30k people visit my free online tool per month. How do I find out how many are willing to pay for a premium version?
I am getting 30,000 unique hits per month on my online tool. I have ideas for creating a "super" version of the site and selling access for $xx.
Developing the premium version will require a significant amount of time and it's only going to be worth it if I can generate enough sales. If I can convert 0.1% of my audience per month, that's 30 sales - at a price of $20 that's $600/month.
However, if the conversion rate is 0.001% then only 3 (or fewer) sales are made a month and the revenue of $90 just isn't worth the time invested.
The same question goes to pricing. $20 is a rough figure, but really I need to know what people are willing to pay.
What's the best way of gathering this type of information without employing a market research company? Putting a poll on the site?
Mock up what you’d like to offer as a “Pro” service and put a button to buy it on your app, once clicked they are presented with some kind of “notify me when it’s ready” sign up form. Keep track of the button clicks in addition to the emails you collect.
Edit: retail stores do this all the time to see if customers actually want a product before it’s manufactured. Same could apply here.
Definitely ask the people who visit the site. A poll or survey would work, either in a sidebar, popup, or link to a survey page.
First, I'd ask two questions. Give them a 4-6 item checkbox list of features they'd like to see, then 3-4 radio buttons with price ranges to pick from.
Then, give them the opportunity to sign up for updates and a chance to get one year of the premium service free (or whatever) by providing their email address.
Track survey results, which will give you features and pricing.
Track email vs anonymous user counts, giving you a rough signup percentage.
If you decide the project is worth it, treat the email list as your Most Valued Users; e.g., build the new version in "modified public," giving only your MVU access to it. Ask them for input ("We're testing this feature.. give us your feedback!" or "Is there another feature you'd like to see?"), and, ideally, they'd roll into your subscriber/revenue base on version rollout.
Great ideas and info - especially getting a list of MVUs. I will definitely look into doing this.
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Sorry I'm lost on this one. Add a payment method like Stripe, but don't actually charge for a product that I haven't built yet? Can you elaborate?
I agree that people are more likely to say yes on a survey than they are to say yes when it comes to actually handing over their money.
This comment was deleted 2 years ago.