7 Ways To Use An Incredible Tripwire Upsell Offer In Your Sale Funnels

Upselling can be an incredibly effective marketing tool in your funnel, allowing you to increase the average order value and obtain additional revenue. When someone becomes a lead, they’ve already shown interest in your business, but the only way to separate those lookers from buyers is to ask for the sale! There’s a big difference between a free lead magnet and a core product offering. Stated it’s hard to get someone to go from a free offer to a high-priced one; that is where tripwires shine. 

Warming people up by upselling through tripwires can help guide customers to purchase products that they may not have initially considered or even been aware of. It may be the first step to them becoming a paying customers without asking much from them. 

Today, we will discuss what exactly a tripwire is, why you need one, how a tripwire is different from a lead magnet, where and when you should offer a tripwire, the best types of tripwires, and explore seven ways you can use tripwires to create upsell opportunities within your funnels. 

Content Overview

What is a Tripwire? 

A tripwire is a product or service that is designed and priced to convert immediately! Your goal isn’t to make a huge profit from your tripwire but rather to increase your customer base and get people into a paying capacity with you! Tripwires are usually priced between $1-$19. The lower the price, the more irresistible your tripwire will be! But it can’t be a cheap, worthless product; it has to be something of great value so they think, WOW, this is incredible; I have to get it while I can! 

Why Do You Need a Tripwire?

Lead generation is great; however, once a lead becomes a paying customer, the relationship shifts. It’s much easier to sell more or a higher-priced product or service once someone has become a paying customer. They’ve already experienced your value (so they’ve warmed up a bit already), and they are already starting to like and trust you. Having tripwires will increase your other upselling opportunities with the goal of bringing more people into your ecosystem who become paying customers more quickly.  

How is a Tripwire Different from a Lead Magnet? 

A tripwire might seem similar to a lead magnet, but it definitely is not. A lead magnet is used to generate leads by offering something of extreme value for free in exchange for their email address. A tripwire, on the other hand, is a heavily discounted product or service that is used as an incentive to convert leads into paying customers immediately. If someone opts into your free lead magnet, you will offer them your tripwire. If someone opts into your tripwire, you’re offering them the next product/service on your value ladder. 

Where and When Should You Offer a Tripwire? 

You need to look at your overall funnel to decide where the tripwire will make the most sense. I like to offer tripwires immediately after someone opts into one of my freebies. I always pair like-minded free offers and tripwires. For example, if someone downloads my free website audit workbook, they immediately receive a tripwire to upsell them a super-detailed SEO audit. We usually offer these for $497, but a customer can receive them as a tripwire for only $7! The catch? They have to purchase that tripwire then and there. They have 15 minutes to grab it before it disappears forever. You can offer a tripwire either at the top of your funnel (TOFU) or the middle of your funnel (MOFU), and you can offer multiple tripwires throughout your funnel. 

What Types of Products/Services Can You Offer as a Tripwire?

  • Product/Service Trials
  • Smaller Version of your Core Offering
  • Complementary Products/Services
  • Workbooks/Blueprints
  • Small Ebook

You want to pick a tripwire offer that is going to really resonate with your audience. You want to pick something that they are going to see as extremely valuable and something they can’t say no to. 

Ultimate Step By Step Website Audit Workbook

Resource: The Ultimate Step-by-Step Website Audit – When was the last time you gave your website a check-up? Maybe you’ve never audited your website, or it’s been a while since you have, and you have a plan to redesign it in the future. Whatever the case, if you haven’t significantly updated your website in the last couple of years, chances are it’s negatively impacting the overall user experience and customer journey. Worse yet, it isn’t converting. Our step-by-step workbook will help get you started!

7 Ways To Use An Incredible Tripwire Upsell Offer in Your Funnels 

1. Decide What You Want to Offer as a Tripwire Upsell

Before you can successfully upsell in your funnels, you need to decide what exactly it is that you want to offer as an upsell. It must be related to the main product/service that you offer but should also offer additional value and not be a duplicate of what’s already offered. Think of this as a small starting point of them working with you! What can you offer that is going to have enough of an impact to really WOW them and make them think? I need more of this NOW!

