Creating Irresistible Tripwire Offers in Your Sales Funnel

Are you looking for a way to turn more leads into paying customers? 

In this episode, we’re diving into the world of tripwire offers—what they are, why they work, and how to create ones that are truly irresistible. We’ll discuss the essential elements of a great tripwire, where to place them in your funnel, and share practical tips on pricing and messaging. 

Whether you’re new to tripwire offers or want to fine-tune your strategy, this episode will help you craft offers that not only convert but set the stage for bigger sales down the line.

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🟠 FUNNEL FUNDAMENTALS: Building effective sales funnels that drive conversions and grow your business. ...

Transcript

Hey, welcome to the new School of Marketing podcast. I'm so, so grateful to you for tuning in. Before we dive in, I would love to pay my respect and acknowledgement to the palawa people of lutruwita who are the traditional owners of the land on which my business operates. I pay my respect to the elders, past and present. 

Another episode. I'm super excited about this one. I want to talk about Tripwire offers and not the physical kind of tripwires. We're going to talk about the digital kind of trip buyers. We're going to talk about what they are, why they are such a secret weapon for your sales funnel. And I want to chat about how you can start using them so that you can also increase your revenue with them. Now, if you've never heard of tripwire offers or maybe you're curious about how you can use them in your business, make sure you stick around. 

First things first, let's talk about what a tripwire offer is. In short, it is a low cost, high value offer that you present to a potential customer immediately after they've taken a small action. And that could be signing up for a freebie, or it could be buying one of your other offers. The goal is to turn them from a lead or like even if they've bought something low cost to get them to become a paying customer as soon as possible. And most of the times it's like a no brainer purchase. And I don't really like that expression. But it's something that when they read your sales page, when they see the offer and they see the price, they literally go, oh my goodness, take my money. It doesn't take much deliberation. The value is so high and the price is actually quite low that they really just don't even have to think about it. So why would you actually use a tripy offer? They can be a game changer for your sales funnel. Not only do they help you in a way recoup ad costs if you're advertising and building a list of paying customers, but they also kind of serve as a stepping stone to higher priced products. 

So let's have a chat about why they're so effective and how they can fit into your overall marketing strategy. So like I said, they can help you recoup ad costs, offset ad costs, or sometimes even make you money. The main thing is, though, it's that stepping stone. It's the psychology of getting customers to make an initial purchase. And most of those customers who make an initial purchase are more likely to buy. Again, I'm not a psychologist, but there's been so much research done on this that as soon as someone actually is invested and they pay you something, they will more likely pay you more and come back and be a returning customer. Obviously, you need to, you know, deliver a good product, have really good value and all of that, but it's just that, like, it's almost like they just need that first little leap in, and then they are more likely to become, you know, one of those customers that keeps coming back. And the other thing that it is really good for is positioning your trip wire as a bridge between your, like, your freebie and your core offer. Some people just need that stepping stone up. Or it might be like a really good intro to what your core offer is, like a little bit of a warm up or like a pre kind of class before they dive into the core offer. 

So one, they can help offset ad costs or sometimes even make you money. Two, there's that psychology behind getting customers to make a small initial purchase before they go on to buy more. And three, it offers that bridge between your lead magnet and your core offer. 

