Can a list be "conditioned" to never spend more than $10?

11 replies
Hi guys, just wanted to discuss a phenomena that occurred with one of my lists.

And, I'm not complaining, because it's still a great source of income, but here's what happened:

I have a few lists, but this one is right around 4000 subs. I wanted to test out the marketing strategy of selling really cheaply priced items, but selling quantity.

What I would do is set up older MRR and PLR video courses and ebooks and sell them for $5-$7 to my list. I did this for a few months, and it worked really well. On a broadcast I could easily do 15-20 sales.

Again, not complaining, but now if I send a broadcast for any product over $7, I usually only make 1-2 sales. Then, the next day I'll send a $5 offer and make a ton of sales again.

So, I'd like to know if any other marketers have experienced what I call "list conditioning", and how they either exploited it or got their lists back to "normal". Thanks.
#$10 #conditioned #list #spend
  • Profile picture of the author lawyer2warrior
    Hi nicheblogger75,

    Before I went to law school, I did PhD graduate work in Clinical Psychology. YES! I think there's something going on there.

    If you think about it, it seems to be the reverse of what information marketing has already accomplished. As an author, I can tell you that a guy can slave away on a book, pay his dues to get it published, and then pray that it sells for $12.95 so he can make a few bucks.

    By contrast, information marketers can slam together "e-books" in a couple of hours and sell them for $17!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    It's all relative, and I think you can definitely train your list "back down the ladder." They can't really assess quality on the front end, so they just figure they can get the same info for $7.

    That's my thinking.

    Thanks for sharing your story.

    Take care,
    Scott
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    • Profile picture of the author Shaun OReilly
      Have you developed a full marketing funnel with products
      and services at ever increasing value and price points?

      Take a look at what you're giving them at the lower-price
      levels. Are you giving away the farm for $5-7 at a time?

      Also, take a look at how you can add more value to your
      products and improve your copywriting skills so that you
      can more effectively sell products at higher price points.

      Dedicated to mutual success,

      Shaun
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  • Profile picture of the author WillR
    No, I don't think it is to do with price. Was the product and offer you sent out exactly the same only with a different price? Unless this was the case then there are no conclusions to be drawn from your results.

    Sure, if you are selling ebooks to them every other day of the week for $5 and the next day you try to sell them one for $47, they're going to wonder why the big price hike. This just means you have set a certain level of value expectation. For x amount of dollars they are use to receiving x amount of value. Therefor if you want to increase the amount of money you can charge and your customers will pay then you need to increase the amount of value you provide.
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    • Profile picture of the author Steve B
      NicheBlogger75:

      I have not had this experience as a seller, but I can tell you, as a buyer, that there is something to your supposition.

      Maybe this example is a little bit of a stretch, but here goes...

      Whenever I buy a new domain or renew one of my 100+ registrations at Godaddy, I always do a search for promo codes. I have learned from experience time and time again that there is always a code to be found that will let me save 15-30% on the cost of my domain purchases and renewals.

      And it works every time. I refuse to pay Godaddy's regular advertised prices because I know they will accept less.

      Couponers and habitual sales junkies prove, in my mind at least, that buyers can be conditioned to expect a discount, or to find something on sale, to the point that they refuse to pay more.

      I agree that with higher value, the list subscribers should be able to understand the associated higher price point -- but maybe they have been so conditioned to expect prices under $10 from you that they just turn away and don't even take the time to understand the difference in value between your bigger ticket items and "the usual."

      To a certain extent, I think you see some of this on WSO's. So many of them are begun under $10 that when you see one priced at $27 or $47 you may just move on to the next one, even though the value could be overflowing. Often folks are in so much of a hurry they just don't take the time to investigate value if they have been conditioned to expect a certain lower price point.

      Just my 2 cents.

      Steve
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      Steve Browne, online business strategies, tips, guidance, and resources
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  • Profile picture of the author Lee Murray
    I agree with Will.

    I don't think you can make a logical jump to "they won't shell out more than 7 bucks" based off of just one instance. Tons of variables to consider.

    One thing that comes to mind is preselling. It takes quite a bit more preselling to get someone to shell out more significant sums of money. The more expensive the product, the more "stroking" that's required.

    Was your marketing tactic the exact same for that "more than 7 dollar" product as it was for the cheaper stuff? Also, how much more significant was the hike? You didn't specify. $8? $9? $17? $27?

    From the language you used, however ("but now if I send a broadcast for any product over $7"), I assume you've done this more than once. Is this the case? If so, how many different price points did you test?
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  • Profile picture of the author nicheblogger75
    Thanks so much for all of the input. This was not a one time thing, as some one had mentioned. I marketed products at $5-$7 to the list for several months, and I have tried to market products for even $17 with no success. however, if I send out a broadcast for a $5 ebook, they're all over it!
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    • Profile picture of the author kenmichaels
      I have the same prob in reverse for one of my lists.
      This list has purchased from us @ a min of 297.
      and i cannot get them to buy any, and i mean any of the little stuff.

      if i send them another higher ticket item, they do buy.

      i know doesn't sound like much of a prob does it?

      its only an issue for me, because i only have a few higher ticket items.
      while low ticket products are easy to come by.
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      • Profile picture of the author David Keith
        Originally Posted by kenmichaels View Post

        I have the same prob in reverse for one of my lists.
        This list has purchased from us @ a min of 297.
        and i cannot get them to buy any, and i mean any of the little stuff.

        if i send them another higher ticket item, they do buy.

        i know doesn't sound like much of a prob does it?

        its only an issue for me, because i only have a few higher ticket items.
        while low ticket products are easy to come by.
        exactly, these guys are now expecting you to find and promote only the best mid/highend products.

        They are not expecting to receive anything of real value to them in a $7 ebook.
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  • Profile picture of the author David Keith
    behaviorally training definitely exists.

    That is likely not all of whats going on in your situation, but I would not be surprised to learn that you have indeed conditioned your list to buy low priced products.

    A list responds best when you give them what they are expecting to get. So you spent a few months building up their expectations of receiving low priced offers. Now its no surprise that is what they respond best to.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dann Vicker
    I guess you've branded yourself much with low cost offers. However, with a proper preselling and reorientation of the list, you can definitely recondition them to higher priced offers. This should actually have been your salesfunnel plan once you get them to buy your first 5dollar offer
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