Free price strategy
Source: Shangpin China |
Type: website encyclopedia |
Time: 2015-06-18
Price is the lever of the market. Whether the pricing is appropriate or not is directly related to the customer's acceptance of the product and affects Beijing website production The sales volume and profitability of the enterprise's products. Therefore, price strategy is the most flexible, artistic and competitive strategy, and is an important part of enterprise marketing mix strategy. Of course, enterprise managers also realize that different price strategies are applicable to different occasions and situations, and the surrounding environment is constantly changing. When making the price strategy, the enterprise must choose the most suitable price strategy from its own situation and the external environment. Whether a price strategy is suitable for the enterprise can be judged by two criteria: first, the price strategy suitable for the enterprise can help the enterprise achieve its goal, whether the goal is financial or non-financial; second, as an organic part of the marketing mix strategy, The price strategy suitable for an enterprise should be able to fully support the other three marketing strategies of the enterprise, which together serve the development of the enterprise. Therefore, the price strategy formulated by the enterprise is not the ultimate goal, but the means to promote the development of the enterprise. Since the development of marketing theory and practice, there are many kinds of price strategies that can be adopted. For the network in network marketing The platform has the characteristics of unlimited connectivity and information universality. Here we focus on several common strategies. （1） Overview of free price policy Free sale pricing is to provide the products and services of an enterprise to customers at zero price to meet their needs. The free price strategy is a commonly used marketing strategy in the marketing field. Although it can not bring direct profits to enterprises on the surface, its main purpose is to promote and promote products. It focuses on the follow-up interests of enterprises, not unprofitable. This strategy is generally short-term and temporary. In online marketing, free price is not only a promotion strategy, but also a very effective product pricing strategy. Many emerging companies have achieved success with free price strategy. Yahoo! The company is a typical example. Through the free construction of the portal site, after four years of loss operation, it finally turned loss into profit through indirect income such as advertising revenue in the fifth year. But in the first four years of loss operation, the company has developed rapidly, which is mainly due to the recognition and support of the stock market for the company, because the stock market mainly looks at the future growth potential, while Yahoo! The free price strategy of Yahoo! It has great market competitive advantage and huge market profit potential. （2） Applicable conditions for implementing the free price policy The reason why the free price strategy is popular on the Internet has its profound background. On the one hand, the development of the Internet is driven by the implementation of the free price strategy. On the other hand, the development speed and growth potential of the Internet are daunting. People with foresight will not give up development opportunities, and the free price strategy is the most effective means of market occupation. Of course, the implementation of the free price strategy also has certain conditions: 1. Be consistent with the operation mode of the enterprise, and choose the right launch time If the market has been occupied or is relatively mature, the difficulty will increase. At this time, it is necessary to examine the competitiveness of the products or services launched. For example, 3721 website introduces the concept of Chinese domain name through news, publicizes the function and convenience of Chinese domain name, and then cooperates with some famous ISPs and ICP to establish free software download links. At the same time, it also cooperates with PC manufacturers to provide bundled pre installed Chinese domain name software. 2. Consider whether the product or service is suitable The Internet is a sea of information. Online users have become accustomed to free products or services. Therefore, to attract users to pay attention to free products or services, they should have strict marketing planning as well as promoting other products. In general, the product shall have the following characteristics: (1) The product is easy to be digitized, invisible and has zero manufacturing cost. After successful development, these products can be produced without limitation through simple copying. Because of the intangibility of the products, they can realize zero cost network transmission, reduce the costs of research and development and distribution, and make it possible to be free of charge. (2) The product is characterized by growth. The products adopting the free price strategy generally start from the perspective of strategic development, take advantage of product growth to promote market occupation, and then focus on exploring the subsequent commercial value of products to lay a solid foundation for future market development. (3) The product is characterized by indirect benefits. The products or services with free prices can help enterprises to obtain income through other channels. This way of income is also the main business operation mode of most ICPs at present, which is one of the purposes of implementing the free price strategy, that is, users can start charging after they get used to free use. It is common to allow consumers to download trial anti-virus software and drawing software on the Internet for free use for a period of time. When the version expires, consumers have to pay for the official version, otherwise it cannot be used normally, as shown in Figure 8-2. (III) Types of free price strategy As the main body of the market, gaining profits is the basis for the survival and development of enterprises. With the free price strategy, the products and services of enterprises can be used by consumers for free. There are several free price strategies, from which we can see that free is a superficial phenomenon, and behind free is the business purpose of the enterprise. 1. Products and services are free of charge Products and services are completely free, that is, all links of products (services) from purchase, use to after-sales service are free. The most typical service is free email. The use of e-mail has rapidly replaced the traditional means of information exchange such as letters and telegrams, and it is also an important means for office personnel to transmit documents. Online consumers almost check their mailboxes and receive and send emails every day, so they can't help but log on to the website of the email provider, and will naturally browse the relevant content of the website, which will directly increase the browsing rate and click rate of the website, such as NetEase 163 mailbox, Sina mailbox, etc. 2. Restrictive free for products and services Restrictive free strategy means that customers must meet certain conditions specified by suppliers to obtain so-called free products or services, and suppliers and customers are mutually beneficial. For example, some websites require that you must register as a member of the website before you can browse and use its information. Many online games are now offering trial games. The server is free for a certain number of days or restricted to some functions. When players want to continue playing games or get more functions beyond the free trial period, they will have to pay. 3. Partial free of charge for products and services Partial free of charge for products and services refers to the strategy of dividing the whole product or the whole service process into several links, and only providing free of charge for some parts or some links. For example, some famous research companies publish some research results on their websites. If you want to obtain all the results, you must pay to become a company customer. Most e-books on Sina Reading Network only provide readers with free reading of some chapters, often stopping at the key chapters of the bibliography, and then telling readers, "If you want to see the next chapter, please register VIP to pay for reading". 4. Free bundled products and services Products and services are bundled for free, that is, when purchasing a product or service, other products and services are given away. For example, the commonly used RealPlayer and PDF file, RealNetwork. Both Adobe and Adobe will give away free special media format players that can be read, but Adobe software packages needed to produce PDF documents must be purchased from Adobe. （4） Risk of free price policy There is no free lunch in the world. For enterprises with the purpose of making profits, the implementation of free price strategy has its subsequent purpose. But this requires time and capital investment in the early stage. When enterprises wait for a favorable opportunity to carry out the next plan, there is a risk that the plan will be interrupted. A typical case is Netscape's "free browser plan", because Microsoft's Internet Explorer intermediary failed to achieve its goal. For these companies, providing free services to users is just the beginning of their business plans, and business profits are still to come, but not every company can succeed successfully. Therefore, these free enterprises must bear great risks. In order to effectively avoid this risk. When an enterprise makes a decision to implement the free price strategy, it should first ensure that it has a successful business operation model and has been recognized by the market, and then try to choose the right launch time through sufficient market research; Finally, we should pay attention to market changes in a timely manner to avoid risks or make favorable countermeasures when risks come.
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