Exactly What You Promise

I've just had a really annoying experience, and if the Supreme Success you're looking for has anything to do with online marketing it might be something you can learn from, too.

It sounds insultingly obvious to say you have to give your customers the things you've promised them, doesn't it? Well, I can assure you that it doesn't always happen.

In return for joining someone's mailing list I was offered a very interesting-looking freebie, which I eagerly accepted. With it came an offer of related software for a low price. I wasn't greatly interested in the main product, but I was keen on one of the bonus products that came with it. I accepted that, too.

The main product didn't work - at all - and one of the bonuses turned out to be an inferior version of something I already had.

Another proved to be a restricted version of the real thing. To be fair, it came equipped with some kind of an update patch, which didn't seem to turn it into the full version I'd been promised, but as it wasn't something I had much need to use I could have overlooked that.

My real annoyance, though, was reserved for the bonus product which was all I'd bought the package for. It, too, was a "lite" version - and one of its limitations was that it wouldn't let me save my work, or re-open a project once I'd left it.

In other words, it wasn't worth the download time I'd spent on it, let alone the (admittedly small) amount I'd paid for it.

Worse still, the "read me" file recommended that to take full advantage of the software I should buy the full version... from the very guy who'd led me to believe that's what I'd paid him for!

I checked the sales page again, very carefully, to see if there was something in the small print that I'd missed, but no. Nowhere was there any indication that what was on offer was anything less than a version that was fully functional.

As I pointed out in asking for a refund, there's just no way that I'd have paid him any money for a lite version of the software - most lite versions are downloadable for free.

The point of the story's obvious enough - if you offer something to your customers, don't mislead them. Most people will be decent enough to give you opportunities to put right a download error, but if they've got less value than your website promised them, you won't get many second chances.

At best, you lose a customer, and make sure they never buy from you again (and you can be very sure they'll tell their friends, as well).

At worst, you find yourself in legal trouble - advertising that doesn't deliver what it promises can bring a very heavy penalty in many countries.

If the sale's been made through PayPal, ClickBank or a number of other credit card fulfillment companies, there's also the possibility your customer will complain to them... and they rarely take that very well. One offence can cost you money - a number of complaints can get you barred.

It's no use offering the defence that the price was low to start with, either. The answer to the question, "What do you expect to get for that amount?" is very simple.

"Exactly what you promised me."

Beware The Gridlocked Video...

Yes, I know this story makes me look an idiot, but if you're looking for success in online marketing, the situation that gives rise to it is one you really need to be aware of... and if you're not, you can feel free to have a laugh at my expense.

I recently came across a site with lots of videos on something that I'm keenly interested in, and I couldn't wait to watch them. Each one was supposed to last about 4 minutes, so they couldn't take that long to load up... could they?

Well, not if you're in the same country as the site, perhaps. The trouble is, that site and myself were on different sides of the Atlantic.

I clicked on the first track, and it buffered for several minutes - then it flickered into life and its producer said, "Hi! My name is..."

The video then froze, and buffered for several more minutes before the guy in the picture jerkily moved his hands for a split second and gave me half his name... and then it froze again. Cue more buffering.

This was not what I'd call streaming video – it was more like gridlock.

Now, at this point I would usually have given up and left the site, but I really wanted to watch those videos, so I hung on.

I kid you not, it took an hour and a half before the buffering got near the end – of a video which, remember, was supposed to take a mere 4 minutes to play through.

It was at this point that I made my big mistake. Once the buffering had finished, I decided, I'd be able to watch the whole thing properly – and I might as well do it with a cup of coffee in my hand.

Wrong move. In the time it took to switch the kettle on, the buffering had finally completed... and gone back to zero. Hopefully, I clicked on Play, and the buffering began again. Right from the start.

Now, this ought to be a one-off horror story... but it isn't. There are lots of sites that offer video and other kinds of streaming media that only work the way they should if you're quite near to them, or else you're using broadband (I don't, because I reckon that the best way to ensure that all the content on Supreme-Success.com is easily accessible to all site visitors is to test it on a dial-up connection).

If you want to use some video without antagonizing all your visitors who can't get at it easily, it's a good idea to offer an alternative.

1. If possible, present it in a format that can be downloaded. A download manager that can collect it overnight, or resume an interrupted download when it's more convenient, can take the sting out of the waiting; or

2. It that's not feasible, offer them a transcript. Write down everything you're saying on the video, and let them just download it as an e-book.

If you're working from a script, that should take very little effort – if not, it's worth the extra work to play it through and just transcribe your words.

(Do get rid of those distracting "um"s and "er"s, though – they creep into most videos at some point, and your visitors will probably take clarity a lot more seriously than exact fidelity to the recorded version!)

Your visitors will love you for it – it's a quick and easy way to show you care about them.

If you don't, you're going to lose a lot of hard-earned traffic, because a gridlocked video has just the same effect as gridlocked vehicles – exasperated visitors avoid the place in future.