The Secret to Profitability — 3 Ideas to Build Your Backend Sales Infrastructure

If you ask the majority of marketing teams what their main focus is, they will probably tell you it's to "acquire customers."

Getting new people to visit your website and buy your products or services for the first time is definitely one of the most important things a business must focus on. But one mistake I see entrepreneurs make all the time is obsessing about acquiring customers at a profit.

Here's what I mean: They will endlessly tweak their ads and landing pages, split test commas in their headlines and keep fiddling with their pricing in the hope that they'll be able to earn more with the first sale than it cost them to attract that new customer.

But the truth is, this is a losing game. Very few companies are able to make a profit with their first sale. Instead, they will build their backend sales first, so they can keep advertising and acquiring new customers even at a loss.

Backend sales — those products and services that are sold to existing customers — are the lifeblood of every business. They will help you increase revenue predictably without spending more on advertising, improve your margins, strengthen your relationship with your customer, build customer loyalty and ultimately give you an edge against your competitors.

So, how exactly do you build a backend sales infrastructure that can help you grow your business? Here are three ideas that can help you increase your revenue in the next quarter at a higher profit:

Related: 3 Ways To Boost Sales With Existing Customers

1. Upselling and cross-selling

This is one of the quickest ways to start building your backend sales. Upselling and cross-selling are two marketing practices that involve offering additional or complementary products or services to existing customers. The secret to making these effective is to deeply understand what your customers want and identify what can get them closer to their goals.

For example, we have a range of done-for-you marketing products where my team builds assets like Facebook™ ads, press releases or high-ticket funnels for our customers. Many of those clients ended up liking our work so much that they naturally asked us if we had a more in-depth program where we could follow their growth over a longer period of time. This is how our Accelerator was born — an upsell that allows our existing clients to get 1-1 help from us and grow their business faster.

As you build your upsells, think about ways you can get your existing customers to achieve their goals faster or more easily. This will give you a good foundation for building your first upsell product.

2. Loyalty programs

Think about your local supermarket. Why do you keep going back there? Sure, it might be placed conveniently and you might like its products. But many of them also offer you discounts, gifts and other incentives the more you buy from them.

This is one of the most effective ways to get your customers to buy from you over and over, and so you increase revenue and profits at the same time.

However, this comes with a word of warning — don't overuse discounts and coupons, as that might make your customers start to expect them, making it harder to increase prices later on.

Related: How Brands Can Turn Short-Term Rewards Into Long-Term Loyalty

3. Exceptional customer support

Finally, one of the least discussed ways to keep your customers buying from you is by providing exceptional customer support after the sale is made.

According to HubSpot, 93% of customers are more likely to be repeat customers at companies with excellent customer service.

Supporting your existing customers isn't just a matter of replying to their complaints in time or refunding them when they didn't like your product or service. It's going above and beyond to make sure they are satisfied with what they purchased.

This can be done by sending them additional guides that help them get the best out of your product, providing them with extra coaching to make sure they succeed in your programs and sharing any resource that can help them have an outstanding experience with you.

Backend sales are a fundamental part of every business' success. Building one might sometimes feel hard, as you don't know what exactly you should be offering to your clients. Hopefully, this short guide gave you some ideas on how to keep selling to your existing customers so you can predictably increase revenue, get higher profit margins and put some distance between your business and your competitors.

Related: 3 Strategies to Improve Your Customer Service Experience