Five ways you can increase the perceived value of your product or service:
People buy based on value, not on price. That’s what you’ve always heard marketers say, right? Well, its true. People do buy based on value so if you want to sell more you have to understand what value is.
Think of value as an equation. Value equals perceived benefits over price. So for all you who remember your algebra you know that if you increase the perceived benefits of your product or service and hold price constant, your value will increase. Conversely, if you increase your price without increasing the perceived benefits of your product or service, the value goes down.
So your job as a business owner is to increase the perceived value of your product or service to the point in which it become irresistible. Here are some ideas to do that.
1. Make sure you sell the resulting benefits of using your product or service rather than the features. But be careful. Remember that the benefits you emphasize must be important to your prospect. If they’re not, they aren’t benefits.
2. Put a value on any premiums or freebies that you include in your offer, but be careful not to bloat the value. People can see through that. Place values on your premiums that are reasonable.
3. Try to implement a mechanism for telling the “whole story” about your product or service. You can do this using recorded phone messages, audio or video CDs or tapes, long form sales letters, or content-laden websites.
4. Have third party people and experts give their positive comments on your product or service. Listen, there’s a reason that 50% of the airtime of most infomercials are customer testimonials. People want to hear credible, unbiased options on your product or service.
5. If possible, give your prospect a trial run of your product or service so that they can personally feel the benefits themselves.
When you take the time to build the perceived benefits of your product or service, and give proof that those benefits truly exist, your sales will dramatically increase so look over your products and services and ask yourself, “How can I use these tactics to increase the perceived benefits of using my product or service.”
© Copyright 2003 David Frey, Marketing Best Practices Inc
