Case Studies | Marketing | Advertising
As I write this, it’s not even 8:00 am on Cyber Monday and so far, I’ve received 33 special deals via email. There are even more offers on my social media feeds. How your organization prices its products and services is a choice. Rather than default to what everyone else does like offer a sale today, you need to figure out what is right for you.
Remember, as Seth Godin says in his excellent new book This Is Marketing, “price is a story”. Whatever you choose for your pricing shapes what people believe about you.
Here are a few pricing models of companies I do business with. None of these are “right” or “wrong” but each tells a story about that company.
Price what your products are worth to the market and don’t discount. Consider Waterfield Design, a San Francisco maker of excellent bags and cases. I own a bunch of their products. Because the bags are made in small batches, they don’t have overstock to move out at a discount and I’ve never seen any of their products on sale.
Usually sell at full price but offer annual or semi-annual sales. For the past few days (between Black Friday and Cyber Monday), Apple has been offering discounts on iPhones and MacBooks. The company very rarely offers discounts on the Apple Store site so this is truly a special event.
Always sell at a discount to “regular price”. Amazon prices nearly all of its products at some discount to the regular price so I assume that the prices are always as low as possible. Yes, they offer special deals on Cyber Monday and yes I know they have an algorithm that changes prices based on many factors, but that’s all happening in the background for me. I don’t wait to buy on Amazon. I buy when I need something.
Continually hype “special sale” prices. Companies like True Religion always seem to be offering some sort of special sale. I like True Religion jeans, so I’ve been trained by them to never buy something unless it is 60% off regular price or more. I just wait a few months and what I want will eventually become much cheaper. It makes me wonder what “regular price” means.
Create a Cyber Monday Deal and other typical deals. Many companies follow the heard and offer special pricing when consumers expect it, like today.
Here is sixteen minutes of my email in-box this morning:
There are other ways to price besides these five examples. Each one is a choice and each one tells a story about your organization.
What story are you telling?
