Jul
15
The One Where I’m Really, Really Wrong, or The Underrated Art of Challenging Your Own Assumptions
If you’ve been reading in this industry for any longer than the length of time it takes to cook an egg, you will have heard that one of the most important things you can do in marketing is market research. There are lots of kinds of market research but today, we’re only focusing on one kind. We’re talking about asking people questions. Surveys, polls, blink once for yes and twice for no, that sort of thing.
This is considered essential, and it is. What is not often discussed is what it’s essential for. Let’s delve.
Let’s say you have a crafty business. Maybe you sell yarn. Maybe you sell hats made from yarn. Maybe you sell instructional ebooks on cool things you can do with hats made from yarn. Something like that.
It occurs to you that you want to start branching out, and you send out a survey. You give people a list of options for potential products. (And for the love of God, give them a list. NEVER make this open-ended.) You give them a list of delivery formats. You give them a list of potential price points. And you give them a part where they can provide feedback or suggestions that don’t fit in the list format.
(This last part is the only place you allow them to editorialize. An open ended “what would you like IttyBiz to do next?” will give you nothing but blank stares, “dunno”, and crazy people who want you to post pictures of your underwear on a subscription-only part of the blog. Not that I’d know anything about that.)
You get your answers. It seems like everyone would just LOVE a knitting tutorial. They would happily pay $19 for it. Their ideal delivery method is a screencast.
You, being adorably innocent, think this means you should make a knitting tutorial screencast for the low, low price of $19. People said they wanted it, so that means they’ll buy it, right?
Well, no. It doesn’t mean they’d buy it. It doesn’t mean they wouldn’t buy it, either. You don’t know whether someone will buy something until you put them in a situation in which they actually could.
So what DO you know?
Well, you know people like the medium (screencasts). You know the $19 price point doesn’t make them hyperventilate. (By the way, if they say they would willingly pay X, you can probably double that without incident. What people say they would pay and what they will pay once they’ve seen the awesomeness are very different things.) You know that they don’t think a knitting tutorial is the dumbest thing they’ve ever heard. But you DO NOT know that they would buy it.
I repeat, you don’t know whether someone will buy something until you put them in a situation in which they actually could.
As you progress, you can get more confidence than you have now, sure. (They bought How To Knit volumes one and two in droves, so it’s not unreasonable that they’d buy volume three as well.) But you do not KNOW. Thinking you know is a recipe for huge, colossal, huge, painful, huge disappointment.
(To prove this, go find ten internet marketers and ask them about the worst performing offer they’ve ever had. Nine of them will grab the closest bourbon, take a big medicinal swig and then pistol whip you with the bottle. Painful shit, people. Painful shit.)
OK, so what SHOULD you ask people?
Good question. Ask people things when you’re making an assumption.
Story time? Of course it’s story time.
Sometime late last year, I put a time-sensitive offer out. It was for something really popular (Online Business School) and it was fairly expensive. It occurred to me that there might be some people who couldn’t afford it within the timeframe I offered, so I figured I could get some Nice Guy Points by offering a payment plan. Since I am systemically lazy and utterly out of touch with my buyers, I didn’t make an official payment plan. I just said people could email the ninjas with their proposal and we’d say “OK” and we’d all ride jauntily into the sunset. I figured between 10 and 30 people would take me up on it, but I’d look like a rockstar to everyone who saw it. I make a few grand and my PR/karma balance goes through the roof.
I stopped counting when 150 people wanted in. Holy shit.
Flash forward to this week, when we’re doing the Summer Camp Marketing 101 2 for 1 combo thingie. I remember that the last time I offered an email-the-ninjas payment plan, numerous people sent me their first-born children via UPS as a thank you. I could do that again! And make lots of people really happy! And make lots of money! Good, right?
Not good.
We got bites, yes, but not nearly as many as I would have thought.
We’ll fast forward through all of the solutions I considered and press play for the one I actually executed. I thought to myself, do people maybe not want to email the ninjas?
Maybe emailing them and coming up with your own payment plan is a little too much work.
Maybe people are embarrassed to have to ask.
Maybe they’re worried the ninjas won’t get back in time. Maybe they’re worried they’ll come up with their payment plan and they’ll get their hopes up and then the ninjas will say no. (By the way? They never say no.)
So I say to myself, “Self, you should put this out to the Twittersphere.” Here’s what I say:
Question! Is it better for you to negotiate personal pmt plans w/ the ninjas, or would you rather have nice preset anonymous buttons?
Surprise, surprise, EVERY SINGLE PERSON said they’d rather have buttons. Well, holy shit.
I made two payment plan options. (By MYSELF! Without admin ninjas!) I made two – one for $98.50 now and $98.50 in two weeks, and the other for three monthly payments of $67. I sent the email out at 2:13 pm. It is now 3:51 pm.
27 people have taken a payment plan in the last 98 minutes. This is compared to 9 people who emailed the ninjas in the last three days.
What do we learn from all of this malarkey today?
1. The people who follow me on Twitter are gods in human form.
2. I handle being wrong with surprising grace and dignity.
3. Requesting feedback is good, sometimes.
4. The summer camp thing has payment plans now.
5. The new Mint Chocolate Baileys tastes really good in lukewarm coffee. (Considering the afternoon I’ve had, that’s more relevant than you’d think.)
Hmm. Bailey’s – The Official Creamer for the World Entreprenuer Association. Bailey’s is really good, but I haven’t tried mint. Perhaps I should stock up in anticipation of my ittibiz.
I have to admit, I’m one of those who thought “ooh! a payment plan! I can DO that!”… and then didn’t email. Mostly because it was too much work to figure out what I could afford, combined with what I wouldn’t be too embarrassed to ask for, combined with what wouldn’t be insulting, combined with something that wouldn’t take FOREVER to pay off… and oh, I wonder if the stars are aligned correctly for this?!
