I just opted into the email list of a well-known marketer to get his 3 productivity secrets, and I noticed a couple of important points:
First, he never, ever mentions that you are getting a report. He simply refers to what you’re getting… 3 productivity secrets.
Some people, especially in the online marketing world, don’t attribute a very high value to reports, so this makes good sense.
Second, this report is a lead-in to his real product which is a productivity course. He tells you about this course on the, ‘We’ve sent you the link, check your email’ page, in the email itself, and again on the download page.
Each time he mentions the course, he also tells you to, ‘Use PromoCode: SMPL1234 for a very special surprise at checkout.’
By the time I’d seen this promo code 3 times (thank you page, email, download page) I had to find out just how much of a ‘very special surprise’ this might be. Frankly, I thought maybe he was giving away the product for almost nothing.
But clicking on the page, I realized it was a course, not a PDF as I’d imagined. No sign of a price on the sales page, so I clicked over to the checkout page and fell off my chair.
I was expecting something under $50, or maybe even free.
But it was $997.
Getting back into my chair, I inserted the promo code, thinking it might take the price down drastically.
It cut the price in half.
Now, normally this might be terrific. But the value of the course had not been built up enough, at least for me.
From the title of the product and the short description, I was expecting a PDF of less than 100 pages. This is not a difficult subject, and there are tons of books on the subject of productivity on Amazon for less than $20.
Instead of being a book, it was a series of 20 videos. And while I’m sure there are people who prefer videos, I just don’t have the time or inclination to download and watch 20 of them. It’s not going to happen.
And here’s where it went really wrong for me personally: Because there was no price on the sales page, I barely skimmed the page before clicking the “add to cart” to cart button to find out how much the product was.
Hence, the falling out of the chair reaction. I think I even clutched my chest, and I know I audibly gasped.
The value simply had not been built for a $997 product.
This marketer must be crazy, right?
Nope. While the offer was most definitely not for me, I happen to know that this particular marketer knows his stuff.
He’s been doing this for 20 years. He tests everything. He’s made millions. And if this didn’t work for him, he wouldn’t be doing it.
Consider how many sales he would need if the price were $20, versus $500.
He’d need 25 sales to equal $500. In his testing, he must have found that it’s easier to get one $500 sale than 25 sales at $20.
What’s the lesson here?
Test everything. I would have guessed that $20 or so would be the right price point. I also would have guessed that putting the price on the main sales page would be a good thing.
He found out otherwise, by testing.
Placing the offer in 3 places in quick succession with the promo code worked. It got me to the sales page, didn’t it? And I wasn’t even all that interested in the topic – just curious, really.
He could have broken that price down to the ridiculous and put it in the headline, such as $1.37 per day. That might have kept me satisfied long enough to actually read the entire sales page. I wonder if he tested this.
One last thing… when you are joining lists of fellow marketers, carefully watch the process being used to get you on board and purchasing.
You’ll get ideas, tips and tricks you won’t find in any course. Take into consideration the experience of the marketer – the more experienced they are, the more you can trust that what they are doing is working. Make notes and incorporate the pertinent ideas into your own business, testing everything along the way.
Irving
