One way to get an idea of what your target market looks like is to see what other researchers have uncovered. Simply run a Google search for your target audience followed by the word “demographics” (e.g., “dog owner demographics”). Then focus on data from reputable organizations such as the government, academic journals, and reputable research firms (like Pew).
A good way to get inside your prospects’ heads is to “eavesdrop” on them online. You can find out what topics they talk about repeatedly, what topics are “hot” right now, what their problems are, and what sort of jargon they use.
To find online communities, search for your niche keywords (such as “dog training” or “gardening”) followed by words such as:
Forum
Discussion
Group
Blog (where comments are turned on).
You can also search Facebook to find niche-relevant discussion groups.
Talk to Your Prospects Offline
The more you understand your prospects, the better able you’ll be to write content that really resonates with them. That’s why you’ll want to spend time talking to your prospects offline. For example, if you’re targeting people who want to lose weight, then spend time at the gym talking to members of your target market to learn more about what motivates them, what frustrates them, etc.
Become a Part of Your Market
Another way to better understand your market is to do exactly what they do. For example, if you’re targeting hydroponic gardeners, then you need to set up your own hydroponic garden. Not only does this help you create content from a position of authority, but it also gives you a better sense of the market’s problems, concerns and joys. End result? It’s easier for you to create content that resonates with your audience, which in turn leads to higher conversions.
Once you’ve done your research, then you need to create a profile of your ideal prospect/customer. You can create this profile by answering the following questions:
How old is your prospect?
What is their gender?
Where do they live?
What is their marital status?
Do they have children?
What education level have they achieved?
What sort of career/job do they have?
What are their hobbies?
How much money do they make?
How much money do they spend in the niche?
What do they read? (Especially niche-relevant information.)
What are their problems?
Why haven’t current solutions been able to solve their problems?
What motivates them?
What else do you know about your ideal prospect? List everything that applies.
Now the next major factor that goes into boosting your conversions…
Plenty of your prospects are going to be reading your emails, sales letters and other communications on their phones or other devices. That’s why you want to make sure you use a responsive template or theme that adjusts to different devices. In other words, web pages such as your sales letter should look good on both a 24” desktop screen and a mobile device.
Keep these tips in mind:
Be sure the design is truly responsive. This means columns, graphics and other design elements automatically adapt to look best on whatever device the prospect is using.
Make links easy to tap. This means putting plenty of space between links and creating big buttons so that mobile users who are tapping these links can do so easily.
If you have a customer service staff that’s at least available and on during normal business hours, then you may consider offering a live chat option on your website. This lets prospects get their pre-sale questions answered immediately, which in turn boosts conversions.
Watch for Abandoned Carts
If you traffic logs are showing that too many people are abandoning their shopping carts or order forms, then it’s time to figure out what the problem is. Ask yourself these questions:
Is the price clearly stated on the sales page? Sometimes people click through to the order form just to get a price if it’s not clearly marked on the sales page.
Is the ordering process easy? If not, people will abandon their orders.
Does the order form look trustworthy? Again, people will click away if they don’t trust their credit card on your order form.
And here’s something related…
Check Your Logs
Sometimes you can detect usability problems (which lead to conversion problems) by looking at your traffic logs. An abandoned order form or shopping cart is one issue. Check out these other issues:
Are visitors using the search function often? If so, your site may be hard to navigate.
Are visitors leaving the site immediately? If so, your site may not be user-friendly and/or not engaging enough to keep visitors glued to the page.
How do visitors navigate through the site? If your visitors’ search patterns don’t make much sense to you, it’s possible that your site isn’t user friendly.
If you have usability problems, then it’s a good idea to do usability testing to uncover and fix them.
If people see a big wall of text when they open your emails, visit your site or read an article, they’re going to back out of it pretty fast. That’s right, if it looks difficult to read, then people simply won’t bother. And that means your conversions will plummet.
The solution is to create plenty of white space by using short paragraphs, bulleted lists, and similar. This guide is a good example of how to create something that’s easy to read with plenty of white space.
