Market, Scale, Grow: Facebook Ad Marketing Strategy for Teacherpreneurs

184 | Debunking Tripwires: Essential Email List Strategies for Business Growth

• Jenzaia • Episode 184

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Can a tripwire truly revolutionize your marketing strategy, or is it just an unnecessary complication for beginners?  Join me as I navigate the intricacies of running ads to lead magnets and the debated necessity of incorporating a tripwire. 

In this episode of Market, Scale, Grow as we chat about...
✨ the necessity of tripwires (or are they really necessary?)
✨ the value of tripwires
✨ the importance of lead generation in a marketing strategy
✨ strategically planning for growth and scaling

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Market Scale Grow. I'm your host, inzea, and this is a Saturday Strategy Session. Hello, welcome back. Today we are talking about running ads to a lead magnet to generate new subscribers, new leads for your email list and best practices. So recently I was chatting with someone who I've run ads for before we ran ads to their email list and to TPT products and she mentioned that another Facebook ads strategist had said that they would never run ads to a lead magnet by itself and what my thoughts were on that, and it was a great conversation.

Speaker 1:

I thought I would share it with you because it's really food for thought and there is no right answer. I don't think that it's right for everyone to always have a tripwire or something on the back end, and I don't think it's wrong to not have one. Like, there's just no right answer. It really depends on your situation, your business model, your goals. There's too many things to look at and to think about what you want to do. So do you need a tripwire to run ads to a lead magnet? Absolutely not. Is there still value to your lead magnet if you don't have anything on the back? Absolutely. Is it a waste of money to run ads without a tripwire? Definitely not because you're getting those new subscribers and we're going to talk more about that in just a minute Would I say that it's best practice to have a tripwire? Maybe this is where it really depends on who your audience is and what your goals are, what you're selling like your main offer. There's just too much to consider for me to say, yeah, you absolutely have to have one. So let's talk about why you might not have a tripwire. Let's start there, and the main reason I would say is if, like, you're getting your first, getting started, tripwires can be a lot of work, and many people who teach tripwires are also saying, like you should have a tripwire which is on the thank you page, instead of just saying like, thank you, go check your email. It says really small at the top thank you, go check your email, but wait, there's more by this thing. That goes with the freebie, right? So it's for seven dollars, or twenty seven dollars or thirty seven dollars, depending on many different factors, but it's what would be considered a low cost offer. It should be a no-brainer that people who have downloaded your freebie are going to want to buy, and some of the reasons that you want to have a tripwire is to try and build a list of buyers instead of just freebie seekers.

Speaker 1:

This isn't an issue for all audiences. There is definitely the belief that a lot of teachers are freebie seekers, and I've definitely seen it in action but that doesn't mean there aren't people who are going to buy. For example, I just recently bought something that I could have easily made myself. I do this all the time but, um, I will buy something because it saves me the couple of hours that it would take for me to pull it together, and so there are definitely people out there who are willing to buy, interested by and going to buy, but then there's also people who are not buying anything. Ever, no way, not a chance, right, and that is for every single. I talk about this so many times. This is for every single thing all over.

Speaker 1:

The difference is, if you are a fridge salesman, there aren't really like freebies you can be giving out, right, I'm not in the market for I am in the pre-market for a fridge. If you came to my house offering the exact fridge I want and there is an exact fridge that I want I would probably be like you know what? Yes, you can deliver it great, you'll take my old one, great. But I'm not at the point yet where I'm going to stores to look at it. I'm not like actively seeking it out. But if someone was coming to my door I'd be like, yeah, I'll buy one.

Speaker 1:

But there isn't a freebie really for a fridge. You just kind of need to get to the point where you're buying that new fridge, whereas with teaching resources there is freebies that you can create, and often people have created the exact same thing that you're trying to sell as a freebie and it's either just like a smaller version of it, a sample version, really low quality, but it's free, and there's people that will stay in that. I'm okay with the really low quality. I'm okay with it not being the complete unit, it just being like a part of it. They'll stay in that. I'm okay with the really low quality. I'm okay with it not being the complete unit, it just being like a part of it. They'll stay in that phase. But there's always going to be people who are almost ready or definitely ready to buy. So but freebie seekers can be a concern, and so trip wires can help identify those people who are ready to buy. So you're building that list of emails and, at the same time, being able to identify who joined your list and is also ready to buy. Not that you should count those who didn't buy out, but it just gives you a bit of an idea of who is ready to buy.

