Most hotels make their guest’s beds and clean their rooms on a daily basis. It’s one of the very few perks to staying in a hotel. And if you’re unfortunate enough to stay at a lot of hotels for business, you’ve probably noticed that many of them will fold the end of the toilet paper into a little triangle.
Why? Because this is apparently a subtle way of communicating the fact that the bathroom has been cleaned. It’s a lot cheaper, easier and friendlier to the environment than leaving a sign on the bathroom mirror telling the guest that the cleaner has been at work.
But how effective is the technique? As oblivious as I may be to some things in life, I can’t help but notice that my bed has been made, and that the inordinate number of cushions have been put back on the bed. So do I really need a reminder when I’m sitting on the most private of seats?
Does that folded triangle really tell me that the cleaner is so incredibly attentive that they’ve even folded my toilet paper?
One hotel I stayed at went further, and actually put a gold sticker on the end of the toilet roll. This was not only pointless, but actually quite annoying. When the time came that you needed the toilet paper, you’d have to start picking away at the sticker, trying not to tear the paper in the process. Bad idea. And failing to notice the sticker doesn’t even bear thinking about.
So what does this have to do with marketing? At the most basic level, good marketing is all about communication between the seller and the buyer.
If you’re selling software online, allowing your visitors to download a trial version is good marketing. Forcing them to register in order to do so, however, is bad marketing.
I know the argument. The information that you gather through forcing them to share their email address is “priceless”. But is it really? No matter what you’re selling, I guarantee that forcing people to register to download is costing you downloads and sales.
We’ve debated this with a number of clients over the years, and most agreed to removing the forced registration for a few weeks trial. None of them went back to forced registration.
If you make registration compulsory before someone can download your software, you’re losing sales. And the beauty of good marketing is that you can still persuade some of your visitors to voluntarily register after downloading the software. Offer a basic level of free support, and many users will share their details quite happily, as by then they’ve already downloaded and installed your software, and your trust rating has gone up.
Stop turning away your users. Stop losing sales.