Now, not all tripwire offers are created equal. And to make one irresistible, it kind of needs to check a few important boxes. So let's dive into that. The key elements of a winning tripwire offer, and I how you can also craft one that's kind of hard for your audience to say no to. They are, and I've already mentioned this, low cost but high perceived value. It should be like an easy yes. And usually they're priced between five to $50. The thing is that the perceived value needs to far exceed the price. This is where you almost have to give away your absolute best kind of work for a low price because it hooks people in and they kind of go, oh, my goodness, if this is what I'm getting in this small, you know, small course or not even small course, high value. If this is what I'm getting for this money, imagine what the full shebang would be like. The whole enchilada, right? So low cost, high perceived value. Number two, it needs to be relevant to your lead magnet. So make sure that your trip buyer offer is directly related to the freebie that people sign up for so that it kind of feels like a natural next step. So if you think about your funnel, someone signs up for your freebie, they go to the next page. That's where you present your trip buyer offer. And it really needs to be that extension of your freebie where they go, oh, yes, I want this. I just got this free thing. This kind of goes with it. I need to have it. The next one is that it needs to be a quick win. So your offer, your I offer should help customers achieve a small but meaningful result really quickly, because if people can do it and then feel successful really quickly, that kind of keeps, that keeps them going in terms of, oh, I've just, I've done it. Like, I already got something out of it so quickly, like, this comes back to that perceived value again as well, and then they are more likely to take that next step again to make another purchase from you. And it needs to have a limited time, discount or bonus. Like there has to be some sense of urgency to encourage immediate action. Like if people can, like, always get it, anyone who doesn't have any urgency, they're gonna wait, they're just gonna be like, oh, I'll get it one day. So adding a sense of urgency can really encourage people to take immediate action. And for that you can, like, for example, use a discount that expires or a bonus that's only available for a limited time. So add a sense of urgency. Now remember, the key here is to keep it affordable, to keep it relevant and high value. So don't give them everything but the kitchen sink kind of thing. Like, it needs to be high value and it needs to have that quick win. So it doesn't need to be big, it just needs to like really give them a result quickly. And it doesn't really matter what kind of format you put it in. It could be an ebook, it could be templates, it could be cheat sheets, it could be mini courses, workshops, like maybe even like bite sized learning pieces that complement your main offer. You can give them discounted tools, resources, like for example, special pricing on tools that you recommend, or like even a free trial period for a paid resource for ecommerce. Like it could be like a sample product at a low price, can work as a tripwire. So just thinking about the digital space you give someone a freebie, for example, I don't know, five ways to design or to, you know, style your master bedroom or something like that. Five tips and then the next one would be a template where they can literally lay it out. They only have to put in their pictures and, like, you know, everything kind of does it for them. And they have this beautiful layout. I'm just literally coming up with this on the spot. But, like, it needs to be a natural extension, something that can give them quick results and something that can even help them with the freebie. So that would work really well. 

Okay, now that you know what makes a great trip buyer, let's talk about where you put it in your funnel to have the biggest impact. And literally, it's all about positioning the offer at the right moment when your ideal customers are most likely to buy. So I just mentioned that, you know, someone goes to your free lead magnet, they sign up and then they get to a thank you page. That is where you put your tripwire. They've just taken an action now. They're like, in that space of, oh, my goodness. I've just, you know, got this. I'm going to get this, I don't know, in your email or however it gets delivered. So get them right there. Give them that sort of sense of urgency. But don't forget to also follow up with an email sequence. Don't just leave it at the one page, the thank you page. Make sure that you send them emails to remind people about the offer and about when it's going to expire. And if they didn't initially take up the offer, you can also use something like an exit intent pop up. So, for example, in your thank you page, there's that offer. People don't, they might not necessarily see it or it might not click straight away, or they might not want it. That's like an option as well. So as soon as they, like, are about to leave the page, there could be, like a pop up that says, hey, are you really sure this offer is only available for x amount of time? And anyone who hasn't really noticed the offer because you know, that's totally possible, they might go, oh, hang on, what? Did I just miss something? So that is another option for you to add as well. So put it on your thank you page. Make sure you follow up with emails and you can consider using an exit intent pop up. 

Now let's talk about pricing again, because I said usually they are between five and $50. Pricing is important, but it's not as important as messaging. Messaging is absolutely crucial for the success of your trip buyer, and it's important to make sure that the price feels like a great deal and that the messaging highlights the value and the urgency of the offer. I would say the messaging is more important than the price. If you can position that offer in such a way that people go, oh my goodness, that is such high value, then it doesn't matter if it's $5, $10, $15, like, as long as you can show and demonstrate the value in your messaging. So with your price, keep it low but still reflective of the value. Don't, like, like, if it is literally worth $300, you don't want to go, it's $5 now, like, you might want to do $29 or something like that. So which is still a steal, right? Use that urgency driven language and don't make it fake. But, like, be honest about it. Like, this is not something that you would normally sell anywhere else at that price. Show people, tell people that right now is the right time to buy that offer and really emphasize the benefits, but also the outcomes that the person will experience. And this comes back to like, you know, really telling them, okay, this, if you do this thing or if you get this thing, this is what will happen. And then you obviously need to tie that in with that quick win. Like that. Really, people really get that quick result. 

Now, like anything in marketing, it is important to track how well your trip buyer offers are performing and then to make adjustments as they need to. So how do you keep an eye on your conversions and like, you know, optimize things, tweak things. And by optimizing, I just mean like, you know, what do you need to change to make things better? So firstly, you need to look at your conversion rate from the amount of people that actually go to the page, how many people are purchasing, and it is really tricky to give you a percentage or a number in terms of conversions, but you want to look at, okay, well, is this tripwire really worth it? You might want to look up some benchmarks for your industry or maybe some tripwire benchmarks in general. I'll pop some in the show notes that I'll look up because it is different for everyone. In the end, it comes down to, is it worth it for you? And don't forget that this is a step to your next offer. This is not your only, it should not be your only offer. It is incredibly hard to make all of your income from a triple offer, let me tell you that. So look at your conversion rate. Look at your cost per acquisition. What does it cost you to make one sale and then look at your return on investment. Is it offsetting your ad spend? Is it offsetting your ad spend enough? Or is it actually making you money? That is possible. It is rare, but it is possible. So look at all these numbers. Also, what you might want to do over time is do some split testing. Where you split test different price points, you know, is it going to sell more at dollar 29 versus dollar nine? You be surprised sometimes if it is a little bit higher, people actually perceive the value as higher. So split test it. You might want to split test some copy, like some different messaging. Sometimes just changing a little bit in the headline can make a difference. So try that. And if you do bonuses or things like that, you can also split test the bonuses. You know, is bonus a going to work better versus bonus b? I don't necessarily recommend doing this really soon. Like gather some data on your, on your funnel first, on your tripwire first. See if you can get 1000 people to that tripwire page before you even touch it and make a change. Unless something is glaringly like obvious in terms of what's wrong, I wouldn't change it. I would test it and then make tweaks. And I you can tweak the placement of the offer for higher visibility. So like with your thank you page, you ideally want it to be above the fold before people scroll. That's why when you go to a trip buyer page, often the thank you for downloading the freebie is tiny at the top. And then it's like get this limited time offer. Like it needs to be in a really obvious place so you can think about that as well. Cool. 

Well, that is my take on tripwires. I know it's such a strange word in my opinion, but anyway, I know what it, what it is. It needs to be high value, low cost, and it needs to give people an immediate quick win and be that bridge between your free offer and your paid offer. I hope that you're going to create a tripwire offer and get more leads so that you can turn them into customers. Remember, the key of this is to make it irresistible, to make it relevant to what they just signed up for and your core offer. And yeah, have it make it so that people go, oh my goodness, I cannot say no to this. 

Thank you so, so much for joining me on this episode of the new School of Marketing podcast. I hope you found it helpful. I hope you will build a tripwire. And as always, I am excited to share more marketing tips and strategies with you next week. Now remember, if you're ready to take your business to the next level with Facebook and Instagram advertising, head to newschoolofmarketing.com for practical free resources so if you want to grow your business, but you don't want to spend all of your time on slow and unpredictable organic social media, then the aimful ads academy is for you. It's the place to learn how to be seen by your audience, how to attract the right people as leads, and turn them into paying customers. With my proven for ad stack method plus, as part of the program, you will have one on one access to me, a marketing strategist for over ten years experience, so you don't have to navigate ads alone. I'm here to help you be seen, to help you attract leads, and to help you get more paying customers. Now make sure you subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And I can't wait to keep this journey going with you. Until next time, take care and market your business every day.