Building an Effective Tripwire

Jan 08, 2021
"Less is more only when more is too much"

- Frank Lloyd Wright

In this article, you'll learn about a marketing strategy that you can use to inspire more of your online visitors to take that step of making their first purchase.

It's a technique used by top digital marketing experts and even eCommerce giants such as CrowdCow & Butcher Box. It's called, the Tripwire Offer, and it works by helping your potential customers overcome analysis paralysis.

DEFINITION: The analysis paralysis is the state of over-analyzing a situation to the extent that action is never taken.

We all experience this in our daily lives. Often, it's the leading excuse behind procrastination.

With your online store, it's easy to overwhelm 1st-time shoppers with too many products to choose from. Think about how often you've had someone ask the question, "What would you recommend I start with?". They're asking for a recommendation because they're unsure.

The problem is that many, (or most) times your online visitor won't take the time to email/call to ask, and ultimately fail to take action. So, the Tripwire offer is a surprisingly simple & effective solution to this problem.

What is a Tripwire Offer?

In short, a tripwire consists of presenting the right product, to the right person, at the right time.

In the case of inspiring 1st-time orders, it's a product you've crafted specifically with new customers in mind.

What makes a good Tripwire Offer?

Regardless of what your tripwire offer consists of, we recommend following these 7 tips for best results:

1.) Remove the choices:

  • This is the most important step to help that 1st-time visitor overcome analysis paralysis. Create one product/bundle that you recommend starting with, and promote the heck out of it to 1st-time buyers!

2.) Include Variety:

  • Making sure that your tripwire has built-in variety is not only what most of your customers will want, but it'll also help with long-term cross-selling.

3.) Include a Wow Factory:

  • The tripwire offer is not a time to give your customers a discount on items you need to get rid of. Make sure this includes your most popular cuts.

4.) Budget-Friendly:

  • One of the smallest purchases your customers make with you will often be the first purchase. At this phase, they're only looking to sample what you have to offer before making a larger commitment.

5.) Kitchen Friendly:

  • It's important to make a good first impression, which is why we recommend only including items in your Tripwire that are easy for customers to prepare. It's pretty hard to mess up bacon!

6.) Fee-Free:

  • You want to make sure that your Tripwire offer removes all of the objections your customers have. It's widely known that online shoppers dis-like paying for delivery (or any fee), so offering a coupon on your Tripwire will go a long way.

7.) Make it Profitable:

  • We're always preaching the importance of making sure you're building a business that is sustainable, and while it's important to make your Tripwire is as enticing as possible, it's even more important to make sure you're building a profitable business.

Conclusion

The last thing you'll need to make this work is a system for suggesting your Tripwire Offer to your leads, without creating a bunch of extra work for yourself.

This is why we built GrazeCart with a robust integration with an email automation platform like Drip. Once you've connected Drip to GrazeCart, you can create an email onboarding series, that promotes your Tripwire to every new email subscriber.

You can learn more about Drip at their website - Drip.com.

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