Have you tried using tripwires in your business yet? Maybe you aren't even familiar with them yet. Either way, you are about to get a crash course inside this episode.

We're joined by repeat guest Melanie Battistelli, a former teacher, certified online business manager, and course and launch strategist. In this conversation, we talk about what a tripwire even is, what kind of offer you can use for one, how you should consider tripwires when planning your podcast content, and what kind of tech you need to set them up. I am ALL about leveraging content that you've already created, and tripwires help you do just that.

After listening to this episode, if you are excited to try a tripwire in your business, I would love for you to tag Melanie and me on Instagram so we know you're listening!

⭐️ Resources Mentioned:

• Melanie's FREE Tripwire Mini-Training
• Follow me on Instagram @podcastingforeducators 

🔗 Connect with Melanie: 

• Follow her on Instagram @duxburydigital
• Check out her resources

🎤 Recommended Podcasting Resources:

• Hosting: Captivate.fm (Get a free 7-day trial!)
• Transcription: Otter.ai
• Project Management: ClickUp
• Private Podcasting: Hello Audio
• Podcast Playlist Toolkit - use code PODCAST to grab it for $17!
• Launch Your Podcast: Free Podcast Launch Guide & Podcasting for Educators Prep School
• Level Up Your Podcast: Podcast Like You Mean It
• Leverage Podcast Guesting: Guesting for Educators Mini-Course

Show Notes: https://podcastingforeducators.com/episode135

Some links mentioned are affiliate links. This helps to support this podcast at no additional cost to you. 

Topics in this episode: tips for podcasters, educational strategies, marketing tips for TPT sellers, online educator tips, tripwires, upsell, downsell, Thrivecart, launching

Sara Whittaker 0:00

Melanie Battistelli 2:13

I know I'm so excited to be back. Thanks for inviting me again.

Sara Whittaker 2:16

Yeah, of course. So last time you were on, we talked about leveraging your podcast leading up to any kind of launch that you're doing in your business. And today we are going to be talking about trip wires which I'm really excited about. I have never used a trip wire before. I feel like this is still something that a lot of people aren't super familiar with. So I know that this is going to be really helpful for people. So I'd love to just get started and kind of kick things off with the basics. Can you kind of explain what a tripwire even is? Yeah,

Melanie Battistelli 2:49

for sure. So a tripwire is you might have heard of the term like upsell before, which I think is a little bit maybe more common, but a tripwire is something that is attached to a free offer or a lead magnet. That is a really great way to generate a little bit of like extra revenue when people are opting in to your email list. So for example, let's say while use a real example, I have a freebie that is a market research guide. I don't have a tripwire I should Silly me, but I right now don't have like an appropriate tripwire to attach to it. But basically a tripwire is something that when somebody opts in and decides to join your email list, it's a really low priced offer that is available for them after they've decided to join your email list. So it's a low priced paid offer attached to a free offer after they've already committed to joining your email list is basically I guess how you would define it. Okay,

Sara Whittaker 3:53

so it's always attached to a free thing that you're giving them? Yes.

Melanie Battistelli 3:57

And that's kind of the difference between an upsell and a tripwire, like an upsell would be and this is I feel like might be a jargon, business jargon, heavy episode. But a an upsell is something that's extra that is attached to something they're already paying for. So like in the TPT space. For example, if you were selling a seasonal Christmas setters on your website, for example, you could attach an upsell like do you want the full year bundle at a discounted price? You could grab it right here, but that's an upsell since they're already paying something a tripwire is attached to a lead magnet or something free.

Sara Whittaker 4:39

Okay, perfect. This is I just think that this is like absolutely genius because you already have people on that page opting in and when you say low, like a low ticket offer, what kind of price range are you talking about?

Melanie Battistelli 4:52

It varies a lot by the niche, right? Like if you're in more of a business to business and A shirt niche, whatever you want to say if even more of like a b2b, it could be anywhere from like nine to like $47. Okay, but for like more TPT space and resources, a lot of times it's going to be lower cost like that five to $9 sort of range. But the important thing to keep in mind is not only do you want like the lead magnet to knock their socks off, but since they're just joining your email list, this is probably if they decide to purchase from you, this is probably their first purchase from you. I mean, maybe not, but it could be if they're just joining your list. So you also want to make sure that whatever your tripwire is, it's super valuable to the point where they're like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe I got all this value for X amount of dollars. Because if they spend, even if it's seven to $9, and you're not impressing them with the quality of your trip wire, you could actually be like hurting yourself, you know what I mean? Like with them coming back to buy, so you want to make sure no pressure, but whatever it is, is like really good for a really great price.

