By
Robert W. Bly
When
creating a direct mail promotion, the closing copy, especially the
offer, often
gets short shrift. The marketer simply picks up the boilerplate from
previous
promotions, without thinking through whether the offer and its wording
make
sense.
And
often, they don’t. More and more we see offers that are confusing,
deceptive,
unfair, or illogical – if we look carefully.
A
number of publishers, for instance, offer lifetime guarantees. They
permit the
subscriber to cancel at any time and receive a prorated refund on
“unmailed
issues.”
But if you offer both a
bill-me option as well as payment with order, such a lifetime guarantee
actually gives the customer an incentive not to pay up front –
the
opposite of what the marketer desires.
Say the customer checks the
“bill-me” option for a monthly newsletter, gets his first issue, and
then
writes “cancel” on his invoice. The publisher doesn’t send him a bill
for one
issue, nor does the publisher ask for the newsletter back. So the
customer gets
a free issue.
But if the customer pays in
advance, then cancels after the first issue, he gets a refund for 11/12th
of the subscription price (the 11 unmailed issues) and therefore ends
up paying
for the issue received.
Why should the bill-me
customer get a free issue, but not the payment-with-order customer? It
doesn’t
make sense, considering a cash-with-order customer is more desirable
than a
bill-me order.
How can you fix this
problem? Offer a full money-back guarantee within the first 30 days,
then a
prorated refund thereafter. That way, everyone gets the first issue
free if
they decide not to become subscribers, whether they enclosed payment
with order
or chose the bill-me option.
The wording in lifetime guarantees is at times ambiguous, unclear, or even misleading on such offers. The old standard used to offer “a prorated refund on the unused portion of your subscription” or on “unmailed issues.”
No problem there. You knew that if you cancelled after 6 months and the newsletter cost $100, you would get $50 back.
Now many of these guarantees offer “a full refund on the unused portion of your subscription.” Are they offering 100% of your money back?
No. By “full,” they mean the full amount of the cost of the unmailed issues. Again, for a $100 subscription cancelled after 6 months, that’s a $50 refund.
If you really are giving back the subscriber all of her money, make it clear, e.g., “We’ll refund your entire subscription fee in full” or “We’ll refund every penny you paid.”
Another gray area is the offer of a free issue. Many subscription promotions with a 30-day money-back guarantee promote the first issue, sent within 30 days, as a “free issue.”
In reality, that issue is
free only if you do not become a subscriber. If you do subscribe, then
you are
paying for that issue, i.e. for a monthly publication, that first issue
is one
of a total of 12 you will get as part of your one-year subscription.
So for those who pay and do
not request a refund, there is no free issue. In that case, “free
issue” is not
wholly accurate. More correctly, we should say “risk-free issue” or
“no-risk
issue.”
To make it a true free
issue, you’d have to give them the first issue plus, if they subscribe,
12 more
issues – a total of 13 issues for the price of 12.
Very few newsletters do
that, but if you have a how-to newsletter, you could, quite easily.
Just create
an evergreen “first issue” and include it in the welcome kit. Then
begin their
regular subscription with the next issue mailed.
Those
of us who use premiums know the danger of offering a too-generous
premium with
a bill-me option: The subscriber responds, gets the premiums, cancels,
pays
nothing, and keeps all the great free gifts.
The solution is to phrase
the bill-me option check-off box this way: “Bill me (bonus gift sent
upon receipt of payment).” The subscriber can still (if he wishes) pay,
get the
bonus, cancel within 30 days, get a refund of that payment, and keep
the
premium.
But that’s going to a lot of
trouble to get a free special report. Asking for the money before you
send the
premium gains more of a commitment from the subscriber, resulting in
fewer
replies from people who have no intention of subscribing but just want
something free.
At
least two publishers have approached me recently with the idea of
offering a
best-selling book on the topic covered by their publication as a
premium.
Popular books are a bad choice, however, because many of the people
receiving
your mailing may already own the book.
You
could offer a choice of an alternate premium, and ask the subscriber to
pick
one – either the book or another item. In theory, it sounds good, but
it seldom
works. The reason is the old rule of thumb: The more choices you ask
the buyer
to make, the more she has to think about it. And a decision deferred is
a
decision not made.
The typical guarantee offers a full refund if you cancel the service or return the product within 30 days, but some experts suggest a longer period. How long? Some recommend a lifetime guarantee.
Boardroom offers a full refund on the full subscription price, even if you cancel on the last day of your subscription. “It is a great selling point,” says Boardroom’s Michael Feldstein. “And since very few people cancel on a bill-me offer after they pay, the risk is minimal.”
About the author:
Bob Bly is a freelance
copywriter whose clients include Kiplinger, Forbes, McGraw-Hill,
Phillips,
Agora, and KCI. He is the author of more than 50 books including The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Direct
Marketing (Alpha Books). Bob can be reached at 201-385-1220 or at
rwbly@bly.com.
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