ActSeed is for Entrepreneurs and Startups

Question:

How can a start-up business figure out what to price their service? I started an online/app advertising company for bars and restaurants. I need to figure out what to charge these businesses to be listed after their free trial is up at the end of the year.

Answer:

Pricing a new product is a common challenge of many startups; we completely empathize with your situation.

First, you may want to extend your free trial for an extra month or so if you don’t feel you have the right pricing strategy.

Now, to figure out your ideal pricing strategy, have you done any test marketing or “voice of the customer” / focus group type events? Polls? Do you have a large base of free trial users? If so, you might tap some of them for an open discussion in return for an extended free use period.

We also suggest some paid adword activity with varying “calls to action” at different price points to see what the pull is. This can be done on Facebook or Google. You can also test marketing messages this way. If you can spend some money on a direct email to a list that fits your industry, it’s also a way to test pricing in the message to see how many click-throughs you receive.

As we’re not experts on pricing, we recommend two good books (click on each title below to find each book) that address pricing as part of startup marketing:

Marketing That Works (Wharton School Publishing)

and

Real Time Marketing for Business Growth

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