Today I got an invitation to a breakfast hosted by my city’s Business Journal. The meeting is this coming Thursday morning and features a two-part program with a panel of experts in SEO marketing. The event piqued my interest.
The pricing section lists the following:
$79.00 Admission includes:
- Breakfast
- 1-yr. subscription (52 issues) of the San Antonio Business Journal (value $99)
- 2011 & 2012 Book of Lists (total value $110)
- BONUS - For subscribing to the San Antonio Business you will receive a $50 Hotel Gift Card that is Redeemable at over 55,000 hotels & resorts in thousands of destinations world-wide!
Nowhere is a price listed for those who already subscribe, so I called to check. I told the registrar that I’m already a subscriber and got the email as if I were not. She replied, “Ma'am, that same email went to everyone.” I asked what the price is for those who already subscribe. She had to check and returned to the phone to say, “It’s the same price.”
Needless to say, I’m not attending. I take three key lessons from this exchange:
- Deal with your contacts according to their relationship with you. A wise company won’t treat everyone in the database the same. I’m offended, as a paying subscriber, to be contacted as a prospect. Are you classifying contacts in your database and customizing communications for each group?
- Appreciate those who’ve committed to you already. Don’t disrespect your current customers in the pursuit of new ones. Giving away to others what I’ve paid for only makes me wish I hadn’t joined when I did. If I’d waited, I would have been able to get this special offer. Are you creating hesitancy rather than urgency for purchase—or rewarding the wrong behavior?
- Price your offerings in away that creates value for your whole audience. With some minor wording changes, $79 could have been established as the bargain price for current subscribers. That probably is a reasonable cost to access the experts who are speaking. The Journal could have offered some “bonuses” to the first 30 non-subscribers who registered. If the freebies had been positioned differently, I might not have been offended at all. As it stands, I’m irritated that new folks get more value for the same fee, and I’m not about to pay $80 for an hour-and-a-half breakfast.
Let’s be sure to never take existing clients for granted.
Posted on
Wed, September 7, 2011
by Amy Keuper