My buddy collects knives.
So one morning we go to a knife show. Eventually something catches his eye. We walk over to look at the piece and within a minute or two, a salesman arrives and tries to sell us on buying it. Everything’s going well until Mr. Salesman mentions the price. I can’t remember the exact cost, but it was extremely expensive…and…the instant this happened, my friend lost interest completely.
This story illustrates an important point.
Basically, the way you present your price is critical.
Doing this incorrectly could result in something known as “sticker shock.”
(i.e. your price shocks people and they are immediately put off buying.)
Now, while price is not always the determining factor, it does play a major role.
The point is that presenting your price the wrong way could destroy the sale.
To help you out here are some of my favorite strategies for avoiding this:
1. Compare apples to oranges
The easiest way to bring up your price is simply by comparing your product to something else. Let’s say you’re selling a get-better-at-golf DVD. What you could do is compare the product to the cost of hiring a PGA pro (in this case you’d also want to mention things like the cost of travelling to lessons etc.)
2. Sell the size
People associate size with value. Mention how much your product weights, the volume, or amount of space it takes up. If you’re selling information products, then talk about how many tips, techniques, and so on are in the product (i.e. “this course contains 99+ tips for improving your golf swing.”)
3. Talk about the cost of development
Go into detail discussing the amount of people it took to create the product. Mention their qualifications and experience, the amount of money you spent, the quality of the components, how difficult it was to build this product, and the rigorous testing it went through.
4. Make the parts worth more than the whole
This is a classic technique used when selling information products. You simply mention everything they get when buying the product. This includes things like bonuses, and other additional components.
5. Use installments
This strategy is often used in television commercials. Rather than presenting the price you say something like: “Just three small monthly installments of $11.95 charged to your credit card.”
6. The cup of coffee technique
This technique works well if you’re selling a subscription based product. What you do is break your price down into a daily cost and then compare that to something else. You could, for example, be selling a product which costs $99 per month. In this case you’d say “costs only $3.20 per day. Less than a cup of coffee!”
Anyway, using these techniques makes your price a little easier to swallow…
….which should, in the long run, help to increase conversions.
Stay tuned for more,
Alastair Walton