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So far there are more than twenty comments attached to my previous post on Forced Continuity.  I was about to add another comment of my own, but it was getting a little long so I decided to write another post instead.

Just in case you didn’t already know, the article on Forced Continuity was inspired by Mike Filsaime’s offer (released yesterday) called 7 Figure Secrets.

Filsaime is offering two free reports and a set of blue prints and, following the recent trend to give high quality content away, the only charge made is a shipping and handling fee (about $8 for US and Canada and $12 for the rest of the world).

As part of the deal, you have to agree to take out a trial subscription to Mike’s marketing magazine (a physical magazine, shipped monthly).  The first issue is free and subsequent issues are offered at a reduced rate. 

The terms are clearly described on the order page and are similar to most magazine subscription offers (I recently subscribed to a UK news magazine that worked on an indentical principle).

If you cancel your subscription before the trial period ends, then there is nothing further to pay.  Otherwise, the subscription payments will begin.

As I discussed in the previous article, this form of forced continuity is abundant in just about every niche but, like most successful marketing strategies, there is plenty of room for abuse.

I DON’T believe that Filsaime has setup this strategy in a way this is misleading or deceptive.  The terms are clearly visible on the order form and is highlighted so your eyes are drawn to it.  A telephone helpline has also been provided to allow for speedy cancellations should you wish to do so.

Although a great number of people have been very supportive and complimentary of this offer, as I predicted, this hasn’t stopped a flurry of negativity.

But are these criticisms reasonable or out of proportion?

If I’m brutally honest, I wouldn’t run a campaign of this kind.  I already get fed up with customers angrily demanding refunds, because they forgot their log-in password and assume I’m trying to rip them off.  I don’t need more of that.

But I’m not running this campaign, Mike is.  And the offer he’s making is a ridiculously good one.  If I didn’t order because it’s not my preferred marketing strategy then I’d be cutting my nose off to spite my face.

And if I didn’t recommend the offer to others, even though I happily ordered my copy within minutes of the launch, then wouldn’t be a little hypocritical?

Or even condescending?

I’m sensible enough to understand the offer, recognise it’s value and not be confused over what happens next (I let the subscription continue, or I cancel it).

If I boycotted the promotion and insisted that it was devious and misleading, then I’d really be saying that, unlike me, my readers don’t have sufficient sensibilities to benefit from this offer without getting confused and overwhelmed.

I get the arguement that some people don’t read offers properly and just jump to the order button.  But why should we cater to these people?

These are the same customers that order without reading and then file a PayPal complaint when the product isn’t what they were expecting.  As long as these people exist, ANY marketing strategy is going to produce confused and annoyed customers.

Think I’m exaggerating?

I recently had a customer ask for a Lucid SEO refund because it wasn’t what he was expecting.  When I asked for a little more info, he admitted that he knew nothing about computers and the manual was unintelligble to him.  His website was hosted and looked after by someone else and he didn’t even have the facility to edit or change it.

So how, exactly, was he expecting an SEO training course to help him?

It may be important to make your sales process simple and straight-forward, but it will never be possible to go far enough.  If you get enough customers, eventually someone is going to order who has no clue what’s going on.

So Filsaime has opted for a strategy that, no doubt, is extremely profitable and, in my view, offers a great deal to the customer.  It’ll attract more then the average level of criticism, but I don’t think it’ll keep him up nights.

Over the last few years I’ve seen people in this industry criticise pop-ups, one-time-offers, bonuses, upsells, joint ventures, product launches, seminars, membership sites, resell rights, private label rights, traffic exchanges, pay-per-click, SEO, e-books, me, virtually every person who has ever worked in internet marketing.

Oh yeah, and just… selling in general…

Most people in the IM space have at least a modicum of marketing knowledge so, naturally, people feel better equipped to criticise.  The more you know of a subject, the easier it is to judge and condemn.

Not that there’s anything wrong with criticism.  I just think it’s better aimed at the people and practices that are really odious.  Things like, pyramid schemes, money doublers, unregulated HYIPs, spammers, copyright theft, and so on.

If you don’t like forced continuity, then don’t use it in your business.  But ask yourself if it’s really necessary to condemn those that use it and are not trying to hide the fact.

And if the offer is a good one, then why click away just because the purveyor doesn’t share your opinions?

———-

The other day I got a brochure through the door offering me five books from a large selection, starting from 50pence per book.

The order form contained a note that said I must agree to buy at least one book from the bi-monthly brochure for the first year, otherwise I would be charged full price for the original five books (or I could return them).

Did I think, “hmm, that’s a bit sneaky… into the trash with you”?

No.

I thought “Sounds fair enough… it’s a deal”.

Mike’s offer is no different.  You’re getting a heck of lot of stuff for free, but the deal is you have to give his magazine subscription a try.

What’s wrong with that?

Heck, you’re not even tied into a contract.  If you really wanted, you could ring up and cancel five minutes after you’ve placed your order and still keep the free gifts.

If a company wants to give me a free gift, I expect that they’re going to try and profit from it somewhere down the line.

Nothing is being sneakily hidden and if mandating a recurring subscription tarnishes a reputation, then mine must be in tatters, seeing as I ran The Nettle Magazine as a membership site for the last couple of years.  

I agreed with most of the comments (http://www.thelucidblog.com/forced-continuity-good-or-evil/#comments) left on the last post, one of which criticised the line on the sales page that says “Click To Have Your Report Shipped for Free”

The line is a little misleading but I don’t think it’s deliberate.  The line is trying to say the REPORT is free, but I guess it could also be read the other way.

Interestingly, Rich Schefren is offering to refund the shipping as his bonus.  Which pretty much trumps my offer.  I did consider doing the same thing, but I bottled it when I though about what might happen if my link got passed round and I suddenly had a thousand people demanding their shipping bonus - LOL

With reference to another comment that a subscription made with a credit card can’t be cancelled with the credit card company, only with the vendor, this is usually true, but if the arrangement is made via PayPal, then you can cancel a credit card subscription from your PayPal account (Mike’s offer doesn’t use PayPal).

Additionally, it depends on the company, but if you were really struggling to get a subscription cancelled from a dodgy company, then a credit card supplier could instruct you to destroy your card and then report it as ‘lost’.  For security purposes, a new credit card would then have to be generated with a new number and any subscription attempts after that, would fail.

It bears mentioning again that this shouldn’t be a concern with Mike’s offer as great care has been taken to make cancellations quick and easy to accomplish.

BTW, just in case you weren’t aware, the above is just my opinion and I won’t think less of you for holding a different one.  Hopefully that works both ways.

If you want to add a comment below that rubbishes everything I say, please go ahead.  But if you’re going to reference Mike’s offer, then make sure you’ve actually visited the website for yourself first.

===> 7 Figure Secrets

OK… your turn

 

This entry was posted on Friday, June 6th, 2008 at 1:31 pm and is filed under Internet Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.