It's September?!?
Woke up this morning with the sun streaming in and thought, what a nice day! Then as I rolled over to smack the snooze button, I had an alarming thought. It's September now. That means there are only four months left in the year! And in those four months, we have Halloween, Thanksgiving, and ohmygoodness, Christmas.
In this industry, this last stretch of the year is the most critical. For example, this year, we didn't do as well as hoped with Mother's Day. Our standard offering of what we call the "Mother's Day Plate" had steady sales, but with its lower pricepoint, many affilates didn't really pick it up. You'd have to sell about 4 plates to get the same commission you'd get from selling a single Emily. As a result, I'm relying on these last two quarters to really, really pick up.
And actually, we're right on track. For August, we hit the sales mark (a teensy bit below, but we'll round up). Going forward, we have some really strong products that have healthy conversions. When you think about it, what use is good targeted traffic if the products are yuck?
Our product developers have shifted away from sub-plans (a good thing for affiliates, since we were unable to link sales after the inital purchase to specific affiliates) toward higher ticket solo items (a great thing for affilates, since it means higher commissions). You can see this with our Thomas Kinkade Christmas Tree, which is our current bestseller, and in all our jewelry offerings. This kind of product development also illustrates the company's shift in focus away from form toward affinities. Instead of creating a series of Thomas Kinkade plates, we are creating products centered around Thomas Kinkade.
So that's my bit for today. Not too bad, especially considering I've only had a half a cup of coffee thus far!
In this industry, this last stretch of the year is the most critical. For example, this year, we didn't do as well as hoped with Mother's Day. Our standard offering of what we call the "Mother's Day Plate" had steady sales, but with its lower pricepoint, many affilates didn't really pick it up. You'd have to sell about 4 plates to get the same commission you'd get from selling a single Emily. As a result, I'm relying on these last two quarters to really, really pick up.
And actually, we're right on track. For August, we hit the sales mark (a teensy bit below, but we'll round up). Going forward, we have some really strong products that have healthy conversions. When you think about it, what use is good targeted traffic if the products are yuck?
Our product developers have shifted away from sub-plans (a good thing for affiliates, since we were unable to link sales after the inital purchase to specific affiliates) toward higher ticket solo items (a great thing for affilates, since it means higher commissions). You can see this with our Thomas Kinkade Christmas Tree, which is our current bestseller, and in all our jewelry offerings. This kind of product development also illustrates the company's shift in focus away from form toward affinities. Instead of creating a series of Thomas Kinkade plates, we are creating products centered around Thomas Kinkade.
So that's my bit for today. Not too bad, especially considering I've only had a half a cup of coffee thus far!
posted by Carolyn @ 8:40 AM
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