Lowering membership fee - GoFuckYourself.com

buildingfutures · 04-28-2011, 06:39 AM

What are your thoughts on this? Have you done it? Why? Did it increase sales or decrease them cause of lower perceived value?

iSpyCams · 04-28-2011, 06:40 AM

For me it increased sales and rebills, also lowered refunds and chargebacks.

DamianJ · 04-28-2011, 06:42 AM

1) Work out lifetime value of a member
2) Split test 3 price points
3) Wait 3 months
4) Calculate the price point that generates the most value over the lifetime of the customer

buildingfutures · 04-28-2011, 06:43 AM

What was your initial monthly fee? What did you recude it to? At what point did you decide trying to reduce the fee? ;)

wehateporn · 04-28-2011, 06:44 AM

Though I'm an affiliate myself, there are a couple of sites I was about to join to grab some content, but when I've seen it's almost $30 I've had a change of heart. Not sure if surfers also have this way of thinking.

buildingfutures · 04-28-2011, 06:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DamianJ

1) Work out lifetime value of a member
2) Split test 3 price points
3) Wait 3 months
4) Calculate the price point that generates the most value over the lifetime of the customer

Interesting method -- could you elaborate on point 1?

CurrentlySober · 04-28-2011, 06:45 AM

In my personal experience, Lower perceived value = Less purchase made.

(I am talking about a site selling individual video downloads for a one time fee. Not a membership model)

buildingfutures · 04-28-2011, 06:45 AM

The reason I ask, btw, is because we did a survey among (a lot of) non-paid members of our site. Over 65% answered they thought the price was too high.

I am aware that not-free is automatically too high. But I'm curious to see what a decrease in price will do but am anxious because the perceived value of a site/product may decrease with it.

CurrentlySober · 04-28-2011, 06:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by buildingfutures

The reason I ask, btw, is because we did a survey among (a lot of) non-paid members of our site. Over 65% answered they thought the price was too high.

Nevermind...

ilnjscb · 04-28-2011, 06:49 AM

What was the sweet spot?

Barefootsies · 04-28-2011, 06:49 AM

The problem is not the price champ. Add more value.

Rethink your business strategy.

buildingfutures · 04-28-2011, 06:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barefootsies

The problem is not the price champ. Add more value.

Rethink your business strategy.

Definitely not a bad point. We did add 6 free nude cam & chat shows every day for premium members, no extra hidden fees. Was hoping that would set us apart from other amateur sites, since it does.

Adding more value is another way to look at it and something to look into, thanks.

wehateporn · 04-28-2011, 06:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by buildingfutures

The reason I ask, btw, is because we did a survey among (a lot of) non-paid members of our site. Over 65% answered they thought the price was too high.

Whereas 100% of the paid members did pay the asking price. I would say 65% is quite low for non-paid members, I would have expected a lot more of them to say the price was too high

Paul Markham · 04-28-2011, 06:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CurrentlySober

In my personal experience, Lower perceived value = Less purchase made.

(I am talking about a site selling individual video downloads for a one time fee. Not a membership model)

This works a few times, when the tour shows the same as a higher priced site, the members area is the same as a higher priced site the myth explodes.

I tried $5 sites and never took it to it's full conclusion because of problems with the CMS. The idea was 10-20 scenes for $5. Based on one girl.

Conversions were good and they would buy site after site.

When we got the CMS we needed we dropped the idea because of the problem of traffic. Who will send traffic to a $5 site? Maybe now they would, maybe someone else can go with the idea.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barefootsies

The problem is not the price champ. Add more value.

Rethink your business strategy.

Such as?

Clips 4 Sales maybe.

buildingfutures · 04-28-2011, 06:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wehateporn

Whereas 100% of the paid members did pay the asking price. I would say 65% is quite low for non-paid members, I would have expected a lot more of them to say the price was too high

Agreed, but we get about 100 free member signups every day. Trust me, the paid members per day aren't close to that number ;)

Simply looking for ways to convert non-payers to payers.

Paul Markham · 04-28-2011, 06:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by buildingfutures

Agreed, but we get about 100 free member signups every day. Trust me, the paid members per day aren't close to that number ;)

Simply looking for ways to convert non-payers to payers.

Give them something 1,000 other sites aren't giving them. And I don't mean exclusive content. That means little to surfers, unless it's 10 years old.

buildingfutures · 04-28-2011, 07:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

Give them something 1,000 other sites aren't giving them. And I don't mean exclusive content. That means little to surfers, unless it's 10 years old.

