This is a story about a very impressive online newsletter with a very unimpressive approach to sales.
I came across this newsletter — which is basically nothing more than a daily list of links — by accident but was amazed at just how helpful it was. Yes, I could go find all of the information myself, but because of the topic that would be extremely difficult — even with RSS feeds, I’d be completely overwhelmed by the amount of information to sift through.
So I got a free trial subscription and enjoyed it until they finally stopped sending it to me a couple months ago. Then, today, a spam (which I don’t mind in this case) shows up in my inbox offering me yet another free trial subscription to entice me into paying for the newsletter.
And here’s the kicker — so I have had numerous contacts with this group over the past several months but not once has any of these e-mails or the group’s web site explained a) how I can subscribe and b) how much it costs. For all I know it could cost $50/year or $500/year (or even more because of its target market).
There’s a nice long FAQ on the company’s web site, but no mention at all of subscription costs or methods. I like the newsletter enough that if they had a “subscribe” button on their web site and the price was reasonable, I’d have probably already signed up, but it’s not so critical to me that I’m going to go through the hassle of composing an e-mail and waiting back for a response.
Never underestimate the laziness of the American consumer when trying to sell you product online.