RULE # 4: Be aware of marketing strategies and common portrayals

 

Just because it’s on sale doesn’t mean you have to have to buy it. Sales are tricky and most of us are sucked in by product marketing. Do demonstrate this, I will provide a brief list of product pricing and marketing strategies that get us every time.

99 cent pricing

Product pricing is not just arbitrarily putting a cost and value on a particular item; instead it is more of a psychologically proven activity. Some strategies simply work for getting us to purchase things, and .99 cent pricing  is a good example. When companies are competing for customer purchases, many businesses earn higher revenue from putting .99 in the right hand digits of pricing figures. The example Mark Stiving uses in his article “Why 99 is the magic number for product pricing,” demonstrates two companies selling bicycle tires at a similar price point.  One company sold its tires at $4.94 per unit, and the other $4.99. The company who charged five cents more sold significantly more tires and earned a higher profit.

Be aware to this type of marketing - it might help you save some money. Buy products based on its performance, durability and longevity rather than its price.

One, Two, Three-for-One, Two, Three

Many companies employ the buy one get one, buy two get one, buy one get two, buy three get one, strategy to trick us into buying more. We’ve all been a victim to this one! We end up spending sometimes three times more than what we initially wanted, or intended to spend because we think we are saving money. 

To prevent being sucked in by these strategies, do a little checklist: do I need this? was I in the market for this product? am I saving? or am I just buying more?

Seeing isn’t Always Believing

Businesses pay big bucks for their products to show up in magazines, newspapers, TV, radio and online. Products that are commonly advertised on mainstream media outlets generally depict just one opinion, which usually shines the product in a positive light. If we were shown all of the negative opinions of the product in question, we would probably be less likely to want to buy them. That is- instead of a company selecting only positive testimonials, they would demonstrate positive and negative reviews of a product; then customers would probably be less likely to buy them.

So next time you see an ad, be aware that the reviews have been carefully selected to reflect only one, usually positive, opinion.