
Bootstrap Marketing: Ideas that don't suck - bry
http://spencerfry.com/bootstrap-marketing
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patio11
I'm curious as to the rationale about "not letting people walk all over you."
Is that an ego thing? Because, businesswise, it is just as easy to say "We
ALWAYS give refunds when asked" as it is to say "We NEVER give refunds when
asked", and it costs _vanishingly_ little more money to say the first than the
second. Your pathological customers know a variety of ways to get their money
back anyhow ( _cough_ mention "chargeback" in a thirty second call to their
bank _cough_ ). You might as well take the opportunity to give your good
customers a feeling that you're not risky to do business with. Heck, make it a
sales point: we don't want your money if you're not ridiculously happy with
the service. (A/B test this if you don't believe me, but I think it is
probably a clear win.)

I've done this for almost five years with BCC, offering a published policy of
no-questions-asked refunds for 30 days (and the actual practice is that I will
literally send you a check 4 years later -- I did it once). My refunds over
the interim run under 3% of sales. In the last year, off the top of my head,
it is closer to 1.2% (switching to the online version prevents all sorts of
problems).

Otherwise I rather like the advice, although if you're not marketing to techy
people like web designers I would suggest getting a great deal more
comfortable with SEO than this would suggest because Google is the Internet.

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jonnathanson
I think a well-articulated and unconfusing policy on refunds goes a LONG way.
As does ease of customer service process. If you nail these two things, in my
experience, then questions about where to draw the line with refunds become
almost academic.

Customers don't like headaches. The goal of customer service isn't to bow down
to the customer at all costs, but rather, to minimize or alleviate headaches.

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hammock
_I think a well-articulated and unconfusing policy on refunds goes a LONG
way._

Got an example?

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alexqgb
How about "Money-back if not completely satisfied"?

I realize that it's no less complicated than "We ALWAYS give refunds when
asked" but perhaps this particular wording works better for you.

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stevoski
"we have a strict no refund policy — and you should too"

I disagree. Stating that you have a no-questions-asked 30-day money-back
guarantee will convince some people to sign up, because they known that if it
doesn't work out for them the can always for their money back.

I've had this policy in place since day 1, and my refunds rate is less than
1%. That's in 3 years and over a heck a lot of sales.

Oh, and if people ask after day 30, or day 40, or even day 50 for their money
back, I'll do it.

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hluska
I am a firm believer that customer service is the best marketing function that
a startup can invest in. With good customer service, customers who have
problems turn into the best beta testers, your strongest word of mouth
marketers, and really good friends.

I'd even go so far as to say that the key to success is to treat your
customers like gold, and treat your employees like customers.

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aymeric
How do you do great customer service?

How can I learn ideas about doing better customer service?

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hboon
A very simple guideline I use is what type of customer service would I like to
receive myself?

So, I

* try to respond to email quickly.

* don't write email like it's a press release.

* don't write too formally.

* issue "refunds" (for iPhone apps, I have to pay for Apple's cut). It's troublesome. I have to pay instead of refund. Some people have PayPal, some don't, Some have Amazon accounts, some don't.

* treat the party at the other side as a human, like I want to be treated.

* build a good product, and keep it good

it's surprisingly easy.

So next time you are at the receiving end of good or bad customer service,
note it down.

PS: We really need Markdown or something similar.

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thematt
I'm surprised blogging wasn't mentioned. Regularly writing about the topic(s)
your users are interested in has some great benefits:

\- Lends credibility to you and your site

\- Outbound links to your product's site can help SEO

\- Makes it possible to grab some of the long tail searches

\- Blog readers can be an instant marketing target when launching new features

It's especially great for bootstrapped or small startups. The large
competitors simply won't dedicate time or resources to the task. It's
typically difficult for them to draw a direct connection to profits. For small
startups it's a genuine way to connect with your customers without making them
jump through hoops.

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spencerfry
I specifically wanted to write about "non obvious" things.

Note this sentence from the introduction: "They're outdated and uninformative
— full of obvious suggestions such as: 'you should blog' and 'use Twitter to
get the word out.'"

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thematt
Awesome, my fault for missing that.

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marcamillion
I wish this post was about how to 'truly' get customers...then again, I might
have read this as 'how to get your first customers' which is different than
getting marginal customers once you get going.

Sure, blogging and establishing your founder's profile is nice and all. But
when you are just starting out, have zero customers and your customers are NOT
interested in your 'founder profile'...that doesn't help much.

Now that I want all those blog posts about getting from 0 - 100 paid
customers, I can't find any.

Does any have any references that are similar to picking up a phone book and
calling ?

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jcnotchrist
Thanks, I'll definitely take some of the ideas on.

Question: Any advice on acquiring Facebook fans?

We just started 6 weeks ago, now got 1,000 users (200 regular), but only 50 FB
fans. We have no money, so instead of doing "like us on FB to win XXX", I've
resorted to "I'll eat one clove of garlic for every 10 new FB fans". Anyway,
given that you've got 7,000 FB fans, I'm sure you can teach us a thing or two.
Our site is: www.findfish.at (it has a link to our FB page there).

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fleitz
Bootstrap Marketing: Find a phone book, find a phone, flip to a page, dial a
number, rinse wash repeat.

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sarahlensing
Very insightful!

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chrisaycock
That's what the up arrow is for.

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qq66
Don't be gratuitously mean. I (and others) put in comments like this when we
want to express more appreciation than an upvote.

