I subscribe to quite a few magazines: Entertainment Weekly, Redbook and many more. Because of this, I also get a lot of offers in the mail for other magazines. Most of the time, I toss them. But one caught my eye recently. It was for O, the Oprah Magazine.
While I wasn’t really interested in the signing up, the price—just 10 bucks for a year—encouraged me. Well, the bill came and sat on my desk. Then I received an e-mail. So I clicked and found myself on an easy-to-use payment page. Thirty seconds after entering my credit card info, I was done. To be honest, that bill would have likely sat on my desk for months before I pulled out my checkbook, found a stamp and put it in the mailbox.
The online option was not only super easy, but O actually got what it was seeking—my money. And it also gave me a warm-fuzzy feeling like, “Hey, these people get that I’m busy and want to make it as easy as possible to get their magazine in my hands.”
How easy is it for your customers to make payments? Do you have an after-hours slot where they can drop off a payment? What about online payment options? Do you even accept credit card payments, or are you still relying on checks or cash that need to be deposited every week? If it’s the latter, wake up! People want convenience, and convenience means using the best of today’s technology.
Fortunately, we’re here to help. Our back-to-back May and June issues feature a plethora of articles on everything from choosing the right self-storage software to technology on the horizon for the industry. Another article I’d like to point out is Megan Eckert’s feature on Internet marketing. Eckert breaks down all those acronyms so they’re easy to understand, and shows you how easy it is to start advertising on the Web. Look for it in the June print edition and next month online.