How to Use Order Bumps to Make More Money

Do you know why waitresses always come to clean your table and then immediately hand you the dessert menu? Well, that's an order bump. Do you also know why they always ask if you want another drink once you finish yours? Well, that's an order bump as well. The truth is, it's actually very common to use order bumps to grow your business. It can make it go faster.. So you really need to know what it is and use it more often.

The first thing we should talk about is, what is an order bump. I know it's kind of confusing, you know, it's an order bump and upsell. Is it also something that you can do with a pricing tier option? Well, it's actually very different. Pricing tiers mean you're putting two different pricing plans next to each other and then you ask people to choose. So right on, they are comparing two different options and then they can only pick one, but the order bump is very different because it will only show up when people already decided that they want to buy from you and then they click buy now.

And then they're brought to this checkout page where they can put in their names and then they can see the order bump before they put in their credit card number. So it's also not upselling because upselling means more people already made that purchase. So you charge their credit card and then you bring them to another page.

And then now you're like, Oh, by the way, you can also get this other thing. So one transaction is done and then you're presenting another offer. And in that case, all the bum doesn't happen after the transaction has happened. It happens when they're checking out. So that's the difference.

Let's talk about why order bump is so awesome. It's awesome because it's such a small pitch that it doesn't require you to do a lot of work. And because we are mostly doing digital products, right? And there's no cost to you. You can just add something there and if people get it, it's fine. If they don't get it, it's also fine. So the zero cost mechanism really, really works.

The other reason why this is so awesome is because oftentimes if you already get them to say yes, then it is a lot easier to get them to say another yes to you because they have already trust you.

But now you might be wondering like, what would be a good fit for an order bump?

Well out there, there are many theories about order bums but here's my theory. I think the rule of thumb is that it has to be an impulsive yes. So if you're selling a $20 product, you don't want the order bum to be 200 because people would be sitting there like, oh my God, I, I couldn't decide whether I want this. You don't want that to happen.

So for example, if you're selling something for, let's say 50 bucks and you add an order bump around 20 to 50 bucks, I think that's pretty reasonable. Or let's say you're selling something for a hundred dollars and you ask something between 10 to a hundred dollars. That's also pretty good.

I don't think there's a fixed route around how you can do this, but to me, I think you can either 2x the dollar amount or have $100 as the maximum. So either way, whichever is highest. And for order bumps like complimentary offer really helps. For example, if you're selling a course and the order bump is a checklist, that's amazing because people would want that. Because they can perceive it as a way to help them take action. So you can always think about like different resources, and different formats, and use that as your order bump.

Next, I would show you an interesting case when I was like researching around order bumps, and I would see which one you pick. The first one is if you have a higher conversion rate, but the order value is lower. So maybe your order bump is a low-value thing. And then the second case is you have a lower conversion rate, but the order value is higher. So which one would you choose if you could play around with your setup? I think it really comes down to pricing, right? It's really hard to say and it depends on what you want to optimize. In some cases, you want to bring more people into your world into your email list, into your customer list. Then I would say prioritizing high conversion rate, even though the order value is lower. That is the way to go.

But at some point, you might want to optimize for the money that you're making in this business. In that case, then you might want fewer customers, but then each of them can pay a higher dollar. So it's really interesting. And I cannot say there's a one-way-fit-all kind of approach. You have to experiment to figure out how you want to do it.

I think when we talk about order bump we should talk about where to put it. As I said, an order bump is something that goes on your checkout page. But what I found is that, you know, there are still different setups on the checkout page. Some people might put the order bump on the checkout page on the first step. You click buy now, you land on the checkout page, and you see the order bump right away. I don't like that very much. I like to, you know, get them to fill in their information first, and then only when they put in their credit card they see that.

So, at least they are a bit more committed. So usually on checkout software, you can actually split the steps, you know, click the buy now button, go to the checkout page, enter their name and email, and then go to step two. And that's when they see, Oh, there's an order bomb. There's something else. Okay. Take or untick and then put it in a credit card and then click buy. Overall, I think this is the best checkout flow that I've ever come to. Again, experiment and see what feels right to you.

So speaking of order bump, I actually changed my setup recently and I started adding Small School Studio as my order bump. So Small School Studio is our membership community, right? So it makes a lot of sense to bring people in if they are buying my courses and books and they need some more support so they can just sign up as they are buying my products and they would get direct access to me and they would get direct access to their peers. And we occasionally do activities to move the needle as well. So if you're not aware of the Small School Studio, then you should totally check it out. It's very affordable at $197 per year. And the reason why I keep it pretty low is because I want this to be a very lightweight community that you're a part of. Like you don't need to think that you need to be there every single week to get value, to justify for the price you pay. It's more like a home where you need help at some point and you come back and you let us help you. So it's very calm and very supportive. And the price point is how we want to do that. I'm always there to help out, so definitely take a look.

Going back to talking about ordering desserts, I would say, that if customers are always ordering dessert, they are the best customers. I don't know, I just feel like because they are, you know, getting more items from your restaurant, and then they are also pretty much enjoying their time there, so you should treat them as VIPs. So maybe in that sense, then, you should pay attention to the people who are getting your order bumps. They can be your best customers as well.

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