Make Use of Graphics
Another way to create extra white space is by inserting relevant graphics into your text. The big benefit of this strategy is that you can use enticing, benefit-driven or even curiosity-arousing captions under the graphics as a way to draw skimmers back into the text.
E.G., Perhaps you have a graphic of some unnamed herb with a caption that says, “Do you know which herb can boost your metabolism by 33% and help you shed fat faster than ever?”
Whether it’s an HTML template for an email, a blog theme or a sales page layout, don’t skimp on design. You can use a polished template, or you can hire someone to create a professional design for you.
Nothing spells “amateur” like a web page, email or other communication with broken links. And, obviously, a broken link is going to sink conversions. That’s why you’ll want to double check all links before you post them, and then periodically check links on your website to be sure everything is in good working order.
TIP: If you’re selling affiliate products, be sure to use a redirect link (preferably one that goes through your own domain first) rather than a direct affiliate link. That way, if the vendor retires the product or changes the affiliate links, you won’t have “dead” links floating around in lead magnets, blog posts and elsewhere. Instead, you can quickly and easily change the link to a similar product.
Next…
Be Sure Forms and Scripts Work
Same reason as above – it will look like amateur hour if your scripts don’t work, and it’s downright disastrous if your call to action involves that script. As such, check your forms and scripts regularly, and be sure to check them across different devices and browsers to ensure they work for everyone.
Do Usability Testing
The idea here is to get three or four people to complete common tasks on your website, and then get their feedback regarding how to improve the process. For example, you can have users purchase a product and report on the process.
Check out these two best practices for usability testing:
Get actual users. In other words, be sure your users are people who are from your target market (your ideal audience).
Do it in person. You can also do usability testing via video, such as Skype. The point is that you want to be able to see the user’s face so that you can pick up on facial cues that the person is confused (e.g., a furrowed brow).
Here’s the next conversion tip…
Don’t Create Hoops
If you’re trying to get someone to take a specific action – such as order a product – then don’t create unnecessary hoops between the user and the action you want them to take.
Check out these two tips:
Don’t make buyers register for an account before they can complete the order. If creating an account is a necessity (such as for a membership site), then have your buyers do this AFTER the ordering process. (And be sure the registration process fills in the form as much as possible based on details the buyer provided during the ordering process.)
Do test an order form embedded directly into the sales page. In other words, see if you can boost your conversions by eliminating the need for people to click on an order button that takes them to an order form.
Sometimes marketers try to use “cool” and unusual fonts to make their content stand out.
Don’t do this. Your focus needs to be on easily readable font. If it’s too small or otherwise too hard to read on the user’s device, you can bet your conversion rate is going to struggle. As such, stick with the old standby fonts such as Arial and Verdana.
Here’s an idea for making your bonuses even more effective: use social proof.
E.G., “100 people have already taken advantage of this bonus and they love, love, love their results! Just look at what Jack from Ann Arbor, Michigan says about this product…”
Using social proof helps eliminate your prospect’s skepticism, which in turn makes the bonus more attractive. And when the bonus is more attractive, your overall offer is more attractive too!
If you’re sending out an email series to sell a product, then one of your emails should be solely focused on the bonus offer. Here’s an example email template that does exactly that…
Subject line: Get [name of bonus] free?
Hi [Name],
Yes, I know… it sounds almost too good to be true.
But it IS true… if you act now (and I mean right now), you can get [name of bonus product] for free when you purchase [name of main offer] today.
This is a great deal. That’s because [name of bonus product] is your [solution to some specific problem]. Just look at what you get when you download this offer today:
You’ll discover a little-known secret for [getting some result].
You’ll learn the top 10 costly [type of] mistakes and how to avoid them!
You’ll get the insider tips and tricks for [getting some result].
And much, much more!
If you purchased [name of bonus] separately, you’d pay [$x] – and it would be worth every penny and then some. But it’s yours free when you order [name of main offer] right now!
Click here to get started: [link]
[sign off]
P.S. This special bonus offer ends [date] or whenever the first [number] customers have taken advantage of it, so it won’t last long. Click here to get it while you still can!
