When's the last time you were impressed and surprised by a company's marketing strategy towards you?
I'll admit it. If there's a free piece of software that works for me I will use it. And use it, and use it, and then some! I used Microsoft Defender and Windows Security Essentials for forever as my anti-virus and anti-malware services. And yes, they always worked well for me. I've never had a reason to not continue using them as I had been for years.
Well, with Windows 10 at some point I got the Avast free antivirus software installed and as before I've continued to use it because it seems to work fine for me, although I do miss my previous software installs.
Avast software includes them regularly nagging me about my PC running slow and they can improve it and blah-blah-blah. I usually click through the upgrade notifications and warnings and go along my merry way. I'm an above average computer user and can just take care of most of those things myself. It's amazing what regular maintenance activities and being aware of what's getting installed on my machines to begin with can make a difference.
Getting Surprised and Impressed by Avast
This evening though, as I was clicking through the screens to say "No Thanks" the screen featured below popped up.
This is a great piece of marketing strategy work in my opinion. They've taken the usual motivations for "No" and clearly give you reasons to trust them and give them a try while reinforcing the low-risk and zero price commitment barriers.
As you've probably experienced, you'll sign-up for a trial of something and before you know it the trial is over and you just got your account cha-chinged for a charge you really weren't prepared to confirm in the budget that month.
Key Marketing Strategy Points
Here are the key points I believe in this marketing strategy messaging above:
- I'm reminded of the issues my PC was experiencing that this software says it will fix. In my case that's 445 performance issues (a personalized total for me as a customer)
- Reminder that I can take advantage of the 60-day trial completely FREE
- If I like it, on 11/04/2019 I will be charged the 1 year subscription rate (I frequently put reminders in my calendar now a couple of days ahead of these kinds of dates to remind me to take care and cancel it if I don't want it)
- Additionally, they're letting me know (because of my behavior in the previous point) they're going to alert me a week before the deadline to cancel so I don't get surprised and irritated at them for automatically renewing my subscription.
- Additional reminders via text
- Nice comforting green color
I Might Actually Upgrade to the Premium Version
I'm actually pretty close to giving it a try and just seeing how I like it, and most importantly, did it clean-up those 445 performance issues and actually speed up my computer for me? One thing they left off that I think would have been beneficial, and it probably would be included in that email 7 days before! They've got an option to save more if you subscribe for 3 years at a time. It works out to $1.69/mnth billed at just over $60 for the 3 years.
What's not said in this advertisement is that this probably saves Avast a ton of headaches as well. Their customer service reps are probably tired of fielding calls, emails and online social media complaints about getting auto-billed and renewed for services.
When's the last time you put your customer's shoes on and thought about their experience with you and your company? Ask yourself how you'd like to be treated if the roles were reversed?
What would your sales and marketing processes look like then?