Inside Small Business | Small Business & Home Business Marketing

Marketing Strategy: More Money With Remarkable Pricing and Packaging

By: Wendy Maynard, Remarkable Marketing

To make more money with what you are already offering, consider different marketing strategies to make it easier for people to purchase your services/products. Restructuring your pricing and packaging creates more options for your customers.

Here are some examples:

1) Bundle ‘em. Offer your services in monthly increments. Instead of working with people on a session-by-session basis, offer a bundle of services. For instance, a personal trainer can offer sets of workouts for 3 months, 6 months, or a year. Add value by including a workbook to chart workout progress. You can also create levels of advancement to create more options for clients. Consider a silver, gold, and platinum program. Each level is a higher price and offers more value to your clients.

If you offer products, consider other ways to bundle things. For instance, a garden shop can put together a spring garden package that includes flower bulbs, a trowel, wildflower seeds, and gardeners’ gloves. A restaurant could start packaging their sauces and selling them to customers to take home. A life coach could put together a notebook and CD set to sell online.

2) Change product usage. Railroad ties are now used as decorative items for landscaping. I’ve also noticed that antique stores are offering faucets as coat hangers. And how about those stretchy bands that people use for workouts?

Arm & Hammer Baking Soda has this marketing strategy dialed in. The product was originally for baking. On their website, the company also suggests you use baking soda for brushing your teeth, deodorizing your dog, extinguishing fires, cleansing your hands, rinsing your mouth, and for children’s crafts. As a result, a simple product that might only be purchased once in a while has been transformed into a must-have product.

3) Change your pricing options. Offer your customers an option of paying in installments. Give a discount if customers buy a service early or in bulk. Offer a credit card option or allow people to buy online. Give people coupons, discounts, frequent-buyer rewards, or loyal-customer rebates.

4) Offer it in a new way. A book or a workshop can be turned into a CD program. Certain prospects may not have time to read a book or attend a workshop; but with your new packaging option, they can listen to your program during their commute or at the gym on their mp3 player. A used furniture store could paint some of its chairs or old frames in creative colors and market them as functional art.

5) “Plus” it. There is a term called “plussing” that comes from Walt Disney’s constant efforts to continually make a good idea even better. An example of this is adding a scavenger hunt game to the waiting area of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland Park - now even the pre-ride portion is fun. Hallmark Cards also uses the concept of plussing. When their creative team develops a new product idea, they invite all of their other divisions to follow the concept and spin off additional new products.

Action Step: Take a look at your packaging and pricing. What works well right now but can be plussed or made better? How can your services or products be bundled? What pricing options can you add? How can your products/services be made to be even more remarkable? By providing and marketing a variety of options to customers, you will make more sales.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Wendy Maynard, the Marketing Maven, publishes REMARKABLE MARKETING, a weekly e-zine for business owners, freelancers, and entrepreneurs. If you’re ready to skyrocket your sales, easily attract customers, and have more fun, get your FREE TIPS now at www.gomarketingmaven.com/ezine.html

           

Posted on Wednesday, September 13th, 2006 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Marketing, Small Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.