Hello Again,
This exercise will show you how to create a product mix that will appeal to your target market.
Start by using your Product Sales Report and Microsoft ®Excel® to determine which products have sold best for you over time. If you are hosting your online store with SignMark Hosting.com check your Reporting under My Account.
If you are not hosting a store with us and you do not have a program installed to keep track of your product sales try CRM from Microsoft ® or Intuit® for products by Quicken® or QuickBooks®.
Note to self: You’ll want to look at a minimum of three months worth of data, to get a feel for month-to-month trends.
- First, run your report using a filter to isolate ‘New Purchases‘. Export this data to your spreadsheet program, and sort highest to lowest UNITS for each month. This tells you what your top volume products are.
- Next, sort highest to lowest on COMMISSION or SALES to find out which products are bringing you the most income. It might be useful to highlight your top five, so you can find them at a glance.
- Now answer the following:
- What are your top five products/services for volume as new purchases?
- What are your top five products/services for commission or sales as new purchases?
- How much cross-over is there between your top five for volume and commission?
- Are your top five always the same or do you see spikes and variations?
Hold on to that data.
Now repeat the above steps only set the filter to ‘Renewals‘. Again, compare your monthly data and answer the four questions:
- What are your top five products/services for volume as renewals?
- What are your top five products/services for commission as renewals?
- How much cross-over is there between your top five for volume and commission?
- Are your top five always the same or do you see spikes and variations?
Compare new sales to renewals
If you see that your top five products for new sales and renewals match pretty closely, that tells you which products appeal to your audience overall. These are the products you should lead with in your advertising.
Here’s how to increase your income.
Take this group and add in natural add-on products.
For example: if you are a natural soap vendor and one of your top five best-sellers is a soap for babies, offer them a soft bristled brush for baby’s hair or lotion made for baby’s delicate skin with sunscreen protection (if you have them to offer) via an email using your Express Email Marketing® tool. You’ll find a template for this product and many more ready to go in the Reseller Templates category.
For online marketer offering products with renewals
If you see that renewals are drastically lower than new sales for your top five, look closely at your advertising (banner ads, home page messaging, etc). If customers are failing to renew annual products, they may feel misled about how a product works or how it meets their needs.
To find out exactly why customers are not renewing, send out a customer survey via Express Email Marketing®. Then adjust your strategy accordingly. Remember, renewals are the best way to build your income in any business!
BONUS
If your top five or 10 products for new purchases show a much wider range of products than renewal numbers, but your renewal numbers are also growing steadily, you have found the sweet spot! This means your customers are adding to their product portfolios and your renewal base.
Look for patterns you can use
Drill deeper to see if you can find any patterns. You can use this information as a starting point for new marketing efforts.
First, run a PSR or CRM R with the filter set to ‘Existing Customers’ and order type filter set to ‘New Purchases’. This will show you which products you should be promoting to your current customers.
Then run the report again with the customer type filter set to ‘New Customers’ and order type filter set to ‘New Orders’. This will show you which products you should be promoting to new customers via ads and home page messaging.
The big payoff
Now that you’ve created a tracking system for your product mix, take a few minutes every month to run your PSR/CRM reports and compare your month-to-month trends.
Checking this regularly will ensure you’re aware of any shifts in your product mix, so you can either take advantage of the shifts or make an effort to correct them, as appropriate.
See you next month
Until then,
Good Luck & Good Marketing
Dr. Ande
Author of, 65 Tips for Affiliate Marketing Success
Host of, Dr. Ande’s Marketing Radio & Biz Talk with Dr. Ande
Step Up 2 Success 
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