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Is it Time to Change Your Pricing?

Ed Arnold

Ed Arnold has led product development at LeveragePoint, a SaaS solution for value-based pricing and sales and at Forrester Research where he was VP Products for CX (Customer Experience) Analytics. He is a leading expert in value-based pricing and go-to-market strategies and how these energize the customer journey.

Last weekend folks in the US and Canada reset all our clocks in accordance to our biannual daylight savings time tradition. No choice here, whether you hate it or not everyone has to adapt if they wish to align with fellow clock users.

Of course, there is no mandated calendar date for when you ought to adjust the pricing of your product/solution. So this begs the question of when you should seriously consider revising your pricing and perhaps more importantly, how to decide what types of changes should you make.

This is especially true for solutions that publish their pricing and packaging information online.

Or to ask this question a different way, how do you know when it’s time to change prices? For a company that is missing its revenue targets, adjusting pricing may seem like a quick & easy fix. Perhaps, but I bet many of us would have a natural hesitation to make such a change without doing a little due diligence first.

This is because we know that sometimes pricing is a problem that can be fixed, but we also know that customer push back on pricing can be a symptom or signal of other issues. Such as:

Focusing on the wrong customer segments

Focusing on the wrong buyer personas

Failure to communicate your clear differentiation

Confusing customers with your pricing & packaging

Not addressing new competitors

Eroding value proposition

Etc, etc.

Indeed it is wise to have a little diagnosis before revamping the price list. Besides, adjusting pricing isn’t all that quick & easy anyway in many organizations depending on the state of their CRM and related systems. Speaking from my own product management experience, this process could take over 6 months with a lot of internal arm twisting. 

Wouldn’t it be great if there was an online diagnostic tool to help sort out these various issues and identify where your “pricing hot spots” are?  Actually, there is one!  Ibbaka has recently developed, 

Take the survey and receive a brief report of where you should focus your attention as well as some ideas for the next steps.

It takes less time than resetting your clock!

Is it time to change your pricing (this post)

Value-based pricing 2.0 goes beyond ringing the sales bell

What is your target value ratio?

The Value Pricing Dashboard will be where you integrate applications across the customer journey

A value model will change your business 

The customer journey is your guide to pricing communication

Accelerate business growth with Ibbaka’s Value Pricing Dashboard

Is your sales team blocked on delivering value?

Pricing and value communication does not end with the sale

Ibbaka Performance Announces World’s First Value Pricing Dashboard (Press Release)

Usage-based pricing a complement and not a substitute