<b>How much is my customere worth to me?</b>
In consulting with business owners I'm always amazed at how few of them know the <b>LIFETIME VALUE</b> of a new customer. The lifetime value (LV) is simply the amount you can expect to make off a new customer over the lifetime of your relationship with them. When I explain this, and the value of knowing it, many business owners eye's light up like I've just given them the fountain of youth.
Let's look at one particular product that I have to illustrate this point. Chexsystems is somewhat akin to a credit information bureaus. Financial institutions report individuals who "mishandle checking and savings accounts." If your name winds up in the ChexSystems database, you are in the database for six years and during that time your going to have a hell of a time opening up a checking or savings account. In fact most banks state very simply "Our bank policy is that we will not open a checking account for you if you have one or more incidents reported to ChexSystems."
Now, I'm sure I don't have to explain the nature of the terrible predicamenet these "victims" of ChexSystems face. (I use the term victims kinda loosely and in a marketing sorta way (Coz remember it is NEVER EVER EVER EVER THEIR FAUL...EVER if you want to sell something to someone) because you don't just wake up one day and find yourself in Chex without having worked to get there) In any event these indivuals can not open checking accounts or even savings accounts at banks that use ChexSystems. The major problem for these people is that over 96% of US Banks are now using Chex to protect themselves against fraud. So, you can imagine the "pain" and major inconvenience this causes people. For the most part they are forced to cash checks at expensive check cashing stores, and make out money orders to pay all their bills. They can't get a credit card, or even a debit card for shopping and whatnot either.
So, I have an infoproduct for these people. It starts off with a 5 page rant about how Chex is the most evil and powerful corporation in America and there aught to be a law against them. This makes people like me since I'm on their side. But then the report goes on to give them info on how they can go about opening up a checking account or savings account at a bank, (hopefully one close to them). I include a sample dispute letter that they can use to try and get themselves removed from the chexsystem list (This works about 1/3 of the time) and, most importantly a list of banks that DONT USE CHEX to confirm accounts, or those that do but do not have such a firm "100 NO" policy in place. This report sells for $27 and on average I sell about 9 of them per week. Not lighting the world on fire, but wait until you see the rest, it's much more impressive.
However, this is not the only way I make money once someone has bought my report. (this is also a lesson on having a BACKEND to your business). The majority of people on the Chex list have a lot of debt, so I send them an email from a debt consoladation firm. This debt consoladation firm pays me $48.50 if the person simply fills out the form (Note that they don't have to buy anything...they simply have to fill out the form). About 70% of them fill out the form, which means an average of $34 to me. Next I have a letter they will get a few weeks after purchase (Most don't follow the steps and are frustrated, some do not have a none chex bank near them...others even if they do are just simply embarressed to go into a bank in person and admit they are on the list) from Elk County Savings and Loan. Elk County has an online banking division and is registered in 46 states to do business. They offer what is called "second chance checking", which is to say they know your in the Chex data base but they will still open an account for you. Witih Elk County you can get your own checking account and a Mastercard Debit card. It does not come cheap though, it's $175 to open the account and then $19 per month in fee's to maintain it. About 1/8th of my buyers will decide to go this route, and Elk County pays me $92 for every one of them who does, this means an average of $11.50 per buyer extra to my bottom line. Next I offer them an ebook on how to get negative info removed from your credit file with the three major reporting agencies (most of them have a lot), this actually very easy because unless the person reporting you can prove (as in they have your drivers licence, SSN picture etc) that it was you who created the debt they have to remove you if you make enough of a stink about it, its part of the fair debt collections act or something....Anyway this report is $49 and since it's one I own I keep all of it, 1/3 of the people on the list buy it. This results in an average of an extra $16.33 in my pocket per customer. Finally I have a relationship with a company that will go to bat for you and get your info taken off the credit files and make the credit card companies swollow 100% of your debt. They do this by taking advantage of legal loopholes and are successful for about 3/4 of the people who use them. They charge $1500 for their service, paid upfront. About 1 in 60 of my buyers will take them up on the offer, for which I'm paid $625. This works out to another $10.40 in my pocket on average per sale.
All of this adds up to a nice of change per buyer. It takes about 6 1/2 months for all of this to play out, but at the end of that period I can count on making $99.23 for every single $27 sale that I make. How do I use this info? Well most people only think of that front end product, and so they are not willing to spend nearly enough money in order to get a customer. I pay my affiliates up to $40 for selling a $27 ebook for me. When I pay them $40 for selling my $27 product, how hard do you think it is for me to get people to sell my ebook? It also means that when I'm doing my own marketing in the PPC engines and whatnot I'm willing to spend a lot more then I might otherwise spend. I know that about 7 out of 200 people who come to my site off the search engines will buy. What does that mean to me? Well it means that I get $695 for every 200 vistors...which means that I basically can count on making $3.48 for every single visitor to my website. Not bad. Take this a step further, and what I do is I figure out..ok what do I want my profit margin to be. Let's say I want it to be 50%, well that means I can spend up to $1.74 per click for "How to Open a checking Account if your in ChexSystems" type of keywords and keyword combonations. It puts me pretty far ahead of everyone else who does not know their data.
Brandon
PS....PLEASE be asking questions and giving commments. I need them to continue to improve the info I am giving you guys.