How to go from $10,000 profit per month to $100,000

Well if he does not use any of those marketing techniques and is making $10 000 per month then imagine what he could make if he did attempt some of the methods of promotion that you have suggested?

I think he should test and try a few of the promotion techniques that you have suggested, then after testing he should be able to analyze what worked and then just simply focus on that technique.

This should be able to result in more leads for the website and more profit.

Hope that helps you

Without knowing more about his business/website, it's quite difficult (if not impossible) to make any detailed suggestions.

If he's making $xxx,xxx turnover per annum, I'd suggest that he goes to a business consultant to help him put his turnover into the millions.

Asking people on a random forums may not be wise, especially without giving any real detail about the website/niche/traffic/visitors/growth (etc).

I'm no PPC'er but if he has a significant budget, that might be a good place to quickly ramp things up. He should have a good handle on conversion rates with a site that old, so it's just a matter of picking the best keywords, I would think, to get a predictable increase in income.

John

perhaps he should hire someone to optimize what he already has.

With the limited information we have to work with, I would say that I would guess that the 1,500 daily visitors don't all buy, so I would think that one of the best starting places is to try to get as many of them to opt into a list. So an auto responder, and something that he can give to them to entice them to sign up, so he can market to them.

Without knowing the web site or even the niche that he is in, it is not easy to give any detailed information though.

like the previous posters said... more info please.

gotta say, $10,000 a month from only 1,500 unique visitors is very impressive. kicks butt on my ratios.

More data:

It is in the health and wellness industry.

Some info products, some health products.

Not weight loss.

I am guessing it is mainly females who buy from him (estimated 75%).

I reckon that for every $100 in sales he makes, his final profit after expenses is about $40 to $50 at the moment.

I also remember him telling me, he does no cross selling, no back end follow up, just sales through the site.

The more I think about it, the more I see how he could relatively easily double his business and then some.

I also know he is sitting on about 20 or 30 very decent domain names!

Sam

Hard to say without much details..:
He can do one of the two things. Improve:
1) Traffic
2) Conversions

I'd concentrate on 2) first and 1) second because if he can do just a couple of little improvements it's enough for a lot more income.

As you mentioned, he doesn't build a list except the list of his customers. I suppose he sells something. By simply giving away a free report before the paid offer would get him to let me guess $20,000 per month and a new valuable asset - a list.
I'd do that first.

Leveraging your current customer base is usually the easiest way to add a zero to the bottom line.

His customers know people with the same interest.

His customers know what other products they want.

His customers know where else they hang out (for advertising, JVs, etc).

His customers know what parts of his current offerings bug them and could be made better.

Multiply it all together and you get another zero.

It sounds like there are a lot of places to start. I wouldn't know which was best.

Perhaps try to improve conversion and offer some upsells etc.

I'm no expert so don't really know.

he could offer the same info in video format, to increase the perceived value, he could invest and outsource all the stuff.
Sell physical version of the same material.

The easiest and first step is to sell more products or services to his existing customers. He already has the best type of list anyone can have... a customer list. They've purchased from him once, so they should trust him if they liked the product. There's little to no cost involved in contacting them again. So create the backend first.

Not sure what his existing customers want? Contact them and ask.

I think that should be his priority. He also should be testing and tracking. That's an easy and low-cost way to potentially increase conversions and profits if he's not already doing so.

Next, I would suggest an affiliate program if that makes sense for him. He can enlist his customers as his first affiliates if he wants. Again, this is an easy way to get more customers with little cost... and then the new customers are directed to his backend to multiply the profits.

Then I would suggest that he figure out where his potential customers are hanging out (besides his website, of course) and find a way to get in front of them... whether through jvs, advertisements, offering to post content (with his link) to other websites, etc. He may even be able to contact his customers offline, but first he has to figure out where a critical mass of his potential customers hang out.

Finally, if he does establish a backend, he should probably develop multiple frontend products so that he entices more customers into his backend.

But as others have said, it's hard to be specific because we don't know what subniche or product you're talking about.

Debbie

How about having his site translated into other languages and thus increasing his market?

Bill

Sam,

One thing that's almost for sure, your friend will never get to the $100K number without BUILDING A LIST. It's much easier to sell to a past customer than acquire new one.

Build a list and sell to it forever. In addition, the list is a business asset.

Dennis

He can do video and audio podcast distribution to get visitors who are not using search engines but are fond of videos. At the same time, article marketing and setting up blog might help further.

My advice would be to start another site in a different niche and try to get it to earn around that 10k mark or something. Instead of depending on 1 site, he should be having multiple sites.

More information please, I'm sure many of us here wish we could be making 10K a month as well.

Can you atleast say the following, this won't give away the niche
Is it
1) affiliate marketing
2) eCommerce
3) Selling his own product
4) Ads??
5) Lead generation

Just curious what type of business he's in to be doing so well, you don't have to give away the niche.

Here are some recommendations
Improve conversions
See which keywords are converting better and focus on those
Which keywords isn't he ranked for?
-Use PPC to test conversion for those keywords
Look for repeat buyers in other words build a list, market to the list

Those are one's I can think of for now

He's clearly selling as an affiliate at present (from your numbers) that opens a couple of obvious options ...