Sara Whittaker 6:08

Yeah, for sure. That actually makes a lot of sense. And I feel like that's something really good to think about. Because if they do spend any kind of money on it, whether it's even if it's just a few dollars, if it's garbage or not with expected and not bringing them value, then yeah, they'd probably be hesitant to come back and purchase from you again. Should your trip wire be something that like isn't offered anywhere else? Or can it be any kind of offer that you publicly have?

Melanie Battistelli 6:35

Yeah, so that's a good question. I would use what you already have, like one of my clients, and I joke, it's I'm doing air quotes, you won't be able to see but if you see the video air quotes, it's like free money. I mean, it's not like you've created the resource in your payroll, Mack. Yeah, girl math, girl math, it's free money. I mean, I would recommend using something that you already have, because I mean, at least a start, because then you're not investing any extra time, what I would do is discount it a little bit and make it so it's not available, like anywhere else at that price. And that part's like the really important part. So like the tripwire that I use the most for my own business is my small business like KPI tracker, which is I mean, it's super cheap anyway, it's only $9 but I discount it two, five on most of my trip wires, and that's like the only place people can get it unless you grabbed it like during the Black Friday deal. But right now that's like the only place people can get it for $5. So that part's important to you want it to actually only be available for that price on your tripwire page. Like you don't want to say like this is the one place you can get it for x amount of dollars and then still sell it on your website for the same like you want it to be actually like discounted and like a actual one time offer there.

Sara Whittaker 7:55

Perfect. Okay, that's good to know. I love like I love hearing your example that you just gave and I'm thinking like I have a guesting for educators mini course that's $47 so I could potentially maybe link that with like an opt in that I have around guesting podcast guesting make that my tripwire and maybe bump it to like 27 or something like that,

Melanie Battistelli 8:19

for sure. And you have that lead. You have that quiz funnel, right? Yes, yes. And does what is that? Does that lead to your courses? Or does that like all of your courses? Yes. Because one of them like one of the options is, is the guessing course. Right? Like depending on what you get. So you could it's not I also

Sara Whittaker 8:37

have a I also have a private podcast series opt in about podcasting. Okay, it's a freebie.

Melanie Battistelli 8:45

Yeah. Yeah. You could totally put that on there. And, you know, discount it and see what happens on those like particular opt ins anyway. Are Oh, yeah, I should say.

Sara Whittaker 8:56

Yeah. So since we have a lot of TPT sellers, listening, I know you kind of used you were giving an example at the beginning about that TPT seller who might use a tripwire. So I mean, bundles are probably like, a great thing to consider when you're thinking about what you could use as a tripwire. Yeah,

Melanie Battistelli 9:14

so the complicated part for for TPT is obviously you can't do a tripwire, like when the TPT site, right, so that's kind of the bummer. But I know that especially when things got a little wild last year with the algorithm, a lot of people open their own WordPress sites, or have Kajabi or even if you have ConvertKit or flow desk or something like that, and you're bringing people in with a free lead magnet, because a lot of times like TPT sellers right will have like a little piece of their of a larger bundle or more expensive resource that they get people in and then bring them to TPT to buy the full product later. But if you're bringing them in on I'll just pick a Convert Kit for For example, you can have it and you have your own website, or even if you don't, because now ConvertKit and float us does, too, right? So as you float us, they allow you to sell products they do now. Yeah, I mean, I know it's, I think it's a little bit of an up cost for for flow desk and convert gets more expensive anyway. But you can build out products, even in your email providers, and you could have them opt into a lead magnet there and then redirect them to a product in your email provider, and you wouldn't even need any more tech. So for that, let's just say for example, you're, they're opting in for a free math center, okay. And then you have a $7 January math centers, well, you could discount that to like four or $5, build the product, either in your WordPress store, ConvertKit flow desk, wherever, and then they could buy it at the lower, you know, four or $5 price, and he would just deliver it, you know, via Google Drive, or Dropbox or whatever you're using. I mean, it's probably breaking rules somewhere in TPT. But, I mean, it's, it's truly it's supposed to truly be a one time offer. So you could do it that way, and circumvent TPT, so to speak.

Yeah. And okay, and when you say one time offer, so you shouldn't like say you have maybe two different options that are kind of directed to the same audience. And you wanted to maybe set up a tripwire for both of them, should you do different offers?

