I'm going to share with you an important strategy that can
improve your chances of succeeding online: Diversifying your
line of products and services around a common theme.
The fact is, you are less likely to succeed when you market
one (or just a few) products and services. Even if you happen
to stumble across one of those relatively rare items that is
enormously successful on its own, you can still benefit by
diversifying and expanding your product line. Consider several
reasons this is true:
Diversity gives your prospects more choices.
When you offer a variety of related products and services,
prospects are more likely to find something they want to buy.
Diversity increases the average order amount.
Offering prospects and customers a variety of things to
purchase from you also makes it more likely they'll purchase
multiple items, thereby increasing the average amount of profit
per order.
A Note of Caution: Diversity can confuse prospects in some
cases, so it would be wise to test in order to find which
approach works best in your circumstances. Some marketers find
it better to initially focus on making one sale without any
other offers that might confuse a prospect, and following up
with related offers at a later time.
Diversity helps you take maximum advantage of the lifetime
value or your customers.
Many marketers are content to sell one thing to a customer,
one time, and forget about that customer forever, only to
continue their quest for new customers elsewhere. However,
such a strategy overlooks lucrative profits available through
additional sales to existing customers.
The best customer is one that already trusts you, and is
satisfied with previous dealings with your company. Since
people prefer to do business with those they know and trust,
additional sales to existing customers meet with less sales
resistance.
You've invested precious resources to acquire your customers,
and likely had to overcome a bit of initial distrust when they
first bought from your company. If you keep delivering them
solid value through related offers, and keep them satisfied
through good customer service, many will be glad to buy from
you again and again.
Diversity reduces marketing and fulfillment costs.
Reflect on the following ways that diversity reduces marketing
and fulfillment costs:
o Many marketing costs are the same (or nearly so) whether
you promote one product or several. Per-item marketing
expenses are reduced as each new product or service is
added to your line, because each shares the marketing costs
with all the others.
o No customer acquisition cost is involved in selling to
existing customers, making such sales more profitable than
initial sales.
o Processing an order for multiple items involves nearly the
same amount of labor costs as a single-item order.
o Per-item shipping costs are reduced when you ship a multiple-
item order in the same shipment.
Diversity reduces business risk.
If you diversify your line instead of putting all your eggs in
one basket, a dip in sales in one area of your business (due to
seasonal variations or other reasons) will have less of an
impact. You won't be totally dependent on a single income
stream.
All too often, entrepreneurs that recognize the value of
diversity tend to promote a disconnected mixture of totally
unrelated goods. However, the real benefits of diversity come
from expanding your line of offers around a common theme.
A Proven Way To Diversify Rapidly
I always recommend that you market at least one of your own
core products or services that that you have exclusive control
over. However, acquiring or developing your own products
usually take time.
One way to diversify rapidly is by reselling quality products
or services of other suppliers. These should be related to the
specific interests of your existing clients and prospects.
You could set up drop shipping arrangements with suppliers, or
join affiliate programs, which are the online equivalent of
drop shipping, without many of the usual hassles involved.
In short, once you've struck "Internet gold" with one
profitable product or service, you can extract more gold from
the same mine shaft, so to speak, by diversifying and expanding
your line of products and services around your chosen theme.
About the Author
Marty Foley. For resources for profiting from
your own and others' affiliate/associate programs, visit:
(http://AffiliateProfitInfo.com/). His highly-rated book,
Internet Marketing Goldmine, reveals powerful Internet
success strategies and is available at
(http://ProfitInfo.com/).