1. He could do it by developing his own product(s) - higher margins - recruit his own affiliates etc
2. Approach the vendors he is already dealing with & ask them for better commissions

Will

The only people I know making 6 figures a month in IM are buying traffic (PPC & media buy) This should give him a clue.

If he has already such a successful site, this means that is got some ranking. Probably very good one. Imagine what a few articles and web 2.0 pages would do? This is how I went from zero to expanding my online business far and wide. So, I can only imagine what kind of results he would have just by doing a bit of bum marketing.

This is my two cents based on what I know.

The place to start is by knowing every possible detail of his site. In other words, what are his conversion numbers? What are his best pricing points? Is it possible he could make more money by RAISING the prices of some of his products, because even with a potentially lower NUMBER of sales the profits per sale may make this idea a good one.

For instance, one well-known marketer has said that for every dollar they spend that dollar returns them seven dollars. So at that point it's just a matter of spending the dollars coming in to multiply them seven-fold.

Also, contrary to what most people in this thread have said, he already has a list . . . a very POWERFUL list . . . a customer list. One thing to consider is, when someone has bought from you they already know the value of what you have to offer. And if they are satisfied with the purchase then they will buy from you again and again . . . if only you give them the chance to do so by having additional products of value.

It might be a very good idea to take that customer list and analyze it to determine things about it. Split it up into segments by who bought what. Take a good look at those who bought product A to see if buying product B is possibly a logical next-step progression for the product A buyers. And then give them the opportunity to buy product B soon afterward.

Get to know the typical customer, and the ideal customer and what traits they have in common as well as what differences there are betwen them. What they want, what they need, what they desire. And then give it to them in every possible way you can, in digital, in print, in audio, in video, AND in live conference (yes, at a hotel or other venue...some people don't have a problem writing a $5,000 - $10,000 check to get unique experiences and/or training so there's big money in conferences). Each has a perceived value range, and each is progressively more valuable in the customer's mind than the one before it.

For me personally, it has been a very interesting education to buy from some companies. As a marketer (and therefore a student of marketing!) I have learned a lot about the process by watching what was offered to me next after buying one thing from a company.

In today's world the biggest and most successful companies do not just develop products to sell. They develop relationships with their customers, especially their best customers. But it is a science to a certain point; you as the business owner can start out selling a customer one product and before long have a customer who is not only willing to pay big $$$ to have every product you have to offer but also referring you to all of their friends who will listen if that relationship develops properly.

Most small e-commerce sites depend on SEO (free traffic) like your friends. PPC is usually the next most important source of traffic but the cost could be prohibititely expensive. Affiliate programs and mailing lists usually only play a minor role in terms of traffic and conversions for an e-commerce site.

Honestly, I don't think you should even be thinking about $100,000 a month without having reached $20,000 a month first. My hunch that even if you try all the suggestions in this thread, it would prove very difficult to reach $20,000 a month because you are dealing with paid advertising that may carry a very low ROI. Also as the orders increase, your friend may be forced to hire extra workers that will cut into his bottom line.

You may need to carry out a radical rethink of your business in order to reach $100,000. One possibility is to have your own brand and concentrate on wholesale. It may also be worthwhile to concentrate on promoting products where there are a lot of repeat customers. Another would be to carry a massive advertising campaign even if there is a big loss initially. Besides PPC, you could use media or content network buys at related sites. Also, you can offer a free sample of your product in orfer to get people to sign up to your mailing list. Obviously, I am talking about high risk strategies and personally I never dared to try this with my e-commerce business.

Derek

"It isn't a large site, but has about 300 pages and gets about 1,500 unique visitors per day."

I am curious what do you consider a large site?

Is he selling his own product or affiliate marketing? When you say net is $50 or so from $100 I would assume it is his own product?

Is he ranked high in the searches or does the traffic come from the list?

Research Fat Loss 4 Idiots / Weight Loss and Diet Center. They claim $21m/yr using mainly affiliates writing articles.

Some good information here on the WF.

Strengthen your funnels first- make sure you are making more money per visitor ... as much as you possibly can.

Then, and if you know its good enough for the affiliates, spend money on recruiting affiliates.

All you need to do is to get the numbers in front of their eyes and if they find it to be good enough, they'll bite.

Pay out on time, rinse and repeat.

-Lakshay

He needs exponential growth. KristiDaniels hit the nail on the head. Find a way to get existing customers to refer new customers through an affiliate program or some kind reward system. Only massive exponential/viral growth will get you to that level.

Best option is to leverage the existing site. Make it 15000 uv/day. Starting new websites in unknown niches would be a bad idea!

he needs to get affiliates.that is what i think could take 10 thou to 100 thou profit.

On the plus side, you're man enough to know when you made a bad call
and that's a rarity.

Listen I'm not averse to your primary point that money doesn't buy
happyness there's truth galore in that statement.

But equally , we have no idea about this guy , his situation , his outgoings
his 3 children he wants to send to college , his ex wife and her 50% of his
earnings, his ambitions, his fixation to retire at 45 and enjoy his life while
he's young..

And so on..

We are on an IM forum where people come for advice on making money
and what we shouldn't be doing is making judgement calls on people's
personality based on how much money they wan to earn.

If $100k a month is his target, then go for it, shoot for the skies,
it's how the really succesful guys got where they are. If he
aimed for $20k , he might not even reach $20k, if he aims for $100k
he might well reach $50.

Laters and all the best.
Simon