1. It isn’t offerring free stuff that’s important, it is making it compelling that is important, look at some of the most successful offers in history (Domino’s, FedEx, etc.)

2. It’s a question of perceived value, not bonuses, and value isn’t based on including free stuff or discounting, it is based on a need to reward ratio, if the buyer’s need is high enough and the reward is tangible enough, along with competitive, they’ll buy

3. Risk reversal is often more important than the “bonuses”, “if you don’t like it return it within 90 days for a full and complete refund”

4. Bonuses do, indisputably, work…but mostly when the value isn’t clear or compelling to begin with, or when differentiation is an issue “buy from us rather than other realtors because we’ll give you a free iPhone”; they also only work when people believe the value of them

5. Profit is KING, don’t get caught up in discounting or giving away bonuses just because it gives you sales or revenues, measure profit, if it is costing you for each transaction that’s stupid (in the Macy’s example it cost Macy’s $123 unnecessarily, chances are you’d still have bought the dress at $200 if there was no other option)

6. Please understand the use of bonuses, they are primarily a tool to create urgency “buy now and get…” “but if you call in the next 15 minutes…”, this is important in order to take advantage of certain advertising (direct mail, fax, tele-marketing, door to door sales, info-mercials, etc.) where they aren’t likely to see it again, but it makes little sense in many other circumstances

Ultimately, I want to come back to two important points: are you thinking short or long term? Most “bonus offers” are based on short term thinking and they work in the short term, they also lead to diminishing value of products over time. Second, notice that NO big respectable company does this anymore, Wal-Mart has everyday low prices, no bonuses or urgency, Toyota dominates in the car industry where they refuse to budge on price, Amazon.com sells more books than others will ever sell but for them they give you the low price and free shipping and don’t try and compel you with other offers. What does that tell you? Amazon.com converts at around 10%, far higher than most sites with all these incredible “offers”, they get more traffic, more repeat traffic, and probably larger average $ sales. What do they do better? They make buying easier, safer, and they focus on building a relationship between the customer and the brand.

All too often, making the buying decision easy for the customer is one of the biggest gaps in any process, since it’s hard to do in direct mail and the like, offers became popular, but it needs to be contextualized.

I\\\’m co-owner of a professional portrait studio, and even though image and high-perceived value is huge in this industry, we offer reports as bait pieces with great success. They\’re simply dubbed Wedding Photography Guides, Family Portrait Guides, etc. What we\’re finding even in a visually-based industry like portraiture is that people are still hungry for information. They need to know what sets one studio apart from another — and most studios aren\’t offering this info. They slap some pics on a website and expect them to sell the studio all by themselves.

And look at the bonuses car dealers offer to get people onto the lot — thousands of dollars in savings, gifts, etc. — even for high-end vehicles.

Don\’t throw the baby out with the bath water here. Carline isn\’t saying to copy the things publishers do verbatim. Look at the concept and think about how it can be tweaked for your industry, or your particular clients.

Now of course there is a difference in giving these types of bonuses than giving a pdf thats suppose to be worth $49.

You can\’t pile on a bunch of trash bonuses and expect people to buy.
You have to buy gifts that people want but they don\’t want top buy themselves.

For example for our clients who decided to join us last month, we both their decision makers an i-phone and it was unannounced.

The thing is give gifts that really matter and have real value.

I agree with Katie.
If you do it once, them maybe your client will want it every time.
personally I\’m very sceptical of these offers.
If you buy a house -who chucks in another couple of thousand dollars of freebies?
To me, these free offers are devaluing the \”face value\” of your original product. Maybe as Katie says, that by just sending a gift later on will create morevalue in the client\’s eyes.
But I\’ve never sold anything over the internet - yet!

But giving bonuses in the offline world truly work well but make sure that they have a real retail value attached to it, not pdf\’s that are suppose to be worth
$39 or $49.

Just a quick thought.

I understand where you\’re coming from, but don\’t make the mistake of allowing your own personal biases to influence your sales copy and offer. YOU may think offering 20 bonuses sounds \”desperate\”–but do your prospects agree?

The REAL question is what kind of revenue are you generating from your promotion? Test your stand-alone offer against an offer with 20 bonuses, and see which is more profitable. Then there will be no need for your \”2 cents\” or my \”2 cents\” because it\’s the numbers that count…and the numbers will speak for themselves.