Excellent Blog Post By Michael Fortin

Same here Colin

Always made my squeeze pages an option to join a list for instance. I may not get as many names on my list, but at least I know those customers want to be there (hopefully)

Kim

I love reading his stuff and agree with him 100%, which is probably why I
don't make nearly as much money as I could.

The last time I ever took anybody hostage was when I was a teen and
needed a date to the prom.

Who else does that (all the time)?

...or...rather leverages off every "Big Name" Launch.

I'm not suggesting it's an (Arbitage) Conspiracy... just more 'pot meet kettle' if you know what I mean?

Oh...Never Mind! (...back to work...)

Kenneth

Terry, I'm glad you went back and read the post. The contention I have is NOT with upsells. It's with "upsell hell," or "upsell jail." (I prefer the latter, my wife coined the former in her report at InternetMarketingSins.com.)

It's not so much that you offer an upsell or two. It's that you offer it after the sale has been initiated and before it has been completed. You are holding your client, their money, and their order (what they paid for) hostage.

The Internet makes this process so easy to do -- and with so much potential for it being abused -- because even a simple confirmation page can be easily withheld until the customer jumps through your hoops.

Once they've reached the shopping cart and entered their credit card details, that's when the abuse starts. And so many marketers out there have this "gotcha" attitude once their customers reach this point.

And that's sad.

Same thing with forced continuity (which I have NO problems with, either). The abuse of forced continuity, specifically hidden continuity or "switched" continuity, is what I have a problem with. It's downright abusive.

Sure we can say "buyer beware" and so on. But when you hold your customer hostage, even after this customer has read all your copy, has invested time and effort in deciding on whether to buy or not (i.e., in whether to trust you or not), has studied all the fine print, and has done all their due diligence, and you remove all choices from their purchase decision, it's no longer the customer's fault.

Bottom line, I'm against the abuse, not the use, of upsells.

Plus, when it comes to upsell hell, the fact that is can be so easily abused (and it has been) is specifically frustrating with 5, 8, even 10 upsell offers.

And my specific contention is with those who say "but it works." Of course, it works. Holding a gun to someone's head and asking for their money works, too. But when something works doesn't mean it's right.

Specifically, the article I ranted about initially likened upsells to "do you want fries with that." And that's fine. But in this context, the old McDonald's upsell strategy is misleading. A better analogy is when you give your money to the cashier, and while he's holding your money/change in one hand and your food in the other, stops and tries to sell you over and over again.

The worse part is, on the Internet you don't see your change/money or even your order, because you don't even know if the order went through, you don't have access to what you paid for until and unless you go through a barrage of upsell offers.

Plus, you have a psychological investment up to that point and feel you can't leave because 1) you want to make sure your order went through, 2) you want what you paid for, 3) you've invested your trust in the person/business making the offer (and you hate being wrong), 4) you don't know if it's a scam until the order is finalized and you got what you paid for, and 5) you're afraid to leave because you'd hate to have your credit card processed without having what you paid for if you abandoned your shopping cart to that point.

So you're stuck.

You're in upsell jail.

I believe in upsells wholeheartedly. And personally, I think multiple "in-transit" upsells is myopic, gives our industry a bad name, makes us all look scammy/smarmy, and focuses on the short-term sales rather than the long-term customer relationships.

Thanks for commenting and allowing me to vent.

Oh man, you just ruined my next big payday, I was all set to launch "Google Ninja" next week with "Black Hat Magic Machine" as an upsell.. lmao

But all joking aside.. have to agree with you on this one, too many people focus on short term and "black hat" techniques trying to make money "right now" without even thinking to look at the bigger picture. Not that I mind making money "right now" but I'd gladly sacrifice that if it means I'll be making money for years to come. I'd much rather have an "army" of satisfied customers who are happy to buy and promote my next product, than a bunch of "hostage" customers who aren't happy with me because I tricked them into giving me their hard-earned money.

Hey Terry

I'll pipe in here, if that's ok.

These are fine, provided the customer is given what was promised, what they paid for, and then additional offers (relevant offers only) are made on the download page.

The whole issue is to avoid the shock, confusion, and uncertainty that people are hit with when they expected one series of events and didn't get what they expected.

The number one problem with online sales is gaining trust, and it seems ridiculous to me that we work so hard to gain enough trust so that they enter their credit card, and then make them question their trust by hitting them with upsell hell.

Frankly, it's just stupid.

But by doing what you said you were going to do (give them what they paid for) and then make an upsell offer, it doesn't make them question their initial buying decision.

This is done because of the limitations of autoresponders.

There are basically three types of lists you can have someone opt in to...

Main List
Pre-Sell Autoresponder
Post-Sell Autoresponder

If someone gets on your Pre-Sell autoresponder, then buys your product, you need to add them to your Post-Sell autoresponder so you don't continue to pitch them your product (and annoy them).

That's why you need to ask someone to "register" their purchase by entering their name and email address before downloading, so that you can put them on your post-sell responder which has a different series of messages, all meant to help them consume the product they bought.

Hope that helps.