Create a high-ticket product or course that you can sell forever

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online-marketing-high-ticket-item-1I started by creating only low-ticket items because that’s what I saw others do. But as my business grew, I saw other possibilities and I also gained a reputation for my expertise and realized that I could create higher-priced products.

I know some of you feel uncomfortable about doing this and may not even know why you should, so I thought I’d write about it.

Some of the discomfort may be from past experiences with money. You might wonder, will anyone pay a high price for a product? Let me assure you that if the product is valuable and you’re attracting the right audience, the answer is yes!

High-end events or services is one option

One of the quickest and easiest ways to double your income is to come up with a high-ticket item that you can sell to your customers. One of the most popular models to do this is to offer one-on-one coaching or small in-person workshops. While that’s certainly an option and a great way to justify asking for several thousand dollars per ticket, this model has one big problem. It isn’t scalable because you’re limited in how many you can sell by how much time you’re willing to spend on these meetings in any given week or month.

Let’s look at some options that allow you to create a high-end product, without this limiting factor. In short, we’re going to look at some high-value products you can create that you set up once and then sell over and over again.

Why create a high-end product?

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by Ellen Finkelstein

Try wording your offer differently to get more buyers–discount or bonus?

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When marketers try to get customers to buy a product, they often provide a discount. Shopping carts let you create discount codes for a dollar amount or a percentage. Indeed, a discount can be effective.

internet-marketing-discount-vs-more-free-1But listen to this.

A team of researchers, led by Akshay Rao of the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, looked at consumers’ attitudes to discounting.

They offered either a 35%-off price discount on the regular price or a bonus pack of 50% more free. Economically, a bonus pack of 50% more free is equivalent to a price discount to 33.33% off.

How do you figure that?

If a product costs $1, then 33% off is $0.67. If you get 50% more for free, you get $1.50 worth for $1, which is also 33% off! But in most promotions, the base price ($1 in this example) isn’t shown and it turns out that most people aren’t very good at making the calculation.

What was the result?

The researchers, in several studies, found that shoppers  much preferred getting something extra free to getting something cheaper, even when the discount was a slightly better deal.

So, which should you offer, discount or bonus?

How can you use this information?

Try rewording or reconfiguring your promotional offer.  Instead of offering a discount, offer more for free. For example, I’ve had great success with 5 for the price of 4 when selling a series of training webinars.

Your result might be different with higher-priced products. After all, the research was done with mouthwash, toothpaste and other similarly-priced products. Someone might prefer to pay $67 for a $100 product when compared with paying $100 for $150 worth of products, just because $67 is less than $100 and you’re talking about a significant amount of money.

But try it and see what results you get, especially if your discounts aren’t working that well.

You can offer a free bonus instead of a discount. Perhaps they buy a coaching package and get a free training video or more personal time with you.

Or, instead of giving people a discount on a service you provide, offer more time for the same money. For example, you could offer 7 hours for the price of 6. It sounds more generous and you don’t want to discount your rate too often.

What types of promotional offers have worked well for you?

by Ellen Finkelstein