Setting up a tripwire offer is a great way to make money while growing your email list.
What exactly is a tripwire offer? It’s a product that you offer to new email subscribers right after they sign up for your email list, typically offered at a highly discounted price. Tripwire offers are usually time-sensitive, meaning the offer expires after a short period of time.
The purpose of a tripwire offer is not to make a ton of money, but rather to convert your new email subscribers into loyal customers right away. If you give them a great product at an amazing price, they will be more likely to buy your higher-priced offerings later on.
Tripwires work because people love a good deal, and the sense of urgency (usually conveyed by a countdown timer ticking away until the offer expires) serves as an additional motivator.
While tripwires are most common in the world of blogging and digital marketing, they are also popular in the “real world” too. For example, have you ever seen those offers for a “free” pair of leggings or jewelry, and all you have to do is pay shipping and handling? Or those meal delivery subscriptions that offer your first meal for only $5?
Those are all tripwires.
When done correctly, tripwires are a great way to convert your new subscribers into happy customers from the moment they sign up for your email list.
What Should My Tripwire Offer Be?
Your tripwire offer should be related to your email opt-in first and foremost. When someone signs up to receive your opt-in offer, they will be immediately redirected to your tripwire page. So you’ll want your tripwire product to be something relevant.
For example, let’s say you’re a personal finance blogger and your opt-in offer is a free budgeting worksheet. When someone signs up for the worksheet, your relevant tripwire offer might then be an entire printable budgeting workbook available for a low price.
If you already have products that you sell on your blog, you can use one of those as your tripwire product by offering it at a highly discounted price to new subscribers.
Otherwise, you can create a new product to use as your tripwire. Here are a few ideas of tripwire products you can create:
- Short ebook
- Printables
- Video workshop
- Templates
Your tripwire product doesn’t have to be anything huge or complicated. It just needs to be valuable and helpful to your target audience.
It also helps to create something relevant to your current high-priced offering if you have one, or a future high-priced offering you might create. This way you can lead new subscribers through a sales funnel that ends in pitching your high-priced offering.
For example, if your audience is photographers and you have an online course about photo editing, a short video workshop about photo editing would serve as a great tripwire product and lead in to pitching your in-depth online course later.
Related: How to Easily Make Business Marketing a Priority
How to Price Your Tripwire
Most tripwires are priced very low. Remember, the goal of a tripwire is not to make a massive profit, but to earn a little money while growing your list and turning your new subscribers into loyal customers right away.
Typically, tripwires are priced at under $20. Some common price points are $7, $9, $11, $17, etc.
If your tripwire product is a product that you normally sell on your blog, make sure to mention the discount on the tripwire offer page. (Ex. “Get this ebook for more than 70% off the original price in the next 15 minutes only!”)
Don’t massively underprice your tripwire product (for example, selling a 200-page ebook jam-packed with information for just $4) but don’t price it so high that new subscribers are wary of purchasing it either. You may want to experiment with different price points at first to see what converts best.
How to Set Up a Tripwire Offer
Setting up a tripwire offer is not that hard, even if you aren’t a very technical person.
The first thing you will need to do is create the tripwire offer page on your blog. This is where subscribers will be redirected immediately after signing up for your email list.
To connect your opt-in form to your tripwire offer page, go into your email marketing platform and look for an option to set up a redirect when someone subscribes. Almost all email marketing platforms have this option.
Next, you will want to design your tripwire offer page.
The easiest way to do this is with the free Elementor Page Builder plugin for WordPress. It provides you with a drag-and-drop editor that you can use to easily put together a tripwire offer page. Make sure to include the details of your product, what it is, who it’s for, and how it helps.
And don’t forget to add multiple CTAs (calls to action) with a purchase button for your product.
Your tripwire offer page also needs a countdown timer that redirects the user away from the page once the offer expires.
There’s another great free plugin for that: Evergreen Countdown Timer.
Simply set up the countdown timer and paste the code snippet into your tripwire offer page. When someone visits the page, the countdown will start, and when time runs out, they will be redirected away from the page. The plugin uses browser cookies to track users. So once the offer expires, it’ll be hard for someone to access that page again.
Finally, you’ll need a way to deliver your tripwire product to your customer. You can use and ecommerce platform like SendOwl or Gumroad for this. Just upload your product and you’re ready to go!
Related: 6 Powerful Types of Funnels That Will Easily Attract Clients
Benefits of a Tripwire Offer
Tripwires are a great strategy for any blogger or a business owner.
Not only are you able to turn new subscribers into happy customers right away, you can also earn a little passive income for your business at the same time.
If you run ads to grow your email list, you can also use tripwires to cover your advertising costs, effectively growing your list for free!
For more details about how to create tripwires, including how I leverage tripwires to earn an extra $500+ a month in my business, check out the Profitable Tripwires Training.
