19 Lunch and Learn: How to boost sales with simple pricing
Written by Julia Bickerstaff // April 2, 2012 // Daily Juice // No comments
Today’s recipe is inspired by an email I received from SAASU (the cloud based accounting software people). They have revised their pricing structure and wrote:
“TheNew Plans
We will still have 4 plans but instead of the current ones – Accountants Edition, Professional, Global and Enterprise – the new plans will be Extra Small, Small, Medium and Large.
The existing plan names had sometimes been confusing for customers and the move to more generic naming should allow new and existing customers have a clearer idea of where each of the plans is positioned. The software, clothing and food industries have all adopted this globally understood model.”
Besides rolling around on the floor laughing at how SAASU managed to describe their discovery of the, hold your breath, Small, Medium, and Large concept, I did think the email was a great example of making pricing simpler.
Can you imagine, prior to the change of plan name, a small business owner trying to work out which package best suited you? I can almost hear her saying “I’m not an accountant, I’m not a professional, I’m hardly what you call global, so does that make me enterprise?” Er, no. That’s actually the largest plan.
Clever names for our products can backfire!
What this is
A reminder that simple descriptions help make sales.
Why it works
Humans are programmed to avoid situations where we think we will lose. Psychological studies show that we would rather forfeit a gain than expose ourselves to a loss.
When we are faced with unclear product descriptions we fear that we are going to make the wrong choice. And to avoid making the wrong choice we make no choice at all. How? We just don’t buy.
What you do
I like reading witty product descriptions as much as the next person, so I don’t want to be a killjoy. But it’s quite possible that your clever product names are getting in the way of you making sales.
Today’s tip is quick and easy. Take a look at the products or packages you are selling:
- Have you ascribed them with ingenious names?
- Can a ten year old work out which the small, medium, large versions are? Try this for real!
- Are you surprised that particular packages don’t sell? This could be because of a particularly lateral name.
If you have a web based product (where it is easy-peasy to change package names) you could experiment with a few different naming styles to see which one is most appealing.
This is not about removing the fun from your product, it’s about removing the fear of buying it.
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