The Secret to Bonuses People Actually Want

Bonuses can be the thing that tips someone from, "I'm interested," to, "I'm buying right now," but only if you do them properly. Most people just throw in random stuff in their offer and hope that it works, and it doesn't. So in this video, I'm walking you through exactly how to design a bonus that actually sells, including the psychology of why they work and how many to include so you know what to offer

If you're new here, I'm Teresa Heath-Wareing, and I help course creators, membership owners, and coaches stop following someone else's playbook and start building one that actually fits them, so their launches convert, their list grows with the right people, and they can finally trust their own judgment again.

So this is not a new strategy, right? I think sometimes in the online space, we think that these strategies were invented by scammy, horrible online people. This is not a new strategy. However, there are some really important psychological reasons as to why bonuses work when they're done correctly So the very first reason we use bonuses is something called reciprocity.

And what reciprocity is, is when someone gives you something, we are inclined as humans to want to give something back. So when you're like, "You're gonna get this and this and this as a bonus," then someone is like, "Okay. Well, I want to give something back, and by giving back means I'm going to buy." So reciprocity is a really good, powerful psychological thing as to why bonuses work so well.

So people put way more value on it when you add those additional bonuses, which means it feels like it exceeds the price of the thing that you're already giving them the price for, which then makes it more of a no-brainer. Also with bonuses, there comes a bit of the psychological thing of the fear of missing out because the idea is a bonus is given to someone as a bonus, right?

So if they were questioning, "Okay, I'm gonna get this product and it's gonna cost this amount of money. How do I feel about that?" And then you stack on these bonuses that are good bonuses that work, and we're gonna get to that, then it makes them feel safer about the purchase they're making because it's like, "Okay, great.

I not only get that, but I also get these things." So as you can see, there are some real psychological factors, and I have literally just skimmed the surface on this just to give you an idea as to why bonuses work so well. So let me quickly remind you of those things. There's reciprocity, there's value amplification, there's the fear of missing out, and then there is the risk reduction.

And they throw anything in, but the truth is the bonuses have to do very particular things. In fact, I have five types of bonuses that I'm gonna take you through that when they're done properly, when they're really well considered, they really do make the difference to your offer. And this is something else to note.

You need to understand your customer and your offer really well- Because it's those, it's that kind of base information that's really gonna help you create the correct bonuses that's really gonna help someone go, "I need those," or, "I can see why those bonuses are put in and I want them." The bonus isn't about more stuff for more stuff's sake.

So the idea with these types of bonuses is... Well, the idea with any offer that you're giving is they are here on this pain mountain here, and they're trying to get to the transformation over here, and your offer is helping them do that. So your bonus should help them accelerate, or one of the ones that you can do should help them implement it even faster.

But one of the things that we're really looking for is that connection to join someone's program or when you're in per- someone's program, the connection with other people in it. So one of the bonuses that you can offer is a connection accelerator. So it could be things like community access, group calls, Voxer access, or anything that gives them more access to you or others on the same journey.

When they feel part of something, they're more invested in it. Bonus number three that can work really well is complimentary training. Now, we've already said we don't necessarily need more training. However, when something is complimentary to the thing that you're offering, it can really help. So let's take Grow Launch Sell.

Grow Launch Sell is my program where I work with online business owners for six months in a group setting, and I help them grow their audience, launch their offers, and sell with confidence, and ultimately scale their online business in a way that feels really good to them with a personal touch. If you wanna know more about Grow Launch Sell and you're watching YouTube, scan this QR code here, and it will take you to Grow Launch Sell, and you can check it out.

So that would make a great complimentary training. It's not part of the program per se, but it is something that my audience need to know about and therefore that makes a really nice complimentary training. So what extra training do you think that your audience need to have or know to help them get their results in your program even quicker?

Number four is implementation shortcuts. How can we or what bonus can we give them where we can shortcut something completely? So one of the bonuses I have in Grow Launch Sell, which I do tend to offer most times, are AI prompts. And these prompts are built with my teachings in mind and with how I say you should structure things or how I say is best, most effective to do things.

So other things that would work really well as implementation shortcuts are things like checklists, frameworks, scripts, anything that cuts the work down for the person that you are helping. And then the final type of bonus that works really well, bonus number five, is confidence boosters. If we can help someone feel more confident going into these things or working with us, then the chances of their results being better are so much higher.

So let me recap those five types of bonuses that you can offer that really help your customers convert. One, implementation accelerators, two, connection accelerators, three, complimentary training, four, implementation shortcuts, and five, confident boosters. So I've covered off why we need bonuses, what the psychology behind them is, the types of bonuses that you can look at.

The very last thing I want to cover is how many bonuses do you know how to give? Now, this is not an exact science. I just wanna say that now. And this is not a do it this way and this is the only way to do it. This is meant to be a guide for you just to have an idea of, okay, that might be how many I should do.

If you're mid-tier, so 300 to, say, 1,000, then you might wanna go three to five. If you're over 1,000 and you're pushing into kind of the two, 3,000s, then you might even look up to five to seven bonuses. Again, this is not hard facts. This is not you need seven bonuses if you've got a £2,000 or dollar offer.

So sometimes depending on the length of time of the cart depends on the number we need or the number that makes sense to it. So let's say your cart is only open between one and three days, then two to three bonuses will probably be fine. Three to five days, I'd probably look at three to five bonuses.

Five to seven, four to seven bonuses. And if your cart is open over, say, two weeks, which that's unusual and I would have to have a conversation as to why I think two weeks would work for you, then you might be looking at more bonuses, say five to eight. But again, I am totally along the lines of I would rather have three or four really good bonuses than five to eight terrible ones.

And by properly, I mean it's genuine value. It's not a filler. We're not just throwing stuff in for the sake of throwing it in. This is a genuine value based on those five different types of bonuses that I've talked about, that it's honestly presented, okay? We're not going, "Look how amazing all these things are," and making out like they're big and huge and phenomenal, and when you get it, it's like a one-sheet PDF that you did as a free download anyway.

So it- we don't wanna make it look massively impressive if it's not. So honest representation of what they're actually getting is really important And these bonuses should be focused on the success of your customer, not just about looking cool on the sales page, not just about having this bonus stack on the sales page.

Bonuses done well can dramatically increase your conversions, but bonuses done badly will hurt your offer. So be intentional. Pick bonuses that genuinely accelerate your client's success, and make sure that you have the right number of bonuses for your price point, for your cart open, and never inflate the value to make it look like it's way bigger than it is.

I really hope in this episode I've helped you understand why bonuses are so effective and why we use them in our launches, and some ideas behind the types of bonuses that could work really well for you. If you are not already a subscriber, please go ahead and hit subscribe on YouTube or follow me on your favorite podcast app, and I'll be back next week with another episode.