I recently read a book by the prolific author Lee Child. The book was called Tripwire. It is a thriller, and the title refers to a tripwire that someone trips up over, which sets off a chain of dramatic events.
What does this book have to do with marketing? Well, nothing, except for the title. The term ‘tripwire’ is a marketing term. What it means is that instead of trying to sell your prospective client your most expensive course up front, you sell or even give away a small course, and this ‘tripwire’ course will make it more likely that they buy more courses from you in the future.
Some examples of this concept that you may have seen before include free reports, which are offered for your email address or free trial periods given for subscriptions which can be cancelled without payment.
While I hate the word tripwire used in this context, the concept is sound and one that the Unch@ined Mindset uses as a strategy for making money online. If you are just starting online, it is the easiest way to make your first sales. Instead of ‘tripwire’, marketers also use the terms ‘lead magnet’ or ‘front end offer’. However, I prefer using the term cinch.
I prefer the term cinch because it should be a no-brainer for your prospective client to take action and, at the same time, be easy for you to create.
There are many types of cinch, but in the Unch@ined Mindset, we focus on just two; the ebook cinch and the video cinch. If you are just starting and have not created anything before, the video cinch is probably the quickest to launch. We are not talking about a one-hour-long-each, ten-part video course. We are talking about a five to ten-minute video. You may not be comfortable in front of a camera, and so the ebook cinch is also an option. The ebook cinch is not a 300-page, professionally edited tome. An ebook cinch should only be about ten-twenty pages long. In the Unch@ained Mindset, we go through the steps to create both of these cinches and aim to get you up and running from zero to a finished product within a week.
What makes it a cinch for your prospective customers to buy? Firstly, you have to give them what they are looking for. You have to pick one of their biggest problems, and you have to solve it for them. In the Unch@ined Mindset, we discuss choosing the problem to solve and creating good headlines to grab your client’s attention as these are as important as the video or ebook you create.
The second thing that makes it a cinch for your prospective customers to buy is the price. If you buy a thousand-dollar video course from someone, you want to know more about them and make sure the course is worth it. However, if you buy an ebook for seven or twenty-seven dollars, you won’t give it much thought and will probably buy it on impulse.