Bonuses are a great way of ‘sweetening the deal’ while launching. A good bonus can create a sense of urgency for greater conversion (‘anyone who signs up before Tuesday gets a free coaching call’), they raise the actual value (and as a result the perceived value) of your offer, and even help overcome objections.
But, what exactly is a great bonus?
Y’know how business coaches tell you to cut scope instead of price if your prospect is pushing back on the latter?
Well, bonuses kinda work the same way, only instead of slashing your prices you’re increasing both the perceived and actual value of your product.
A good bonus should compliment your core offer, be the (maple, #HonoraryCanadian) syrup to its pancakes. For example, if you’re launching a program for aspiring web designers, a great bonus would be additional 1:1 calls, wireframe templates, or even copy templates. The connection between your bonus and your offer needs to be crystal clear. You can’t sell a web design course and then offer an oil painting class as a bonus.
Your core offer should solve your audience’s primary pain point while a bonus should make getting to their desired outcome even easier.
Here are a few great examples of bonuses:
Brand new fast-action bonus, this a great one to use in the last 24 or 48 hours of a launch to get the fence-sitters to opt-in.
Bonus for performing an action like showing up live. This is especially smart because data shows that people who show up live convert at significantly hire rates.
Or just a straight-forward sweetening the deal bonus, see how Jo just uses the word ‘bonus’ in her copy? Clear > Clever.
When working on a bonus strategy for a client, here’s what I ask myself:
What feels like a natural addition to your core offer? Ask yourself, would something make sense as an upsell? If it would, then it’ll likely make a good bonus as.
What would add enough value to make your current offer a no-brainer? Relational value is an important aspect of bonus-picking that people often overlook l s. If you’re selling a $4,000 product and your bonus is $20, then that isn’t a very good bonus. A bonus should be proportional to your offer. So if your product is $4,000, then a bonus worth $800 would make a lot more sense.
What’s the biggest objection your audience has? And can you craft a bonus to speak to that directly? For example, if you know your audience struggles with accountability, then access to an accountability group would make a great bonus.
If your product does solve your primary pain point, what’s something that will take them to the next level? For example, if you’re selling a social media marketing course, then something that tells them how to boost their posts for the best result would be a great idea.
You can offer multiple bonuses at different stages of the launch. If you see that your audience responded well to one bonus (aka those Stripe notifications are making it rain), then that’s great information (and maybe inspiration for a new core offer) to keep in for future iterations of your launch.
Do you need a bonus?
You’re probably gonna get tired of us saying this but - it depends.
Bonuses are a way of sweetening the deal and addressing an audience that’s pushing back on price or value. But they can also be a lot of work.
If your launch is already consistently hitting numbers you’re pleased with, then you might not really need a bonus. Sure, you might catch a few stragglers, but at this point, you need to look at whether the effort in creating a bonus is worth the ROI.
Have you ever bought a course or membership just because of the bonus? I know I have.