Trial Offers serving as a lead magnet are a different animal than free information.

Here is a condition you should aspire to meet when your lead magnet is a trial offer…

“How would it be possible for it to be LESS EXPENSIVE to deliver the result than it is to convince people to give you money to deliver the result in my business?”

Tinder meets this condition.

Even the free version of the app clears all the ugliest aspects of finding someone desirable to have casual sex with.

The user experience they set up allowed Tinder to become the “getting laid” equivalent of tee ball or bowling with kid bumper guards up.

Yes, I recognize one of main reasons it was easy to do is because their app is brain dead simple to use.

Not all apps are this easy to use.

There are a ton of apps/SAAS platforms using trial offers that have a long list of benefits it can provide.

They give you the trial and do the equivalent of saying, “Good luck with that.”

What would be a million times smarter to do is identify what the “getting your dick wet” benefits people can get from the software are… the ones the broadest number of perfect prospects will get most lathered up about having.

And then on the top fold of the main page have prominent links for each one:

If you want X here’s the fastest way to use this app to get it…

If you want Y here’s the fastest way to use this app to get it…

If you want Z here’s the fastest way to use this app to get it…

Of course, when they click the link, the first step is to download the trial… and then every step after this, whether in written format or video, walks them through each step to getting the specific benefit they want.

In reality, when someone gets into the app, there should be a section that offers a FASTEST WAY TO GET DESIRED RESULT PLAN for every major feature of it along with all the standard questions.

These people shouldn’t have to figure shit for themselves.

The petty person thinks, “Gosh, we’re letting you use it free. You need to go to the bathroom and we’ve put the free urinal right in front of you.

And what, you want us to unzip you, whip your dick out, shake it off, stuff you back in, and zip you back up?”

Yep.

If you only got paid when a customer or client got the results they wanted, this coast-to-coast support would be something obvious to create because you don’t eat if these people to succeed.

Thinking about your marketing from the standpoint of “only getting paid when they win” brings about an empathetic energy that isn’t present when you know you’re getting paid even if they don’t get the results they want.

Let’s look the top folds of a site for an SAAS programs I came across this week while listening to a podcast advertisement…

ZipRecruiter

So, these guys are like a Tinder for the jobs market.

They’re a matchmaker for employers and employees and like Tinder, they’ve supposedly got some fancy algorithm that’s supposed to connect you to people who want to blow your mind, people you would have never had access to otherwise.

As a business owner, that’s what I want to hear about when I come here.

I don’t want to create an account and post a job now.

Yes, I’m not an idiot. I know if I use this, that’s part of the deal.

But THAT is the LEAST intriguing part of the process because it’s boring work I have to do.

Why would you lead with that?

When I show up on this page, I want to see what having someone amazing doing the job I need done will give me.

I want to see the hours saved… money made… stress relieved… prestige enhanced… deadlines met… ideas transformed into cash-making reality… etc. as a result of finding the affordable missing piece I needed.

Instead of this worthless box and stock photo… I would love to see evidence of a well-designed progression and how this progression makes it all but inevitable for me to get what I want from an employee/freelancer.

I don’t care about seeing corporate logos of businesses who use this. I want to see the links to case studies and the details of how they’ve been helped by ZipRecruiter.

Also, I’d prefer to be able to choose the case studies I look at based on the size of my business.

Sure, it’s cool that Fortune 500 companies use this, but if I’m a small business owner, I want to know where to find those stories in this top fold.

I see this business and I think, what would be the harm in offering to give people their first hire for free?

Someone read what I just said and in their head they said, “Duh Lewis. What do you think ‘Try it for free’ means!?!”

ZipRecruiter obviously agrees with that person.

But think about the difference in the language between…

“Let us give you your next life-saver/game-changing hire for free”

Vs.

“Try ZipRecruiter for FREE”

The first one insists you MUST get a free, meaningful win with this and implies it is inevitable this will happen with their support.

The second one implies that making anything of this is entirely up to you.

Two totally different impressions.

The last thing you want if for people to feel like you’re giving them the most pain in the ass “free” gift they ever got.

If you operate from the premise that MOST people are dysfunctional, it’s easy to see which option seems more appealing.

When you think about this idea of delivering a result BEFORE you get paid, the “satisfaction met” bar you need to meet is far lower than it is for a traditional offer.

Look at this example…

Dean Jackson he talks about how with his moneymakingwebsites.com business for real estate agents, he’s able to sell something for 5X more than what his competitors are charging for the same service.

And he gets to do this because he promises a pin-point specific result.

Here’s how it goes…

He gives the customers a website… he trains them for 90 days… he buys them a domain name… he buys their auto-responder account… and they pay NO MONEY out of pocket.

They don’t even give him their credit card information in order to do all of this.

Once they have done their first transaction through his site, they pay him $1,500 dollars and then start paying $99 dollars a month to keep this “done-4-u” lead generation system up and running.

It is a “I only get paid when you get paid” offer which is an irresistible offer no matter what market you put it in front of.

The barrier to entry is super low… you believing that he can deliver your first transaction. That’s it.

That’s easily doable on his part.

Think about the difference between this “Show me; don’t tell me” offer… and him trying to talk people into giving him both $1,500 dollars and $99 dollars UP FRONT.

When you try to get the money UP FRONT, you have to sell the hell out of all the amazing results they should expect to receive… talk about all the success stories of people getting 80X value of what they invested…

in order to hopefully convince people this can happen for them too.

