Pricing Strategies for Life Coaches

So you’ve created your first infoproduct, developed a group coaching program or designed a workshop, and you’re ready to market it.   How do you go about pricing your product or program in a way that clients will find irresistible, while simultaneously providing you with maximum returns for your product development time and labor?

There are, in fact, pricing models and guidelines we coaches can use to establish rates for our various services.  The perceived value of your work in the marketplace depends on a number of factors.  These include:

• The strength of your following. If you have a loyal clientele, a healthy number of subscribers to your ezine and/or a legion of devoted blog readers, you have already established a level of credibility with potential buyers of your product.  This increases the perceived value of what you have to offer.  If, on the other hand, you are still building your reputation and visibility, you may need to set lower prices at first to make your products more attractive to buyers.

• The uniqueness of your product. How likely will your client be able to find a product or program that will provide similar benefits to the one you’re offering?  Or what expertise do you bring to your product that separates you from what other coaches might deliver? The more you can differentiate what your product does from what other products can do, or the more that it solves a specific problem or meets a unique need that is not met anywhere else, the more likely customers will be willing to pay higher fees to obtain it.

• Your product’s place in your marketing funnel. What exactly do you want the product to accomplish?  If you are primarily looking to build your customer base or brand awareness, setting a low price point to appeal to more people will better enable you to do that.  Of course, if you want to generate more income with fewer sales, set your price accordingly.

• The delivery method of your product or program. Short reports and ebooks tend to fall lowest on the pricing scale, followed by audio and video products, e-courses and monthly membership sites.  Higher priced products include group coaching programs and infoproducts that contain both audio components and accompanying workbooks or tools that clients can download.  At the very top rungs of your pricing ladder are programs such as inner circles, masterminds and one-on-one coaching.  As a general rule of thumb, the more that your program or product includes personal access or exposure to you, the more you will be able to charge customers for it.

• Using the magic number. You’ve most likely noticed that a large number of products sold on-line have prices that end in the number seven (e.g., $27, $47, $297, etc.)  Marketing studies have shown that setting prices that end in the number seven tends to make the price more attractive to potential buyers.

• Your target client’s income level. You also need to take into account your customers’ financial status when setting your program and product fees.  Female executives, for example, probably have more spending power than most stay at home moms.  Doctors, lawyers and other well-paid professionals tend to have more discretionary income than, say, front line office workers.  Keep this in mind as you consider product pricing.

Last but not at all least, what will your customers stand to lose if they don’t purchase your product?  The more costly the possible consequences, in terms of money, time and/or personal relationships, the more money people will be willing to spend to prevent the loss.

Most likely you will have to experiment with the pricing of your products and programs until you find amounts that result in optimal sales.  Using these strategies, however, should help you keep such trial-and-error pricing to a minimum, while enabling you to see maximum results.