#165 - Will a $9 offer work for you?

Hello. Hello, guys, it is Kate here from the Doing It Online podcast. And welcome to our latest episode. Today we're going to be talking about something that I'm sure you've all seen around and that is those $9 offers, sometimes a 7, sometimes they're 5, usually they're $9. We here have dubbed them micro offers. I wanted to take you behind the strategy behind them and give you a couple of little tools that you can use to figure out if one, if these are going to be beneficial.

And to how you can absolutely make the most of them. So let's dive right on it.

This is the Doing It Online podcast with your Host, serial entrepreneur, 6 and 7 figure funnel strategist and super nerd Kate McKibben, where every week we're here talking nerdy and sharing the things that actually work to help you do what you do online. But better, easier, and with a ton more profit too. Are you ready? Let's do it.

Okay, before we jump into the nitty gritty of how they work, how to figure out if they're going to work for you, I wanted to make sure that I quickly covered off that question of what is a micro offer. So, I mean, if you've been around this part of the Internet for very long, you've probably heard me talk about what we call mini but mighty offers, they're also known as self liquidating offers and they've got a bunch of other names. These are not new. These are something that's been around for a long time and that seem to pop up and become more popular whenever there is a bit of time of economic uncertainty, which I think we can all pretty safely say is right now. So that's why you're probably starting to notice them more and more. And if you haven't, the fact that you've listened to this episode, they are now going to be in your consciousness and you are going to see them everywhere. So the good old mini but mighty offer typically had a price point of $27. That was what was really, really again, sort of early pandemic kind of stage. You would have seen a bunch of these. And the purpose of these products is actually not to drive a profit, not right away anyway. The purpose of them is to cover the cost of ads and to make sure that you know right up front that sort of chunk which would normally be allocated to marketing budget, which normally kind of come out of whatever sales then came after your marketing came after your ads. That, that's, that's covered. That's covered up front. So it kind of gives you one, that sort of little bit of extra safety so that you're not going out, spending money on Facebook and then hoping sometimes the next 30, 60, 90 days to get that back. Which when things are a bit uncertain, a bit up and down isn't the best strategy. You want to make sure you've got those sort of like safety guardrails in place. And this, this is a really, really good one if you get it working properly. So number absolutely help you to have that, you know, extra level of security I guess. And then the other thing is it just allows you to actually usually scale faster and to a higher level than what you probably would have been comfortable with prior if you weren't getting those sales back right away. Because if you know otherwise it feels a lot like a gamble. So you know, it used to be the good old methodology of when it came to launches. I know a lot of people used to recommend whatever you're wanting to earn in your launch, you should spend 20 to 30% of that on ads to get enough people into the launch in the first place. Which is all well and good. If you've got a very, very dialed in offer marketing system, all of that kind of stuff. I think it's terrible advice for people who don't have that stuff dialed in. Where this kind of came to play, like where how it made that, that safer I guess for people to spend more is that you know, if you are spending, you know, if you to start off with, with ads, if you feel comfortable spending $30 a day to start off with and you do that and you get one sale back like okay cool, maybe tomorrow I'll spend $60 and then you get that back, you go okay, oh cool. And you can see how so much quicker you are able to feel comfortable spending more versus that okay, I'm going to spend 20 to 30% of my goal now and then cross my fingers and cross my toes and hope that in 60 days time I get that back. Like that feels even to me and I've been doing this for a really long time. So yeah, removing that risk factor, allowing you to scale quicker. I mean it's one of the key things that we teach in our Ecourse Empire program. We have its own program, funnel fuel which I'll actually talk to you about in just a sec because I do think it is so important and it really, really, the strategy does really come into its own in times like this. And the third time, you know, reason why I love this strategy so much is that when Facebook ads and things start getting more expensive as they tend to do and as they are, and they have been for the last sort of like 12 months or so. Again, if you're getting that revenue back straight away, it doesn't matter so much. Like, you know, if you're putting $100 in and getting $100 back every time it does, you know, you don't care that, okay, it used to be, you know, maybe it used to cost you $50 to make $50. Now it costs you $100 to make $100. You don't really care. You're getting it straight back. So, yeah, it helps to from ads increases, it helps to safeguard you from launches and things like that that don't go to plan, and it helps you to scale your list building faster. And pretty much once you've got it working, once you've got that dialed in, it really becomes this lever that you can pull and go, okay, well, I really want to ramp this up. And you all of a sudden have so much more control over your business. Like, it really is super powerful. Like, it's one of the strategies that when we first implemented it, it pretty much doubled our business in that year and has been like, it's actually one of our KPIs. And when in all of our programs, it's KPIs for our clients as well, that you have your marketing pay for itself. Like, it's one of the numbers we get people to check every month. So today, like I said, this is not a new concept, but what I are seeing being done a little bit differently at the moment is this new thing, what we're now calling a micro offer. So that is. I said those $7, $9 offers, you've probably seen them around, and when you probably notice, you're probably going, how is that? Like, you know, think, how is that even any good? You know, how can they do something for that cheap? And there's actually, there is, you know, there is a strategy behind it, and it's one that we've been testing and playing with. So the main problem that I think the micro offer is solving versus what would have been so a $9 offer versus a $27 offer is they're still out trying to do the same thing. Like, it's still about making your ads pay for itself. It's still about having all those same benefits. However, one thing I did notice with people, when you had your $27 offer, for example, even if it was working well, like, for most people, and again, it does depend on your niche and we'll talk about that in a second. But for most people like to get a 20, $27 sale, you maybe have to spend 60, 70, $80, depending on the niche that you are in. And even though you're getting that back, and yes, even though that means that you can, you know, start to spend at a higher level than you would have been feeling comfortable with before because you're getting it back. So maybe you used to feel comfortable spending $200 a day and now you feel comfortable spending five or six hundred dollars a day. If you do the maths on that, like just say, just for easier math, let's say it costs you $50 to make that sale and you're spending now $500, which is more than double what you were previously spending per day. So like, yes, I'm spending, I'm able to spend so much more. But if it's costing you $50 a sale, it's only 10 sales a day, which is great. It's still 10 sales, it's still 10 buyers, which is traditionally, you know, someone who's a higher.