6 free nude cam & chat shows every day is our extra feature. Pretty "uncommon" for amateur pay sites as far as I know. Or am I way off?

Grapesoda · 04-28-2011, 07:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DamianJ

1) Work out lifetime value of a member
2) Split test 3 price points
3) Wait 3 months
4) Calculate the price point that generates the most value over the lifetime of the customer

have a 'lifetime of a customer' that is 3 months is bad news

DamianJ · 04-28-2011, 07:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by buildingfutures

Interesting method -- could you elaborate on point 1?

The life time value of a customer is the total revenue you earn from him. So work out the price of the membership, then whatever else you do to extract money from him:

- members' area upsells
- phone services
- email newsletter and the real estate on there
- cancelled member upsells
- other products (cam, dating, pills) etc etc

Without this information, you're totally shooting in the dark.

DamianJ · 04-28-2011, 07:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bm bradley

have a 'lifetime of a customer' that is 3 months is bad news

True enough, but in terms of a pricing experiment, if you cannot see the indications after 3 months as to which price point out of 9.99, 19.99 and 29.99 is gonna generate you the most cash, then something is wrong.

Obviously 5 years data would be much better, but I assumed the OP wanted a quick solution! I would put 3 months as the strict minimum this sort of split testing should be run.

buildingfutures · 04-28-2011, 07:09 AM

Thanks a lot for the input DamianJ - this is gonna be the first thing on the to-do.

DamianJ · 04-28-2011, 07:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by buildingfutures

Thanks a lot for the input DamianJ - this is gonna be the first thing on the to-do.

Anytime.

buildingfutures · 04-28-2011, 07:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DamianJ

Anytime.

Would you suggest trying 1 price for 3 months straight or creating a script that chooses 1 of 3 price points on the sign up page, seperating them evenly among the views of the form? Not sure if that question made sense.

justinsain · 04-28-2011, 07:21 AM

Lets take it in the other direction.

Say you start a site with regular, archived updates. After a few years the amount of content offered has quadrupled.

Doesn't seem right that one would charge the same amount for something that has grown exponentially.

So when is ok to raise the price of a membership?

buildingfutures · 04-28-2011, 07:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by justinsain

Lets take it in the other direction.

Say you start a site with regular, archived updates. After a few years the amount of content offered has quadrupled.

Doesn't seem right that one would charge the same amount for something that has grown exponentially.

So when is ok to raise the price of a membership?

I'd say it depends on your site's/product's reputation. If you're the awesome site that's easily worth the money and has members sign up like crazy because of that, why change anything?

georgeyw · 04-28-2011, 07:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CurrentlySober

In my personal experience, Lower perceived value = Less purchase made.

(I am talking about a site selling individual video downloads for a one time fee. Not a membership model)

This is something I find really interesting.

I was talking to a sales guy on a plane the other day and he was telling me how they ahd a great product (yeah all sales guys say that), point is ti was priced low and they kept getting the question "what is wrong with it?" - they upped the price by many multiples with the exact same product and that was when they started to sell a whole lot more of them.

buildingfutures · 04-28-2011, 07:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by georgeyw

This is something I find really interesting.

I was talking to a sales guy on a plane the other day and he was telling me how they ahd a great product (yeah all sales guys say that), point is ti was priced low and they kept getting the question "what is wrong with it?" - they upped the price by many multiples with the exact same product and that was when they started to sell a whole lot more of them.

Yeah, happens all the time.. Stupid human psychology I guess.. A 97$ piece of software sounds more promising than a 12$ one in most people's eyes.

Still, with porn, I have a feeling that the lower the price the more people get on board...

Phoenix · 04-28-2011, 07:35 AM

Give them more content then they could ever hope to use. Let them know that constantly, point out to them the new updates that are added daily. Make sure they know it will play anywhere on any of their inet devices and that you charge what you do to maintain that.

Don't get caught in the belief that you need to cut prices again and again, value should be reflected in price.

Cheap is usually that....cheap

justinsain · 04-28-2011, 08:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by buildingfutures

I'd say it depends on your site's/product's reputation. If you're the awesome site that's easily worth the money and has members sign up like crazy because of that, why change anything?

Lets say the site sells memberships, has great retention of it's members, gets no complaints and has extremely low number of chargebacks.

