Marketing hurdles – the good and bad

When marketing your business, it’s often a smart strategy to place “marketing hurdles” in your campaigns to slow people down in order to do something which measures their interest level in what you have to offer.

A classic example is a web-based squeeze page where you ask somebody for their contact info before presenting the reward.

Another example would be asking a tradeshow attendee to fill out a short survey in order to get a gift you’re giving away.

These are both examples of what I would define as “good marketing hurdles.”

How big of a marketing hurdle you put in front of somebody depends on the context of the situation or campaign, but the bottom line is that good marketing hurdles give a prospect or customer what they want, with minimal effort and provide you with important feedback.

At the other end of the marketing hurdles spectrum are bad marketing hurdles which result in serious problems for your business.  Bad marketing hurdles present unnecessary challenges to your prospects and customers, which will ultimately degrade results and profitability.

Probably the most common bad marketing hurdle is the cancellation/refund/guarantee process some business owners have in place.

So a quick personal story to illustrate what I mean…

The other day I purchased a piece of technology from a “big name” Internet marketer.  I did my due-diligence, checked everything out and made the $300 purchase.

Since I’m very familiar with this technology, as soon as I bought I went to work implementing it and after about 30 minutes I realized it had severe limitations and was not quite up to the level the marketer positioned it at in his front-end marketing.

When it was clear the product would not work for me, I made the decision to get my money back.

The marketer mentioned a money-back guarantee in his sales letter, but here’s the kicker.

THERE WAS NO EASY WAY FOR ME TO GET A REFUND!

In their Frequently Asked Questions, they listed the question, “Can I get a refund?” And their answer was “Yes, you can within 30 days of purchase.”

That was it.  No “how to get your refund” instructions.  No cancellation button anywhere.  As if by hiding it, they would change somebody’s mind about requesting a refund.

The ONLY option available to me was to contact their Support staff, which I did.  The auto-response notified me it could take up to 24 hours for me to get an answer to my simple question.

Then, on top of this all, the next day I had still not gotten response and had to contact them again in order to get the refund processed.

Marketing hurdles like these are bad for business and there’s absolutely NO REASON to make a customer jump over such hurdles to get their money back or cancel a membership. If a customer or member wants their money back or wants to cancel, no business owner should make them jump over a high hurdle to do what they want.

The same with “weasel language” in a product or service guarantee – if a business owner places ridiculous constraints or requirements in order for somebody to take advantage of his guarantee, he might as well not even have one.

This is the kind of ever-present bad marketing I am fighting with my new High Impact Marketing Club (there’s a right way to do things and a wrong way and over time, I will be showing the good and the bad in my High Impact Marketing Report newsletter).

In every one of my membership programs we make it drop dead simple for somebody to terminate their membership.  I’m sure some marketers would think I’m crazy, but my philosophy is if my program is not right for somebody, then they should be allowed to exit as easily as they entered.

So for example, I’ve created “One Click Cancel” available to every High Impact Marketer member.   If the High Impact Marketing Club is not right for you, you can immediately terminate your membership with the press of a highly-visible single button within the member site!

There’s no need to email us.

There’s no need to call us.

Our members are in total control and can stay around as long as they’re receiving value.

We make it easy to become a High Impact Marketing member and we make it easy for those who it’s not right for, to leave.

Now’s a good time to look at your various marketing and business processes and systems and see if you’re putting bad marketing hurdles in place that have a negative effect.

If you’ve come across other examples of bad marketing hurdles, without being specific and naming names, let us know, since it will help create a constructive checklist for everybody.