“You can’t get rich with a low-ticket offer” — one of the most frequent statements I see in the creator space.
I disagree. You can get rich with affordable/self-liquidating products, just not directly (in most cases).
Today, I’m going to give you a few options for using these easy-to-create and easy-to-sell products to make serious moolah.
What the heck is a self-liquidating offer and why does it sound so threatening?
Despite the blockbuster name, a self-liquidating offer (SLO) is a low-priced product designed to “liquidate” or offset the CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost).
Let’s say you have a $10 eBook to sell. If it costs you $8-$10 to acquire a buyer via paid ads, you have a self-liquidating offer. You generate revenue but no profit.
These are products that simply break even and make you very little or no profit whatsoever (not directly!). This holds even if you don’t use ads to acquire customers — the revenue is offset by the time you invest in building and promoting the product.
A self-liquidating offer is usually priced below $100 (more commonly below $50), just the right amount to make it perfect for an impulse purchase.
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Since a business can’t exist without profit, let’s make it happen.
What can I sell as a self-liquidating offer?
Literally anything under the sun, in any format:
- eBooks
- Micro-courses
- A trial of your community
- Spreadsheets and templates — sold individually or in a bundle
- Premium content, like an actionable PDF.
- A huge discount on your otherwise pricy offer. “Usual price $700, now only $70”. Be careful with these, though. Only use them if you plan to retire that offer.
If you’ve been in business for more than six months, you probably have more than enough material to put together one or a dozen of these.
Cool, but how do I make real money with self-liquidating offers?
The vast majority of creators who book a strategy session with me are looking for advice on how to build their high-ticket offer. There’s nothing wrong with selling something expensive right out the gate but, ironically enough, a low-ticket offer can make that easier.
Which brings us to our first point:
1. Use a self-liquidating offer as a paid lead magnet
Most lead magnets are not lead magnets but audience magnets — they don’t bring in qualified leads, just new audience members looking for a freebie. A paid lead magnet, even if it’s dirt cheap, will bring in people who are ready to type in their credit card numbers.
When people buy your low-ticket offer, they leave their contact information. They are now on your email list, ready to hear about your other products and services.
This is exactly what my pre-written email sequence does for me. It’s the first product I ever built and it acts as a trust bridge. Most of the 100+ people who bought it to date said that the price was incredibly low for what it offers.
They loved the over-delivering and, in time, some of them bought a few of my other products, while some bought everything I ever created.
2. Upsell or cross-sell from your low-ticket offer
You have two big options here:
- Within the cart, you can cross-sell them another similarly-priced offer. “Would you like to add product Y? It goes well with product X (your initial low-ticket offer)?” This way, your offer can go beyond self-liquidation and make you some profit.
- You can upsell them to a high(er)-ticket offer. For instance, if someone buys a tennis racquet, they might need tennis lessons too.
A word of caution here: don’t try to upsell people to a high-ticket offer instantly. If they set out to buy a $50 product, they’re very unlikely to shed $2000+ on your high-ticket thing the same day.
You need to build more trust and credibility before you get there.
3. Use your SLO as a downsell or as an affordable add-on to a high-ticket offer
When your high-ticket offer is too expensive for part of your audience, you can sell them a more affordable offer.
Example: you have a cohort priced at $2000, where you personally guide your clients through the process. Too expensive? Buy this self-paced course for $90.
Another type of cross-sell is suggesting your SLO within the cart when someone buys a high(er) ticket offer. This helps you increase the average order value.
Example: someone buys an $800 product from you. For an extra $20, they can get an eBook or a set of templates too. The extra $20 feels like nothing to your buyer but, for multiple purchases, it will add up to your revenue.
4. How to add low-ticket offer buyers to a new sales cycle
Again, people who pay $50 or less won’t pay $2000 on the same day (there are rare exceptions but solid businesses aren’t built on exceptions). A few better options:
- Right after the purchase, invite people to a free pre-recorded webinar where you teach them how to use what they bought. At the end of that webinar, pitch them a high(er)-ticket offer.
- Add a tag to their email (most email marketing solutions do this automatically), so you can target them with an upsell email sequence that drips a few days/weeks later.
- Simply add them to your list (be careful with permissions and data privacy!) and let them enjoy your free content until they are ready to buy again — ideal for newsletter operators. You can add soft pitches to your newsletter and the occasional sales email. This is my current approach.
- If you acquired the client via paid ads, you can re-target them on the same platform with a high(er)-ticket offer.
- Add buyers as affiliates to low-ticket items. This way, you can sell more of the same offer without any additional upfront costs.
5. Don’t discard the potential of self-liquidating offers for audience growth
This is a severely ignored benefit of low-ticket items: they help grow your audience. People make an impulse purchase and then stay on your list for years — not all of them, of course.
Every time you launch a new product, they will be there, reading, listening. Since they are a previous client, they are more likely to make a new purchase. “The success rate of selling to a customer you already have is 60-70%, while the success rate of selling to a new customer is 5-20%.”
You know I’m big on audience building and its importance to future-proofing your business. I talk a lot about building a sizeable AND relevant audience and there’s no audience more relevant than people who already bought something from you.
BTW, I also teach audience building as a way to sell faster and more easily. Have you seen the Audience Accelerator course and the rave reviews it’s gotten thus far? *wink-wink*
Additional reading
Want to build a product stack that helps you upsell and cross-sell more easily? I wrote an in-depth piece on value ladders and how to build them.
✋Limitations
Yes, your first offer can be a high-ticket one, you don’t have to start with a self-liquidating product. There are no hard rules in marketing.
A good rule of thumb, however, is to make sure you have different products at different price points so you can reach people with various budgets.
Lastly, it’s important to understand that a self-liquidating offer does not guarantee sales for a high-ticket one. To make that happen, your offers have to complement each other (like tennis racquets + tennis lessons).
Like everything in marketing, this will take some tweaking and testing.
Do you have a self-liquidating offer? Reply to this email and let me know!
Adriana’s picks
- Reddit is seeing a rush of new publishers on its platform as organic traffic to the site has increased 7x in the past nine months.
- Substack now lets anyone post on its platform, even if they don’t have their own newsletter.
- Looks like Elon was right. People are not actually fleeing X.
That’s it from me!
See you next week in your inbox.
Here to make you think,
Adriana
Need me in your corner? There are four ways I can help you:
- Need a bigger, more relevant audience? Who doesn’t, right? The Audience Accelerator course will teach you how to get it with zero hacks and sleazy bro tactics.
- Boost your chances of success by 400%: document your strategy with The Guided Strategy Template.
- Get my product launch email templates that sell: 5+1 emails you can send to your list in 45 seconds.
- Book a 1:1 strategy session with me. Let’s unlock your growth in 60 mins!
