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50 Biggest Mistakes # 11 & 34 No Follow-up Autoresponder & Failure to Apply Any "Stick" Strategies

By Bret Ridgway

Republish: EasyPublish™
Published: 24Oct2008
Word count: 748
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Part 1 - No Follow-up Autoresponder to Help People Consume Your Product

Alex Mandossian is the first person I ever heard speak of the concept of "Product Consumption." And he's dead on target. If you can't get your customers to even consume your product, then your chance for refunds increase significantly, and the chance that that customer will buy more products from you decreases significantly.

Similar in concept to Info Marketing Mistake #8 — No "Read This First" or "Getting Started" document - avoiding this mistake is essentially the application of online tools in the form of autoresponders to help your customers continue to move through your product in a positive manner. Where the "Read This First" can help get them out of the gate, the autoresponder is your best ally to keep them moving forward after that first day.

It's that friendly little nudge after they've received your product that will help the sale "stick" and is designed to provide that helpful reminder of how to best consume your course for maximum benefit. It's important to get people started quickly and keep their momentum going. So it's fairly common to have daily autoresponder messages for the first week to ten days after the product purchase.

Product consumption is what it's all about. It's your job to provide your customers the utensils they need to help them to consume your information product.

Part # 2 - Failure to Apply Any "Stick" Strategies

We discussed earlier the subject of helping your customers to "consume" your information via use of autoresponders and a "Read This First" or "Getting Started" document. Both of these tools are designed to help people overcome the "overwhelm" they may feel when they first receive your product — especially if it's a "Big Box" package.

These are just two of many things you can do to help people consume your product and reduce the chances of a product being returned for a refund. Obviously, it's a given you should deliver high quality content to your customers. But there are a number of other "Stick Strategies" you should employ to help you to reduce refunds and get folks coming back again and again for your information products.

It's all about overcoming buyer's remorse. There's typically a lag period between the initial euphoria of making the decision to purchase your product and the moment the product actually arrives at their door. Doubt begins to creep into their mind — "Have I made a good decision?" Thousands of products have been returned to our facility where the box was obviously never even opened. If you can't even get them to open your box, how in the world are they going to consume it?

The first thing you should do to help your sales stick is to immediately deliver some content digitally. Get people started quickly consuming your information in some format. You want to avoid the inevitable decrease in enthusiasm for your product that can occur as they wait for the package to arrive. So give them access to some audio content or other component of the product to get the ball rolling.

When the actual box arrives, the first thing your customer should see is a big sticker on the box that says something like "STOP — Before you open this box, call this toll-free number for important information." List an 800 number on the box that goes to a pre-recorded message. That message should reinforce the sale and get them excited about opening the box and digging into your information.

This box label is just one of many additional "Stick" strategies you should consider for your products. With appropriate kudos to Alex Mandossian and Joe Polish, here are a few other popular techniques that can help to reduce refunds and keep them coming back for more:

Bonus gift request form — a printed document inside their box they must fax back to claim their bonus items.

Postcard follow-up sequence — a great consumption concept from Alex Mandossian where they receive a physical postcard every week for a few weeks to keep drawing them deeper and deeper into your product, increasing consumption.

Robotic personal coaching — a video or audio postcard message that covers frequently asked questions.

Client newsletters by snail mail — a printed newsletter sent via the postal service that cuts through the clutter and increases customer retention.

Non-relevant gifts — thank you gifts that have nothing to do with your "topic." An example might be brownies, candy, or other consumables branded to you.

Bret Ridgway is co-founder of Speaker Fulfillment Services, a company dedicated to helping information marketers. To pick up your own copy of his "New Information Product Development and Launch Checklist" visit http://www.50BiggestMistakes.com/ .

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