Here’s another template…
Tweak These Social Media Blurb Templates
If you’re promoting a bonus offer or incentive, then chances are you’re going to post on social media. Here are two short template blurbs you can use to promote you offer:
Bonus Template:
Order [product name] and get [popular bonus product] for FREE! Click here to get yours now – hurry, offer ends in 24 hours!
Incentive Template:
Flash sale! Get all your favorite [type of] products for 35% off! No limit on quantities so stock up. Click here fast to claim your coupon – hurry, this offer is good for one day only!
Next tip…
Aim for Easy Bonuses
While your bonuses need to be high-quality, valuable and in-demand, that doesn’t mean they need to be difficult to create. In fact, some really high-value bonuses can be really simple to create.
Here are examples of bonuses that are relatively simple to create:
A gear list, which is a list of tools or resources people need to complete task.
A webinar – it only takes 30-60 minutes to create, and then you have the recordings to offer.
A talking-head video. Just spend 30 minutes or so sharing in-demand information, edit your video, and you’ll have a nice bonus on your hands.
Do an interview with an expert. Let the expert do the work, and you can reap the rewards.
Now take a look at this…
Questions to Ask Before Releasing a Bonus
Here are five questions to ask yourself before you release a bonus:
What is the purpose of this bonus?
Does this bonus fulfill that purpose?
Are you going to offer the bonus for a limited time?
If you do offer it for a limited time, what will you do with the bonus after that point? (E.G., repurpose it to create another product.)
Next…
The Key to Delivering a Physical Bonus
If you’re offering a physical product (perhaps as part of a hybrid product), then you may be wondering how to deliver it. If you’re doing it all yourself, then you’ll spend a lot of time packing and shipping the bonus, which is tedious and time-consuming.
Here’s an idea: use a print-on-demand manufacturer. For example, Disk.com makes and ships a variety of physical products including books, USB drives, CDs, DVDs and more.
Segment Your Lists to Boost Conversions
If you’re offering a bonus or incentive, then segment your lists according to the bonus or incentive that someone claimed. That way, you can send out highly targeted content and offers.
For example, if someone takes advantage of a coupon discount, then be sure to note that in your mailing list. That way, you know who on your list is particularly responsive to coupons. (And you can avoid sending the same offer to someone who’s already taken advantage of it.)
TIP: To make this strategy even more effective, you might even offer prospects and customers their choice of bonuses so that you can segment your list.
For example, if you’re selling a weight-loss course, you might offer customers a choice of a low-calorie cookbook OR an exercise video. Then segment your lists by bonus in order to send highly targeted emails.
As you’re creating your bonus, use this mini checklist to be sure you end up with a high-quality, effective product…
Did you do your market research before creating the bonus?
Does your bonus complement the main offer?
Is the bonus valuable?
Did you embed another offer within the bonus?
Does your embedded offer include a strong call to action?
Did you include graphics or multimedia (where applicable) to add value to your bonus?
Did you proof your bonus to be sure it’s well-written?
Did you fact-check your bonus?
Does your bonus look professional?
Did you spend time brainstorming an attention-getting title for your bonus?
Did you create professional ecover graphics for your bonus?
Did you attach a realistic value to your bonus?
Did you present the bonus using compelling sales copy?
If you’re offering a limited bonus, does your call-to-action create urgency?
Now let’s wrap things up…
Conclusion
You just discovered 101 tips, tricks, hacks and strategies for using bonuses and incentives to grow your business. Some of these tips are so easy that you could implement them in as little as a few minutes from now – so, go ahead and put these ideas to work for you!
Your customers can be some of your best advocates, and this is especially true if you incentivize referrals. You might even create a two-sided referral program where both the referral and your existing customer get a reward.
For example, you might offer both parties a 25% discount on their next purchase, or you might offer them a bonus product.
Would you like more people sharing your content? Then offer them an incentive to do so. You can even use an app like SocialShareMonkey.com to automate the process. If you’re running a contest, then use an app like Rafflecopter.com to give people extra entries in exchange for sharing.