Ok, nix that last part, but by then I’d given up anyway.
Which is ridiculous, because I WANT this, and hello?! Payment plan can totally make it happen.
But yay! for buttons. And can I just say “thank you!” for making me not have to think about this anymore, and just allowing me to be a mostly mindless consumer of your amazing goods :D
There’s definitely a marketing lesson in this. I’m gonna go with “make it easy for your customers”. If only because “recognize that thinking causes pain for your customers” makes me feel like a moron ;)
Beautiful work as always, Naomi. Enjoy that Baileys!
Well, I’m one of the nine who did pay up front, but I will say I started a payment plan option to the ninjas then said fuck it, I’ll have the money by the time the credit card bill for paypal comes along.
If there had been a payment plan option available by button I would have definitely taken it; I decided not to bore your ninjas with my “how many hats will I sell this weekend?” angst.
BTW, just started listening while making hats and the content ROCKS. Thanks, Naomi and ninjas~!
Hey Naomi, have you ever taught a course purely on writing? Every time I read your stuff, I’m like, man, how does she craft such an interesting, informative, elegant, funny post and get across all the points and marketing messages she wanted to cover? Your writing for me is heads-and-shoulders better than 99.9% of everything else online. Can you teach some of how you make the magic?
EXACTLY! C’mon Naomi, you gotta teach us the magic.
Yea, what Corbett Barr said.
Looks like I have cute kids AND Baileys to thank for our conversation earlier.
De Bono and Lyons – sometimes people don’t know what they want until they know what is possible, if you ask people what they want they will usually say what they have for a lower price and maybe with a few things added.
Sometimes the best market research is an offer.
Ah…Baileys…*droooool*
BTW, I loved the outro on the Summer Camp audio. Insanely cute.
Nicely done, Naomi.
P.S I’m going to change my Twitter handle to my real name this weekend. But don’t go thinking it’s because I’m copying you, or something. I had the idea waaaay back. Really.
I think this post is in essence why you are so successful. Your honesty and willingness to put your foibles out there gives us a great role model and permission to f-up vicariously…
That Baileys thing sounds hella good.
This is what makes Twitter awesome. Not only do you get feedback, but you get it instantaneously. And you don’t even have to pay for some sort of only survey service or anything.
Excellent post and very entertaining :)
# “Well, no. It doesn’t mean they’d buy it. It doesn’t mean they wouldn’t buy it, either. You don’t know whether someone will buy something until you put them in a situation in which they actually could.”
This is extremely relevant and true. Surveys prove to be wrong each and every time you don’t state a clear distinction between possessing an object and buying it. People don’t differentiate when they answer between the two, you’ll have to make that very clear in order to get the answers you’re looking for.
Lloyd Burrell
Publisher
OfficeDeskReviews
If I e-mailed the ninjas about a different payment plan and I haven’t heard back, should I be worried?
… Actually, I already am worried. Feh. Should I do something to follow up, then?
Thanks. I love your stuff… you curse as much as I do and I have a deep and abiding appreciation for someone who puts alcohol in her coffee as a coping mechanism.
You also learned that the easier you make it for people to buy from you, the more they will!
Thanks Naomi, you hit the nail on the head there for me
Best
Alison
actually, i *do* sell yarn! & i’ve been considering asking my regular customers some questions, so you’re quite timely (as usual). & i’m constantly thinking on how to do this thing i do better.
so thanks for this post. now i have even more to think on. ;)
Did you track how many bought something else (me) when you made that offer. I didn’t buy the summer camp – but I bought two other products merely because after I reviewed summer camp, I was already in the neighborhood and I might was well see what else is available.
Which goes to:
MAKE it EASY for people to find and buy your stuff. It was easy to find other stuff. Easy to buy.
I want to know why you’re diluting the Baileys? Heresy girl, heresy! Bailey’s is best drunk straight, over ice if you have to.
And yes, I’ve found the same thing. Make an offer that requires people to do something scary, like email and ask and potentially by knocked back, and they won’t do it. Fear, procrastination, whatever – it just doesn’t happen.
Make it easy and anonymous and they’ll click that button and whip out their credit cards (or paypal account) and buy that sucker pronto.
I love a good story. Especially a personal one that ends with a useful piece of advice. This one even has a happy ending! Good stuff.
@Evan, “Sometimes the best market research is an offer.” Holy cow, I think we’re making a marketer of you.
Not bad, not bad. It didn’t help me all that much today,but then, I wasn’t looking for help, just some good writing.
Mike
The points about surveys are spot on. One of the worst marketing things you can do is to build any kind of start up around surveys and polls as most are fraught with non random sampling. This happens all the time in higher education where a Dean sends out some kind of survey asking for an interest level in a degree program. Then they get a positive response, and go forward with the program…resulting in…only 4 students enrolled. Where did all the “interest” go? Another expensive mistake made.
In general it’s best to do what you do normally when it comes to e-commerce, and look for ways to enhance services, as this post advises. You do indeed have to give people an initial chance to explore what you have to offer and then through old fashioned person-to-person interaction (online or in person), deduce what else you could offer.
1. Baileys + cold press coffee + ice. Then a little shakeit, shake, shake shakeit. Result? Frothy summer survival in a cold glass. Never tried it with the minty Baileys but I’m guessing that would not suck.
2. Thank you for pointing out that saying they’ll buy something doesn’t necessarily mean they will actually buy. You can test that, too — but only once you actually *offer* it for sale.
1. Can one be pistol whipped by anything besides a pistol?
2. How much is the subscription to see your underwear?
1. Absolutely.
2. If you have to ask…