Speaker 1:

Tripwise are also really great for making a return on your investment. So if you spend $100 on your ads to get new leads and you're able to make $100 back, then you kind of didn't spend any money, right? Yes, of course you have to pay the money out to Facebook and the money comes into your Stripe account or however it's set up to work, but in the end you spend $100, made $100. So you're breaking even to get those people onto your list, and that is one of the biggest reasons why tripwires are encouraged and I really like them. But it just isn't necessarily realistic to get that tripwire and to get the bump. So right back to this Tripwire is that thing you're selling on the thank you page.

Speaker 1:

I got totally distracted as I was explaining and then often there'll be like a little like click here to add the bonus tracker, right? So there's the toolkit. If you will Like, that's what mine is. It's a toolkit and has like three or four different spreadsheets and calculators and things. And then there's the bump that's like check here to add this specific tracker and it has to be one that people are gonna be like yes, I absolutely need that. So you're bumping their order up. My toolkit's $27, the bump is 10, so we've gone from 27 to $37.

Speaker 1:

And then after someone buys that the tripwire, there is often what's called a one-time offer or an OTO, and that one-time offer is like $97 for the course, like a DIY course that goes with that toolkit that they just bought. And so there's video trainings and walkthroughs and additional things that support the use of the toolkit and you can only get it that one time. It's never available again. So that's kind of the extended version of the Tripwire tool funnel, if you will. So freebie to tripwire on the thank you page that has a bump to increase the order value to like basically another tripwire on the thank you page thanks for buying the tripwire. Now we also have this for sale, again increasing the value, and then in emails through other launches, you have your main offer, which is going to be like a $5.97 course or a $1,000 course or whatever it might be.

Speaker 1:

Now why is this setup, even just a tripwire, not realistic. And the main reason is there's so many moving parts. It takes time to create and set up. It takes confidence to believe in what you're creating. It requires more testing, testing, more tweaking and it can be just really hard to to figure out all of these different pieces, especially as you're getting started, and it can be really frustrating and really hard.

Speaker 1:

Now when it works, it's really great and obviously we want there to be a financial return on your ads, but that doesn't mean it has to be in a tripwire form. You might never have one or you might say it's not for me right now. That's why I often say just a lead magnet ad and getting more subscribers onto your list is a really, really great starting point. It has less tech involved, less moving parts. You don't need a checkout system. You don't need a delivery. Well, you do need a delivery system, but you don't need any way to deliver that purchased item. You're going to be creating less content. You're going to be creating less ad assets. You're going to be testing fewer things, tweaking fewer things. There's less things that can go wrong, so you can start to see success quicker and if there are problems, it's easier to identify where those problems are.

Speaker 1:

Plus, you can easily build onto it once it's up and running. There is nowhere, ever anywhere, that says, once you press, start on something, that that's it, that's all. No changes are allowed. So you can get that ad up and running as just a straight lead magnet ad driving traffic to your, your freebie. Get those people onto your email list and then, once you have that up and running comfortably, then you can create the tripwire and you just switch out the thank you page instead of it saying again thank you for subscribing. Go check your email. It now says thanks for subscribing, but wait, there's more. Buy this thing and so you can build onto it and then, once you have the tripwire, you can add the bump and then, once you have the bump, you can add the oto, the one-time offer. Right, it doesn't have to all happen at once, immediately. You can absolutely build.

Speaker 1:

Now I do recommend that, if this is something you see yourself doing, that you map it out before you get started so that it does work together in a cohesive manner, because for people to buy the thing, it has to be related to what they originally wanted and you want it to be a no-brainer yes, I need this. At each stage like, yes, I need the tripwire, yes, I need the bump, yes, I need that OTO. And if it's not, and there's disjointedness or it doesn't feel cohesive, there's no logic to the journey that you're walking people through. They'll get confused, they'll be annoyed, they'll feel like you got salesy and it just feels icky. So mapping it out, thinking about it beforehand, helps to ensure that it's a seamless journey and people will feel like, oh, she knows exactly what I need. She's in my head, I want that. Yes, I have to have it. Versus salesy, icky, leave me alone. Right, we don't want that.

