Pricing Strategies 101

chiefmappster(63)

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Inspired by the actual original iPhone business & marketing documents, the sixth page of the business plan, Price Strategy, is covered in this week's "Business 101: How To Effectively Write a Business Plan" post.

It teaches you the importance of the Price Strategy page, what information is included, and a visually appealing example of a successful Price Strategy page @chiefmappster created.

All Business Plan-related content you see below is all original. I spent hundreds if not thousands of hours throughout my life on the Full Tank Petroleum business plan, so I am happy to share the knowledge and information I have obtained in the process.

This page specifically was inspired by the actual Apple, Inc marketing and business materials of the original iPhone, which is regarded as one of the best product launches in history.

Why reinvent the wheel when you can use the best product and marketing launch as the template for your page.

I was lucky enough to have accessed this information at the right time and saved it offline. As it is nearly impossible to find any leaked Apple documents, especially the holy grail on them all the original iPhone.

The Pricing Strategy page is really where you differentiate yourself in the eyes of potential investors.

Most business plans potential investors see will have the same first four page: Executive Summary, Company Description, Market Description, and Market/Competitor Analysis. However, most business plans are lacking specific and actionable information about the Pricing Strategies of their proposed business concept.

This is where you separate yourself from the pack.

If Apple spent all this time and resources to create and include a Pricing Strategy page in their marketing and business documents for the original iPhone, don't you think it would be a good idea if you did to?

The Pricing Strategy page includes three (3) main sections: Pricing Points, Pricing Plan, and Pricing Comparison.

The Price Points portion of this page details the main pricing segments of your potential customers and the various pricing strategies (seen below) you are implementing in your business strategies.

This is one of the most important parts of this whole starting a business process. You need to know and understand the target markets you will be selling to religiously. The markets you wish to target should relate to your business’s pricing strategies. Without this relation, it is hard to convince your potential customers to purchase a product or service to is above or below their specific price point.

As you can see, pricing strategies need to include both macro and micro trends about the potential customers. If you use all these information and display it in a visually appealing way like the successful example I created below, you are on the right track to creating a successful Pricing Strategy page.

Also, if you are unfamiliar with any of these specific business pricing strategies displayed in the graphic, a deep dive on the internet will help you tremendously. I also plan on releasing tons more specific and narrow business-related articles, such as explaining what each of these prices strategies mean in the future

As you can see, I used one simple sentence to transition from the Target Market, Positioning, & Main Differential Attributes page and introduced the first section of the Pricing Strategy page: the Pricing Points.

Next, you a graphic; like I did below, to summarize your Price Points Strategy so the potential investors can easily read and understand it.

The next section of the Price Strategy business plan page is the Pricing Plan. The Pricing Plan is what you overarching plan is with your pricing, how it will correlate to your target markets, and what specifics that make up your Pricing Strategy.

As you can see from below, your Pricing Plan needs to be comprehensive in nature with text, visuals, and pricing specifics. Each new business concept will have a unique Pricing Plan so use this as a starting ground to fuel your own Pricing Plan. Logos designed by myself or a Full Tank Petroleum teammate.

My unique Pricing Plan for Full Tank Petroleum included both unlocked (above) and locked (below) plans. Your Pricing Plan might use one or the other or both.

And as you can see below, I integrated the final section, Pricing Comparison, into the flow of the second section, Pricing Plan.

This kept the potential investors reading and gave them the exact pricing details relative to the competition they wanted. They need to know your Pricing Strategy involved market research into your competition's pricing strategies. Our Full Tank team had to call almost damn near every marina on Lake Norman to get their prices for fuel and which types of fuel they offered.

Now time to bring it all together.

As you can see my example above, this Pricing Strategy page is visually appealing and display useful, relevant information to potential investors in an easy to read format.

I hope this provided some value in a more visually-appealing manner than other business plan content series. Good luck creating your business plan. It has never been a better time to start a business :)

If you want to check out how to create the first five (5) pages of your business plan look below: