One of the easiest ways to add value to your offer is by adding bonuses. But its also one of the fastest ways to bloat your offer, which has the exact opposite effect. I see so many online coaches and course creators adding bonus after bonus to their offer, without really understanding the strategy behind it or how they can be a really useful tool in your toolbelt. 

Your uses are not there to increase value.

Wait what? But that bro marketer I follow told me that I should add bonuses with a high dollar amount as the “value” to make my course seem like a better deal!

This isn’t 2015 anymore Russel, and this strategy is tired. Your ideal client is SMART, and they know for damn well you aren’t selling that workbook for $500, so why are you putting that as the value? Inflating the perceived value of your offer does nothing to increase desire and demand for it. But adding strategic bonuses that serve a specific purpose can go a long way to getting someone off the fence. 

If you have added a laundry list of bonuses to your offer, don’t worry. In this blog, I am going to teach you the easiest way to simplify your bonuses so they actually help sell your offers, instead of just weighing it down. 

The actual purpose of your bonuses

Despite what you may have been told, your bonuses aren’t there to add more “value” to your offer. When done correctly, your bonuses serve 3 purposes. 

1. Save your client time
2. Answer and objection
3. Deepen their results

When you create your bonuses with the intention to do one of these 3 things, your bonuses will serve to create more desire and demand for your offer, and often nudge someone right off the fence. 

#1. Your bonus should save your client time.

We are busy people, and oftentimes one of the biggest hurdles to getting the results we want is having the time to make it happen. When you are presenting your offer, your ideal client will mentally weigh how much time it will take them to see results. The more they have to create from scratch, the more time it will take for them to see results. And that time investment will absolutely factor into their decision making process. 

If you can create a bonus that saves them time, you have just increased the value of their investment. 

Some great examples of bonuses that save time would be templates, cheat sheets, source lists, etc. Anything that makes it so they can just plug it in and go. One of my favorite bonuses to give for my clients is sales and opt in page templates. These can be incredibly time consuming to create from scratch, and can often be lacking in strategy if you are just winging it. By providing this template, I am helping my clients create pages faster, more strategically, with less effort. A triple win. 

What time savers can you create for your clients? Any templates or cheat sheets that would get them their desired result even faster? These bonuses are a great value add, and can really aid in the decision making process for your clients. 

#2. Your bonus should directly answer an objection.

When your ideal client is reading your sales page, debating your offer, they will likely have some objections come up. “What if I don’t have a website?” or “I don’t know how to write an email sequence” (for example). Your bonuses are a great opportunity to anticipate these objections, and answer them before they even have the chance to ask. 

By creating bonuses in this way, you will not only make your ideal client think “they really have thought of everything!” but you will also give them the confidence that your offer will answer their other objections too. 

Think about the most common objections you get from your ideal clients, or the most likely ones you anticipate. What additional training, guides, worksheet, etc can you offer that will answer an objection? A great example of this is how Courtney Elmer added a “getting started guide” to the list of bonuses for her Effortless Podcasting group. If you were interested in starting a podcast, but you hadn’t yet, this guide would help you overcome that objection to buying her program. 

#3 Your bonuses should deepen their results. 

Your program should help people solve a specific problem they are experiencing, you know that. But in what areas is there room to go further and deepen their results? Oftentimes there is an area where you could add more value or train them on a deeper level that will get them even better results. 

What area is outside the scope of your program, but would deepen their results with your program? For example, I have a mini course called The Email Fix that teaches my clients how to nurture their email list. While this isn’t specifically a part of launching I teach in my launch formula, it IS adjacent to it, and helps them get even better results. 

Where can you expand or go deeper in a specific area that will enhance their results? These bonuses will help them paint the complete picture, and see the path to getting the results they desire. 

Don’t over bonus.

As a rule of thumb, your bonuses should not take longer to complete than the program itself. Remember that time is money, and people factor their time investment in when they are spending their money. More time is not the goal. 

I try to offer one or two from category 1, then one from the other two categories.

I hope this helped you get a handle on your bonus stack! If you have any questions, or want to share your new shiny bonuses, lets connect on IG! Send me a DM at @jess.oconnell_

Are you making one of these surprising mistakes?

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