The Sales Funnel Part 3: Back End Profits
Now we head into the meaty section of the Sales Funnel, the back end, where the big profits are made. If you haven’t read the first two parts of this series make sure to catch up, starting with the sales funnel explained and a look at front end marketing.
As I discussed in the last article, the front end of your sales funnel is all about capturing the attention of prospects, people inclined to desire want you provide. Potential customers are called “leads”. The expectation is a certain number of your leads will convert into customers and a small but very responsive group, will buy up everything you offer. This last group are called your “hyper-responsives” and it’s this group that is responsible for a significant proportion of your profits because they fuel your back end sales.
Pricing Points
Your back end is made up of your higher priced items, products and services that present significant value – or at least perceived value. Essentially we are talking about meeting the same need (or needs within a niche), just with different media. This might include information distributed via audio (CDs/DVDs/MP3s/Podcasts) or visually (Video/Movies) or live (Conferences/Seminars/Workshops/Retreats) or privately (Phone Calls/Coaching) or even common front end media such as ebooks, newsletters (electronic and print), subscription services and teleconferences.
The specific distinction between the front end and the back end is all about the type of customer and the price paid. In the back end all your customers have traveled through your front end, sampled your free materials, purchased an entry level product or service (or several) and have enjoyed significant value from what you offer, so much so, that they are eager to buy more from you.
At this point it becomes much easier to make sales, although since the idea behind a sales funnel is to filter prospects to find hyper-responsives, you don’t have nearly as many people reaching your back end as you do entering your front end. In many cases it’s common that only a small percentage, say 1-2% of the overall people entering your front end make it through to the back end. That’s okay because that small group are spending big bucks.
