Nathan Hangen, co-author of the book “Beyond Blogging”, published a guest posting today over at howtomakemyblog.com which outlines some of the obstacles and backlash encountered when the book was launched (released).
It’s an interesting read, but there’s one area that Nathan touched on which really struck me and I thought would make an interesting post here where I could expand my thoughts on it as well.
In his posting, Nathan mentions that deciding on a price point for the book before launch was a hard task for he and his partner, and the price they decided on of $47 apparently also drove some of the backlash they received from “A-list Bloggers” when they launched.
Now, Nathan gives 3 very good reasons for pricing the book at $47.
1) A higher price point will attract more affiliates
If you’re selling a product online you had better have an army of aggressive affiliates out there selling for you or you’ll be lucky to earn enough money for a nice dinner at Olive Garden.
I don’t care how good you are, or how great your product is, or even how hard you’re willing to work–if you’re the only one on the web promoting your product you’re almost guaranteed to fail.
As a product owner, your job (once the product is ready) is really to sell your product as “marketable” to affiliates, gather as many of them as you can into your fold, and then let them sell to the end users. Having a higher (but fair) price point and affiliate payout is the best tool I know of for attracting more quality affiliates.
2) Product Value
The second great point Nathan made was on the value contained in the book. From the months of time spent researching and writing it to the insights added by multiple interviews with well known authority bloggers. For a blogging beginner, it sounds like this book (and I haven’t read it to be honest) would be a great reference and launchpad to get a new blog up and running in the right direction. If that’s the case, $47 seems to me like a very small price to pay for such a work.
3) Show buyers you’re offering a serious product
But Nathan’s third point, which he gave the briefest explanation on but I thought was the most important, is that if they had priced it lower then buyers/readers may have taken it less seriously.
That idea may sound like “marketing double-speak” on first glance, but it’s actually a notion that I’ve always taken to heart in every product I’ve ever created, and I do so for the consumer’s interests rather than my own.
Protect Your Customers from Themselves
Speaking from my own experience, I’ve never created a product that I didn’t believe was a serious and/or powerful tool or reference. However, at the same time I’ve never created an “easy button” product either, because I have yet to see one actually work.
For example, with my NIMS (Niche Instant Mashup Sites) scripts, I know the potential of using those scripts is huge (I use them myself) in terms of ranking well and earning revenues, but I also know that unless you invest a little effort to make the sites you build with them your own and a pleasing/valuable experience to your visitors then you won’t ever make a dime with them.
In other words, NIMS does the heavy lifting of creating niche sites, but the user still needs to do some obvious marketing and link building promotions to get traffic, otherwise the site will just sit quietly lost in the vacuum of cyberspace.
If I sold NIMS for $9.99 I know that I could easily multiply the number of sales I’ve had by a factor of 10 or more, but I also know that the majority of the people who purchased the scripts at that price would never bother to use them, or would try them but not invest the work needed to promote their NIMS sites.
Such is the prevailing mindset among those searching for the “easy button” on the cheap. They often waste their time and money moving from one thing to another looking for a magic bullet rather than learning to maximize the potential of what they get. This is the crowd (and behavior) that many “gurus” and “$7 Special Report” sellers earn their living from. They depend on the buyer who won’t actually try to use what they’re selling, or look ‘behind the curtain’ of their systems and tools.
In my mind, that is nothing but taking advantage of your customers. At the end of the day, I’m all about making a profit with my business, but I also want those profits to be earned, and unless my customers are gaining a true value from what they buy from me, I can’t feel like I’ve earned their dollars.
So, by pricing NIMS as I have, I know that the price point will turn away some less motivated buyers, but I also know that there’s a much better likelihood that those who do buy the scripts will be more inclined to make use of them and put in the little necessary effort to get the most out of them.
Am I trading a some profits for a clear conscience? Probably, but then again maybe not. As was mentioned earlier, having a higher price point on a product attracts more affiliates to promote it for you, so at the end of the day I think the earnings are probably similar even though my pricing turns away many of the impulse buyers.
The bottom line for me is that this is my business and it carries my name, and I don’t take that lightly. In addition to earning a living, I intend to always be able to respect myself and what I do with it–and I believe my customers are better off and appreciative that I take that approach.
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