I don't think you have to. Okay, I don't think you have to, I think it's more just as long as it's only really available on that page, like the tripwire page, rather than it also being listed somewhere else, like on your website or your TPT store for the same price.

Okay, perfect. And thinking about like, benefits of like, why you should maybe try out a tripwire I guess in my mind, I'm thinking, okay. You know, you have, traditionally when we set up an opt in, you've got that Delivery Email where you're giving them whatever it is you promised. And then even more ideally, you are you have like some sort of nurture sequence that follows that that funnels people into some sort of paid product. So is the benefit of doing a tripwire, like you're getting them right there in that moment, versus waiting to see if they'll open those follow up emails. Does that make sense? Yeah,

that does make sense. I think that is a benefit. And you should still definitely have. So let's what was my example with the math centers, let's say they purchased the math centers, what I would do this is I guess, getting a little technical, but I would have two different funnels in your email provider, one for people who purchase the tripwire and one for people who didn't. And you can write, you could just write the same email sequence twice, or sorry, once then duplicate it and just, you know, change out a little bit of the language. Because ultimately, you would probably be selling them eventually to the year long centers, your long math centers, right. You just might have an extra email in the first like the people who didn't buy the tripwire, you might just need an extra email like convincing them about like why math centers are you know, great, for example.

Okay, while we're kind of like talking about the techie stuff, because I like talking about that and I'm sure it's helpful for people too because that's kind of always where my mind goes when I hear these kinds of things is like okay, well how would I actually like set this up? So what kind of tech do you need like you set your trip wires up on Thrive cart right?

Yeah, so mine are all in Thrive cart, but you could do it in ConvertKit or flow desk with the product option because I feel like most people have an email provider right like most people no matter what your your niche is even email provider. So if your email provider allows for products to be sold there you could do it there. It's really easy to do with Thrive cart I mean Thrive cart has like a whole funnel system which is why I ultimately moved there earlier this year. That looks like a one time payment like it's kind of really hard to beat. Yeah, I

signed up for it too. And you are the first person I ever saw who had their like when you went to go sign up for your lead magnet it was on Thrive cart and the price was just $0 and I was like oh this is interesting. I've never seen it set up this way but thrive cart makes it so like it literally just has an option right that says do you want to do they call it upsell or down sell so the downside would be the tripwire yes,

no no no no let me rephrase no the down sell no the down sell wouldn't be the downs one pitcher of wire. I need to think about that hard. So in Thrive cart, you can also put a bump on the order which is like what I have have mostly but in Thrive cart you you can do multiple upsells you can do up to four upsells so if you're using Thrive cart for your trip wires what I would do is make the first thing you know free your lead magnet and then upsell number one would be whatever the tripwire is

oh yeah it would be yeah

yeah yeah I had to think about that too because I have I have a lot of bumps on my lead magnets to where you can just like check a box especially so you could you can do that in Thrive cart as well which is nice. Which is something new like can't do obviously in ConvertKit or flow desk. So I mean, I think Thrive cart here this turned into with Thrive cart commercial, but thrive cart,

but you're really at link in the show notes

is really worth the cost. I know a lot of people have Kajabi especially if you're a course creator and in the TPT space or if you ever took like Amy Porterfield DCA you probably have Kajabi tripwires are really easy to do in Kajabi as well like stupid easy, you just after they opt in to whatever your free offer is, you can just make it redirect to another landing page. And you can make the trip wires like beautiful mini sales pages if you want. That

was going to be another question was do you need a sales page to go along with this? Or like does it if they want to learn more about the tripwire? Do they then click to the sales page? Or is it usually just kind of like on that same opt in page?

So the true spirit I guess of a tripwire is it is a page after they've already made the decision to opt in. It doesn't have to be like a huge giant, beautiful sales page or anything. Like if you're if we're thinking about Kajabi or really even thrive cart, you know, like the type of sales page where you don't even have to scroll. It's just like the header. I mean, that's usually enough, especially if it is a product that's under $10. Now if you're in like more of a business to business niche, and you're thinking of like a 27 like I would look for user with the with the guesting course, I would just duplicate your sales page and link the whole thing you already made it. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? So like I would just do

even if it's not on Thrive cart, the sales page isn't on Thrive cart. It's on is yours

is yours in your website? That's fine, because in Thrive cart, I think I'd have to look to be sure. But I feel like you can redirect to a different landing page after they opt in. Yeah, yeah, he doesn't in Thrive cart like you can redirect to an external URL, which is what I would do. So I would just duplicate your sales page. Okay, maybe put a little, put a little thing at the top about like, your freebies on its way to your inbox. But while you're waiting, I have this one time offer and then just like change the price. And then I mean, you're done and you already built your sales page for it. Perfect.

