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Newbies need this easy
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Forced Continuity
Fiasco & The Twitter
Effect
Recently Matt Bacak along
with many affiliates sent out a promotion
selling his $5,000+ course for $1.
You also got a free issue
(cough cough) of a print magazine and were
enrolled in a forced continuity program with a
monthly fee.
Nothing wrong with forced
continuity when it is clearly
explained AND appears on
the order processing page. I read the
first promo sent out and declined. The "free
print newsletter" was enough to make me look
for the fine print & the monthly fee. I
could not find it and I was looking for
it.
This seems to be the case
with these type of offers when they "do not
take paypal" (to easy to cancel?).
You can bet a few "buyers"
were in for a suprise.
In less than an hour the
proverbial sh*t hit the fan.
Starting with Twitter, people
who have 100's following them made the 140
character mini post on twitter and word spread
virally. The promo page was quickly changed to
show the continuity charge which you could
cancel if you did not like the
print magazine. It still was not that
apparent especially if you clicked one of
the "take me to the order button" links located
before the "continuity text".
Threads started up in forums,
blog post were made with links to the FTC page
on forced continuity rules, several heavy
hitters made blog post. People posted screen
shots of the cached order page. Even YouTube
videos popped up showing the first order
page.
Affiliates blindly promoting
the deal (I hope) started sending out apology
letters as people started unsubscribing from
list.
Then...
Here come Joel Comm's $9.95
Adsense Book offer with drum roll a forced
continuity program. His was more visible but
after the recent one still caused a
stir.
Joel made an apology video
shortly after that and offered two order
buttons, one with just the adsense book at the
$9.95 and one with the adsense book, free issue
of his print magazine and a clear explanation
of the monthly fee.
I was going to post some
interesting links but just google forced
continuity with a few marketers names in front
of that phrase and you will get the
picture.
Matt & Joel
are both well resepected successful marketers -
they are good guys but they
took a few dings with these promos. They made a
mistake (one was a little bigger than the
other). Joel apologized and gave everyone the
truly great deal on his new book they thought
they were going to get. Matt fixed his page (to
some extent) and came through with his donation
to charity in New Orleans, you can see it
on YouTube.
Michael Fortrin
made two excellent post concerning
this http://www.michelfortin.com/the-real-sinister-side-of-forced-continuity/
http://www.michelfortin.com/forced-continuity-a-different-perspective/
And That's The
Twitter Effect or The Web 2.0 Effect -
Web 2.0 is not about glossy graphics. It's
about community and sharing of information -
the good, bad and ugly. People talk,
post, twitt, blog, pownce, skype, digg,
stumble, del.icio.us and more.
Major companies are
monitoring twitter, facebook &
blogs... actually trying to solve customer
issues and stop flames.
Of course you always should,
but today you must be above board, honest
and transparent in your online marketing. Cross
your T's and dot your I's. When someone
percives sneakiness for them it's their reality
and they are going to communicate it especially
if they feel slighted.
And it is the same with a
satisfied customer. A raving fan is likely to
spread the word.
The tweets, blog & forum
post are indexed and archived.
Not to long ago a marketer
was arrested. He was selling a miracle cure in
the health niche (it had an
almost disguised forced continuity).
Customer complaints mounted and before long the
FDA was involved and it all came down on him. A
google search of their name brings up almost
nothing but ugly and at some authority
sites.
Choose wisely what you
promote and you will be fine. Give poor
customer service or deceive your customers and
they have the capability to let the world know,
not just their neighboors.
Tom
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