If you sell any kind of digital product online, you’ll know all about “digital thieves” and the loss of revenue they cause. The more you try to “lock down” your products to prevent thieves from stealing and redistributing them, the more you aggravate your genuine customers who want simple, easy product access.
So what can you do? Well, the methods for dealing with the thieves depends on what type of thieves you’re dealing with. Are they the “professional refunders“, the “unaware it wasn’t a free ebook” downloaders or the “all information deserves to be free” freeloaders? Each type has different counter-measures.
My long-time friend, Dr Mani, the heart surgeon (yes, he is a genuine friend… we wrote about his Heart Kids Blogathon back in 2006 at this blog and have known him for far longer than that) has written a series of reports called “Don’t Get Mad” which describe the counter-measures you can take to deal with the different kinds of digital thieves.
I particularly liked the strategies to gain positives from any refunds. Anyone selling anything dislikes refunds, but they’re just a normal part of doing business. By implementing Dr Mani’s strategies when people ask for refunds, you could potentially save some sales, and generate new business in the future.
I have to admit, I read the refund report particularly closely because I shot myself in the foot in the early days online by saying people could ask for a refund “for no reason and with no questions asked”. The only problem with that guarantee was that I NEEDED to know WHY people asked for refunds so that I could potentially prevent future refund requests perhaps by improving the product or sales process. I ditched the “no questions asked” part of the refund policy so that I could ask the reasons behind the refund requests. I know for a fact, you get some very, very useful and profitable replies!
Get Dr Mani’s “Dont Get Mad” reports from here. Yes, he’s selling them. Yes, it’s a very low price. No, I’m not using an affiliate link. 