Do you want fries with that?
That one line might be the most profitable upsell in history, and it’s likely added billions to McDonald’s bottom line.
It’s successful in its simplicity.
It’s frictionless.
You don’t need to learn anything new, weigh up the pros and cons, or question your long-held beliefs.
(OK, maybe your healthy life choices. But we all deserve a treat now and then.)
The only thought involved is: ‘How hungry am I?’
And in less than 2 seconds, you’re loving it a lot more than you thought when you got to the drive-thru.
(Let’s be honest, you’ve already pre-sold yourself long before getting there. But shush! I’m making a point here.)
Earlier this week, I was helping a super-successful plant-based nutrition coach with her offer.
She’d created a valuable freebie that helps people avoid eating foods covered in pesticides.
Basically, what to skip, what to embrace, and what you absolutely should buy organic.
(Strawberries, it seems, are 99% pesticide… Who knew?)
Her plan was to offer a guide to making plant-based cheese as a one-time upsell after the download.
Because what I hadn’t realised is that no matter how pesticide-free your produce is, unless cows are also reading that guide, you’re still filling your body with pesticides by drinking their milk and eating their cheese.
Curses.
And this logic makes perfect sense, but an upsell page is not the place to explain it.
The customer just isn’t ready for it. It’s too big a leap, too soon in their journey.
They just want to be horrified by the thought of all those chemical nasties they’ve been eating. They’re not ready to hear about cows downloading PDFs.
Buying decisions happen in baby steps.
Small micro-commitments that take them from attention to interest, from desire to action.
(Marketers will recognise this as the AIDA framework behind many a high-converting sales page.).
But miss one of these steps, or make too big a leap from one argument to the next, and the whole thing falls apart and the offer flops.
So what was the answer to my nutrition coach’s offer?
This is the perfect contender for an email series. One that guides subscribers step by step through the sales argument until saying yes is as easy as adding fries to your order.
Sadly, there’s still a fly left in the ointment.
The fact that eating plant-based cheese is like chewing on a bicycle tyre.
But that’s a battle for another day.
Fancy getting on a call to spot the flies in the ointment of your customer journey?