Customers Won’t Discount Your Dishonesty

Posted on June 11, 2008 | Filed Under Business Management, Online Marketing, Relationship Marketing

By Michel Fortin

A recent coaching session touched upon the growing trend that some marketers have adopted to squeeze out sales from exiting traffic.

In other words, you visit a website and read the salesletter. You decide it’s not for you, so you leave. But when you try leave (either as you close your browser or simply hover your mouse outside of it), the website attempts to make a last-ditch offer.

The common practice is to offer a discount, and a recent trend is to make it through virtual sales assistant just before the prospect clicks away from the screen.
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Are All Business People Dishonest?

Posted on May 14, 2008 | Filed Under Business Management, Offline Marketing, Online Marketing, Relationship Marketing

By Michel Fortin

Seems I’m ranting a lot these days, and a little more opinionated than the norm. Perhaps it’s my broken back,( http://www.michelfortin.com/breaking-my-back-promoting-new-product-literally/ ) which is killing me, that’s making me more sensitive or irritable. I don’t know.

But something someone recently said in my copywriters forum irritated me. And it’s not what this person said specifically, but the mindset behind it that’s bothering me.

In a thread about an Internet marketer who was recently arrested (yes, it had something to do with forced continuity, but it had more to do with refusing refunds and avoiding customers than it had to do with forced continuity itself), one member said:

“There is NO such thing as an honest business man. (…) Ask any accountant.”

Now, I have no clue as to why this person said this. And my opinion here is not about this person specifically. Again, it’s about the thinking process that some people have when they make such assertions.

Personally, I believe this view of business people is skewed, off, and wrong. It’s destructive, too.

In fact, copywriter Marcia Yudkin said it best. In her reply, she said this gem: “I feel sorry for you. That is a terrible philosophy to hold, hurtful to you and hurtful to the honest people who deal with you.”

Well said.
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Forced Continuity: A Different Perspective

Posted on May 7, 2008 | Filed Under Business Management, Offline Marketing, Online Marketing, Relationship Marketing, Revenue Generation

By Michel Fortin

Preamble: In response to some excellent rebuttals as well as countless comments I’ve received on my previous post, “The Real Sinister Side of Forced Continuity,” I believe some people are missing the point of my argument, and I want to clarify a few things.

I’m not a lawyer by any stretch. But as a copywriter and business owner, I do know the rules enough to know that there’s a difference between “optional continuity,” “forced continuity,” and “hidden continuity.”

Optional continuity is self-explanatory. Forced continuity is a very common marketing practice (I’m not a fan of it, but I don’t mind it). In fact, there’s nothing wrong with forced continuity in and of itself.

What’s wrong is when it’s used in a wrong way.
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The Real Sinister Side of Forced Continuity

Posted on May 5, 2008 | Filed Under Copywriting, Internet Trends, Online Marketing, Relationship Marketing

By Michel Fortin

Rant warning: what follows may offend some people. But I wanted to throw in my three cents on the topic of “forced continuity,” which seems to be the subject of a lot of debate these days.

Several well-known marketers have made offers of late with forced continuity. What it means is, the intended product you want to buy can only be purchased when you buy another (often, a continuous subscription) billed to your account every month or so until you cancel.
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Create Optimized Blog FAQs On The Fly

Posted on February 21, 2008 | Filed Under Blogging, Relationship Marketing, Traffic Generation

By Michel Fortin

I love readers’ questions. And sometimes, the same questions keep coming up that I decide on posting a blanket answer on this blog to cover them.

I do this as a way to create content for this blog, help my readers find the answers they’re looking for, and save me time from not having to answer the same questions over and over again.

Problem is, many people never find the blog post that answers their question, particularly if it’s old and sitting deep in the archives. And many people don’t take the time to search for it, because it’s work and it’s simply easier to contact my staff for the answer.

I thought about creating a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page. But I wanted a brain-dead easy solution to be able to do this in a snap (much like posting to this blog), and offer more to my readers.

But also, I wanted one that would optimize my page for the search engines (where specific keywords are included in the titles and questions), and be easy enough for me to simply answer questions as I go along.

Finally, I found one…

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