Is Internet Marketing Course Pricing Fair?
Internet Marketing courses vary in price hugely. Some are priced at low price points of everyone $10, some around $50, many around $100 and some are several hundred dollars or even a thousand or more. Although there seems to be some guideline in the prices (lower prices are usually digital downloads and higher prices are often mail order tangible courses or offer some kind of one-on-one support), prices are all across the board.
This seems to make some people angry or at least feel that it’s not fair that people charge so much for some products.
My question. Do you think it’s fair to price Internet marketing courses at several hundred dollars, a thousand dollars or even more? Why or why not?
About: Alice Seba
Alice Seba earns a full-time online income as an entrepreneur and loves to help others achieve the same. With a focus on using content to create relationships, loyalty and results from the written word, she co-owns both a ghostwriting service and a private label content business. To get more tips for your content marketing, visit Contentrix.com - your free resource with plenty of tips and strategies.Freebies
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Lorraine Cote
alice,
I don’t think it is a matter of fairness. Let’s face it, all marketer’s are in it to make money. They all feel that they produce a quality product that people will pay for, so they charge what they think is a fair price. is this wrong? I don’t think so. However, the question needs to be, ‘If a marketer is truly interested in helping people learn how to create a business and make money on the net, why do they price it out of the reach of most average working people who struggle to survive in this hard economy”? That is the real question. If the so called guru’s really want to teach the masses and build loyalty, then they need to get their heads out of the clouds and price this stuff reasonably, so we cash strapped people can take advantage of it. I don’t feel that what they offer is worth hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars! Just my 2 cents. Now, if you look at Ed Dale and his free 30-day challenge each year, that is a marketer who truly cares about teaching people how to make a buck!.
thanks for listening.
Lorraine Cote
The Write Touch 4 U
http://www.thewritetouch4u.com
Sarah Zeldman
I think fair or not fair is moot point when it comes to pricing. Let them price their product for whatever they think they can get for it — that’s up to them.
I will say, however, how I have ALWAYS admired you and Kelly for keeping your products priced affordably — which makes me a more loyal customer.
But, I don’t blame anyone for pricing themselves at the high end of the spectrum either.
There is PLENTLY of free and low-cost information out there — enough for ANYONE to be able to build a business online if they are resourceful enough to seek what they need.
Tishia Lee
Twitter: tishialee
Like the others have said, I too don’t think it’s a matter of fairness. I think It’s about pricing your product according to the quality of information you are providing, the type of product (digital download, etc) and the target market you are trying to reach. I’m sure some of the higher end priced material out there is worth it but I personally can’t afford it. I buy from people like you, Kelly and those that price products that I can afford but know that the content is valuable and well worth the price.
Katherine Reschke
This argument dovetails into the perceived value argument – do you value something more because you paid a lot of money for it? Are you more likely to take action if your outlay was considerable? I believe there are people serving both ends of the market so I think the situation is fair. The internet marketers have cleverly built up expectation to pay a lot more for ebooks than we would dream of paying for the same book in print in a bookstore.
Stefani Padilla
I agree with the ladies above – it’s really not a questions of fairness. If it is a questions of fairness – then it’s not fair to the degree that life’s not fair and I can’t afford everything that I want. But it does make you wonder about the internals of pricing – do these people really believe that their product is worth that amount, or are they just hoping to pull one over on their unsuspecting public? I knew an artist once that never sold a single painting – she priced them all at $100,000 – but she would give them as gifts so you could say you owned a $100,000 painting – sometimes I wonder if that same thinking is behind some of the pricing on the internet!
Stefani
http://www.business4moms.com
Stefani Tadio
1. Sometimes you get what you pay for.
2. What the market will bear.
Lynn Terry
Great topic, Alice! I say: The marketer sets the price, but its the buyer that determines the true value of the product. I wrote about this recently on ClickNewz (and linked my name to it above, for those interested).
As Katherine mentioned, the more we pay for a product the higher value we tend to place on it. And this perceived value can directly affect the results we get from that investment. From that viewpoint, a higher price tag can actually benefit the developers target market dramatically… So it might even be said that the marketer or product developer is doing their customer a favor with a higher price point!
Alice Seba
You’re all so reasonable.
Everyone has excellent points and I particularly agree with Tishia on target market. Different price points are chosen to target a different type of customer.
I recently saw someone say on a forum that it didn’t make sense that some of these big courses that target newbies aren’t affordable for newbies.
But newbie does not equal no money in many cases.
There are plenty of people who want to invest into their businesses and/or just have plenty of disposable income to play around with. You don’t have to be an inexperienced online marketer or business person to have money.
As far as I’m concerned, people can charge what they want. Hopefully, they’re offering the value their customers expect, but if they’re not…not much I can say about that (unless I’m one of the customers!).
Carrie
I would never say that an IM product was “too expensive”. If I see a product that I want to buy and it’s not in the budget right now, I might wish I could afford it – but I would not have bad feelings about the creator of the product.
More power to them for creating such value!
Niels
Do marketers arbitrarily establish prices? Or do they split test them? It would seem that must successful marketers would split test the price. If you are going to split test adwords ads, landing pages and page headlines, why not split test the product price?
If so, the price is determine by statistical analysis (such the chi-squared statistical significance).
Another factor I commonly see reflected in product prices is the affliate mark-up. Every marketer wants a significant return, and then many double that so they can give 50% commission to affliates on ClickBank. I can think of one product I recently saw where the price is $127 and the ClickBank commission is $63 (50%). So the marketer figures he can live with $64 and is giving $63 to the affliates.
Regina Baker
Twitter: reginabaker
Who can really determine what’s fair and more importantly, would it matter? Nope.
If I can afford it, I get it. If I can’t, like Carrie, I don’t worry about it.
Networking in the small business sector, a lot of small business can’t afford some of the higher priced products – even if they wanted it, but I think that sometimes people don’t realize that what they’re really angry about, is they don’t have the cash to purchase it. Therefore instead of looking at it that way and working on a plan to get it, they put all the blame on the marketer saying it’s over-priced, etc.
And to add fire to the fuel, I think all of us can agree ’some’ of this stuff isn’t worth the time spent putting it together
That’s what’s not fair.
silver emporium
Well all i can say is that it’s a tough question. but from my opinion no
because we all that it’s not fair to charge so much for some products.