I love the idea of using ‘different’ marketing techniques rather than the usual same old same old. You know: “Make the price end in a 7″, “Offer loads of freebies that are actualy worth nothing”, “Pretend there are only a few places for signups”. I’m not stupid (I hope!) and neither are you, so we all know that offers such as that aren’t really offers at all. And every time I see a price ending in 7, it makes me cringe (sorry!) 
When I launched 299 Steps to Website Heaven, I chose to release a tip per day in the run up to the launch of the book, and indeed afterwards, in order to create discussion and sales. It worked (thankfully!) and the ebook sold beyond my expectations.
This year I launched Tweetmentor, a day by day email course aimed at helping you to make the most of Twitter. I priced it at £50, with a prelaunch offer of £20 – so far, so dull
After a while, I started running Friday offers – so one Friday I’d offer it for a tenner, the next I’d pick a random figure out of the air (26 people bought it for 13.o9!), the next I’d let people pay what they thought it was worth.
And then people started tweeting about how helpful they’d found it, how much they liked it, and started recommeding it to others.
So I took what I consider to be a bit of a bold move and decided that for the whole of summer, people can pay what they think it is worth.
That’s right – there’s no fixed fee, people can pay as little as £1 or as much as they like, via the Paypal ‘donate’ system.
Some people said I was mad (I probably am, as it happens, but for far crazier reasons than this!) and that ‘everyone would pay £1′.
Do you know what happened? Over 500 people have bought Tweetmentor. And guess how many have paid £1?
4. (edited) 6
That’s right – 4.(edited) 6 And of those 4 (edited) 6, one came back on the 5th day and donated more as it had ‘proved it’s worth in the first few days’.
On average people pay around £18 – some more, some less. Everyone is treated the same, no matter how much they pay, and I’m on the end of an email for any queries.
Did my ‘gamble’ work? Yes, I think it did – I’m happy with it, people say nice things about Tweetmentor, and people’s worst fears of everyone paying the minimum haven’t materialised.
I like the fact that I’ve used something a little different to promote it, and it encourages people to tell others about it, which is great!
The lesson to be learned here? Think differently and take a chance – you don’t HAVE to use the same channels to market things, or the same ‘incentives’ that others use. Sometimes being a bit different pays off
Drop me a line on Twitter, or comment below, if you’ve taken a marketing gamble that’s paid off.
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Tags: gamble, marketing, paypal, Tweetmentor, twitter
[...] can read about how I chose to market Tweetmentor to see that we didn’t do things the ‘expected’ [...]
Tweetmentor is an eye-opener and an inspiration. Clearly the medium it’s presented in (email) means you’re given something you can keep, the knowledge shared is presented in a straightforward manner about an exciting tool (Twitter), and the promotions for the course work very well. More of this kind of creativity please as it is a welcome sight. Keep up the great work!
As an update, 2 more people have paid £1 so that’s 6 – better update the text in the interests of full disclosure
I have used Tweetementor and I would strongly recommend it. I didn’t realise that there was so much to twitter and having followed the tips in Tweetmentor I have seen improvements in my offline activity/business that can be directly attributed to Twitter