Establishing Value For Your Products is a critical objective in the product launch process. When your product sales page goes live, you don’t want your potential customers still wondering about whether the product is worth the price. At launch time you want them clamoring to get a copy before you sell out or raise the price. If your customers need to mortgage their home or sell a kidney to buy your product, they need to know in advance so they can free-up the cash and not miss out on your limited offer!
The process for establishing the value of your product is not very complicated. It relies on something psychologists call ‘perceptual contrast’. That’s a great big fancy label, but it basically means that if I show you something expensive first, and then show you a lower priced item second, the second item will seem like a bargain. As long as both items are similar, your mind will compare them when deciding the value of the second item. Your mind uses the first thing it sees as the benchmark for evaluating what comes after it. (There is a really cool experiment you can run on your friends that demonstrates how perceptual contrast works – check the bottom of this article for more details.)
To put this into practice during a launch, you start by establishing a very high value for the ‘benefits’ of the product you are selling. If a customer saved $10,000 dollars using your training, you can establish that the ‘real’ value of the training is $10,000 (at least for that customer.) If there are other people teaching something similar at a higher price, talk about how much they charge, and explain that this person’s customers are getting a good deal because the training is worth much more. This has the double benefit of showing that you are a nice likable person because you said generous things about a competitor.
Any time you have a chance to use a third party voice to state a value for the type of product your are selling, work it into the sales copy – you want to continually re-enforce the value of the product. When you solicit testimonials, always ask for details and numbers.
A common tactic is to wait until after you’ve hooked your prospective customers into wanting your product and then, as your launch date approaches, you can reveal that the product is ‘only’ going to cost $97 while still delivering the same quality as the far more expensive options. Your $97 price tag will seem like the most amazing bargain in the marketplace. A secondary benefit is that keeping people guessing about the price will encourage them to do just that. They will visit forums and blogs and speculate about how much you will actually charge – this provides more buzz in the marketplace and helps 3rd party voices re-enforce the value of your product.
That’s the process. Demonstrate the value of the results. Discuss the value and price of similar products in the marketplace, and then mention your price and compare it to reinforce the value.
Now, here is the cool experiment you can run on your friends. Fill three buckets with water. The water in the middle bucket should be room temperature. Fill the second bucket with very cold water and the third with very warm water. Have your friends place one hand in the cold bucket and the other in the warm bucket and leave them there for a few seconds to get acclimated. Then, have your friend place both hands in the middle bucket and describe the temperature of the water.
Your friend’s mind will interpret the information from each hand relative to the temperature of the bucket it was in before. The signal from the hand from the cold bucket says the water is warmer than room temperature and the other side says it’s colder – but your friend also ‘knows’ that both hands are feeling the same temperature water.
Catch their reaction on tape. It should be good for a few laughs (specially if your friend has had a few beers!) If you get it on tape, put it on YouTube and post a link in the comments here!