In this episode I walk you through the five key conversion triggers that I use (and recommend) when launching an online course, membership or coaching offer. I explain what each trigger is, how I implement it, why it works, and what you’ll want in place for it to succeed.   

 

These triggers aren’t sneaky gimmicks—they’re built on human decision-making and trust. When used authentically, they help people decide to say “yes” to your offer because they feel seen, convinced, and ready.

I open by talking about giving first. Before I ask someone to invest, I give value: a webinar, a guide, a free training. When I do that, I’m showing up for them and they’re much more willing to engage later.

In practice I look at:

Next I cover how limiting availability makes an offer more compelling. When I say “only X spots” or “this opens for a short time”, I raise the perceived value—and prompt decision. But I emphasise: the scarcity must be real. If it’s not, trust is damaged.

Here’s how I apply it:

Here I talk about using time-based pressure—not to scare, but to encourage action. I make clear there is a window, the clock is running, and when it closes things change.

My implementation methods:

Claiming you can deliver results is one thing—showing that others did it is far stronger. I dig into testimonials, case studies, visible community results. When someone sees someone like them succeed, they feel: “If they can do it, maybe I can too.”

How I use it:

Finally I talk about how I frame price by first showing a higher “anchor” or reference point (what someone might normally pay, or the value they’d get elsewhere), then reveal my offer so it appears more compelling. This helps people see the gap between cost and value.

Here’s my approach:

 

Connect with Teresa on Website, (Grow, Launch, Sell), Sign up to Teresa's email list,  Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook, Subscribe to my Youtube

 

Transcript

If you've ever looked at someone's launch and thought, wow, how did they get all those sales? How did they convert all those people? And you feel like you went through the same steps, but you didn't quite get the same results. And in this episode, I'm going to be sharing with you the five conversion triggers that help people make a buying decision and actually convert when you're selling your online offer.

If we've not met, my name's Terese Heath Wareing and I help course creators, membership owners, and coaches grow their online offers through effective launch strategies and knowing how to actually sell online. In this video, I am going to take you through the five psychological and marketing strategies that all the big players use in their launches to actually get people to make a buying decision.

I'm not only going to walk you through each one of them, but I'm also gonna share with you how the big players might use them and also how you can use them in your next launch, [00:01:00] and most importantly, in a way that feels authentic to you and doesn't feel like you are being sleazy or salesy. Before we get started, I just wanna make a note about these strategies.

When I first came into the online space, I used to think that these strategies were awful. I watched people use them and I watched them use them in a way that didn't feel good with me. And instead of just thinking, okay, how can I use these strategies in a way that works for me? I decided to completely ignore these strategies and almost tried to do like a 360 and do the complete opposite, and I'm telling you now, it didn't work.

These strategies work. They are good strategies and they are strategies that have been working in marketing for years and years and years. Way before the online industry became a thing. For me, the way I look at it is what is the intent behind the strategy and is it a real strategy that you are using or are you just using it to tick a box?

So if the intent is good and [00:02:00] they are real strategies that you are using, and you'll see what I mean as I go through them, then for me, I am more than happy to use these strategies in my own launches and when I support other people doing theirs. So let's get started with these strategies. Strategy number one is reciprocity.

This is giving value first so people feel compelled to give something back, and this is a strategy that has been used for a really long time. Imagine back in the supermarket where they would give freebies, that's reciprocity. I'm giving you something for free, and now I feel compelled to do something back, which might be to buy the product.

When I look at it in terms of big launches, what they tend to do is they tend to give away something at the beginning, so they tend to give away some kind of freebie or something, and also the content that they're giving, giving in a launch experience. Helps with that reciprocity thing. So basically they're giving something away in order for the person who's watching, [00:03:00] taking part in the experience for them to actually go, okay, great.

I want to give something back. An example of things that you can do in your launch are, one of the things that I recommend highly is giving away a bonus for people attending live. So this could be something that you have that you don't normally give away. This could be some kind of lead magnet, but I want you to create something or use something.

You don't always need to create something brand new. Use something that you can give away. And if I was doing it on a webinar at the beginning of the webinar, I would say to them. If you stay till the end, I have this to give away for you for free, regardless of whether you buy or not. The other thing that you can do, like I said, is give them some quick wins.

Give them something really useful in the actual launch experience. Great if you're doing a challenge or a bootcamp because you have more time with them, but give them something that's actually giving them a result and then that will help them with that reciprocity. So strategy number one that you should use in your launches is reciprocity.

[00:04:00] Strategy number two is scarcity. This is when you are limiting availability to increased drive. Now this works. We know it does because we know if something's on limited offer or there's only so many available, then we are going to want to buy it. And again, this isn't just a strategy that is unique to the online space.

The thing to note here is it has to be real. If you are saying, I've only got 10 spaces available, you only have 10 spaces available. Don't say it's scarce. If it's not scarce, because that's where these strategies start to feel really unpleasant, and people get that and they understand it's super, super quickly.

So if you have. Said something scarce and then, oh look, I found another 50 of them. People will start to get that, and what will happen is the next time you try and do that strategy, which like I said, works really well, they won't believe you. So only use scarcity when it's [00:05:00] real and you mean it. So an example of what some of the big launches do, they will have X amount available.

So I've seen in recent launches, which is a great tip for you, I've actually seen people giving away physical things. Now, what I mean by that is Amy and one of her latest launches gave away a. Folder that basically covered the entire of her course. Alex Hormozi, one of his things that he gave away in his launch was a whole host of folders that had all these various things in it, and they actually, that was the course.

