Beware Of The Trial Offer Tactic

by Rick Carbone

There are a lot of free offers out there. Here are a few precautions, which i have picked up. Few things are totally free. Free of charge indicates no investment, cost-free, nada, nothing! A little bit ago I offered a "free" ebook on beginning an online home business. To acquire this ebook you were required to give me your email address. So I guess you might say it was not totally free, because you needed to give me something in exchange for it. That item would have provided me the right to send you email periodically about home business information. Professionally I think it was a reasonable trade, and not a misleading one as well. But that is not what this post is about. It comes down to stretching the truth and baiting customers.

A little while ago I received an offer from a well known Internet Marketer who I believe offers some very decent products. The offer appeared to be that this individual was giving away a new product for just $5.00. This product sells for more than $100 so this was quite a bargain. I was thinking, at the time, exactly what does this person mean? Exactly why would anyone offer this product for five bucks when the product was selling for well over $100. The fact was it wasn't. Not even close. The actual "special offer" was allowing me to be able to try it out for the $5.00 and following the initial trial period I would automatically be charged the regular price in regular installments since it was a membership product, which took some digging to find out.

You have to give him credit for originality but it really was the classic "bait and switch" approach. Some of you might say I was pretty naive to think that this product was only going to cost $5.00. The fact is that I in no way genuinely thought that the product had been offered for five dollars, however I'll bet there were some that did and were rather shocked after they discovered the installment on their bank card bill.

Personally I believe that the present global financial slow-down has triggered loads of marketers to defer to some tried and tested hard-core marketing maneuvers that border on being unethical.

This is, certainly not, a condemnation of trial offers mainly because it is not. Point in fact, I've personally acquired products from online marketers which clearly express that the initial tryout timeframe is $X but that the purchase price is $Y following the tryout. This is a terrific strategy for both product seller and for the product buyer for two factors. First, it's good for the seller because it entices purchasers to act for a very low price for a distinct time-frame. Second it's good for the purchasers simply because they get to assess the product inexpensively just before they really must purchase it. There's nothing incorrect with this particularly when it is spelled out clearly in the sales page. It's really a win-win situation.

My pet peeve is that in most cases whenever entrepreneurs are offering subscription based products they mask the real monthly subscription with a low cost first month only just as soon as they've got your credit card number you will quickly get the "genuine" cost in your credit card statement before you'll realize what's truly happened.

The bottom line: Read everything twice before you purchase. When the numbers are not there in the sales copy either do not buy it or email the owner and ask the question. If the offer is genuine the owner will certainly answer your pre-sales concern right away. If not, do not even bother.