Some notes for my own future use concerning ineffective marketing practices. An alternative, longer title would be something like “Software I didn’t Buy and Why”
Uniblue RegistryBooster [06/10/208]
Seemed decent, but I didn’t know anything about it, nor much about the Windows registry either. Why I didn’t buy:
- System modal dialog box after invoking registry backup feature. This alone is almost a show stopper.
- After scanning and finding nearly 1000 “errors” I am informed the software will fix 15 for free, but I must purchase if I want to fix any more than 15. This is almost acceptable, except the purchase price was not listed, and evidently required me to launch a browser. No thanks. My computer apparently runs fine anyway.
I do recognize the consumer compliance strategy here, but I didn’t get the value at the step where I ended the sales process. I removed the software from my system immediately.
There will be more. I’m going to update this page over time.
Information for marketers
I am not a professional marketer. But I am professional consumer. That is, I buy stuff to make money with, and I know why I buy, and how I buy. And I have money. That makes me worth listening to. Here is a simple principle to follow: always provide the consumer with more value at every step of the conversion process. As you attempt to draw the consumer through your sales hoops, provide enough value at each step to keep them moving. In the Uniblue example, they made me work too hard without providing any value. And they didn’t tell why I needed to fix “errors.” They told me I had 1000 errors, but my computer runs fine as far as I am concerned. So not only did they lose the sale, they lost credibility.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Its like when I go to the makeup counter and they try to sell me a color that would look horrendous on me! =)
Hi there,
It’s Hilary here from Uniblue. Thanks for your feedback – we take all comments seriously.
I hope that I can shed some light on the issue of marketing RegistryBooster via a free scan.
The free scan’s intention is for users to evaluate their computer before purchasing the full product. It is marketed as a free scan, not a free “solution”. To evaluate the error fixing capabilities of Registry Booster we included a 15 error fixes. If we gave away a free trial version which fixed all registry errors (even for a short period), then many people would see no point in purchasing the full product.
However, I want to talk to you further about how we could improve the consumer experience.
Could you please email me on hilaryr@uniblue.net ?
Regards
Hilary Rogers
Uniblue Systems Ltd
Hilary,
Thanks for your comments. You do face a conundrum, to be sure.
I will contact you via email shortly.
For anyone else reading along, please understand that I made my decision on an emotional basis, not on a technical basis. Lacking technical knowledge of the subject, emotion-based decision making is critically important: something that induces an initially poor emotional response is not likely to give me warm fuzzy feelings later. This may or may not have any correlation whatsoever with the quality of the product!
I’m going to tackle Hilary’s comments in piecewise, starting with this:
Is this true?
How do you know?
Just because it seems true doesn’t mean it is true. Unless you have tested various combinations of licensing/purchasing plans, it’s not possible to know what will garner the most sales.
Why not try something like this:
* User gets say, 25% free with no further work.
* If the user signs up for the monthly Uniblue “Care and Feeding of Windows Registry” Newsletter (use Aweber.com, they rock), they get 75% cleaned.
* If the user takes a short survey (say, 10 questions, don’t make it hard), they get an initial complete cleanup, and a coupon for purchase.
Be transparent about all of the above.
This is more work for Uniblue to be sure, but it would certainly “screen in” customers willing to escalate their commitment as customers.
I’ll deal with the notion of “scan” later.
Hi there, I will discuss this with my colleagues!
Thanks for the suggestions!
Hilary