I love that. Yeah, like hearing you talk about this. I'm like, yeah, why wouldn't why wouldn't we set up drip wires? Yeah, I mean, that stuff created already.

Right. And I think it all goes into thinking a little bit deeper about your product suite. Right, like, and how all of your offers can kind of feed into each other? Yes. So

that just to be intentional about your opt ins that you're creating to like you want to make sure that you're creating, you're not just like, because I know, I feel like I mean, we all just have so many ideas constantly swirling around in our head, but like really being intentional about, okay, I am creating this opt in because a there's a need for it. And it's going to help my audience, but also it connects to a paid offer that I have or a paid resource that I have. Right.

And I mean, they all should. So just think about, like, the little sort of stepping stone, maybe many offers that you have. And if you I mean, you it's not like to make more work for people. But I mean, honestly, I think this is the easiest to do if you're in the TPT space, because a lot of people have bundles just pull one section of your bundle, discount it, make it the tripwire and you're done. Like right, that it's it's arguably easier than people maybe in the business to business space who are trying to like think of little mini offers like you might have a big course. But there's nothing like kind of in between. Right.

So I mean other thing like, I would think that you could also use like maybe if you have a paid training or paid workshop of some sort that would show a good trip wire.

Yeah, that's actually the bundle that I'm participating in right now. I just did the goal setting workshop last week, and I just put the replay up as the tripwire to the bundle and it's $9. And a handful of people have purchased it, which is kind of amazing because all of the people who are opting in like have never heard of me like it's a big bundle. So I really didn't know if anybody would purchase it. at all, but I already had the sales page done because I sold it during Black Friday week so I just duplicated it and slapped it up there. Yeah made a couple extra dollars. It's cool math free money.

It is free money.

I mean it actually it's a replay I just duplicated the email funnel and yes, instead of saying join us here I just said Click here to watch the replay change to sentences. And I mean, it's I feel like trip wires can make you sound like lazy but it's just it's a really can be really important opportunity. Yeah. Another thing to think about with trip wires that I used with one of our mutual clients, actually, this summer, was opting in for her webinar, her live webinar, we did a $7 tripwire to one of like a piece of one of her bundles. And I mean it almost cut her adspend in half because she made a couple of $1,000 like getting

another Yeah, that's another great thing to think about. If you're paying for ads to promote an opt in like that's what your ad is for setting up a tripwire is like an extra bonus because you're gonna hopefully get that money back or some of that money.

Yeah, and you probably will get some of that money back. We have a different a slightly different tripwire right now running on her evergreen funnel, which she's running ads to. So I mean, it offsets the cost. So free ads, not really, it's not totally paying for it, but it's helping free Facebook ads, but it is helping it is helping a lot in summer. I mean, in summer, it was several $1,000 that she made from the tripwire. So it did literally cut it in half at least the ad spent. Yeah.

Oh my gosh, I know. Now my brain is like, assume any ideas? Have you ever seen somebody? I'm assuming you're I'm guessing that you're gonna say no, but I'm just curious. Somebody who has a membership that's maybe like $17 A month or $27 a month? Have you ever seen anybody use that as like, okay, somebody opts into something, and then their trip wire is to join the membership for $27, or whatever it is.

So no, but I do have a client that I haven't worked with before that she's doing a launch management package in July of this year, July 2024. And she already has one membership that's been running. And this is her second membership for like one's like math, and this one will be like English related resources. And she wants to eventually have the membership be the tripwire for like every single one of her opt ins. I haven't personally seen it, but I certainly don't know why you couldn't. Yeah, do that. However, the only part I think that could be tricky on the back end is it would be a different price point like those members would have to be tagged. I mean, it's not a big deal. But they would have to be like tagged differently built differently. Would it be you know, you just have to think through through some of the like, is the membership discounted for the first month? Are they going to lock in this discounted rate forever? Just like some decisions you'd have to make, but I think you certainly could do it. Yeah,

I mean, yeah, I'd be interested to see how that converts because I'm I think about things not related to like the online business space, but things as a purchaser as a customer that I've bought, where it's like limited time if you for something that maybe is on auto ship, and like for that first month, you get it at 40% off or whatever it is. Right. And then it's the regular price. Yeah, yeah,

you could I mean, I could do it either way. Yeah, I'll stay tuned. It'll be a long long term experiment game, though with that one. But yeah, we because with our other mutual client will, we're moving their membership right now. But we had discussed maybe making that either a tripwire or you could also use it as use a membership as an upsell and do like a really discounted yearly rate. I'm trying to lock people in at that yearly rate instead.