Employ Outsourcing Bonuses
Want to enjoy better and faster work from your freelancers or even your employees? Then start utilizing bonuses for work well done. These can be either announced or unannounced bonuses. For example:
Let freelancers know upfront that you’ll give them an X% bonus for every day they deliver a project early (up to some set percentage).
Surprises freelancers with a bonus when they’ve done an exceptional job (and be clear about why, exactly, they’re receiving that bonus). This bonus could be cash or even a gift certificate to a nice restaurant or retail shop (like Amazon).
Here’s the next idea…
Offer Loyalty Bonuses
The idea here is to reward long-time customers for their loyalty. You can do this by starting up a loyalty program, where customers receive rewards after they’ve earned so many “points” or purchased X number of products from you.
For example:
Purchase seven products and get the eighth one free.
Earn 1000 points and you can start turning those points in for discounts, free products and other rewards.
Alternatively, you can simply send out an email to offer rewards and bonuses to long-time customers. For example:
“To thank you for your years of loyalty, we’re offering you six months of free membership inside our online marketing membership site! There are no strings attached, no credit card required, no hoops, no obligation. This is our gift to you as our way of saying thank you for sticking with us!”
One of the hardest sales you’ll make is to convince a potential first-time customer to spend money with you. You can make this sale a little easier by offering discounts or bonuses to first-time customers.
For example:
First-time buyers will enjoy a 50% introductory discount! Click here to get started…
To sweeten the pot, first-time buyers will also get the lead page templates absolutely free!
If you’re considering offering a service as a bonus, then first check out these pros and cons…
Pros
Services often carry a high perceived value.
You can offer a customized service, which makes the offer very compelling.
Cons
Most services require you to trade time for dollars.
You can become overwhelmed trying to provide services on a popular product.
Tips:
Offer services on high-ticket products only.
Consider offering a limited number of services (which not only keeps you from becoming overwhelmed, but it also creates urgency and boosts conversions).
A fast-action bonus is a great way to boost conversions. This works particularly well during a product launch or during a live event, such as during a webinar to close the sale.
E.G., “Take advantage of this offer in the next hour and you’ll enjoy a $50 discount!”
Limited Quantity Bonus Offers
Another way to create urgency and boost conversions with your bonus is to offer a limited quantity.
E.G., “Be one of the first 100 people to take advantage of this offer, and you’ll get a landing-page creator app for FREE!”
Bonuses that Make Money
One advantage of offering trials as bonuses is that these bonuses give you the potential to make money in the near future.
For example, you might offer a six-month trial membership as a bonus. After the trial has expired, many members will pay out of their pocket to retain their membership.
The Instant Gratification Bonus
The idea here is to create a bonus that allows customers to get quick results. In turn, this strategy reduces refunds and creates satisfied customers.
For example, let’s suppose you’re selling a traffic-generation guide. You might offer a bonus package that includes a report and templates to help people quickly and easily set up a Facebook ad campaign. This bonus lets customer set up a campaign in minutes and start receiving traffic almost instantly.
How to Value Your Bonus
One mistake a lot of marketers make is to over-inflate the value of the bonus. Prospects can often see right through this scam, and they’ll come to not trust you.
So, here’s what you do instead: put a realistic value on your bonuses. Indeed, you may even decide to sell your bonuses to a limited number of people just to prove they are worth the value you’ve assigned.
E.G., “Others have paid $100 for this app, but it’s yours free if you act now!”
This strategy is all about getting prospects to move fast and purchase a product during the first few days of a product launch. In turn, this builds momentum, buzz and social proof, which further boosts sales.
E.G., “If you’re quick, you’ll get [name of bonus product] for free – but hurry, this special introductory offer ends [date and time]!”
Add Bonuses to Higher-Priced Options
If you have a membership site or other product where people can choose a “level” (such as bronze, silver or gold), then put your bonuses into your higher levels. This helps boost the perceived value of those levels and gets more people joining at the higher level.
