Re: Pay for Content? Ha, Say Users

From: Christopher Ulrich <culrich_at_cydian.com>
Date: Tue 26 Mar 2002 16:44:30 -0600

OK - so enough with the rhetoric - how do we get them to pay?

I'll let you all in on one of my secrets that literally made
a million dollars. No, no courses to sell (no offense to
anyone)... just something that I learned - believe it or not
from an infomercial - that worked like a charm.

In the right setting it likely will again.

I bought one of those kits one night on an infomercial - how
to sell whatever, how to gets ads for free, etc. etc. etc....
Yeah, most are junk, but after paying $10,000 every 3 months
in tuition, what if I get a good idea for $39?

Best $39 I ever spent.

It was Brad Richdale's course (can't even believe I remember
his name) about 5 years ago. One thing that stuck out from
the first 30 minutes (because I never finished the course!)
was the concepts of upsell. The real money is in the upsell.

There is a point to this...

At that time, I was actively practicing law & with my computer
background, started a domain registration company -- back in
'97. Everyone was registering names for people and making
$25-50 for processing the application.

So I experimented - what about an upsell?

We were the first online to let people register the ".com",
".net" and ".org" at once - one application, one submit
button. Check the box. It was cool. It was neat. It was
high tech.

Ya know what? About half of the people did it and we
doubled revenue and drove profits immediately.

OK. So we tested. What else can we do?

We then came up with an application form where you could
apply for DIFFERENT names at once. Again, sales drove up
as people registered more names.

OK. We tried lowering price. NO difference. $35 or $25
- just about same number of registrations - we "lost" profit.

OK. Now the freebies.

Let's "Tier" the pricing: $35 for the first 3 names, $30
for the next 3, and $25 for the rest.

Sales were up again, with people dying to get to name #4 to
save $5

Then the genius...

Buy 9 names, get 1 free.

We started getting orders for 30 names. 50 names. 100
names. We never had those orders before. People would
think stuff up just to get that one free name.

<<< Light at the end of the tunnel ..... >>>

So, my point?

Want to make money selling information?

Offer packages. Have tiered pricing. Include something
of value (which will in reality cost you nothing) for free.

Selling stock tips? (Is that legal? If not, don't do it!)
How about adding on for half price an upgrade to
a special platinum membership with a special forum
for platinum members only (An extra 1/2, not 150%...
if $39 is the regular, let them "double" their membership for
just $19 more, as opposed to charging $59)

Now, you are not ripping them off. You are giving them
something worth while. And they are paying you for it. But
by making it feel like a bargain - and it very well may be --
you can then UPSELL and make more money off of those people
who are willing to spend.

By the way... that whole domain upsell thing? It really worked.
We did fantastic with it. Heck, at one time our operations -
which at that time was me at the kitchen table - resulted in
our name servers being listed in the top 50 in the world for
the sheer amount of names we were registering. From home. In
slippers.

Slippers are gone, office is here, and the gold rush is over.
No denial - it was a gold rush. But we capitalized on it
differently than everyone else (others soon followed suit).
Use principles like that to leverage payment for content and
other products.

My $0.02 cents

- Chris



Received on Tue Mar 26 2002 - 16:44:30 CST