Been doing a lot of consulting with my cousin (also a famous super-model, Frank Kern).  It’s been really interesting, as some of these people we’ve met with are serious badasses.  Many have 1 to 15 million dollar businesses… and regardless if they’ve made a ton of money or a few pennies, most have the same problem.

They ain’t got no funnel!  They have a front in product, but they don’t have a strong back-end sales sequence.

Even though this is kinda marketing 101, most people don’t do it.  It seems like a pain in the ass, but ironically it usually isn’t.  Most people are sitting on a TON of product but they just don’t know it.

I gotta admit that I can totally relate.

In 2007 I created a little product for $49.95.  It sold like CRAZY (over 70,000 downloads sold in under 18 months) but I never built a strong funnel.

So I didn’t have a killer back-end sequence and my average customer value was… well… $49.95.

Here’s why that sucks:

When my front end traffic died (which can happen to anyone at anytime, especially if using Google) then I didn’t have a strong enough customer value to go out and play with the big boys and do media buys.

See, let’s say you have a “football throwing” product that sales for $45 bucks.

If you don’t have any back-end, then your average customer is worth $45 bucks.  If Johnny Utah (from Point Break fame) ALSO has a $45 football throwing product, BUT he upsells them to a $97 a month program… then his average customer value might be $100+ per customer.

So if you and Johnny Utah are both trying to buy some banner ad space on ESPN.com, guess who is going to be able to “out buy” your ass immediately?

Yup, Ol’ Johnny Utah.

So there are two important points here:

1. Don’t get lazy and stick with just a front end product.  You’ll thank me later and it’s not NEAR as much work as you think it is.

2. Once you know your metrics (Demographics, Average Customer Value, Back-End Sales, etc) then move on from just plain old PPC.  Try buying some banner ads and media.

Technorati Tags: Average Customer Value, Back-end, Back-End Sales, Back-end sequence, Demographics, frank kern, google, internet marketing strategy, Killer, Online Marketing, PPC, PPV, Price Point, Product, Sales Funnel, traffic, trey smith, Trey Smith Blog

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Why some “launches” fail…

Technorati Tags: frank kern, mass control, plf, product launch, product launch formula, product launches, trey smith