2. Introduce the Tripwire Upsell Offer at the Right Moment

The key component of any successful tripwire is timing; you don’t want to introduce the upsell offer too early in the funnel. This could be seen as aggressive and potentially scare away potential customers. I don’t promote my tripwire anywhere other than in my funnel. So someone has to have already found me via my website, social media, my podcast, etc. before they could even find these funnels. So once they do, they are already warmed up a bit and ready for the tripwire. 

3. Use Clear Messaging in Your Tripwire 

Make sure that your messaging is clear and concise and directly communicates all relevant information to your customers. You need to make sure that your tripwire offer is well-defined and easy to understand; if you don’t explain what exactly it is that you’re offering or why someone should buy it, then chances are that customers won’t be willing to make the purchase. Make sure to include social proof (testimonials) within your messaging. 

4. Leverage Urgency and Scarcity in your Tripwire

Since most tripwire offers have limited availability, it’s important to create a sense of urgency and scarcity in order to motivate customers to take action. You can do this by using language such as “limited time only” or “for a limited number of customers,” which helps reinforce the idea that there is a limited opportunity for them to take advantage of your offer. This will help encourage customers to act quickly. I like to add an expiration time, so they really have to grab it now, or it’s gone forever. 

5. Use Visual Cues in your Tripwire

Visual cues can be incredibly powerful when it comes to upselling, as they help draw attention to your offer. You could use an image of the product or service you’re offering or an animation of a countdown timer to create urgency. All of these visual cues will help draw attention and motivate customers to act quickly. 

6. Provide Testimonials in your Tripwire

One way to increase the chances of people taking action on your tripwire is by providing customer testimonials and reviews from previous buyers. This helps create social proof and reinforces the idea that others have already taken advantage of this offer and found it beneficial, which can encourage potential customers to follow suit. 

7. Track the Results of Your Tripwire

Finally, it’s important to track your results and measure the success of your tripwire offer. This will help you identify which offers are more successful than others and which parts of the funnel may need tweaking in order to improve conversion rates. By tracking your results, you can continually refine and optimize your upsell strategy so that it delivers maximum value for both you and your customers. 

This Week’s Challenge

  1. Do you have a tripwire offering? If so, I’d love to hear how it’s converting for you. Please DM me on Instagram! @jennielyonmarketing
  1. If you don’t have a tripwire, where does it make the most sense for you to add one to your offerings? If you’re curious to see what a tripwire looks like, jump over to jennielyon.com/websiteaudit to download my free website audit workbook. Once you do, you’ll see my $7 SEO Audit Tripwire!
  1. What type of tripwire makes the most sense for your audience? Do you need some feedback? Again, DM me. I’m happy to help! 

Either way, feel free to reach out and schedule a free consultation at jennielyon.com/chat. We can either discuss a plan for your tripwire, or I can offer suggestions on how to improve your current tripwire! We have a ton of free resources on our website. Check them out at jennielyon.com/freebies.

Upselling with tripwires can be an incredibly effective way to increase revenue and create additional value for both you and your customers. If done correctly, it can help boost sales and generate more profit for your business. Just make sure that you take the time to plan out your upsell strategy before launching it, as this will ensure that everything runs smoothly and that your customer has a positive experience. 

Rate, Review, & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

If you like what you hear on the podcast, please consider the rating and review my show! Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” I would love to hear what episodes you enjoy! If you haven’t done so already, please subscribe to the podcast. I add new content weekly; if you’re not subscribed, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. Subscribe now!

About Jennie Lyon

Jennie Lyon is the founder of Jennie Lyon Virtual Assistant Services. Jennie specializes in helping busy entrepreneurs organize, manage, develop and promote their brand! She is devoted to helping small business owners and entrepreneurs with social media, content creation, email marketing, client relations, website management, and administration services. If you are a small business owner, coach or self-employed entrepreneur struggling to find enough time in your day to focus on what you really love - schedule a free 15 minute consultation with Jennie. www.JennieLyon.com

Leave a Comment