Here’s a loose definition of price anchoring: Setting a value in a prospect’s mind so that your actual price seems like a gift to your customer.
Like an Amazon listing that has a ‘List price’ and then the real selling price, along with the amount you save.
Let’s go one step further with this… You can set your prices up on your sales page strategically so that your customer takes the option you want them to take.
Mindvalley used to sell their online courses priced slightly lower than the physical version, so most people would take the online version and Mindvalley saves on fulfillment costs.
What they do now is they offer the single course, OR the course along with their annual all-access membership which renews after 1 year.
Another great example: A UK entrepreneur sells courses on home recording & mixing, and his ‘price anchor’ was a $497 course that included a coaching call, while the offer he really wanted to sell was priced at $100-$200.
Few people ever took the coaching call version, and his fans lapped up the $200 courses.
Fast forward to this morning: I click on an ad for yet another AI copywriting tool and see a pricing table with the ‘Lifetime’ membership option only 10% more expensive than the payments for the monthly option.
Who on this green Earth would take anything but the lifetime option?
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly the reaction you want.
But what most businesses do is to just show the lifetime price and say “The lifetime deal is $XXX.” and leave it at that.
Compared to what?
Any time we are presented with an offer, we must compare it to something else. Our minds can’t process it just floating in a vacuum.
Sales coaches teach the principle of the ‘yes/yes’ close, which works because we want them to choose between one price or another, rather than choosing between buying or not buying.
But it also works because we’re presenting them with an immediate comparison that clearly favors the option we want them to take.
So they don’t feel the psychological need to go find other comparisons, start googling options, etc.
Even though that would make logical sense… we don’t buy with logic, do we?
In fact buying is so illogical that we can make comparisons that don’t make any sense at all – but when the value is so out of whack with the price, the prospect just sees that and the comparison happens in an instant, and unless you screw it up royally, their decision must come in your favor.
Next time you’re communicating an offer to your people, anchor your price, then make them an offer they can’t refuse such as this one.