Speaker 1:

If you're not at the point where you want to have a tripwire, you need to remember that growing your email list is one of the best ways to grow a sustainable business long term, because you can always sell to that audience. To that audience, you can do launches, like email only launches, where you are not doing anything else except concentrated emails. Instead of sending out a weekly email, you send out five emails in a week where you're promoting your main offer right, you can do that. You can also send out like flash sales 24 hours to grab this thing 50% off or whatever it might be, and so, as you are getting no subscribers, you can see that return immediately.

Speaker 1:

One of the biggest complaints I hear from people is that they boosted a post and they just wasted their $20. They probably didn't waste their $20. The ad probably did exactly what it was supposed to do. They got likes, comments, shares, engagement on the ad, but they were thinking I spend this $20. People are going to see this and then go to the link in my bio and they're going to sign up and they're going to do this and they're going to do all those things. Right, but really the goal is just engagement. So I said link in bio and then I was thinking about it. I'm like that's kind of old school. We don't really do that anymore.

Speaker 1:

An engagement post might actually like a boosting a post might actually be a pretty successful strategy with when people are using the dm bots I don't know if bot is the right word, but where you say like comment, like a flower, and immediately the link is sent to the person's DMs and then they can immediately go find the product or the link to the download or whatever it might be, and so that might actually be a more successful strategy now than previously when we were having to use links and bios. But if you have an ad that you're running to grow your email list, it's running to a lead magnet and you are seeing new people come on to your email list, then you can say, yes, this ad is successful. Right, like you know that, new subscribers, your numbers growing you can say, well, I started with 600 subscribers, now I have 800, that's 200 new subscribers. I spent 200, so that means I spent one dollar per new person and you know exactly what the return on investment was 200 new people. You know exactly how much you spent for each of those new people a dollar per person and you know what your ad's doing.

Speaker 1:

I think that a lot of people feel that there's a less lack of success when you don't know where your money went, why you spent it and what you got from it. Then, once you are ready and once you do have a successful ad, then you can add the tripwire on and instead of spending $200 and getting 200 people, you could spend $200, get 200 people and then the tripwire you'll make $100 in sales. And so now, instead of it costing you $1 per person, it's costing you 50 cents per person to get them onto your list, right, like that's great, but it doesn't. It is not necessary, absolutely not necessary. Now I don't want you to hear this and say, well, I don't need to be selling something. You should be selling something.

Speaker 1:

If you are growing your, if you're paying for ads to grow your email list, you should be selling something and that's going to be your main offer. A main offer, in my opinion, is going to be a higher price tag, so probably like 500 to a thousand or more, and you're not going to want to put a 500 product on a tripwire page that is for a small, tiny offer. People who've never heard of you before, if they see a 500 product on that thank you page, probably will be very confused and have that salesy ick blah feeling in their stomach. But you don't get that from a $27 product, but you do get that from like a $597 product. If you've never heard of this person before, you're like, oh, that's weird, right.

Speaker 1:

So you're going to want to be selling that main offer in your emails. In your email sequence you're going to have a welcome sequence that's like seven to 10 days and you are emailing every day or every other day and in those first 10 days. You want to make sure that you mention that offer and that you do a hard sell for that offer at least once. And then you also, within your emails, are going to do a big launch three to four times a year. So, basically, once a quarter you're going to do a bigger launch. Now, that can be the email launch that I said, but it also could be a like a webinar launch or a challenge. You could do a video series, which is really great for email only launches, where the videos just go out to your email list. Or you could do something like a summit right, so you have a bigger event that gets excitement, gets hype in your business. Right, so you have a bigger event that gets excitement, gets hype in your business and drives more attention to that main offer. You want to do that a few times a year so that, yes, you are making money and that it's not just like paying for ads and paying for ads and paying for ads, right, like you're selling something.

Speaker 1:

This is a business and as your email list grows, especially if you have, like, a course or a group program of some sort, you want to be consistently growing your audience so that you have new people to sell to. If you have a one-on-one model, like I do, where I'm working one-on-one with businesses to run their ads and help them with their ad strategy, I don't need to be growing and growing, growing my list because I you don't need to sell to as many people and I don't need to be growing and growing and growing my list because you don't need to sell to as many people and I don't need to repeat sell right, like I have clients and I work with them for 3, 6, 9, 12 months, right? Currently, I think my average for working with my clients that I have is 18 months. I have some very long-term clients I've been working with ongoing, which is really really great, and I adore them and we obviously work well together. So if you have a business model like that, you don't need to keep growing your email list as much as if you have a group program or a course. So I just want you to keep that in your mind as well. Right, that's also going to change your strategy towards growing your email list.