With Dean’s offer, once he’s delivered one sale, he’s off the hook for what he promised.

It’s much easier for Dean to deliver this ONE result than it is to meet the vast array of promises/expectations people have that you are held to when you offer a generic “Satisfaction Guaranteed” promise.

Trying to convince people to give you money upfront takes a lot of effort.

Especially if what you sell isn’t cheap and you have extended selling cycle where sales people have to schmooze leads through a process that spans weeks/months.

One of the main reasons you McDonald’s even exists on the jillion dollar scale it does today is because in their early days, they ditched the idea of only being in the franchising business… which only let them have 1.8% of each stores sales.

When they started looking at going public and needed huge financing support from major Wall Street players, the way they got the money was by selling them on the idea that McDonalds is NOT in the burger business.

Instead, they explained that they’re in the REAL ESTATE business.

One of the biggest impediments to a person buying a franchise was the necessity for them to get their hands on enough money to be able to buy the land and build the restaurant.

And for the common person who accomplished this, they had the weight of the world on their shoulders. If the person had any crippling flaws or bad breaks in their personal life or they changed the menu/look of the restaurant, the store would close, the bank would take the property back, and that would be the end of that stream of income for the main office.

That’s a big ask… for every potential franchisee to be perfect BEFORE AND AFTER buying.

McDonalds knew that this barrier to entry could be wiped out if instead they bought the land AND built the restaurants… and then became LAND LORDS/FRANCHISORS.

This allowed them to go from only getting 1.9% of the sales… to getting 5% of the sales of each location.

And this pivot also allowed them to kick franchisees to the curb who didn’t follow the uniform system and quickly be able to plug a new franchisee in and hardly missing a beat.

Getting this math/offer right… NOT THE MENU ITEMS or THE ADS… was the key that opened the doors for global dominance.

Cost of Acquisition entails how much it costs to convert leads into buyers.

When Dean calculated how much it cost to deliver the result he was promising, it cost about a ¼ of what it cost him to acquire a customer to actually just deliver the result for them… the sale of their first house… with the help of the site he created for them and the system he plugged them into.

When you find the right offer, it’s less expensive to deliver the result than it is to convince people to give you money to deliver the result.

I see no reason why ZipRecruiter couldn’t test making the kind of offer that promised to deliver a hire for free to qualified prospects.

For them it is WAY less up-front effort/expense than what Dean has to put up because when it comes to delivery all they’re doing is scanning their files/sources and then making introductions.

And this kind of offer makes sense because ZipRecruiter is definitely in a business where you’re playing the long game, hoping to create alliances and become THE go-to source corporations and for small businesses that grow and eventually become massive names in their industry.

They could protect themselves by offering the generic trial to everyone and as I can imagine Dean Jackson does, have a vetting process that an employer needs to go through in order to get the free referral for a super high impact position just to make sure they’re not sending super stars to people who will waste their time and talent.

The faster these businesses get their act together… the faster they’ll be able to actually start using ZipRecruiter at a volume that makes them money.

Seems like the perfect instance where it’d be cheaper to just give them the first result… than it would be to try to convince them to pay you to get them the first result.

This service has a similar appeal as Tinder from the sense that if Tinder is consistently providing a person with multi-orgasmic experiences, they won’t want to give it up.

What Tinder has done for happy users will always hold a dear place in their heart.

But in order for ZipRecruiter to do this… they need to clear as many obstacles as they can to a person succeeding with their service.

When You Look At The Impediments You Need To Erase… You Have To Consider The WHO Your Core Offer Is Best Suited For

More likely than not, with a lead magnet you’ll want to address a problem someone is having at the BEGINNING of the process of what needs to happen in order for them to get their result.

Think again of Tinder.

Forever, in order to get wet with a stranger for a one-night stand, you had to actually leave the house and talk to people.

Tinder put together a solution that allows even the biggest hermit on earth who NEVER leaves the house… to have the hot girl/boy next door they’ve never met in person before… getting nasty with them TONIGHT… WITHOUT even putting shoes on.

The APP handles the UGLY BEGINNING of the process that people hate so much… the part they despise so much that many never even get started and up until now, had instead settled for masturbation or paying sex workers to come over.

Need I remind you that Dean’s and McDonald’s offer both address the beginning of the process.

ANY UGLY BEGINNING HUMP is a sweet spot.

Think about how it is WAY easier to cancel plans to workout before you’ve gone through the simple process of putting on your workout clothes and shoes.

It is dumb when you think about it, but getting dressed for the gym is one step that pretty much makes it INEVITABLE that you’ll get your ass in the car to drive to the gym.

You tie the lace of the second shoe and you get this small sense of accomplishment.

Why?

Because some part of you KNOWS that you’ve put the inevitability ball in motion.

You get a similar feeling after completing the final part of putting yourself together in order to go out to drink with friends.

Is there a “getting dressed” part of the equation that you can deliver a free, meaningful, easy win you can deliver with a lead magnet?

And since this should go hand-in-hand with your Introductory Offer, it narrows down the range of what to create.

You go from being overwhelmed and confused about all the possibilities… to being laser focused.

You go from having your market be underwhelmed with a generic offer… to feeling excited about getting this free, meaningful, easy win.

And this gift can be an answer to a problem your perfect prospects have in their head about a problem that is 8 steps down the line of things they need to do in order to get their desired result.

That's all for today we'll meet again tommorow and discuss the How to Name Your Lead Magnet That Ignites Desire.. in the next blog.

Till then stay awesome.