In the internet marketing world there is a rule that prices should end in a 7. Looking for an ebook or information product? Chances are the price will end in a 7.

We’re all used to prices end in a 9 in the retail world – such as $19.99.

These are examples of psychological pricing, which is a theory that certain prices have a psychological impact.

The idea is the marketer wants the consumer to respond on an emotional, rather than rational basis. It’s about leveraging the buyer’s ego and self image. The general assumption is price is an indication of quality and the goal with psychological pricing is to exploit that as much as possible.

Prices ending in 99 indicate low prices and signal “this is a value”. There are several studies that have been done around using prices ending in a 9 to increase sales. This technique works, and it works well. (A google search on psychological pricing yields some interesting reading).

It’s harder to find any concrete information about the now ubiquitous 7 used in internet marketing but give it a few years and I suspect some will appear. There are theories that 7 is the most friendly number so it will increase sales but I was unable to find any definitive answers on why 7 would be superior to the use of 9 (except a sketchy looking ebook that cost $47 that I was able to resist). Some say that 7 and 9 work equally well when pricing and by using a 7 internet marketers leave $2 (or $.02) on the table on every transaction.

Odd Pricing and Art

Few artists price their work to end in odd numbers.

Given the standard of odd prices, using even prices is also essentially psychological pricing.

Nordstroms uses even prices as an indication of their quality and sophistication. They stand out in the retail world as different.

I price my work in even numbers. Work that is $5000 is $5000, not $4900. My ACEOs are priced at $40 not $39. I do this for the same reason Nordstroms does – to indicate the product I am selling is a unique one of a kind piece of art.

[ACEO stands for “art cards, editions and originals”. Originally known as ATC, Artist Trading Card, and are traded between artists. When sold to the public they are referred to as ACEOs. The primary rule for an ACEO or ATC is they be 3 1/2″ x 2 1/2″ – the size of a trading card. They are created in many different mediums and are collectible, trade able and affordable art for everyone.]

Leveraging Psychological Pricing

As an interesting study it might be fun to lower the price for 6 months to $39 and see what effect this has on sales and perceived quality. If it increases sales by 10% the loss in $1 income on each ACEO I would still come out ahead in terms of sales. This is easy to measure as I know the rate at which I sell ACEOs today.

Where would I be in terms of perception of the quality of my artwork? That would be harder to study as I’m not exactly sure how to measure this. My gut feeling is that the perceived quality of my art would not be hurt by this small change as odd pricing is a standard and my prices are high enough to distinguish my artwork as most ACEOs sell for $10-$20 range.

As artists we should not be afraid of trying out new pricing ideas. There are no rules that say we much price with even prices. There is much we can learn about marketing if we get over our need to be special and study how other people sell their goods and services.

Wrap Up

Pricing is notoriously a difficult subject for artists as we tend to identify emotionally with our art. Spending the time to research pricing strategies, such as psychological pricing, can help us to overcome the emotion and make better choices with our pricing.

Over time I’ll be visiting several pricing strategies on MakeBigArt.com because an informed artist is an empowered artist.

 
Do you use odd pricing / psychological pricing with your artwork? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

 
I invite you to become a fan of MakeBigArt on facebook:
MakeBigArt.com fanpage

In addition you can also find me here:

My Blog
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Lisa Call – Textile Paintings Fan Page

 
—lisa
Thinking Big about Art

Lisa Call – Textile Art – My Fan Page on Facebook

What is a Facebook Profile?

Before you can decide if you need a fan page let’s go over some basics of facebook profiles and fan pages.

When you first sign up on facebook you create a user profile. User profiles are for individuals only and each individual can only have 1 facebook profile, or so say the facebook terms of service and there’s a lot of evidence that they fairly strictly enforce those rules (a google search will turn up many incidences of facebook disabling accounts).

The facebook profile is the normal thing you see where you have a wall on your profile tab and you see your friends updates in the newsfeed on the home tab. When we “friend” someone with our profile it is by mutual agreement that we can see each others profiles and updates. I can’t see your profile if you don’t want to be my friend.

This is where we all talk about our cats and dogs and what we had for breakfast and the world is a better place as a result.

What is a Fan Page?

