The Psychology of a Free Plus Shipping Offer You Can Use Today

FREE is a magic selling word.

It gets people interested.

And the word FREE gets people hooked.

First, it can be used to get your visitor hooked into hearing your offer.

Second, it can be used to hook them into buying.

Let me explain. Your sales page can get the visitor over the hurdle of buying by intensify their desire for your product. Then the magic FREE word can be presented after they already want it.

Because if you already want something, getting it FREE is just more desirable. That is if you trust there are no strings attached.

But how do you give something away for FREE and stay in business?

Nutritional health supplement businesses actually do this all the time.

One way is by attaching a payment to a FREE offer.

Wait Then is it REALLY FREE?

Bare with me a moment.

You see, the actual product is FREE, but you have to pay for shipping.

This is a traditional free plus shipping offer.

To learn more about offers read the article – The 3 Most Important Elements of a Health Sales Page.

Again with a Free Plus Shipping Offer you’re just charging the customer the shipping price (or shipping and handling) and the price of the actual product is indeed legitimately FREE.

The product is usually a low ticket item. The expense of that front-end free plus shipping offer is off-set with other products. That second product can be immediate, as in the case of a one time offer (OTO) up-sell, or it can be later through a follow-up email or other marketing communication.

But is it Really Free if you Have to Pay Shipping?

You see free plus shipping offers online all the time for a trial bottle of a natural health supplement.

But is it a bait and switch?

No it’s not.

A bait and switch is when something is presented as an apparent bargain, with the intention of substituting an inferior or more expensive product instead. Bait and switch is illegal. So don’t do it.

A free plus shipping offer is just that. The product is actually FREE but the shipping is not. You still get the actual product offered, not a substitute.

Why Free Plus Shipping Offers Work

One of the main reasons these offers work is because of the psychological power of FREE.

Roger Dooley, author of Brainfluence and The Persuasion Slide , says:

“FREE! is more powerful than any rational economic analysis would suggest.“

And research conducted by Dan Ariely (a Duke behavioral economist) shows us that “FREE” is far more effective than “almost free.” In his classic experiment free chocolate kisses beat extremely low bargain priced chocolate truffles.

Professor Ariely attributes the preference for “free” even when the rational choice would be the bargain item to an aversion to loss.

In essence, a free item carries no risk.

Another reason free plus shipping offers work is because the offer itself, frames the price towards shipping.

Framing a Free Plus Shipping Offer

A frame describes the boundaries around something.

It’s a way in which we filter the perceptions of our world based on our mental map.

According to Nero Linguistic Programming (NLP), framing is a type of emotional amplifier or de-amplifier, which works by rebuilding or correcting links in your limbic system between your amygdala and your hippocampus.

By shifting the frame towards paying shipping, the buyer psychologically dismisses the shipping price and gravitates toward the irresistible magnetic attraction of FREE.

The Economic Reason These Free Offers Work

The real reason they work economically is because of the added forced subscription that comes with a free plus shipping nutritional health supplement trial bottle.

The offer works like this: You get one bottle of this supplement free, if you just pay shipping and in 30 days you’ll automatically get another bottle at full price and every month thereafter.

This built in continuity makes the economics of the offer work because you’re going to collect the full price in month two from a portion of your buyers. Plus those that do stick, usually stay for about three or four months on average, before canceling. Some even go on to buy other backend products from you.

But please build in continuity ethically.

Don’t try to hide the fact that they will be charged for a full bottle next month.

That’s just unethical and you’ll be on a quick path to a bunch of pissed off customers. The result will be almost all of them won’t stick around and you’ll lose a lot of backend revenue that you would have gotten from being honest.

Some ways to be upfront about it include:

Making it clear what the terms and conditions are on the order page.
Clearly stating the continuity price and how to cancel in the package with the shipment itself.
Re-stating the terms in the first transaction order confirmation email.

Should You Have a Free Plus Shipping Offer In Your Business?

A Free Plus Shipping Offer is a great way to bring in new buyers. Buyers are more valuable than just email opt-ins, because they are already willing to take a chance on you and actually buy. This makes it infinitely easier for them to buy again and again from you.

But It is VITAL to understand your numbers in order to scale it with cold traffic.

You should be careful of low value buyers who just want something for free. These buyers won’t buy any of your up-sells but they may buy something from your backend email follow sequence. So don’t write them off completely just yet. Just keep a careful eye on different segments of buyers to truly save your skin and scale your business with a free plus shipping offer.