The Online Trader Newsletter

July 3rd 2003

Try something different...

The Internet is all about trying different things and being innovative - it is often the 'off the wall' ideas that work the best. I tried a new method of marketing a product last week and I received so many emails from customers/subscribers asking me to let them know how I got on, that I decided to make the results the topic of this weeks newsletter.

If you have only subscribed to the newsletter in the last week, then you may have missed the offer, so let me give you the outline...

I offered a package of over 300 website templates for sale and gave my subscribers the option of choosing how much they would like to pay for the package. The normal price of the package was $37 and customers could choose to pay this amount or one of two lower prices. Whatever they paid, they got exactly the same product. To see the full details of the offer, use the link below:

http://www.thetraderonline.com/templates.html

Let me just say firstly that the package was worth every cent/penny of the retail price of $37 and I would have no issues in selling it for this price, so whatever anyone paid, they got a great deal. What I wanted to see was how people reacted to this type of offer.

The results were interesting to say the least. As you would expect, the vast majority of people chose to pay the lower price, a few went for the middle price and a few went for the normal retail price. No real surprise there.

However, the interesting point to note is the percentage of people that actually made a purchase. With a product such as this, I would normally have expected a conversion rate of around 1 - 2% (that is 1 or 2 sales for every 100 people that viewed the sales page), however the conversion rate for this campaign was over 4% - more than double what I would have normally expected the best result to be!

So whilst I made less per sale than I would have done if I had simply offered the package for $37, I generated more in total income as I made far more sales.

Possible reasons?

There are several and I am sure that a psychologist could enlighten me as to the various aspects of human behaviour that caused more people to buy, however, I guess the main reason is that people love a great deal and also like being in control. From a marketing point of view, I think that the main lesson I will take away from this experiment is this:

'Try something different, you might be pleasantly surprised!'

If you missed the offer and would like to grab yourself a superb package of website templates (regardless of which price you decide to pay), you can still do so at the link below:

http://www.thetraderonline.com/templates.html

And if you decide to try a similar technique with your own products, let me know the results, it would be interesting to compare and I might be able to include details of your story in a future newsletter.

Until next time....