A fan page is a facebook page for businesses, institutions, organizations and people that have fans, ie public figures, writers, musicians, artists, etc. Basically anything that isn’t a person just looking to chat with friends. Technically they are really just called pages (vs profiles) but we seem to all call them fan pages.

As you can see from the photo above the fan page looks pretty much just like a profile page. Except there is no “home” page where you can see your fans’ updates. There is just the fanpage, which is the wall.

How a fan page is different than a regular user profile:

• Facebook pages are public. This means search engines can index it (ie more people might be able to find you via google – never a bad thing I would think). It means people not on facebook can see it.
• You can track metrics on pages. Things like pageviews, photo views, etc.
• You can create a discussion board on a fan page and you can create events (like facebook groups).
• You can create social advertising for your fan page. This means you can pay money to have your fan page appear in facebook ads, targeted to your selected demographic.
• When someone becomes a fan of your page, you still can not see their profile. It is a one way sharing. To see their profile they have to become your friend instead.
• You can have multiple pages but you are limited to a single profile.

One bummer is that when people comment on a fan page it does not appear in the notification feed. So you have to go and check your fanpage for comments. This is a bit annoying so just remember to check your fanpage to see if you have comments.

How I use my Profile and Fan Page

I use my facebook profile to talk about what it’s like to be an artist. The day to day stuff happening in my life. Some of it is directly art related (studio goals, misc art adventures) and some of it is not so much because I’m more than just an artist. Although because I use facebook mostly for art I don’t use it for super personal things.

[If I wanted to put family photos on facebook but still keep a more professional image I could use permissions and lists and only let my family and close personal friends see those updates. I might do a tutorial on how to do that later if there is interest.]

Mostly I use my profile to build a community to support me in my day to life adventures as an artist and a software engineer. My facebook page was the first time my work friends and colleagues were introduced in more detail to the whole me. I don’t talk about art and mindsets much at work so it was a bit weird at first to write about those things knowing the people at work were reading them. Now everyone at work knows I’m an artist also so it’s pretty cool.

Recently I’ve been posting about my efforts at improving my health. In April and May I was on a quest to do yoga 21 days in a row without a break. The encouragement (and accountability) from my friends was a huge help.

Some of this off topic stuff some my art fans love to read and some people not so much, as they just want to see the art and read about art.

So enter the fan page. Here is where I write about my art more. I kinda view it as a mini blog for people that have proclaimed to love my art (and a big thank you to all of you that have done so!) My status updates on my fanpage appear in my fans’ newsfeeds along with the updates from their friends.

In this way I have something for everyone: Become my friend to see the whole me, become my fan to enjoy my art. And even better: do both!

It is About You

Chris Brogan has deleted his facebook fan page. His single comment was

Because it’s not about me.

With my artwork, it is about me. And your artwork is probably about you.

Art History is a history of individuals. It’ll always be about us. Although interestingly, by creating the fan page I feel a bit the opposite of what Chris is saying.

Now with a fanpage people can enjoy my art without having to read about my efforts to go 21 days with eating refined sugar (which I completed today – it was super easy).

It is about me – I’m keeping my page.

Fine Print

And finally, here’s a little tidbit in the fine print of the facebook terms of service that might help you decide if you want to create a fan page.

All personal site features, such as friending and messaging, are also for personal use only and may not be used for professional promotion. If you add a user as a friend, for example, this person will be invited to be a friend of your profile and not your Page. Using personal site features for professional promotion, or creating unauthorized Pages, may result in your account being warned or disabled.

Technically, if you sell art from your regular user profile, or even promote it, you could be in violation of these facebook rules, which they seem to take rather serious.

Now What?

If this has you thinking you need a fan page – what next?

You can click here to create one: Make a Fan Page

Coming soon will be a tutorial on creating a fanpage (I recommend you click on artist or other public figure on that first page) and how to find it from your profile. Today’s post was getting too long to cover everything so stay tuned if you need more information before jumping in.

I invite you to friend me and become my fan at:

Lisa Call Facebook Profile
Lisa Call – Textile Paintings Fan Page

as a bonus – I’ve created a fanpage for MakeBigArt.com also. I’ll be adding the discussion board to this fanpage in the future so we can have a conversation about thinking big about our art. You can become a fan here:

MakeBigArt.com fanpage

 
—lisa
Thinking Big about Art