In online marketing it is usually the concept of selling one product at a time to many customers. A bad thing about that concept is that there may never be another chance to sell something else to that customer in the future. A far superior concept does exist.
by RobertPrice
In online marketing it is usually the concept of selling one product at a time to many customers. A bad thing about that concept is that there may never be another chance to sell something else to that customer in the future. A far superior concept does exist.
The thing is, people don't always shop this way. While it's often lucrative to target the masses with just one product, there are other massively successful methods through which to approach online business. The ultimate form of these is through a subscription based website or service. This has several major advantages over the one-off sales method:
A great thing about selling a subscription or membership is that you will have access to this group of repeat customers in the future. You won't need to find a new bunch of customers every month, you will already have access to these recurring customers. You will have a good income from these customers for as long as you want, as long as you keep providing good information and service.
Recurring income beats one-off income every time.
It is much easier to sell something to someone who has purchased a service or product from you and been satisfied with that product. That is the advantage of building a large subscription group of satisfied customers to cross market to them. Seth Godin calls these a 'Permission Asset.'
What is a permission asset? It's simply a group that gives you their permission to market to them. This form of marketing is more powerful than any advertisement, SEO, or aimless email list. When your customers have already bought from you, you've won half the battle. The other half lies in keeping that audience happy -- through extra content, exclusive offers, and a never-ending stream of value and information. Treat your customers well and you'll amass a massive marketing asset for any of your future, related projects.
There's a flip side to this. When you disappoint these customers, you're unlikely to retain them. The good thing is that this isn't likely to happen. With the cost of custom content being within the reaches of even the bootstrap marketer, it's easily possible to run an interesting, remarkable subscription based forum or website through outsourced content. If this is a passion project for you, you might not even need to outsource. The real beauty of creating subscription websites is that there's literally an unlimited selection of audiences out there, many of which will undoubtedly involve some of your passions and interests. So -- why outsource when you love what you do?
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