Pricing experiment results
Here are the revenue numbers from Marketing for Developers' book launch:
Like many authors of technical books, I priced it at $39. (This graph doesn't include sales from the video tiers)
When it came time to write my most recent book, Jolt, I wanted to experiment with a lower price point: $9 pre-launch, $14.99 after that.
I wondered: "If I price this lower, could I make up the revenue difference in volume?" (you can read my whole rationale here)
Here are the results for Jolt so far:
Now, these comparisons aren't perfect. I've included the first 72 days of sales for both but, as you can see, each had a different launch strategy. For Marketing for Developers, I did an early beta sale, stopped selling it for 45 days, and then did the official launch on Oct 15.
To complete this picture, I'm going to show you launch numbers for Marketing for Developers, including the video tiers:
Here's what I learned:
Both $14.99 and $39 price points had similar sales revenue at launch. However, it often felt like I had to work twice as hard to get the same amount of revenue. (2.6 Jolts to get 1 Marketing for Devs).
Product category matters a lot in terms of perceived value. An ebook on Amazon is $0.99 - $9.99, but the amount of effort required to produce that value is HUGE. Some product types produce better ROI than others.
A lower price point is a great way to get first-time customers. Many people who bought Jolt had never bought something from me before. Some have already gone on to buy other things I've made.
Books are an enormous amount of work. ;) Jolt was the third one I've written, and I always forget how challenging they are to write, revise, and publish.
There are probably other lessons in here I'm missing as well. Let me know if you think of something!
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
(I sent this to my newsletter folks first. Get on the list!)
One more thing...
Many of my existing customers missed the comprehensive and tactical approach I took in the Marketing for Developers video tutorials.
I'm happy to announce I'm doing a major update to Marketing for Developers and turning it into a full-fledged course:
There will be at least 5+ new instructional videos, 3+ new interviews, and interactive workbooks (that you can save to PDF).
It will launch on October 15, 2016!