Course creators pay too much attention to the price. What should my course pricing be? What pricing model works best for my membership? Should I go with tiered pricing or opt for subscription pricing? If you’re doing this, you need to stop. Don’t focus on price (I use price and pricing interchangeably in this post).
Don’t get me wrong–you need to pick a pricing model. You also need a strategy for pricing too. But that will not help you win the sale. In fact, if you focus too much on pricing, you are risking losing the sale. Your clients are going to find the nearest exit and leave.
So what’s the point? When you’re done reading this post, I want to convince you to stop focusing on your price. You’ll also learn a more powerful hidden variable to focus on, instantly turning your sales letter or email into a sale.
The Problem with Pricing
The problem with pricing lies in its very definition. Here’s what Wikipedia says…
Pricing is the process whereby a business sets the price at which it will sell its products and services…
Do you see the problem? No? Let me explain…
Every time a client buys something from you, it’s a transaction where you sell something of value for a certain price, and your client buys it. Another way to look at this transaction is from the client’s perspective. Your client is also paying you something in exchange for the value they receive from you.
So every time you sell, you set the price. But every time your client buys, they only see what they need to pay. They don’t care about how much the price is. In other words, pricing is entirely your problem, not your client’s. Their problem is payment.
But unfortunately, too many people selling are stuck with their problems and not passionate about solving their clients’ problems. This happens a lot more in online businesses than offline. Perhaps it’s because of the lack of customer interaction. Maybe. But no matter what, you will lose the sale when you focus on pricing. So what should you do?
Stop Focusing on Pricing. Instead, Focus on THIS…
Payment.
Pricing and payment are two sides of the same coin. It only depends on who’s talking about it. You will benefit if you look at it from your client’s perspective because that’s what gets you the money. A price is just a number, but payment gets you the moolah!
So how focusing on payment can get you more sales?
Simply put, make it easy for your clients to pay you, and you shall have money in the bank. That’s all for today’s post. Here are five simple ways to make it easy for your clients to pay.
1. Easy monthly installments or EMIs
This is perhaps the easiest thing to do when it comes to payments. Give your clients to pay you in chunks across a few months. We’ve seen businesses use this for ages. This option is good if your course is priced above the $500 mark. But it also depends on your niche and your geography. Use this if you find it appropriate.
2. Free trial
The idea of a free trial or pass has also existed for a long time. But a lot of businesses get this wrong. The emphasis here is on the trial. The word free only helps clients pull the trigger.
But many businesses blur the difference between free trials and lead magnets. They are not the same. The contracts are very different. While a lead magnet works to get clients into your marketing ecosystem, a free trial is a sale.
If you plan to offer a free trial, make the contract clear to your client before signing up.
3. Discounted initial payment
Every time someone buys, the one big question is not about how much money I’ll have tomorrow or yesterday. It’s how much I need to spend NOW. Discounted initial payment works to reduce that anxiety.
You can give this payment option to your clients in combination with easy monthly installments by reducing the first installment. But it’s important to establish the contract that the future installments will be more than the first installment when your client signs up.
4. Subscription payment
The software industry pioneered this, and you can use this for your course business too. Simply put, instead of one giant price to pay, your clients now have the option to pay tiny sums of money every month, quarter, or year.
Subscription payment differs from easy monthly installments because a subscription payment contract lasts until the client renews it.
5. Pay what you want
There are times when you prefer to give something away for free. Perhaps as a lead magnet. Sometimes it’s surprising, though, that what we consider free can turn out to be so valuable that people might want to pay you for it.
While I’ve never used this sort of payment, I’ve once had a client paying me a few installments of a subscription course because they found my free resources so helpful. So give this a try if you can for any of your courses.
The next time you write a sales page or an email, try to remember this. Stop talking about pricing and focus on how easy it is for your clients to pay. You will have a roarrrring business.