Are Your Advertising Techniques Misleading Your Customers – And Killing Sales?

Most small business advertising techniques aren’t truly “techniques” at all. They’re “ploys” to mislead the customer and get the quick cash from the initial sale.

To most business owners that might sounds good, but in the end it backfires like crazy!

Let me tell you what I mean…

The other day I was relaxing with my puppy, Kingsley, when I saw a commercial for the online music service Rhapsody.

Seeing the commercial really didn’t bother me at first. I mean, if they paid for advertising they should be able to well, advertise! And frankly, they can advertise how they want to. But when I saw the end of the commercial, let’s just say I was a little “peeved” to say the least.

Here’s why:

At the beginning of this year, my wife and I were looking for an online service to download music from to put on our mp3 players. We both got gyms memberships and we wanted some music to work out to.

So while we were searching, I came across Rhapsody. Rhapsody says you’ll be able to download as much music as you’d like, which got me pumped! So I signed up.

But, here’s what I found out…

When you download music from Rhapsody, you can only listen to it on your COMPUTER — not an mp3 player!

Now, call me old-fashioned but if I see people in your commercials using mp3 players left and right, I’m going to assume that I can download the music and put it on my mp3 player!

Not so with Rhapsody…

Which brings me to my point – if you’re going to advertise something, don’t mislead your customers to make the initial sale. Because quite frankly, most of your money isn’t made on the initial sale… it’s made on the BACK-END.

Here’s what I mean by “the back-end”…

Let’s say you have a subscription service in your business. Let’s say you get customers to sign up for $20 bucks a month.

Initially, you charge $20 for the set-up, and $20 for the actual service ITSELF. Sounds good, right? But here’s where those days in Math class where I DIDN’T fall asleep pay off:

On the front end, you may earn $40 bucks. But if you mislead and lie to your customers, they’ll cancel their subscription ASAP.

So you may have gain $40 initially. But with a subscription service, you get money from your customers AUTOMATICALLY… month after month.

If you’re charging $20 bucks a month and your customers stay with you for a year, that’s $240 in cash – you don’t have to work for!

And if they stay with you for 5 years, you’re looking at each customer being worth at least $1,200 to your business!

See why it’s so important to be honest in your advertising?

The lesson here is not to chase the quick buck. Go after the long-term, profitable relationships in your business. Don’t lie or mislead your customers or prospects.

Be up-front.

Be real.

Be honest.

Be grateful for your customers.

Do that – and you’ll find yourself having a lot of business in the future.