Why keep charging the launch price point when you've quadrupled the content offered?

I'm selling beer by the six pack for $5 and they are selling great. Then I start selling beer by the case. I certainly wouldn't keep selling four six packs of beer for the same price I was selling one six pack.

Why wouldn't that apply to the website?

Sid70 · 04-28-2011, 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DamianJ

1) Work out lifetime value of a member
2) Split test 3 price points
3) Wait 3 months
4) Calculate the price point that generates the most value over the lifetime of the customer

Simple math tells the truth, eh?

Paul Markham · 04-28-2011, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by buildingfutures

6 free nude cam & chat shows every day is our extra feature. Pretty "uncommon" for amateur pay sites as far as I know. Or am I way off?

I like the idea of live shows. So long as the girls are doing it right it should work fine.

Davy · 04-28-2011, 08:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by buildingfutures

Still, with porn, I have a feeling that the lower the price the more people get on board...

Ask all those "9 buck" sites how it worked out for them. Oh, right. Nobody's talking about them anymore.

Barefootsies · 04-28-2011, 08:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by justinsain

Lets say the site sells memberships, has great retention of it's members, gets no complaints and has extremely low number of chargebacks.

Why keep charging the launch price point when you've quadrupled the content offered?

I'm selling beer by the six pack for $5 and they are selling great. Then I start selling beer by the case. I certainly wouldn't keep selling four six packs of beer for the same price I was selling one six pack.

Why wouldn't that apply to the website?

True dat fine sire.

CurrentlySober · 04-28-2011, 08:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by georgeyw

This is something I find really interesting.

I was talking to a sales guy on a plane the other day and he was telling me how they ahd a great product (yeah all sales guys say that), point is ti was priced low and they kept getting the question "what is wrong with it?" - they upped the price by many multiples with the exact same product and that was when they started to sell a whole lot more of them.

Yep. Its proving the opposite for me. Without going into absolute specifics, I have a micro niche fetish site.

Vids were $7.99 each (approx 25 mins long) and I sold them all day long... (For a few years, not just months) Eventually, sales slowed, so I decided to try a controlled experiment, and reduced all to $4.99 per vid.

Exact same site, same vids etc, but now at the 'under 5 dollar' price point, as opposed to the 'nearly 10' price point.

Sales are dire. Will be raising prices back to 7.99 soon...

Very syuprised with the result...

Kafka · 04-28-2011, 08:30 AM

Try to lower the recurrent price and a bit higher the non-recurrent price For example: one month non-recurrent for 34.95 and recurrent 24.95.

Many surfers don't like the idea of a recurrent price, although they can cancel the subscription.

Cherry7 · 04-28-2011, 08:50 AM

Raising our prices has had no visible effect on sales....

The problem is the method of selling, eg $30 for the first month when the client downloads all the material, why pay another $30 next month when the updates will only be a tiny fraction of the initial material ?

Most clients will buy the cheapest trail option then cancel ASAP.

We have found by dropping the recurring charge and offering cheap longer memberships (reflecting the number of films over the year) a lot of punters will choose the more expensive but longer membership.

It pays to be as honest as possible to make your clients your friends as I think Damian said.

DamianJ · 04-28-2011, 09:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by buildingfutures

Would you suggest trying 1 price for 3 months straight or creating a script that chooses 1 of 3 price points on the sign up page, seperating them evenly among the views of the form? Not sure if that question made sense.

I'd use website optimiser and pop in the three different landing pages there. The question made perfect sense!

@TGITC I'd love to split test your sales properly and throw in a curve ball. Like pricing it at 10cents (but I reckon your stuff doesn't have a wide enough appeal to make it work at cheap = loads of sales model). Perception about quality is certainly true of many products and it could well be your microniche stuff could sell at even more. I'd try putting them up to 9.99 and see if it makes a difference.

