AMA: Demandbase VP Product and Industry Marketing, Jackie Palmer on Pricing and Packaging

Similar to other questions above, there are lots of resources to leverage when thinking about pricing and packaging including competitor pricing. Here are some that I've found most useful: Competitor websites (hopefully you'll be lucky and they'll publish their pricing!). Know that whatever you find here is likely to be higher than actual selling price as it is not usually inclusive of discounts or promotions Review websites like G2 and TrustRadius. Often people will comment on the price they pa ...Read More

As mentioned before, taking an existing product into a new market should always include pricing and packaging research. Research methods include competitor websites, review websites, marketplaces, industry analysts, independent research/survey firms, your existing customers or prospects, your existing partners, and your sales team, etc. If you've been able to win some deals with the enterprise customers you are shifting to, you should definitely interview those customers. Some questions to ask i ...Read More

If Product Marketing doesn't own pricing in your organization today, here are some things you can include in a proposal to get it moved: Competitor knowledge - PMM is often closest to the competitors and can bring this knowledge into the pricing conversation. While you should never price a certain way just because a competitor does, the fact that PMM knows the competitors the best is often key to making the case to own pricing. Industry analyst access - you've usually got the ear of analysts lik ...Read More

The first thing I do when considering a price increase rollout is research. Some of the key pieces of information you need to gather are: Past average selling price (for an existing product or similar product) - you can get this from your RevOps/Sales Ops team if you don't have access to it yourself. Past deals - so you can use them as before and after examples in your presentation to your pricing committee. Competitive prices - sometimes Sales may have this from competitor order forms they've b ...Read More

In my experience, a pricing committee is the most important team you can have for pricing and packaging. Maybe if your company is super small, you can get away without one. But really, once you start having a decent number of customers and deals, you should have a formal process in place and a cross-functional team to review and approve pricing and packaging. Like I've said in some of the previous answers, cross-functional teams including sales are super important. Here's who I've seen as critic ...Read More

If you have a relatively simple product, you don't have to offer a lot of packages. But if you have the ability to do different packages because you have enough features to merit them, then I would recommend going with three packages. Most customers will look at the three options and say, well I certainly don't want to take the lowest level because I'm not just starting out (unless they actually are!) and I don't want the highest option because I'm not gigantic so I'm going to go with the one in ...Read More

I've always taken the approach that you don't touch existing customers until at least renewal time. So if you lower your pricing there is no need to address your current customers until they come up for renewal. When they do come up for renewal, you may have to minimize your year over year price increases for those existing customers until they get closer to the average selling price of those customers on the new, lower pricing. If you publish your pricing and the current customers can see that ...Read More

Taking an existing product into a new market should always include pricing and packaging research. First, I would begin with some of the research methods that I've mentioned before. These would include competitor websites, review websites, marketplaces, industry analysts, independent research/survey firms, your existing customers or prospects, your existing partners, and your sales team, to name a few.  Ideally you've been able to win some deals with the upmarket/enterprise customers you are try ...Read More

You may not think that product positioning and pricing are necessarily related. However, something you should definitely consider as you look at pricing a product is how you are going to position it. If you are targeting different segments with the same product, either enterprise/mid-market, different industries, different locations etc, you need to assess how that will affect your pricing. You may need to have different packaging for those different segments and that different packaging could b ...Read More

I would definitely advise building out a pricing committee even if it was just a temporary one for this specific project only. In previous answers, I've outlined the teams needed in a pricing committee but just to repeat, here's who should be involved: Product Marketing - proposes pricing and packaging changes, partners with Product Management (sometimes Product Management sends a representive to meetings), consults with Sales and Sales Management, approves pricing changes, conducts pricing enab ...Read More

I've been in both product marketing and product management and in both cases I have owned pricing so I can see it both ways for sure. But (and I admit I might be biased!) I strongly believe that product marketing should own pricing as PMM is often the most cross-functional team and also closest to all the outside influence factors. However, regardless of who owns it, both product management and product marketing should be involved.  While both teams often have conversations with customers, prosp ...Read More

As mentioned before, competitive intel is important to at least understand when thinking about pricing and packaging. You certainly shouldn't price a particular way just because your competitors do but you should always at least understand what the competitive landscape looks like. Here are some resources I've found useful: Competitor websites (hopefully you'll be lucky and they'll publish their pricing!). Know that whatever you find here is likely to be higher than actual selling price as it is ...Read More

I've found that it is a best practice to evaluate your prices at least once a year for most products. If your market changes very rapidly, you may consider bi-annual or quarterly pricing reviews but for most annually is great. You need to consider both outside conditions, like inflation, global/local economic changes, new competitive entrants, market consolidation or fragmentation, etc, as well as internal conditions. These can include: Have you released a lot of new features in the last year th ...Read More

I've always found that the sales team is a huge partner for you on pricing and packaging. Both in terms of knowledge (competitor prices, what the market will bear, direct feedback from deals etc) as well as being good supporters as you start to roll out pricing changes. A few things I've found that have helped build buy-in are: Always build a small group of reps you can come to to test out pricing. Either you have a set tiger team of nominees from sales leadership or you build a group yourself m ...Read More

This is a tough question as it causes a lot of fear especially for salespeople who think it will limit their ability to maintain their current average selling prices but in fact studies have shown that buyers want to see pricing and that vendors who pit pricing on their website actually engender more trust than those who don't. You might even pop to the top of a prospect's shortlist if they can get pricing on your website as having them there might give you opportunities to show them other thing ...Read More

I've usually taken the approach that a product bundle should have at least a slight discount as an incentive to purchase the bundle. Many times people want most but not all of the products in the bundle so it is usually nice to give them some small discount, like 5% or 10% off the unbundled price. Bundles are usually stickier too so in the long run you make up for the discount. You can also take the approach of the more products you buy the bigger the discount. I once worked at a company that ha ...Read More

I would approach this similarly to how I approach any re-pricing exercise. It is a best practice to evaluate your prices at least once a year for most products. Your VP of Sales should understand that things change. If you can prove some of those changes, either internal or external, then you'll have a stronger case. External conditions are things like inflation, global/local economic changes, new competitive entrants, market consolidation or fragmentation, etc, and would affect all of your comp ...Read More

There are lots of resources to leverage when thinking about pricing and packaging. Here are some that I've found most useful: Competitor websites (hopefully you'll be lucky and they'll publish their pricing!). Know that whatever you find here is likely to be higher than actual selling price as it is not usually inclusive of discounts or promotions Review websites like G2 and TrustRadius. Often people will comment on the price they pay or paid Marketplaces like the Salesforce AppExchange, HubSpot ...Read More