Speaker 1:

I would recommend, if this was me and I was building this out, I would get my lead magnet up and running as soon as possible with a welcome sequence seven to 10 days going right Consistently, and then I would get planning my first launch event. Once that first launch event was done, I would extend my welcome sequence to like 14 days, to like two weeks, and then I would probably add on a tripwire, extend my welcome sequence again to like 20 days, 21 days, three weeks. At that point I would add the bump. I might also add the bump with the tripwire. It really just depends on, like what my plan is, what that looks like. But we're again extending the welcome sequence and then adding in the OTO, the one-time offer. Because for me I actually totally described what my funnel build would look like. I have a toolkit and then I have the extra tracker and then I have those video trainings. So to create the OTO is work for me, right? Like I have to sit down, I have to record those videos, I have to upload them or edit them and upload them and write it's not creating something and just a PDF or whatever, right, and so that I would do at a later date and then continue to update my welcome sequence. I really want to have a welcome sequence of like 30 plus days. That's my own personal goal, but it doesn't have to happen all at once. It can happen slowly over time.

Speaker 1:

Anyways, this is kind of a little bit like tons of information. I hope that it's been helpful. There is no right or wrong answer. When we're building these funnels, we're building our businesses. You really have to think about what's right for you, what phase of your business you're in, what you're looking to do and what your goals are. How much capacity do you have to create that tripwire, to create your landing pages, to test it, to tweak it, to make changes Like if it isn't working?

Speaker 1:

I have a client every single year. We've been working together for three and a half years now. We run halloween ad the first two years that we ran it. This is year number three. First two years we ran it. The tripwire amazing, great. She runs ads with tripwires all the time. They are usually very, very successful. She usually profits on them. So if we're spending a hundred dollars, she's making 150 type of of thing. And this Halloween ad this year tanked. We have no idea. We were getting 200 to 300 leads every single week and no sales, which is for a company, for a business that consistently makes 1.5% return, like 1.5 times return on their tripwires.

Speaker 1:

We tweaked the landing page or the sales page three different times. We talked about different strategies, we changed the messaging, we changed the format. We did so much work to get that tripwire going and the best week we had was 75 return, which isn't even money back, which is just crazy right. And so even for someone who's a seasoned tripwire creator does this three to five times for her business every single year, creates them, we run them like they do.

Speaker 1:

Really well, it can be hard. So just knowing that that it's not just snap your fingers and it works, that it takes time, it takes energy, it takes like consistent effort. And if you don't have that, if you don't have the capacity, you don't have the time, then it's okay to run ads to a lead magnet. And I'm not saying that that's the only option. It absolutely is not the only option. There are so many different strategies. You can also grow your list by sending traffic directly to that sales page. You don't even need to get the email addresses. You can just go to that $7 product and run a self-liquidating offer. So instead of email addresses, you just get the purchase right. There's so many different variations. You don't have to have like a PDF freebie. You can have a webinar as your lead magnet you can have like. There's so many different options and that's why I highly highly recommend that you really just think about what works for you, what works for your business, what would be best for your audience, how you can get what they need into their hands as quickly and easy as possible, and then, obviously, like, make some money.

Speaker 1:

I really really hope that this was helpful and thank you for being here spending some time on your busy weekend with me. I will be back in your ear next Saturday with a brand new Saturday strategy session. Thank you for listening to this episode of Market Scale Grow. Every week on Saturdays, we release a new Saturday strategy session, sometimes with amazing guests, and I'm so thankful that you've taken some time out of your busy schedule to make me part of your journey. If you love this podcast, don't forget to share it with your friends and then head to your favorite podcast app to subscribe so that you won't miss next week's episode or any of the upcoming ones. And if you loved it, be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts so that other people can find this podcast and we can impact teachers and teacher, business owners around the world. Thank you so much for listening and I'll be back in your ears next week with another Saturday Strategy Session.