04-28-2011, 06:39 AM	#1
buildingfutures Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Netherlands Posts: 796	Lowering membership fee What are your thoughts on this? Have you done it? Why? Did it increase sales or decrease them cause of lower perceived value? __________________ -Guy Love Amateurs guy (a) loveamateurscash.com Skype: guy.droog LoveAmateurs.com

04-28-2011, 06:43 AM	#4
buildingfutures Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Netherlands Posts: 796	What was your initial monthly fee? What did you recude it to? At what point did you decide trying to reduce the fee? ;) __________________ -Guy Love Amateurs guy (a) loveamateurscash.com Skype: guy.droog LoveAmateurs.com

04-28-2011, 06:44 AM	#5
wehateporn Promoting Debate on GFY Industry Role: Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 27,173	Though I'm an affiliate myself, there are a couple of sites I was about to join to grab some content, but when I've seen it's almost $30 I've had a change of heart. Not sure if surfers also have this way of thinking. __________________ Sexy Girls Teasing

04-28-2011, 06:45 AM	#7
CurrentlySober Too lazy to wipe my ass Industry Role: Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: A Public Bathroom Posts: 38,488	In my personal experience, Lower perceived value = Less purchase made. (I am talking about a site selling individual video downloads for a one time fee. Not a membership model) __________________ My AI Handywork... My Dream Gal... XXX 👁️ 👍️ 💩

04-28-2011, 06:45 AM	#8
buildingfutures Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Netherlands Posts: 796	The reason I ask, btw, is because we did a survey among (a lot of) non-paid members of our site. Over 65% answered they thought the price was too high. I am aware that not-free is automatically too high. But I'm curious to see what a decrease in price will do but am anxious because the perceived value of a site/product may decrease with it. __________________ -Guy Love Amateurs guy (a) loveamateurscash.com Skype: guy.droog LoveAmateurs.com

04-28-2011, 06:40 AM	#2
iSpyCams Amateur Gynecologist Industry Role: Join Date: May 2009 Location: Medellin Posts: 4,436	For me it increased sales and rebills, also lowered refunds and chargebacks.

04-28-2011, 06:42 AM	#3
DamianJ Too lazy to set a custom title Industry Role: Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: A magical land Posts: 15,808	1) Work out lifetime value of a member 2) Split test 3 price points 3) Wait 3 months 4) Calculate the price point that generates the most value over the lifetime of the customer

04-28-2011, 06:49 AM	#10
ilnjscb Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 8,785	What was the sweet spot?

04-28-2011, 06:49 AM	#11
Barefootsies Choice is an Illusion Industry Role: Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Land of Obama Posts: 42,635	The problem is not the price champ. Add more value. Rethink your business strategy. __________________ Should You Email Your Members? Link1 \| Link2 \| Link3 Enough Said. "Would you rather live like a king for a year or like a prince forever?"

04-28-2011, 07:09 AM	#21
buildingfutures Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Netherlands Posts: 796	Thanks a lot for the input DamianJ - this is gonna be the first thing on the to-do. __________________ -Guy Love Amateurs guy (a) loveamateurscash.com Skype: guy.droog LoveAmateurs.com

04-28-2011, 07:21 AM	#24
justinsain Confirmed User Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 3,374	Lets take it in the other direction. Say you start a site with regular, archived updates. After a few years the amount of content offered has quadrupled. Doesn't seem right that one would charge the same amount for something that has grown exponentially. So when is ok to raise the price of a membership?

04-28-2011, 07:35 AM	#28
Phoenix BACON BACON BACON Industry Role: Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Poems everybody, the laddie fancies himself a poet Posts: 35,457	Give them more content then they could ever hope to use. Let them know that constantly, point out to them the new updates that are added daily. Make sure they know it will play anywhere on any of their inet devices and that you charge what you do to maintain that. Don't get caught in the belief that you need to cut prices again and again, value should be reflected in price. Cheap is usually that....cheap __________________ Skype Phoenixskype1 Telegram PhoenixBrad https://quantads.io

04-28-2011, 08:30 AM	#35
Kafka Confirmed User Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Holland Posts: 466	Try to lower the recurrent price and a bit higher the non-recurrent price For example: one month non-recurrent for 34.95 and recurrent 24.95. Many surfers don't like the idea of a recurrent price, although they can cancel the subscription.

04-28-2011, 08:50 AM	#36
Cherry7 Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: UK Posts: 3,564	Raising our prices has had no visible effect on sales.... The problem is the method of selling, eg $30 for the first month when the client downloads all the material, why pay another $30 next month when the updates will only be a tiny fraction of the initial material ? Most clients will buy the cheapest trail option then cancel ASAP. We have found by dropping the recurring charge and offering cheap longer memberships (reflecting the number of films over the year) a lot of punters will choose the more expensive but longer membership. It pays to be as honest as possible to make your clients your friends as I think Damian said. __________________ My Neighbour Butterfly PORN-The Musical The Long Goodbye Cinema Erotique