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Using Bonuses to Increase Customer Conversions
Your website can have one million “eyeballs” checking it out, but if
the visitors don’t become customers, then those eyeballs are worth very
little. You must pay attention to conversions you’re your businesses to
survive.
In general, the basic ecommerce formula works like this:
Step One: Drive traffic to the website.
Step Two: Convert those eyeballs to leads.
Step Three: Convert leads to customers.
Step Four: Generate repeat purchases.
Bonus
products are an essential variable in this formula. However, offering
bonuses isn’t just putting the words “But wait – there’s more,” in your
offer. The key is to know what types of bonuses will have the strongest
effect on your prospects.
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1. The Eyeballs to Conversions Process.
As
a business owner, you have several tasks to make your business
successful. First, you must drive traffic to your website. In addition,
once you have website visitors, you must convert those visitors into
clients or customers. While a lead does not necessarily equal a sale,
it does equal a future potential sale. Once you have a prospect’s name
and email address, you’re able to move into step two – converting them
to customers and making sales.
Bonus products work very well
as a tool to build this opt-in list and free giveaways in exchange for
an email address are a common lead generating tool. What you offer and
how you offer it largely depends on your target audience.
In
cases where you’re selling an expensive product, a substantial bonus
product or a series of bonus products can help convince your prospects
them they’re making the right decision.
You can use bonuses to
build your sales in a number of alternative methods. Here are just a
few ideas to get your creative juices flowing:
One way to do
this is to tier rewards so that the more the customer buys, the more
bonuses the customer receives – for example, increasing membership
status from silver to gold and gold to platinum.
Consider giving
away bonuses to customers who help you build your opt-in list. For
example, you could reward every email a friend gives leads toward a
bonus.
Consider giving away bonuses to prospects and customers who are active and participate in your online community.
2. Why Do Bonuses Work?
In
general, bonuses are defined as products or services you give away to
incite a purchase, a subscription, a referral, or even an opt-in.
You’re probably very familiar with bonus items, so let’s take a look at
why they’re so effective. Bonuses tap into several psychological
triggers, including:
Reciprocity. Reciprocity is the tendency
we have as people to respond to something in kind. Bonuses are the
epitome of positive reciprocity. Customers receive a free guide, a free
video, a free e-book as an opt-in bonus, now they’re feeling
grateful.
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Here is the recipe: Commitment and Consistency. Psychologists tell us that
we’re more likely to say yes to something big if we’ve already said yes
to something smaller. In short, it gets your prospects in the habit of
saying ‘yes’.
Liking. Who doesn’t like someone who gives them
something for free? People buy from companies they like, and from
personalities they relate to.
Scarcity and Urgency. Use a
limited bonus or give an extra bonus to customers who act quickly. It
motivates people to purchase now rather than wait and possibly change
their mind.
3. How to Create Bonuses for Your Target Market.
Even
though your business may involve a niche topic, your customers are
probably diverse and have diverse personalities, interests, and
technological capabilities. We all have our own motivations and
behaviors influenced by our personality. Learning to meet the needs and
wants of the characteristics can help you create bonuses that cover a
range of personalities. Keep in mind that your customers will likely
include many or all of the following:
Emotional Personalities – Many of these people make decisions based upon their feelings.
Thinking Personalities – These are the people who like to plan, schedule and solve situations.
Extroverted Personalities – These are the folks who tend to be open and comfortable in new environments.
Introverted Personalities – These want to take it slower and make personal connections.
Intuitive personalities – They have a natural ability to think outside the box.
Remember
that each prospect has their personality. Give them options and
consider creating one great bonus to be packaged in a number of
different formats.
4. Creating Your Bonuses.
This is
where many people drop the ball – they throw together sloppy bonuses or
simply by resell rights to something that’s been distributed by a
million other websites – in short, they stop taking their prospects
into consideration.
Let’s take a look at three primary ways you can create eye catching and valuable bonuses.
Resell
Rights/PLR: The internet is full of companies and websites that
mass-produce bonuses for you to give away on your own website. Although
these can be beneficial, they can also be a slippery slope. You want to
have bonuses unique to your niche and specific to your products or
services.
Creating Your Own Product: While creating your own
eBook, video tutorial or software program can be a bit of work, it can
also be tremendously rewarding and you’ll be sure you’re creating the
quality products your prospects and customers deserve. If you already
have a stockpile of great content, you can repurpose it to create new
and valuable bonus products. Creating multiple bonuses from one packet
of information is a great way to accomplish that task.