For example, you might offer one simple bonus (such as a report) at the Bronze Level. For the Silver Level, you’d offer that report plus an app. At the Gold Level you’d offer the report, the app, access to a private group, and a toolkit. If you price it right, the Gold Level clearly becomes the best deal, and customers will flock to it.
There’s only one good way to really tell what’s working: test and track your bonus strategy to see what’s putting money in your pocket. You can test these factors:
This strategy is offering a bonus that people can use before they use the main product. This is a good bonus to offer if you suspect your audience may lack the knowledge or tools needed to complete a step at the beginning of a process.
For example, let’s suppose the main product is a guide to creating engaging blog posts and monetizing the blog. Your bonus might be an in-depth tutorial on how to set up a WordPress blog.
Next…
How to “Sell” Your Bonus
One of the keys to an effective bonus is to sell it the right way. In other words, you need to consider how you position this bonus.
Let’s suppose you’re offering a collection of worksheets, checklists, templates, swipes and more to help people become better copywriters. If you list each of these items separately, it may just look like a hodge-podge of stuff. Instead, position this collection as a “sales letter toolkit,” and suddenly it will take on a higher perceived value.
Swipe This Template for Selling Your Bonus
Need help selling your bonus? Check this out:
But that’s not all – if you act now, you’ll also get [Name of Bonus Product] for FREE! This [type of product] [explain what it does in a succinct benefit or two].
Others are paying [dollar amount] for this product, but it’s yours free if you’re one of the first [number] of people to act now!
A Powerful Way to Promote an Affiliate Bonus
Most affiliates are going to promote their bonuses in a myriad of ways, such as on their blog, social media platforms and in their newsletters. These are all good ways, but there’s one method that stands head and shoulders above the rest: get the product vendor to promote the bonus. This lends credibility to you and your offer, which boosts conversions.
How do you get the vendor to endorse your bonus? Simple: ask the product vendor to do an interview with you, and then promote the vendor’s offer and your bonus at the end. You’ll also want to encourage the vendor to distribute the webinar, which will further boost exposure.
Swipe This Copywriting Template for Selling an Affiliate Bonus
Need to promote your affiliate bonus? Try out this template:
Now here’s the best part…
If you purchase [Name of Main Offer] using the link below, you’ll also get [Name of Bonus Product or Service] absolutely free.
Go ahead and look around – no one else is offering a deal like this. So, if you like getting the most bang for your buck – and you like [solving some problem] – then you’re going to want to click here now to take advantage of this special offer!
How to Optimize Membership Site Bonuses
Membership bonuses can help you close the sale and retain members over the long term. Put these tips to work for you:
Offer the best content in the form of delayed bonuses. This keeps people as members of your site just so they can get the bonuses.
Encourage members to use the bonuses. That way they’ll see the value of them, and they’ll be more likely to remain members.
Want more exposure for your bonus? Create a bonus for other marketers and offer it to them for free. In particular, create an exclusive bonus for an upcoming big product launch and piggyback on their success.
TIP: If the marketer refuses the bonus, then you can use it to promote your affiliate link instead. Either way, it’s a win for you!
Next…
Make More Money and Get More Exposure
Here’s a quick and profitable bonus strategy: license your bonuses so that other marketers can use them too.
Tip: Be sure to license them by offering resell rights only. That way, your links stay intact so you can enjoy backend income. You may make these links rebrandable so that the license holder can embed their affiliate links for your products.
Here you create a coupon or bonus offer with a holiday theme. For example, you might offer 25% off your products during Christmas.
The “Come Back” Incentive
This strategy works well to get former customers (who’ve since grown “cold”) to start spending money with you again. For example, “Come back and you can take advantage of this 40% discount on any item!”
The “Cold List” Incentive
The purpose of this incentive is to get a cold mailing list to be responsive again. What you’ll do is offer a really enticing bonus product. Be sure to put the offer right in your subject line to get people opening your email.
If you’re creating a special page for your bonuses or incentives (such when you’re an affiliate and you need to deliver your bonuses), then be sure this bonus page is polished and professional. This gives customers a good impression of you, and it boosts the conversion rate on any additional offers you may promote on this delivery page. (More on this strategy in a moment.)
