PRODUCTHEAD: The value of a drink in the desert

coke products #

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tl;dr

To buy your product, the value users perceive from the product must be greater than its price

The biggest, worst-kept secret of monetisation UX: ask, ask and ask again

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every PRODUCTHEAD edition is online for you to refer back to

hello

I’m drinking a glass of water while I write today. There’s about a third of the water left.

How much would you pay me for the remaining water in my glass, right now?

Not some nice, fresh, filtered water — literally the dregs.

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that there will be no takers for my generous offer. Because ewww and *gross*.

An entirely understandable reaction.

Now imagine that you’ve been walking through an arid desert in the blazing sun. You can’t remember when you last had a drink. Each footstep takes almost all your effort as you fight exhaustion and the tug of the shifting sand around your feet. Your body gave up sweating a long time ago. Your tongue is swollen and dry.

Over the next ridge, you find me relaxing on a sun lounger, shaded by an umbrella. I’ve nearly finished sipping my glass of water and offer you the remaining dregs.

How much would you pay me for that same water now?

I use this example in my training about understanding user needs. We all need water: it’s a fundamental biological necessity. But how much we need it, and when we need it most, are both variable factors. In other words, the value of something changes from the user’s perspective. It all depends on their current context and strength of need.

Users don’t factor in how much effort and cost it took you to create the product. These are your organisation’s concerns, not theirs. Rather, when they truly need something, users see the value they can derive by using your product to satisfy their need. (By solving their problem or achieving their goal.) But again, the product is not itself the valuable thing to the user, it’s simply the means of unlocking the desired value.

Assuming your product unlocks value for the user effectively, you can and should seek something in return. What you reasonably ask for will offset the expense and effort you’ve taken to deliver that product to them.

If the users don’t need what you’re offering at that time, they won’t value your solution, regardless of how well it’s engineered.

So our challenge is not only to identify and address valuable user needs. We also have to time it right so that we can transact value at the point the user most needs it.

This concept is fundamental to a successful monetisation strategy for your product. This week the content I’ve gathered for you delves deeper into this topic.

(As an aside, the Reforge article neatly demonstrates its own monetisation strategy while writing about it. The article provides the reader with some valuable insight on the topic. Only then does it invite the reader to join their training course and learn more.)

Speak to you soon,

Jock

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what to think about this week

6 monetization strategy mistakes & how to fix them

Growth teams are typically quick to deploy resources to experiment with acquisition and retention strategies. We concentrate teams there and roll out changes frequently.

But when we talk about changing something with monetization, we tend to get lukewarm responses or a lot of pushback.

Experimenting with monetization can feel like a difficult problem that is hard to improve in a meaningful way.

Align monetization with the consumer’s perception of value

[Reforge]

How Duolingo pushes users from freemium to premium

5 monetisation lessons from the world’s most downloaded education app

There’s a reason for their double-digit revenue growth

(Sorry, this one is paywalled, but you still may be able to read it if you have free Medium member articles left this month.)

[Rosie Hoggmascall / Medium]

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PRODUCTHEAD is a newsletter for product people of all varieties, and is lovingly crafted from a short-term deficiency in dopamine.