsten

    • mark melberzs-rozitis

      Never a truer word spoken,
      cheers . . .
      mark . . . / .

    • Fred

      Hi Kim,

      Upsells are ok, providing they are not required. A few times now I have purchased something, only to be told that the only way to get the results or proper use of a product is to buy the upgrade. I have no problem with upgrades to the Developer/Agency or PLR version of the product.

    • Rahima

      Upsells can indeed be very powerful!

      Because, for example:

      Front end product: Great offer
      Upsell 1: A way to get the front end product done/implemented faster (basically anything that will make it easier or faster for someone that has brought the front end product)

      Let’s not forget the downsells too and the back end products (where the real money is made)

      Cheers for the post Kim 🙂

      • Kim

        That is totally wrong and unethical Fred, Upsells should only be something to enhance the product not be an integral part of it.

        Thanks for the input Rahima

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