Pricing Your Online Information Products

When selling Online Information Products or services, you need to set prices that are based on such things as demonstrated ROI, increase in visitor traffic, and what your competition charges.

Information (in the form of e-books, subscriptions, or online instruction) is much like any other product or service, you need to identify your niche market and then charge a price that the market will bear.

Analyse The Market

The best place to start is by performing a market analysis such as you would find in a full business plan. You may want to research the four P’s:

• Product
• Price
• Position
• Place

By focusing on the related concepts, price will be easier to set.

You can get the majority of your information online. Research the industry in general. By simply doing a Google search, you will quickly figure out which services are most common.

If you are offering a class on how to become an affiliate marketer, then search for “affiliate marketing class”. At this point you can either decide to follow that broad trend, and face some stiff competition or branch out into a niche where demand is higher than supply. Perhaps it would be better to focus on affiliate marketing with Google.

When you know what area of the market you are most interested in, use an online tool such as you can find at Google Analytics to determine the best keywords. Do another, more specific search. Analyse the amount of supply that already exists. This is a good time to perform a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis.

Take Your Cues From The Competition

The best information can often come from your competition. Make a spreadsheet showing the list of services or products you want to offer. Visit ten websites that offer the same (or similar) services and enter their pricing structure. You can graph this out, if you are more of a visual sort.

Your pricing should be somewhere in the middle. Although you are just starting out, you do not want to be the cheapest. Your services are worth something and if your prices are too low, potential clients may perceive their value as less. Conversely, you do not want to set pricing so high that you miss capturing clients based on budget constraints.

Further Considerations

Of course, when you are selling an Online Information Product such as an e-book, then the cost of production will factor into the pricing. The faster you can recoup your initial investment, the more profitable this will be.

Offer some type of incentive. This could be based on volume, referrals, or a trade show discount. If you are offering an online course, you may want to induce companies to sign up their employees with a policy of every 10th student free. Use your imagination. There are many creative ways to come up with promotion that is directly connected to your information service.

Another way you can promote, is by offering a guarantee. Perhaps you are charging for online subscriptions to exclusive information on your website. You could guarantee a percentage increase in traffic if the subscriber follows the directions exactly.

There is the potential to make some good income by selling Online Information Products. Simply ensure that your pricing is valid and within existing parameters and that your product or service provides value to the customer.