Quality lead than someone who's just come in versus a freebie hasn't cost you anything. All that stuff, like it's, it's, you know, you're not negative 200 like you would have been if you've just run ads to like a free PDF or some kind of free download. However, it's still only 10 leads. So if you were using other types of list building where, yes, you'd been going into the negative, yes, you wouldn't have been recouping that spend. You probably could have been getting like 50 leads or something for a similar amount of spend, if not more. So it can actually start to slow people down. And as ads costs started to rise, it started to get a bit trickier to hit that goal of spending the hundred, getting the a hundred back. So people made this switch from the $27 offer, which I think if you think about like biopsychology, someone thinking about spending $27 and the amount of trust and the amount of, you know, like information that they need and all that stuff, like it's. Yes, it's a very low, it's still a low price point, especially depending on what it is. But it goes into a completely different category of that candy aisle kind of spending when it's just $7 or $9. Like if it's that sort of like standing there seeing the Mars bar or whatever versus seeing the 10 pack of Mars bars, like which one are you going to feel more comfort just, just grabbing by people actually coming in and, and coming down to that much lower level and bringing that product then down to that lower level as well and to that different level of, of that biopsychology of that different level. It became, it means that for most people actually the cost to achieve that sale drastically reduced as well. And so no, for most people it's still not $7 or $9, just like it wasn't ever $27 to make a $27 sales. We'll talk about how that works in just a second. But that's, that's kind of the problem that I see it solving for a lot of people. They're like, okay, you know, I still just, even though it was coming back to me like right away, I still don't feel comfortable spending more than $500 a day on lead gen. But I would like to be getting more than 10 leads a day. So it's like, well, what if you could cut that, you know, that need to spend in half also that cost per acquisition in half or a third or a quarter and get therefore three, four times as many for the same spend and it's still paying for itself. Like obviously that becomes, you know, a very desirable proposition. So that's sort of where I see that micro offer coming in and where I see it having its place. Having said that, it's still not necessarily the right choice for everybody and for some people it still is actually better to have a $27 offer as your mini but mighty offer or a different strategy altogether. Like there's actually to solve the problem of making a marketing pay for itself. There's lots of different ways of doing it, but these are the two most common ones. So if you are thinking about that, like if you're currently, you know, you're trying to scale your online course, you've got launches that do well or you've got a funnel or whatever it is, or you just want to be able to get more people on your list and you're sick of having to go out there and do endless social media and just try, you know, be pimping yourself out and all the podcasts and stuff like that. And you'd like something you've got a bit more control over and that's a bit more passive feeling. This can be a really, really great and is a really, really great strategy. But you need to decide, okay, which is going to be better then should I go for the mini but mighty offer or the micro but mighty offer? So before you make your decision. There's two questions you need to ask yourself. And before I dive into those, I actually just want to let you guys know that we are currently opening the doors to our wait list for our final fuel program. We only do this once a year. It's a really special, really fun VIP waitlist promotion. And inside that program, it's a five day program. We're going to be running it live and we're going to help you to actually create, get everything set up, tested, Facebook adds everything running for your own Me but mighty or micro but mighty offer. All done, all dusted in five days. Do it together. It's gonna be live, it's gonna be super fun. And if you get on the VIP waitlist is the only way you can get in. We're only opening the doors to the people on the waitlist and it's not just about getting the access. People on the waist list also get $200 off. Plus if you're the very first person through the doors, when the doors open, you will actually get a $500 voucher which is intended to be used Facebook ads. But you know, really treat yourself, do whatever you want with it. Plus you'll actually get your investment back. So $200 off, $500 cash and your course back. So pretty great