Remember our discussion about offering a BUNCH of bonuses to your clients?

[Jillian Slack]

Back several weeks ago (maybe a few months ago), we had a big discussion going on about offering a bunch of bonuses to your customers.

I can't find the thread now. Tried using the "advanced search" feature and didn't see it, so I don't have a link to reference.

We talked about whether it's a good thing to throw a bunch of bonuses in, or if it can be a distraction.

This morning I found an offer from someone whose list I've been on for a while. Now, this isn't one of the shady, fly-by-night types of marketers. This is someone who has built a successful offline business, an author, and now she is taking her marketing efforts online.

The offer was to let me know about a colleague of hers and this colleague's new book. Here's the link (not an affiliate link) to the sales page: CREATE CHANGE NOW

I read through the sales page and there are 78 bonuses.

78 bonuses!

Now, I've heard of several of the people who are offering bonuses. In fact, a few of them have studied under one of the IM authorities that has been my main mentor for several years. (No, not a WF member.) I'm on several of their lists. I've bought several of their products, listened to their teleseminars and webinars, and I've seen them participating in events held by others (such as my main mentor person I was talking about).

Personally, the book sounds interesting and many of the bonuses sound great.

Most of the bonuses align well with the original offer. Similar topics, similar trains of thought, etc.

While 78 bonuses is a bit much, at least these are related to the original offer.

I've seen bonuses that had absolutely nothing to do with the original offer. It's almost like the author of the original book or ebook emails everyone they've ever traded business cards with at events and asks them for something -- anything -- to offer as a bonus, rather than making sure the items offered while enhance their work.

Just wanted to share.

Again, 78 bonuses seems over the top. Truly, it does. I'm sure I'll never listen to or read some of these bonuses. But there are several that will definitely go on my "To Do" list.

[Steven Carl Kelly]

I limit my bonuses to no more than THREE, for a very specific reason and based on a lot of testing. 78 is insane.

[Elvin Tiong]

Those 78 bonuses are really great. But I think no one will be able to digest all. If those bonuses are bundled with give away rights, then they will be wonderful!
78 bonuses are too much...

[~Davor Debrecin~]

OK, 78 is way too much. But if they are all related, they could have been bundled into groups of bonuses. So the actual number of bonuses would shrink.

This marketer probably made a mistake of separating each little bonus and making it a stand-alone bonus.

But, yes, I think max 3 top quality bonuses that increase the perceived value of the offer is the best way to go.

[Kunle Olomofe]

OK. 78 bonuses is way overgenerous to the point of making me wanna p*** as a customer and that ain't pretty...

Why not package some of those products as upsells rather than freebies, then give options, e.g. buy bronze at $40, silver package at $60, gold at $100 and so on, each bigger package would contain extras that the others do not plus include what the others have... similar concept to 'giving away' a ton of products, except now you add value to the package by charging a small 'gate fee'...

This always helps to increase the worth of anything... so if you have customers you want to spoil do so with a little value added marketing to boot, they will thank you more for that than 100 free bonuses... I think.

Cheers,

Kunle Olomofe

PS: More often than not, when people have to pay even a cent for something, they tend to want to use it rather than tons of stuff they get free -- not always the case, but tends to happen a lot with information marketing especially.

[Jillian Slack]

Maybe the point of having so many bonuses is to have the names of these people on the sales page, so if someone is Googling for these people in the first place they will find the sales page.

Several of these bonus people have stuff going on right now and their names are buzz words in certain circles.

So maybe the bonuses are to help the item being sold get more attention from folks who are into Noah St. John and his "afformations," for example.

Although that could be done just by having a comment or testimonial from him on the page, which is already there (way before the bonuses are listed).

I realize a lot of customers find out about someone through testimonial pages. Maybe it's a win-win (for the author of the book being sold on this page PLUS the people offering bonuses) because the visitors to this sales page will see the names of these bonus people and Google them to learn more.

Still, I tend to agree that 78 is going a bit far.

What about this -- Does anyone feel that, by offering 78 bonuses, it lessens the value of the original product being sold, or the value of the bonuses, or all of them?

[Steven Carl Kelly]

Jillian:

I feel like too many bonuses cheapens the overall value of the original product. Now bear in mind that my thought processes are tempered by my understanding of the psychology of the number "3" and by my own historical testing that three bonuses is -- at least from my own personal experience -- the "sweet spot". There may be other marketers who have found that five work best, or seven, or two, or whatever. But for me, the psychology of "three" and the actual real-world results of three tell me that three is the best way (for me) to go.

[Paid Surveys]

78 that's a crazy number. Surely it would have made sense to package them up until smaller bonus bundles so that customers weren't overwhelmed. Having said that the customer might be very pleased to get 78 bonuses!