Awesome. Okay. Well, I because we talked about podcasting on this podcast. I would just love to kind of like chat about how we can kind of think about how we could use trip wires, and how that could kind of like circle back to our podcast planning and our content planning because, I mean, honestly, this could almost be like a another way to monetize your podcast if you're driving people to your email list through opt ins that you're promoting. And then you have a tripwire set up like that could be a really cool way to try and generate some revenue from your podcast content.

Yeah, definitely. Do you when you talk about monetizing your podcast? Do you ever suggest people like duplicate their opt in pages? Yeah, that specifically or in their podcast. So that's the first thing that I would suggest to make sure that people who were you know, opting in are like, where are they coming from? Are they coming from like Instagram, your email list? Your not your email list, but Instagram, your podcast, tick tock, tick tock. Where I have not, but never made it over there. Nope. I'm fine with that. I mean, yeah. And I think it goes back to what we were talking about earlier being strategic about when you're planning your podcast, like, what is not like, what's the point? That sounds mean, but like, what are you leading? Ministro? Yeah, like, where do you leading to, because even if you're leading them to a, you know, a free opt in to grow their email list, if they have a tripwire attached to the back of it to a small offer, that's hopefully eventually leading them to a bigger offer. I mean, if they came in through your podcast, then that's monetizing the podcast right there. Right.

Absolutely. Yeah. So I think that that's something to consider when you're doing your podcast planning, almost that like backward design approach of thinking, starting with Where do you where do you want people to end up and, and planning backwards from there?

Right. And you just talked about that the other week, something about like planning your podcast calendar? Yeah. Your biggest fan? Yeah, whatever. Like planning your podcasts calendar, I listened to that episode. And if you just think about like what you're doing each month, right, then it's much easier to kind of design what your call to action is for your podcast episodes.

Yes. And like what your actual content is going to be about in those episodes. Awesome. Well, I feel like we covered a lot. I asked you a lot of questions. Thank you. I feel very educated now in tripwires. So. Thank you so much do you have Is there anything that you feel like we didn't touch on that's important for people to know? I

don't think so I think just the biggest thing is, I don't want to say don't put too much thought into it. But like don't make it harder than it has to be if you have a method and a way for after people opt in to wherever your housing your lead magnets, if you have a way to direct them to an external URL, you can make a tripwire you don't need deadline funnel. You don't need fancy like funnel software, you don't have to have Kajabi or carta or anything like that. You can literally do it with your email provider. And or your actual website. If you have a website that is outside of TPT. Like it can be done. So don't make it too hard. Use your girl math make money on things that you already have completed. Because I mean, I don't know, I'm just now a big fan of trip wires up sells. I've been experimenting it with my clients all year. And there's just no reason to not have trip wires and upsells on basically all of your products. Because what if somebody says yes, they might say no,

you're not losing anything? Yeah, man, it's such a good yeah, such a good point, make the ask and don't make it too complicated. This is my big goal of 2024 is to really just like I have so much content between my digital resources and this podcast. Like how can I leverage what I already have, instead of constantly feeling like I need to create new things. So I know that a lot of you can relate to that. So try this out. I'm going to try it out. I'll maybe I'll do like a follow up episode. Like oh, funsies Yeah, map it out. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Can you let everybody know in case they're not familiar with you where they can find you online? If they have follow up questions after listening and want to learn more from you. Yeah,

absolutely. So I hang out mostly on Instagram. My handle is duxberry Digital. I'm sure Sarah will put it in the show notes. I am also going to leave you with a video tripwire training that Sara will also have in the show notes in case you're like me and also need like he visual sort of learning experience and it'll walk you through how to set up a tripwire a little bit more. So both of those things will be in the show notes. But please DM me on Instagram, if you've any questions at all.

Awesome. Perfect. I will definitely be watching that. Maybe I already have it. I don't know. I'm like famous for signing up for all kinds of things and forgetting to watch it so I might talk about it. But I will include all of that in the show notes. Thank you so much.

Thank you for having me.

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. To keep this conversation going connect with me on Instagram at podcasting for educators. I'm always looking for an excuse to talk about podcasting. If you're looking for support and launching, managing or growing your podcast, check out my online course the podcasting for educators prep school at podcasting for educators.com/prep school. I'll see you here next time.