Pricing is Positioning

I received this email from one of our customers today -


This super affiliate offered a unique tool for PPC marketers.

The tool was promoted under a "15 day trial" period, after which you were required to purchase in order to continue using the tool.

Based on our past experience with similar models, I recommended removing the trial option and offering the tool on a strict "you gotta pay to play" model.

I was happy to hear back, about how this simple change helped in significantly increasing converesions.

But was I surprised? Not really.

It all boils down to one of the oldest golden rules of Marketing: Pricing is Positioning

Think about it -

When you walk into a perfume store and you see one perfume bottle selling for $100 when another is selling for $20, what is your instant reaction? You're going to assume the $100 bottle is probably of much better quality.

The same principle applies to online products.

When you give something away for free (or offer a free trial) the inherent perception is that it's either a new product in test run or it's just not worth the money.

In addition, in the online world, a lot of users download dozens of products because they heard good things about them and then never proceed to install and test the product to its full extent.

If you offer a free trial, turn it off for a week and compare your results.

If for some reason you are absolutely committed to offering a trial, go with a "pay $1 for the first 30 days, get charged full price later" (like 1ShoppingCart.com) versus a "no credit card required, test the product first and decide later".