I am addicted to purchasing downloadable ebooks. I LOVE the instant gratification and the variety of stories that are not avaiable in print…

I want to take a moment to share an experience that I just had with one of my reliable publishers… and a wonderful marketing opportunity that could become a negative experience for their customers.

I don’t plan to name any names here or point any fingers of blame, this is simply a learning moment!

I logged on to the site and on the home page there was a new message in red. It said:

If you are entitled to a FREE Download from XXXXX Ebooks in celebration of our second birthday just log into your account and begin browsing. You’ll find a FREE DOWNLOAD button on every book detail page. To select a specific title click on the button and the book will instantaneously pop into your library. This is a limited time offer set to expire soon so don’t delay. Thank you for shopping at XXXXX Ebooks!

This is a wonderful gesture, but in my case, for a variety of reasons, it went sadly wrong.

First off, I will admit, I just glanced at the note as I was clicking on the new title directly below the message. I got to the new title and there was a Free Download link, as mentioned. Without thinking, and before reading the book synopsis, I clicked on the Free Download button.

Without waiting to see what happened, I back up to their home page and read the message, carefully and completely this time…

I was excited because just this AM I had saved a link to one of their books that I wanted… It was the first of a series so I was thinking that I would use the Free Download for the first book and then purchase the second book.

I signed into my account only to discover that I seemed to have inadvertently *purchased* that initial book… which I wasn’t interested in and which wasn’t even available in the book format that I prefer…

Rats! I totally wasted their generous gift!

So… here is how I see the problem…

Clearly, I am at fault for not reading the announcement and for clicking on the button for a book I didn’t want.

However, I think that the publisher could have minimized the possibility of this outcome in several ways:

1) By placing the FREE DOWNLOAD announcement on the page so that it stood out more clearly, rather than including it in the main info text and just changing the color.

Put it in a colored box, with a headline about it, such as *FREE DOWNLOAD for Qualified Customers*.

2) Explain in greater detail how the process works.

A Bulleted list of step by step instructions would have been nice. I am pretty experienced and I managed to mess it up. I am sure that they have a respectable number of customers who are less experienced than I am.

3) Give a clear warning NOT to click on the button until a decision has been made.

4) Consider adding a second step in the process so that the reader can back out of the *Free Download* purchase, during the process… better to have a two step process than a lot of unhappy folks ending up with the WRONG book! LOL

I think of myself as fairly web savvy and yet I managed to totally screw up the process. ;-(

I am frustrated about the experience, which is a shame since that was not the purpose behind such a gracious and generous gift…

So, my suggestion about using a marketing strategy such as this… try to plan for the lowest common denominator and design the process to be a successful one for that segment.

In my case, it was a combination of not paying attention combined with a moment of extreme blondness.

I pride myself on being fair so I am berating myself, not the publisher.

I am also working on the whole *making lemonade* approach and turning this into a learning moment for other businesses, hoping to keep what would seem to be an unstoppable marketing promotion from turning into a negative experience for your web site visitors.

Sharing the road to success,
Tink