deal. The doors open on July 18th at 5pm Pacific Time, which is July 19th, 10am Australian Eastern Time. And you have to be on the waitlist to get the secret link to be able to jump in and get this offer. As we've also got like over $2,000 in amazing bonuses and you get a to that awesome 5 day live implementation session as well. So it's gonna be so much fun. I love it. Whenever we run this, we only do this once a year. The day four when everyone sends their offers live and the sales start coming through, it's like kinda like the best sleepover ever. Cause everyone's celebrating, there's wine happening. It's, it's really, really fun. So if you wanna jump on the waitlist and come and join us, just go to hellofunnels co waitlist or the links will be below and in the show notes and you can grab it there and I will see you inside. So go do that guys. Hit pause, do that, come back and once you've done that, let's talk about before you get started so you can kind of be primed and ready whether you're going to be creating a mini but mighty or micro but mighty offer. So two things. As I said, you're going to want to consider first of all is how cheap are your ads, how inexpensive are your ads? Because different niches, the ads cost vary massively. Like we have some clients who are getting amazing leads for $2. Others who it's, you know, it's a great deal for them to get a lead under $20. So that initial economics is going to make a big difference because remember, you're wanting the, you know, the purpose of this is to create an offer that the cost of getting someone to purchase it is going to be less than what the, you know, the average order value is. So and that brings us to part two, which is how good is your stack? So this is one of the things we help you create inside the Funnel Fuel program. As I mentioned, jump on the waitlist. It's gonna be really fun. And that is, it's not just about that front end offer. So it's not just about that offer that people see the ads for. Whether it's $7, $17, $27, whatever you price it. It's not just about that. The purpose of that offer is to get the right people to the page and get them to, you know, to convert as quickly as possible and as cheaply as possible. But where, as I said, you know, it's very common that Even for a $7 offer it might be costing you $35 to make that sale. So where do does the other, you know, what is it $28 come from? And that comes from your stack. So the stack includes your order bump. It includes one time offers or upsells or even down sells and having those dialed in and desirable and irresistible and you know, being a clear upsell or a clear, you know, next step or extra benefit to that initial thing, getting those pieces working right, that's, that's the real key. Because then what you're looking at is not all right, how do I get someone to buy a seven dollar thing for $7 or less? Then you start going okay, what's the average order value? And you know, you start getting that to like 60, 70 dol. And then you know, okay, well I can now happily spend 60 to $70 to make a sale. And if you're lucky, which some people are like we have clients who spend $50 a day on ads and end up with $500 a day from, from their. Because their stack is so good and they have a really great niche. So this is kind of like, and that's not, that's not for everybody. The goal is always, you know, give a dollar get a dollar back. But if you can make some profit, which some people do, that's always a bonus. So those are the two questions that you really absolutely help you with that it's really important with, particularly with this type of offer that you run the numbers and you know that economics behind it. And that's why we've got some really nerdy calculators inside the program to help you be able to go and forecast and go, all right, what does that actually look like? How much do I have to be able to spend to get the results that I need to get? Do I feel comfortable doing it and making sure that, you know, we're never about like just donating money to Facebook for the fun of it. It's all about starting with realistic, affordable investments and scaling it in a safe and way that feels really good for you as well. So that's what we're going to be doing inside Funnel Fuel. Guys. I said you want to jump on the wait list? That's the only way to get access. It's going to be only open to people on the waitlist. Head to HelloFunnels Co waitlist. We'll see you inside. I can't wait to kick it off and help you create your mini or micro office. See.

Thanks so much for listening to the Doing it online podcast. If you love this episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. And if you're ready to take your online course sales to the next level with your own six or seven figure funnel, let Kate show you exactly how today@stealmyfunnel.com.

Sam.