Posts Tagged ‘marketing’

Q&A: Pricing for a Startup

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

ActSeed Entrepreneur and Startup Q&A Help

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

 

Ask your own question to the ActSeed team here: http://actseed.com/contact-us/

Book Recommendation: How to Measure & Optimize Your Social Media Marketing Investment

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Buy it here through ActSeed’s Amazon-hosted Marketplace (same price as you’ll find on Amazon).

Released in mid–2010, Social Media Metrics provides insight into techniques for measuring and optimizing the social dimension of marketing investments. The book is applicable to emerging businesses with limited budgets as well as larger companies with diversified marketing and analytic staff.

The author addresses technology options while exploring the process for determining the metrics appropriate for the situation. The book concludes with a perspective on the future of web analytics – specifically a flip of the current B2C model to one managed and controlled by consumers, in effect C2B. Sterne provides guidance on organization change and professional development. He also provides a valuable Appendix that includes a wide range of references and sources for further pursuit, as well as sources of definitions and standards are subject to on-going development.

The Appendix and plethora of other references scattered throughout the book more than justify the modest cost of the book.

 

 

………………

One of the Most Insightful and Actionable Books on Web Analytics

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

“Web Analytics 2.0″ by Avinash Kaushik is one of the most insightful and actionable book ever written on this topic.

Released in mid-2010, the book provides understandable technical content and concepts along with coaching and advise to readers seeking career advancement and impact within small and large enterprises. The book emphasizes and highlights techniques for data-driven insight and promotes analytic creativity and gathering of insights.

The wealth of examples and low or no-cost tools cover challenging topics such as on and off-line campaigns analysis, multi-channel attribution, and latent conversion. The book concludes with tactics on how to create a data driven culture within your organization.

This book is relevant to any small or large company seeking to act smarter in their marketing, sales, search, and social media initiatives. It includes a CD with podcasts, videos, and PowerPoint presentations reinforcing the topics addressed in the text.

Click here to buy this book through ActSeed’s Marketplace – hosted by Amazon.com (…and at same price as you’ll find on the regular Amazon site, too!)

…………

An Innovative Guide to Nearly Every Aspect of Marketing for New & Emerging Companies

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

A highly recommended, workbook-style, practical yet innovative guide to nearly every aspect of marketing, pricing, and measurement for new and emerging companies. This book provides advice, examples, insight from industry leaders, and easy to use templates for key marketing, channel, and planning deliverables.

Monique Reece is a creative subject matter expert, and her integration of social media as a component of market development is current and relevant. Her presentation of the PRAISE methodology is easy to understand, explain, and implement across the organization.

You can purchase it from ActSeed’s Amazon Store now (Kindle version also available) by clicking here.

 

…………………………….