The course wasn't even available online. And there is something to be said that in the online space where. Everything is digital. It's actually really lovely to get something physical for people to actually touch, but what they do is they limit the number of those that are available. So they might be available as a bonus, but only to the first 500,000, whatever it might be.

Alex's was actually 25,000. Uh, he has a humongous audience, which makes perfect sense. So what [00:06:00] can you do that increases that scarcity and encourages people to buy? One of the things, as I've already said is you can say, I've only got X amount of places. This works brilliantly. If you're doing a small group coaching program.

This doesn't work brilliantly if you are trying to get people in a membership or selling a course because it just doesn't work. And again, that's where we are making those things up and we shouldn't be so. When you genuinely only have X amount of places, then use that and talk about that. The other way that you can do it is you can do some limited bonuses.

One of the things I used to offer, which I don't anymore, is I used to offer an hour with me. So if you bought within either the X amount of time or I would offer X amount of places, then basically you would get an hour with me. That isn't something I offer anymore. That's just a personal choice. It's still something that works really well, but that is a scarcity thing.

I am only giving an hour call to the first five people who buy if that's what it is. [00:07:00] So use scarcity, but use it wisely and only when it's genuine and real. Number three is urgency. Kind of similar to scarcity, but it's definitely done on a time thing. So urgency uses a time pressure to encourage people to take immediate action.

Again, this isn't a strategy that's new to the online space. There are sales, there are various things that big businesses use in order to help us make a decision more quickly. So what do the big launches do? Well, what they often do is they have things like limited time bonuses and bonuses only available while they are doing the launch.

So for instance, let's use Alex Hormozi again. 'cause his launch was quite spectacular. He did a. Live bonus only, so you only got the bonus if you bought while you were live on that call. Again, I've seen some of the other big players do exactly the same thing. This works particularly well where you have a big audience and people are likely to buy on the call, [00:08:00] but obviously it helps them make that buying decision there and then because they are getting something additional while they're making that decision and while they're buying on the call.

So a couple of things that you can do in your next launch. You can have a limited time bonus. So often throughout a launch, we have various different bonuses, and one of them can be a fast acting bonus. It can be something like, as I've already mentioned, it could be an hour with you. It could be something special that they get.

It could be a different session that they get. It could be some. Something that makes it easier for them to achieve the outcome that they're trying to get. But you could do a bonus that's only available for the first 24 hours or 48 hours, depending on your car open window in a membership because memberships are so much harder.

You could always do a session and that session could literally happen. A couple of days in. So therefore that is a very genuine urgency thing. So for instance, let's say you were closing the doors to your membership on the [00:09:00] Friday. You could say if you join before the Tuesday, on Wednesday, we are doing a special session that you only get if you join before Wednesday type thing.

So. Again, great strategy works really well to help them make a buying decision. And just as a note on this, the reason we do smaller windows of car open is, or sale or offer is because we need people to make a buying decision. If you wait too long, if that. Offer is open all the time. There's no reason for me to hurry up and make a decision.

And we all know what it's like we're busy. Life gets in the way. We won't make that decision, and therefore we'll miss the offer. And it's not always down 'cause we don't want to. It's just that we didn't get round to it. Strategy number four is social proof. It's showing others that you can basically do the thing that you are saying you can do.

This is one of the most important strategies that you need to be using, especially in what is being coined as the trust [00:10:00] recession, where people are losing faith in things. AI is huge, is getting massive, and we need proof that if we are going to work with someone, that they can actually do the thing they say they can do.

'cause otherwise, why wouldn't we just go to AI and find it? So how can we prove that we are good? We add in that social proof. Now, there are loads of different ways in which you can do this. So for instance. Often with the big launches, which granted, there's not many people who can do this. Their social proof is the sheer numbers that are coming to them.

So I think on Alex's launch, he has over a hundred thousand people attend live. Well, that in itself is social proof. I. That obviously for the rest of us being immortals is not going to be something that we can do, but the fact that other people are there is great. So obviously we want as many people to turn up as possible.

The key thing here is one of two things that you need to be doing on your launches. You need to be proving that you know what you are talking about and your own social proof of this is what makes me credible. [00:11:00] And again, if you've got a history or proof that you have. Made money or made the changes or whatever it is that you are offering as a transformation, then share that.

And secondly, the social proof of other people who have bought. So we need to make sure that we include throughout our entire launch. So what you need to be doing is including case studies throughout the entire thing. Those case studies need to show people that you know what you're talking about and the strategies that you are teaching and the support that you offer actually makes a difference.

And actually gives people the results they're after. Another thing that you can do is you can invite current customers, current members, current students to attend your launch experiences. You can ask them if they'll be willing to come and hang out there. Again, I don't pitch them and say, can you say nice things?

But I encourage them to come along so that there's real actual people who are part of your community or part of your world that are on your calls. The [00:12:00] last one on this, which is a very organic thing to happen on social proof, but when it happens, it's awesome is when people say on the launch experience that they have bought, that is like one of the best social proofs you can have is when someone actually goes, oh my good.

I've just bought, I've just signed up. Whatever it is that brings in a whole load of other psychological things that happens with that, but that is great social proof. Again, we can't orchestrate that. I would never suggest you do. When it happens organically, it's awesome. And the final strategy that I recommend that you are using in your launches is price anchoring.

This means that you often show the higher price first before you reveal a lower price. There is something really strong about price anchoring that psychologically makes us go. Wow, that is great value. Again, this is not new to the online space. You know what it's like when you go and you look at a sale or you're buying some clothes and it has the price [00:13:00] crossed out and then it gave, gives you the sale price.

So that's price anchoring because you are going, that should be worth this amount of money. So in my head, I'm viewing it...