Outsource
The Job: Hire A Company Or Individual To Develop Your Bonuses. When
outsourcing there are a few success tips: Determine in advance exactly
what you want the freelancer to accomplish. Outline your project in
advance – it will ensure communication is clear and the project is done
the way you want.
Armed with this information, you can start planning and preparing the bonuses that will give you more paying customers.
Secret Ninja Tactics to Building a Better Mouse Trap
Previously, we talked about how you can best use the “Freemium” model for business success. In this article, we’re going to discuss some of the tactics and strategies (we refer to these as “Secret Ninja Tactics”) to significantly increase the response rate on your already successful Freemium based sites. The Freemium model will make you money, but using these Secret Ninja Tactics could double or triple that amount.
1. “Hide” Your Free Entry Point
The first Secret Ninja tactic is to hide the fact that your “entry point” is free. Why would you want to make it harder for people to get your information? First, people often associate the word ‘free’ with ‘no value’. You certainly don’t want this. In fact, the word “free” probably shouldn’t appear anywhere on your website.
In addition, if someone visits your site and find that it’s totally free to sign up, then they might think “Hmmm…. I can sign-up anytime, and it’s free. There’s no rush – I’ll just come back later.” At that point you’ve probably lost them forever.
So they’ll see that there’s a fee to access your site (reaffirming the value of your products), and you’ll put the “free access” page somewhere deeper in your website structure. The next step is to only grant access to your free sign-up page when someone does something for you first.
2. Start Building a Relationship Through a Little “Work”
Here are some examples of what you might do to make the customer work to find the free entry point:
Make them buy a product (this can be anything but it works best if it’s something low price or low risk).
Make them buy a product via an affiliate link (again, this should be something low in price and risk).
Make them sign-up to one of your newsletters (and confirm their opt-in).
Make them post a comment to your website blog.
Make them join another one of your network sites (which might be a free sign-up).
Make them solve some kind of puzzle or riddle (even simple Flash-based jigsaw puzzles can be very effective).
Make them Tweet something for you
Making it a little harder to get to the free content does three things:
First, requiring some action reinforces the perception of value. Since they have to do something to get your product, the offer is no longer “free”.
Second, making the prospect jump through a hoop lays the foundation for a sense of mutual reciprocation. They do something for you, then you give them a “gift”, and now it’s their turn again.
Third, structuring things this way forms a relationship. That person has to meet you at a point that’s beneficial to you both – you’re communicating and getting to know each other.
Each of these concepts contributes to what happens next – when you make them an offer to access the “premium” content of your website.
3. Reclaiming the Lost Upgrades
Your goal, ultimately, is to sell premium content to your free members. But you’ll always have a number of visitors who won’t take you up on your initial sales offer. So I’ll outline a few of the Ninja Tactics you can do to persuade people to upgrade at some point – these can be great to recover these “lost upgrades”.
If you can send your new website visitors three or four messages in the first week after their initial visit, then you’ll persuade a number of them to upgrade and that’ll increase your conversion rate.
Structure your free content as “part one” of a series. When you make it a natural lead in to “part two” (the paid information), your conversion rate will increase.
Curiosity will beat the “hard sell” – get your visitors hungry for the information that you haven’t given them yet, and they’ll want to pay to access it.
4. Let Them See, But Don’t Let Them Touch (Yet).
Using specialized software like MemberSpeed can help you make the digital equivalent of a salesman’s “puppy dog close”.
An unpaid member can see the links to the premium content, but when they click on it, they see a page that says “Sorry, you’re still a free member” and “You need to upgrade your membership access that material.” It’s almost like holding the puppy in the pet store – once you get close to taking it home, it’s hard to let go. So you end up buying.
5. Stop Making Your Premium Content a “One-Time” Offer.
Think about why people might not sign up on the original offer. Perhaps when they first joined the site they didn’t have the budget for a paid membership. Maybe they first needed to see the free content to evaluate it. Or maybe it’s taken some time, but now they trust you enough to purchase.
So instead of just a “One-Time” offer, give this a try – say something like “As a welcome offer we’d like to give you a 20% reduction off the cost of upgrading today – CLICK HERE”… However you can also upgrade later directly inside the member’s area.” Sometimes making something a one-time offer will work against you.
6. Envy is a Powerful Motivator
Another Ninja Tactic is to make your free members envious. Let them see what kinds of things you’re giving more to your paid members. One way to do this is email your entire membership database (both the paid and free users) a new piece of valuable content.
The key is to make sure your free members get to see what they’re missing out on. Nobody wants to be the person who loses out. It’s very powerful – Just remember to be subtle. Don’t smack people in the face with it – but make sure they know they’re not getting the same perks and advantages.