They nearly had me.. 

Funnel marketing is huge at the moment & can have some big rewards if done right. But for those who use it without genuinely trying to help the customer, it can go horribly wrong and your business can suffer MASSIVE repercussions.

I had one such experience with an Online Fitness Marketing company the other day..

While scrolling through my facebook feed, I noticed an offer from a Fitness Marketing Company. They were giving away 52 health and fitness tips that you could distribute to your clients. Basically, a years worth of content to supply to your clients for FREE.

For those that know funnels, we know what to expect with the process. It's a low barrier offer (LBO) that is designed to collect your email address in order to build a list. From there, they sell another LBO, and maybe an offer that costs a little more.. maybe.

So, this one was a 'Simply pop in your email and it's yours'.. it seemed.

Now, as this product of 52 health and fitness handouts is something we already offer over at Fitbizdocs , I felt it necessary to check it out and see how they were marketing this product and what their pitch was.

As the process went, the ad took me to a funnel page listing all the benefits of this product and emphasizing the FREE component. They outlined that this product normally costs $520 (or $10 per document) and that this FREE offer was 'one time only'.

Good marketing - clever.

So, I popped in my details & progressed through the pages, another offer appeared, then another like any regular funnel but by the time I got to the end, I was over it. Too many upsells that I didn't want - just give me the damn articles!

So, I expected the content to be sent to my email, or an autoresponder telling me where to claim the product.

Guess what happened?

The email arrived thanking me for entering my details in and to 'click here' to collect the 52 health and fitness articles. Maybe they were taking me to an online storage location, fair enough.

So, I went along and clicked, only to be taken to another optin page where this time I had to enter my credit card details. The statement read something along the lines of ' To collect your 52 articles, simply pop in your credit card details
Note: Your credit card will not be debited but we need them because the software we are using require them.'

WHAT???

Are you serious? I've been around long enough now to know that this is BS. Problem is, not everyone does. And some might be so naive & desperate for the competitive advantage, they will pass over their payment details without too much hesitation.

BTW this is supposed to be a very reputable international company, established over 5 years putting this bulls*&# together. It really ticked me off. Normally I would just drop it but seeing it's a very competitive marketplace and our products are being compared to these guys, I had to say something.

This marketing is completely unethical and is taking advantage of many unsuspecting fitness professionals.

Furthermore, it was so misleading to take someone on a journey like that, with a certain expectation of a FREE product, to then change at the last minute. If they just mentioned it would cost something at the start, they may not get as many optins, but they would salvage their reputation. Obviously I now know what is more important to them.

What do you think I did? Of course I didn't give them my credit card details, instead I wrote an email telling them what a crap experience I had and to rectify the funnel ASAP if they didn't want to lose any more credibility.

Lesson: Be clear on what your product is offering, follow through on your promise, make the journey EASY for the consumer - keep it short and sharp!