MarketingDojo #7: Breaking the Digital Barrier- 3 Strategies to Boost Willingness to Pay for Digital Products
An easy test to check for customer centricity, the rise of deinfluencers, how to make customers pay for digital products and more.
Hello,
This week, Marketing Dojo hit its first milestone - thank you. More than 100 marketers now subscribe to the newsletter.🎉
I am so grateful for your support, and it's filled me with a renewed sense of responsibility to make this newsletter worth your while.
Without further ado, let's dive right in! This issue will cover the following:
💻The Physical vs Digital Dilemma: The contradictions between preferences & willingness to pay
🚀 Is your website focused on customer needs? Find out with a simple test.
😶🌫️A new anti-trend trend
🔎Can SEO Survive the Bard V/S Bing saga?
And more.
Marketing Digital Products: How to Increase Consumer's Willingness to Pay.
Purchasing a book on Kindle is easy and quick. While I prefer buying an eBook on Kindle, I am willing to pay less than I do for a physical book. It turns out I am not alone.
The study applied six rigorous tests and concluded: Consumers are willing to pay more for physical products but prefer digital products primarily due to convenience.
So what can marketers do to increase the willingness to pay (WTP) for digital products? The study lays out three recommendations.
Social proof: As per the study, when it comes to WTP (Willingness to Pay), people tend to replace the difficult question of "How much is this worth to me?" with the more straightforward, more external questions of "How much does this cost to purchase?" or "How much do people pay for this?".
Social proof can help establish how much other customers are willing to pay for a digital product.
Highlight convenience: Convenience is among the highest-rated attributes when choosing between digital and physical products. Emphasising what makes a digital product easier to use than the physical one will help close the WTP gap.
Horizontal differentiation: Instead of pitching the digital product as an alternative to the physical one, highlighting the unique benefits of digital formats is a great way to increase the value of digital products.
Are You Putting Your Customers’ Needs First? This Simple Test Can Help You Decide.
Is your website, ad, or POS communicating the benefits your product or service can provide? There's a simple test to find out.
Can your headline complete the sentence "Now you can...."?
If Yes, congratulations! Your communication is focused on a customer’s goals, hope and struggles.
If not, it’s time to rewrite.
For example, Coursera's headline neatly completes "Now you can..." in just three words.
Communication can be interesting or tongue-in-cheek while still passing the "Now you can.." test - case in point Bumble and Tinder.
A counter test: If your headline finishes the sentence “Our product/service is….”, it indicates that the communication is too product-centric.
Try this simple test on your websites and other marketing communication material - I assure you that you will see an immediate lift in your results.
Interesting Trend Alert: Deinfluencing.
With 41.2 Bn views, #tiktokmademebuyit is one of the biggest trends on TikTok. A few weeks ago, a new, fast-emerging counter-trend began taking over TikTok: #deinfluencing.
Deinfluencers do one or more of the following:
Convince people that they don't need to buy a new popular thing.
Suggest cheaper alternatives to popular products.
Provide an honest review of an overhyped product.
It’s too early to say if deinfluencing is a long-term trend to watch out for. But one thing is certain - the tolerance for inauthentic influencer partnerships is thinning out quickly.
The Study That Wasn't: Masquerading Advertising as a Study is Not such a great idea.
I have developed a healthy cynicism around studies conducted by companies that have a direct conflict of interest. For example, last week, I read an influencer marketing agency study where all facts and figures seem to put influencer marketing on a pedestal.
I understand these studies and reports help the agencies to get a foot in the door. But often, it is nothing more than advertising masquerading as a study.
This week’s meme is dedicated to the ads dressed in a study’s cloak.
How Generative Will Reshape SEO and the Search Landscape
Satya Nadella’s candid interview with Verge’s Nilay Patel is a must-watch. In under 25 minutes, the interview covers a broad range of topics - the quality of the AI training data, safety and ethical issues, future integrations & partnership between Chat GPT and Microsoft.
Satya Nadella also shares his vision of how search & SEO might evolve.
Three points that I found interesting.
Fair use in search - The answers in the chat or snippets will have links to the original websites. All Bing results will have annotations & links to drive traffic to the original content creators.
The increased competition will lead to thinner margins on search.
Co-pilot for the internet - Co-pilot is a much-loved AI-based tool on Microsoft’s Github that helps programmers code faster & error-free. Microsoft is positioning its model of ChatGPT as the co-pilot for the web.
Google Accidently Triggered the SIWOTI Syndrome.
“Someone is wrong on the Internet” is a punchline of this XKCD cartoon from 2008.
Google’s AI Chatbot Bard’s demo did not go as smoothly as planned. One of the answers by Bard was wrong, leading to Google losing $100Bn in market cap - in a day!
While Google’s mistake was unintentional, many TikTokers have intentionally introduced errors in their content to increase engagement. The human itch to correct errors is turning out to be an algorithmic hack for these influencers. Pretty clever & sneaky, if you ask me.
Short Stuff:
The buzz around BeReal app is falling. (Will the customer lay off BuzzReal in 2023?)
LinkedIn released suggested KPIs for B2B marketing (measure what matters).
What happens when a social media platform shuts down? India’s ban on TikTok provides some answers. TL;DR: Audiences moved pretty quickly to other platforms; creators have been relatively slow with the transition. (Looking at TikTok ban in India).
That’s all for this week’s newsletter. Thanks for your time and attention. Drop me a comment if any of the week’s stories caught your attention.
I will catch you in your inboxes next week!
P.S: Documentary recommendation:
I am deeply moved by this incredible documentary “Stutz” on Netflix. It’s a series of conversations between Hollywood Celebrity Jonah Hill and his therapist Phil Stutz. The documentary includes a few tools Stutz developed to help combat anxiety & depression.
If you have some time, give your full attention to this documentary. You might take away something valuable.
Meme is so cute :D