Why the names of your product tiers matter

Marketing Breakdown

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Evening, young and eager minds!

I was planning on breaking down the landing page, and not to keep you waiting too much longer but I decided to change the names of the pricing tiers.

As I explain why I did that, it’s a great opportunity to walk you through a little behavioral econ 101.

So it used to be: White Belt, Black Belt, Purple Belt, and Founding Member.

Now it’s Bantamweight, Featherweight, Middleweight, and Founding Member.

Why the change?

I use White Belt and Black Belt to refer to how far along a student is in solopreneurship.

For instance, “a typical mistake White Belts make is that they focus on optimization when there’s literally nothing to optimize. Build a simple system that works before you start to add unnecessary complexity.”

So the implication was a bit confusing.

If you’re inexperienced, is my sales page implying you should get White Belt? Even though Purple might be more suited to you.

And when a Founding Member pointed out the same thing, I said, fuck it let’s change it.

Before we get into behavioral economics. One pointer… MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS.

I created this page in under 2 hours and it netted me over $20,000 in a week or so.

The fact that you need to make changes is a feature, not a bug.

Especially when you make changes based on the feedback of your customers.

How do you think that makes them feel? How cool is it to tell a company you think X is an issue and they change it to Y based on your input?

Alright. A little choice architecture now.

Nudging people towards a certain option.

We talked about price architecture here.

But you can also influence choice by the labels you use.

If you sell condoms and label them small, medium, large. Most men would be too embarrassed to get small or medium.

If you label them, large, XL, and XXL, they’re more comfortable getting the equivalent of small and medium.

And before anyone makes this a gender thing, women have just as much of an ego because… surprise, surprise, we all belong to the same species of homo sapiens. Why do you think pants keep getting bigger while the sizes stay the same or even get smaller?

So the labels you use can nudge consumers to a given option.

I call that the nudgex.

Originally, I was thinking Bantamweight, Middleweight, and Heavyweight.

But then most people would think middleweight is the right option.

If you’re selling coffee and you name the tiers; extra small, small, and medium, people will default to a different size than if you call them; large, extra large, and extra extra large.

I think for most of my students, black would be the best option. So that’s why I created these new names.

It nudges the customer toward the end of the spectrum.

It also makes Founding Member even more appealing cuz if you’re really driven and serious, the option called middleweight still doesn’t sound significant enough.

Give this a try when you’re thinking of names for your own pricing tiers.

Chop wood. Carry water.

RJY