In this back-and-forth conversation with one of our coaching clients, we are talking about the “free plus shipping” offer that has become popular recently. If you don’t do this right, the whole thing will fall apart!
Client: I want to use Facebook ads to send people to an offer for a free DVD (plus shipping). The idea, of course, is to acquire a customer and make money on the back end.
To do this, with that type of offer, you have to have a great upsell sequence so you can recoup your ad spend. I actually recommend that you go between $7 and $9 in order to get your prospects to help you recoup your ad spend, as well as your fulfillment and shipping costs.
This means that there is no money generated on the fulfillment of that DVD. So if it costs you a few dollars to generate the customer in the first place, you’re not recouping any money unless you have a dialed-in upsell sequence. I recommend that you have at least two upsell offers.
What Russell Brunson said to me regarding his free-plus-shipping book offer was that he was able to break even with the bump offer, the check box before the order form. Not even the upsell.
Brain-dead easy to buy
Now he also had a mix of partners and a house list but I would test having a bump offer and make it brain-dead easy to buy. The key to this is that the bump offer and the first upsell need to be inexpensive enough so that you get a tremendous number of people taking advantage of them. Then the second upsell you can make higher.
But if you’re doing a free-plus-shipping DVD I would have a bump that is an incredible offer – that is only around nine bucks – and the first upsell that is anywhere from $19 to $29. This way you get the lion’s share of the free-DVD takers to upgrade their offer. Then try to use the second upsell as a way to really shoot up the front-end transaction value.
Drive more prospects through your marketing funnel!
Proven in the trenches! But NOT for newbie marketers!
Client: I have a bump offer of $37 but now I’m thinking of moving it down to $9 to make it more of an impulse buy. Also, currently my first upsell is $197. Now I am thinking of redoing the pricing for all of that. I realize that there is a huge bump between the free DVD and the first upsell of $197.
And because the traffic is coming cold, from Facebook ads, I don’t think there may be enough trust for people to invest in the higher-priced products yet.
I would make the bump offer completely related to the DVD. Make it such a no-brainer that anyone who wants the DVD would want the bump offer.
Best offers
For example you can provide something like a digital version of the video, and the audio version of the DVD, and a manual or workbook which can be a transcription of the video, as well as some cheat sheets.
It becomes such a no-brainer that anyone who is willing to pay the $9 to get the DVD will want to get the cheat sheets and the workbook. Now you’re collecting 9 bucks, which covers shipping and fulfillment of the DVD. Even if you get 40% of the people to take advantage of the $9 bump, you substantially bump the average transaction value almost 50% just like that.
I would also then go with a second upsell that is completely congruent with the first upsell and the bump offer, such as some sort of expansion on the topic related to the DVD.
So for instance, if it is about having a lifestyle business, maybe it would be a collection of action guides, or even implementation case studies related to having a lifestyle business using your unique mechanism.
This way it’s totally congruent and in alignment with what they are already getting, and it becomes more of an impulse buy at $19 or $20.
Watch what happens to the average transaction value! That is the key with this type of offer. You need to make the upsell bump sequence work or else the whole thing falls apart.
Client: Yes, I have found that it is very, very, very difficult to get someone who doesn’t know me very well to pull out their wallet and pay $200 for the upsell.
I hope “listening in” on this conversation was helpful. To do a “free plus shipping” offer, you really have to get that follow-up sequence right, or you will lose your shirt!
It’s your turn. What is a “free plus shipping” offer that you have used successfully in the past, or could use in the future? Please share in the comments below!
