My own experience with Fossato Economico.
My investing course landing page begins with the phrase: "Investing in stocks is simple, but it is not easy". Well, let me say that pricing the course correctly has been even more difficult than picking good stocks, and I'm not even joking.
If you are a content creator, pricing your course is one of the most complex decisions you'll face in the journey of creating it. Why is it so difficult? That's because pricing affects almost every aspect of your business, from the type of audience you attract, to your revenue potential and your brand perception.
Pricing your course too low can prevent you from reaching your business goals and negatively affect your brand, while pricing too high can lead to lower sales and make it hard to go back, as existing customers may feel betrayed by the change.
Setting the right price for your digital content isn't just about covering your costs or making a profit. It's about positioning your content in the market and communicating its value to potential customers. The price you choose sends a message about the quality and exclusivity of your content. If you price too low, you risk devaluing your work; if you price too high, you might deter potential buyers.
So what's the right price? Like with stocks, nobody can really know. But there are a few practical steps you can follow to better price your course. For starters, before launching, you can do the following:
1. Understand Your Audience: Conducting market research can provide valuable insights into the needs of your audience. Make sure to also ask them about their expectations.
My Experience: Before creating my value investing course, I did numerous Q&As on Instagram - some even with anonymous questions - to better understand my audience, their needs, and their expectations. This feedback was invaluable in better shaping the content of my course, as I learned that many users were expecting basic topics they were not very familiar with.
Through Sherpo, I then set up a waiting list to gather e-mails, gauge interest, but also gain more insights into the types of devices used by my audience. The warm reception, with more than 120 people signing up, really motivated me in getting heads down into work.
2. Evaluate Your Competition: Next, look at what others are charging for similar content. This can help you understand the willingness-to-pay for similar products. Pro tip: do not just look at your geography! There may be something more similar abroad.
My Experience: I wanted my course to be competitive in the marketplace. Many similar creators price their courses based on competition, but this often leaves many people unable to afford the content. I aimed to democratize information and open the market, ensuring that my course was accessible to more people without compromising on value. My research into my audience, and the data gathered with the waiting list, all proved my hypothesis that many people were likely not interested in paying too much.
3. Assess the Value You Provide: What unique value does your content offer? If your content provides significant value, you can justify a higher price.
My Experience: To enhance the value of my course, I included downloadable materials such as an in-depth DCF model, as well as another Excel file used throughout the course for numerical examples. Thanks to Sherpo offering me free unlimited downloads, I did not have to worry about any limits for my paid customers. Also with Sherpo, I was able to include a stateless investment checklist, an invaluable tool for my students and even for myself! Additionally, I promised students access to some of my exclusive Instagram Q&A stories, where they can ask me for questions anytime, as well as an in-depth feedback on one investment thesis to test their learnings.
4. Consider Your Costs: Calculate your production costs, and ensure that your pricing covers these costs and allows for a profit margin. You must always consider the opportunity cost too - the time spent creating content is time you could have spent doing something else. In finance parlance, you must make sure that the discounted lifetime value of your course will be more than adequate to justify the initial investment. (What discount rate to use, you might wonder? You can buy my course to learn more about that! I also have English subtitles thanks to Sherpo's AI features.)
My Experience: I was able to record the course with free tools like OBS, and my Apple AirPods served me well for the audio. I used PowerPoint, Excel and Safari when recording, to make the course as practical as possible when needed. And I edited all the content by using iMovie and the free trial of Final Cut Pro. The extra content I offered was also something that did not cost me money, but only time. And thanks to Sherpo's platform, which offers a variable commission fee, I was able to make sure that my pricing strategy would be profitable and sustainable, without having to worry about covering any fixed costs in the future.
5. Build and Adjust: Don't be afraid to change your mind, as you work on the content. But beware of announcing your community a price before having finalized the content, as that may make you less flexible.
My Experience: As I was building more course material, I decided not to leave anything out, making it as complete as possible for both beginners and advanced customers, who were a good percentage of my community. But I did the mistake of setting some of my Instagram followers' expectations too low regarding the price, stating that the course would not have been above 3 digits in price, which some misunderstood as being below 3 digits - something that, for the value provided, would have been way too low, especially compared to the alternatives on the market. After the waiting list gained traction, I made sure not to mention any price until I had finalized everything.
So what price did I settle on?
I priced my value investing course at €249 at launch to offer my most faithful followers a real value deal to grab, for two weeks. Waiting list signees got it earlier than others.
Post-launch, the course is priced at €499 - or €369 for those using affiliate codes. This strategy was designed to reward early adopters and create a sense of urgency. It also allowed me to gather initial feedback and testimonials before raising the price.
Informing of the Value
My course is more than 13 hours long, divided into 8 chapters, 60 lessons, and more than 600 slides with plenty of practical examples. On the website built with Sherpo, to inform my audience of the value provided by the course and to make it as transparent as possible to better decide if the course suits their needs, I included:
I also included a summary for every chapter and a locked list of references with two unlocked books per chapter, referring to my Amazon referral page.
Marketing the Course
Even though this article is about Pricing, I touched on two other "marketing Ps": Product - the course itself I built independently with the free tools I mentioned - and Place, Sherpo, leaving with Promotion hanging. Aside from building anticipation with the waiting list, which I kept promoting through my Instagram posts, I leveraged Sherpo's email+ add-on to send a mail to all the waiting list signees. I then created a series of Instagram posts and further Q&As to keep reminding my audience of the course and of the launch promotion.
In the post-launch period, with the price having increased, I am now able to offer affiliate codes through Sherpo, with a discount coupon, to other creators willing to help me promote my course and make some extra cash in the process. This go-to-market strategy, of course, needs an high-enough price to really work and incentivize affiliates.
Like Professor Michael Porter used to say, "the essence of strategy is choosing what not to do". The same principle applies here. I decided not to incorporate 1-on-1s as an extra included with the purchase of the course, as that does not scale well - and market rates for these services, alone, would be higher than the initial price of the course itself.
I also opted not to distribute my slides. Instead, thanks to Sherpo, I embedded them as PDFs in each lesson, allowing users to seamlessly transition between slides and video, but not download them. This was to make sure that customers consumed the content for what it is - a video-first course, full of practical examples, and to reduce the risk of some user downloading the slides or videos to send their friends.
While I can't prove if any other strategy would have been superior, the results have been satisfactory.
And the best has yet to come! I will be adding more content, free to consume for those who already bought the course, to better justify future increased prices to everyone's eyes (yes, even to those who missed on the initial promotion! The ones who took it, did a real value investment.)
I hope this experience of mine can offer food for thought to potential content creators treading these uncertain waters. It is normal not to have much of a clue on how to price your course, and there is no science in how to do so, but following a scientific-method kind of approach can work wonders.
If in doubt, my final advice is that it's better to start low and adjust up, than the other way around, and you will be able to leverage the positive reviews of your customers to better convince prospects. Naturally, this opinion of mine is shaped by my situation, as with a small community, I can be more confident in growing it in the future and realizing more value from my course.
Happy building!
Fossato Economico
Jul 25, 2024
7m reading time
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