A “free plus shipping” funnel is one of the most powerful ways to convert cold traffic into red hot buyers.
By asking prospects to only pay for the shipping, which is usually a low amount, you can trigger quick impulse purchases.
A free plus shipping funnel also allows you to capture leads or emails to send email follow-up reminders and build trust with your new prospects.
This is how to build one in 6 steps.
How does a free plus shipping funnel work?
Here is how it works.
Get your prospects to opt-in and give you their address by offering a free item in return.
The free item has to be a physical product.
This creates trust with the prospect because they just provided you with some personal information in exchange for something of value.
A very powerful exchange.
Next, send them a physical product that costs you little to produce after they provide their payment details.
Now, you might be thinking, “how do I make money by giving products away?”.
No, you are not losing money on the product. Instead, you’re making your money on the backend by offering a premium service or information product after they provide their payment details.
Now, these leads will be easier to convert into buyers – especially if you make them an offer that only paying customers can access.
You see, people are more comfortable with parting with their credit card information when there is low risk. So asking for shipping only upfront triggers a quick impulse purchase.
Then once you have their payment details, you can present them with your premium offer.
The key is giving away something of perceived value to build trust and instill confidence in your prospect, so they are more likely to buy from you again and refer their friends.
What a free plus shipping funnel looks like
Here’s what a basic “free plus shipping” funnel might look like:
First, get them to opt-in by offering a free PDF report in exchange for their name and email address.
Now you have a way to contact them and run a cart abandonment series of emails if they don’t purchase.
Next, make your free plug shipping offer. This can be a book, a DVD, or any physical item that doesn’t cost much to produce.
Next, and this is where you’ll really start to make your money; the premium offer.
The premium offer is just the beginning of a whole new chain of events. This is where we can have some fun with the offers while being strategic.
By giving away something for free, you are still making money with this funnel.
How to create a free plus shipping funnel online
Building an automated free plus shipping funnel is easy when you use software like ClickFunnels or Kartra.
Alternatively, you can also use a simpler software like WordPress and combine it with an autoresponder.
This way can build funnels that capture leads and follow up automatically with email campaigns, without the need for fancy software.
1. Your free offer
Get people to opt-in to your email list by offering something valuable but giving it away for free. This is your “lead magnet.”
A good lead magnet will offer a lot of value to your target market and solve one of their big pain points.
Make sure the product you offer is something people are willing and able to exchange their information for.
You can use ebooks, reports, checklists, cheat sheets, mini-courses, videos, or audio files. Even though it’s a free offer, the copy on your landing page must convey the true value.
2. Your free plus shipping offer
Next, you need a cart page that asks people to provide payment details in exchange for a physical item.
This is sometimes called a liquidator offer.
Depending on how much you’re paying per click, this can liquidate the cost of your adverts. This is a common tactic behind Facebook ads.
You may have heard this referred to as a tripwire funnel.
The key here is to give people the perception that they are getting something for free.
Offering a physical product with your funnel can increase conversions up to 500% because it gives you that opportunity to make money on the back end.
3. Your premium offer – one-click upsell
After they’ve purchased the free plus shipping offer, it’s time to have some fun.
Your customers will now land on a sales page.
With some luck, you’ve broken even at this stage. So now everything you make from this point forward is profit.
Your visitors have qualified themselves as buyers.
Now, you can start to sell recurring subscriptions, advanced training programs, or valuable books and courses related to your niche.
4. Your second one-click upsell
At this stage of your funnel, it’s all about increasing the total cart transaction.
Because each purchase your customers make should be one step further on their customer journey, it makes sense to offer more value to them in the form of upsells.
There’s no limit to the number of upsells you can have, but I recommend having at least 3 but no more than 5.
In addition to upsells, we can also offer downsells – cheaper versions of upsells.
Downsells should not be the same product but cheaper. It can be a slimmed-down version or a separate product entirely.
5. Your value ladder
Each upsell offer should provide more value to your customer.
Because the value increases with each purchase, so too should the price.
We have free products, your lead magnet, and the free plus shipping offer at the low end of the value ladder.
Then, with each upsells offer, we increase the value and the price.
Towards the end of your value ladder, you might want to include high ticket offers. A high ticket offer is anything priced over $2,000.
The purpose of having a value ladder is to allow you to increase your profits and upsell more customers on the same traffic. This will help you scale your business faster.
This is how to turn a $1 Facebook ad click into hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
6. Your Email Sequence
Of course, not everybody will purchase every product.
And that’s why we need email sequences that will follow up with prospects if they don’t purchase. The goal is to get them back onto your site and into the sales funnel at some point in the future.
With each follow-up email, you need to do 2 things; deliver value and pitch an offer.
Deliver value by addressing some of your customer’s pain points.
Pitch an offer that will help them go further or solve their problem faster.
This eventually gets them back into your funnel, where they might buy your upsells and increase your conversion rate.
Use email follow-up sequences strategically, and they will help you sell more as well as generate more leads over time for less effort.
The goal here is to use emails to reengage with prospects who have shown an interest in your products and boost their confidence level so that they are eager to buy.
If you use a marketing automation solution like Aweber or ActiveCampaign, you can create personalized email follow-up sequences with no extra work.
Conclusion
When it comes to creating a free plus shipping funnel, there are no limits to what you can do.
You can use free content or Facebook ads to drive traffic. Use lead magnets to get micro-commitments and follow-up emails for stronger ad engagement and higher conversions. Plus upsells for rapid growth.
But as always, the most important thing is that you keep an eye on the analytics. This means going through your funnel step by step and optimizing every element so that it stands out from the crowd.