I like using WordPress. There are a lot of themes to choose from, and it's relatively easy to get a site set up quickly, once you get used to it. One of the advantages of WordPress is the ability to do a lot of things with plugins.
I often get email that promote a new, improved, or special deal for a plugin. If it's something that I think will benefit me, I will take a look at it.
So let's get to the reason for this post and why I think it is important...
One of the more important steps when you are selling a downloadable (is that a word?) product is delivering it to your customer. In comes the download page. You need to have a way that your customers can easily access the download page.
At the same time, you want to make sure that non-buyers are blocked from accessing the download. That's where download protection comes in.
There are several plugins that are designed for this purpose. I don't have a recommendation, but I want to reveal what I discovered when I was sent a link to a new plugin.
The sales page did what all good sales pages do - it outlined the potential for people to get your product for free, and what you could do about it. And of course the plugin on offer was the best solution.
Here's where it gets interesting...
When you get to the price, you're presented with 2 options.
Option 1: Pay $17 to use the plugin on one site.
Option 2: Pay $37 to use the plugin on multiple sites.
So far so good. I've come across these types of options all of the time. It usually makes sense to pay a little more so I can use it on as many sites as I want. I was mildly interested, and then something caught my eye...
Just under the buy button, in small print was a message that informed me that I would be billed the purchase price every year. Did I mention that it was in small print?
The reason I'm bringing this to your attention is because most of the sales pages I've seen have offered the plugin for a one time price, not an annual recurring price.
And it seems a little shady to put the yearly recurring fee in small print. And yes, I did go back to read the sales page to make sure that it wasn't mentioned anywhere else.
So the lesson is to always read the fine print. In this case, it should have been spelled out in the sales copy. I didn't buy this plugin, because it kind of bothered me that this marketer was using this tactic. Not saying not to buy, just be sure to read and re-read the sales page so you don't get an unpleasant surprise.