Using Bonuses to Motivate Affiliates
Are affiliate sales stagnating? You can jump start them by offering bonuses to your top-performing affiliates.
One way to do this is by setting up commission tiers that increase as affiliates make more sales. For example, if an affiliate makes up to 10 sales, they get 50% commissions. If they make 11 to 25 sales, they get 60% commissions… and so on. You can even trigger these thresholds on a monthly basis, so that affiliates are motivated to promote month after month.
Once you see how well bonuses work to grow your business, you’ll want to start creating a lot of them. Here are three tips for making this process faster and easier:
Construct templates. For example, if you create a lot of cheat sheets, then design a graphical template that you can use to quickly create additional cheat sheets.
Collaborate with others. One quick way to create a bonus is by working with others. For example, you can secure an exclusive coupon for a popular product from the vendor, and use that discount as an incentive. Or you can do a webinar with another expert and use the recordings as a bonus product.
Create content with tools. For example, using a speech-to-text app like Dragon Naturally Speaking helps you create reports more quickly.
Next…
Brand Your Bonus or Incentive
No matter what type of bonus or incentive you’re offering, be sure to include your company brand.
For example:
Create a coupon with your logo, slogan and other branding.
Design an ebook with your branding in the header and footer.
Embed your branding in the slides of a slide-share video.
Include your branding inside a membership site.
Put your branding in the dashboard of your apps.
This helps build top-of-mind awareness, which leads to more sales in the future.
Include Download Page Offers
You’ve got someone coming to your website to download their bonus or incentive. You know have the chance to promote another product or service. Just be sure that it’s highly related to the bonus.
For example, if your bonus is a low-calorie cookbook to help dieters lose weight, you might sell “Volume 2” on the delivery page.
10 Coupons That Work Like Crazy
Stuck for ideas regarding what sort of coupons to offer? Check out these ideas:
Percentage-off coupon.
Dollar-amount-off coupon.
BOGO (buy one, get one).
Buy one at full price, get one at a discount.
Matching credit coupon (buy today, get a matching credit to use on a future purchase).
Low-cost trial offer.
Free trial offer.
Bonus coupon (buy today and get this nice bonus gift).
Flash sale coupon (good for a short amount of time, such as 24 hours).
Introductory special coupon.
Next…
The Contest Incentive
A good way to boost contest participation is to offer entrants an extra incentive for participating. This works particularly well if the contest requires some “work,” such as if you ask participants to submit a photo of them using your product or even create a short video.
For example, you might offer entrants a deep discount on their next purchase, such as 75% off.
The Lead Page Incentive
You’re already using a good lead magnet to attract subscribers to your mailing list. If you want to boost your conversions even more, then you can offer an extra incentive to join your list. In short, offer a bonus alongside your lead magnet.
For example, if your lead magnet is a copywriting tips report, then you might offer a bonus sales letter checklist to get more people joining your mailing list.
You know bonuses can boost your conversions. But did you know they can also reduce your refunds?
One way (as you’ve learned) is to offer delayed bonuses (after the refund period). Another way is to offer unannounced bonuses, which boosts customer satisfaction. Still another way is to offer a physical bonus (which customers need to ship back to you in order to request a refund).
Here’s a fourth and perhaps surprising way that bonuses can reduce refunds: tell customers they can keep the bonus even if they request a refund. You can even state this if it’s a digital offer. Several marketers have tested this and found that adding this statement reduces refunds. Go ahead and test it for yourself to see if it works for your audience, too.
The Super Affiliate’s Bonus Strategy
Most affiliates know they should add value to an offer in order to land more affiliate sales. But most affiliates also have no idea how to use this strategy for maximum effect. Check out these tips:
Choose a bonus that people REALLY want. If you create an attractive enough bonus, you’ll get people buying through your affiliate link solely because they want the bonus!
Create exclusive bonuses. In other words, don’t give the same bonus for every product you promote. Instead, create new and exclusive bonuses for each offer.