Pricing Strategy

Q:I need some help convincing someone that, under certain circumstances, it is possible to set a higher price for something and actually increase sales. What I need are some pointers or references in the marketing literature about positioning a product as a necessity (I believe that this is creating the conditions through marketing for demand inelasticity), and then charging accordingly. Has anyone (with the kind of credentials that I don't have) studied and explained this?

A:In the seminar business, price often determines (perceived) quality. I once had a losing, 2-day seminar on management topics which was priced at $250 per day. By re-positioning it and repricing it at $500 per day it became in winner, selling out 2 times with one mailing. As the primary beneficiary of this article, I am happy to get my hands on it so easily, so thanks Geoff(!!), but I have to agree with our moderator... for postings of this size, I think it would be fairer to those that do automatically download all postings to reply to the original poster (me) by email with the entire article, and only post the abstract on the newsgroup. Packaged offers is also something that is often overlooked by small business. If you only offer a single product/service, brainstorm to see what you can add without investing too much that would bring disappointing ROI. Think of packaged offers not merely in terms of meeting the wants of a given segment, or wanting to reach but from a promotional aspect. For instance, say you're a web designer. That is your CORE business, but if you could offer search listing services, site review services, WITHOUT adding too much to your costs or time, package or bundle with your CORE product. There may even come a time where those extra services could be spun off as separate products, but in the meantime, those extras, used as promotional tools could be the deciding factor for customers. Take a look at PC vendors, They are today's kings of packaged offers. Note also some include so much, but 80% is stuff you wouldn't use or is crap, others will include less but stuff you will use. Try to give your target market not a single offer but different packages with different price points to choose from.