I get
newsletters from three people in the fitness/diet/exercise/lifestyle area. Just
lately I’ve had cause to write to all three of them about things they’ve done
that are a MAJOR turnoff for me when clicking on their links.
One of them offers a freebie item for only postage. Now, I get his other product semi-regularly and it’s
excellent, so I assume the new one would be too. However, he had a sneaky
clause that meant the product would keep arriving at the full price after that
freebie. I think there was a box to uncheck, but it was wayyy down. I wrote to
him and said that was not the way to get happy customers (I’d read a lot of
snaky comments about it) and he fixed the problem. Now you opt-in rather than
having to opt-out.
One of them talked happily about “my f***y
would thank me”. I told him that is not the thing to say to an international
audience that will include Australians. He meant my behind would be smaller…
The third one had a link to click that promised
a piece of information. Clicking the link took me to an unrelated page. He does
this a lot, so I think it’s a deliberate ploy. He offers something we might
want to know (which veg has the highest carb for example) and that link goes to
a hard-sell page. As far as I could tell the info I wanted and was promised wasn’t
there at all.
Also – there are the ones who offer information
we want and then make us click through screen after screen of video and
testimonial. The videos are soooo slowwww. I can read the info in 30 secs but
the dude doing the audio takes 2 minutes. So, having wasted about 9 mins
waiting for the screens to advance I click off that site. I will never
willingly go back. And I still don’t have the info I was offered.
So- mini-rant over. Sometimes, the bait/switch
techniques and testimonials tricks can backfire big time. You might pick up a few customers, but you WILL lose a lot like me.
