In 1998, Priceline went from nothing to being worth $23 billion. They did it thanks to radio ads starring William Shatner and ending with the famous appeal:
“Priceline. Name your own price.”
In 2010, Fiverr launched. Their basic appeal was fixed freelance services, all for just $5. No need to haggle, negotiate over scope, or pay a lot. Fiverr went public in 2019, and is worth a little over $7 billion today.
Eventually, both Priceline and Fiverr backed off from their original appeals. You can’t name your own price on Priceline any more. And most services on Fiverr will cost you much more than a fiver today.
But those initial appeals were powerful. They made those companies worth billions of dollars.
Why?
What was so good about those two original appeals?
Direct marketer Fred Catona, who ran those Priceline ads in the 1990s, said that Priceline’s appeal was an “empowering statement.”
People felt in control, Catona argued, because they could name their own price. And so they took action and jumped on the Priceline website.
There might be something to that.
But Fiverr’s appeal was just the opposite. No control. Not only could you not name your own price… but you couldn’t even name the service you wanted. Five dollars. Fixed services off a menu. Take it or leave it.
And like I said, both appeals worked great.
So here’s my feeling:
Both Priceline and Fiverr appealed to simple greed.
“Name my own price? Hell yeah! I’ll take a ticket to Maui for $10, please!”
“$5 for an email sequence? Hell yeah! I’ll become an Internet marketing millionaire without doing any work!”
So my takeaway for you is to come up with new packaging for “cheap.” It might make you a billion dollars. Or 7. Or 23. And you don’t have to keep making the same “cheap” appeal forever.
Speaking of which:
There’s a new marketing funnel company in town, aiming to rival the $2B-valued ClickFunnels. The upstart is called GrooveFunnels.
GrooveFunnels does everything ClickFunnels does… and more. But while ClickFunnels costs hundreds of dollars a month to use… GrooveFunnels is free. For up to three websites… and for now, until they grab their share of the market.
Can you say cheap?
Of course, with cheap comes a whole host of headaches. I’ll tell you about a few of them tomorrow. And I’ll also tell you why it still makes sense to try out GrooveFunnels… and to even pay to get lifetime access for it, for more than three websites. Hell, I’ll even give you an incentive to do it.
But that’s tomorrow. For now, if you want to find out more about (FREE!) GrooveFunnels, here’s the link: