How to Make Your Customers Leave Forever! — Or Not**

Every day more and more people are realizing that the Internet offers great potential to set up a lucrative business for pennies on the dollar. This is great news for Internet marketers, but it also means that we need to improve our game.

Why? Because the would-be «netpreneur» has access to far more training than ever before. It’s possible to become educated very quickly on what is required to start a business online. This also means that people quickly understand what offers real value and what does not. They see so many sales letters that they become immune to typical hype. They are willing to spend, but they want value for their money. They want to be treated like the intelligent adults that they are.

So here’s a lesson for all ‘gurus’ who are focused on getting their share of the pie waiting to be sent their way via the Internet.

1) What does it take to make people want to buy from «you» rather than someone else?

2) What might make people want to unsubscribe from your list?

3) And what pushes them into asking for a refund?

What Makes People Want to Buy From *You*?

— They buy if they can see that a product will solve a problem or improve their personal situation.

— They buy if the purchase will speed up their business growth.

— They buy if a product will automate a task that eats into their time.

Once new marketers have been exposed to a few sales pages, it’s not long before they learn to look beyond hype. They study a sales letter carefully to work out what the product will «really» offer them.

They learn to look for value. Some higher-priced products are worth every cent while some cheaper products add very little to what they already know.

Seasoned internet marketers already know that if they put together online interviews offering truly valuable information, they are far more likely to attract and keep new customers. A quick example: Jane Smith listens to a one-hour audio interview on search engine optimization and traffic. She finds out some really useful information she has not so far heard anywhere else. She decides that this guy knows what he’s talking about and shells out a couple of hundred dollars for his products.

What Makes People Want to Unsubscribe from Your List?

— Getting several identical emails selling them the same product because the sender hasn’t figured out how to move them from one list to another after they buy.

— Getting a ‘cookie cutter’ email sounding full of excitement about a new product or service, which turns out to be a duplicate of the email they got from six other affiliates for the same product.

— Getting email from a product creator about anything under the sun because you bought one product from them.

What Makes People Want to Ask for a Refund?

In the past, buyers have tended to shrug off a bad purchase. But increasingly, people are prepared to stand up for their rights. And they should! If they feel they have not received value for their money, they will ask for a refund.

So what makes people decide to ask for their money back?

— Software that doesn’t do what you say it will do.

— Physical products (CDs, DVDs) that don’t work on their operating systems.

— Ebooks that are full of content easily found in an hour’s worth net surfing.

— Ebooks that have skimped on content or that have been poorly written.

— Ebooks that not only skimp on content but are full of links to upsells to get the ‘really valuable’ information, or is full of affiliate links.

The last case, an Ebook full of affiliate links or links to an up-sell is something you should be giving away for free as part of your viral marketing plan. Charge for it, and you risk your reputation for being a source of quality information.

Other things that make internet buyers unhappy…

— MP3’s that are streamed from a website rather than being downloadable.

— Ebooks that are in «.exe» format only, so the customer can’t print them out in one ‘hit’ and can’t access them on a Mac computer.

Give your customers anything that they can listen to or read away from their computers. Most of them spend enough hours a day behind a keyboard already. They’d rather load an audio interview into their MP3 player and listen while they go for a walk or drive. They’d prefer to print out an Ebook and read it or highlight certain points while sitting in an easy chair.

Finally, about those «squeeze pages»…

People are quickly becoming tired of having to give up their email addresses just to get to a sales page.

Do you want them to buy or not? Unless there’s a huge buzz around the Net and they want to see what it’s all about, potential customers are just as likely to close the browser window and leave.

After all, there’s always another internet marketer waiting to sell them a product. Probably one very similar to yours. Marketers who respect their customer’s time and intelligence will get their loyalty — and their cash.