Product Pricing Tiers
Go-To-Market Strategy
Note: Due to the confidential nature of this project, I am unable to share specific data, research, and final deliverables. I appreciate your understanding.
Project Origin
After a full year of rebuilding proprietary software, this previously free platform was given a fresh look and a wide range of new advanced feature sets. By expanding this product's abilities, the business hopes to elevate its value to move it into a tiered paid service.
But how much will people pay? Who is the target? How should features be segmented to retain sufficient value across three price levels? In summary, what is the go-to-market plan for strategic sales positioning?
My Role
I worked with the Product Manager to identify the data needed in order to create the best go-to-market strategy and define pricing structure. I then conducted the research with my team, analyzed the data collectively, and presented my draft proposal to key business stakeholders.
With the plan approved, I was put in charge of communicating this strategy and pricing model internally through presentations and the creation of sales enablement tools.
Strategic Approach
With so many new features and integrations, this product now went beyond the problems it originally solved. Advanced features have expanded the product into new markets.
With this change in product potential and market expansion, it was imperative that we conduct a full market analysis in order to obtain the knowledge and insights necessary to determine a sound go-to-market strategy.
Identified Research Areas:
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Customer case studies and workflows
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Competitive analysis of feature sets and pricing models
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Target market pain points, feature requests, and value
Research & Analysis Process
Reviewing Customer Case Studies
I took a deep dive into our customer base to identify user models and match corresponding feature sets in the product. This process not only helped segment the customer base, but also demonstrated missing features or user flows that limited users.
At the end of the analysis, it became clear that the product tiers needed to focus on ROLE instead of account size. This role-focused model would allow marketing to tell a story that clearly illustrates who would benefit from each tier level to prospects.
Identified Roll-Based Persona Targets
Role #2
Role #3
Role #1
Competitor Pricing & Feature Count
Competitive Analysis: Features & Pricing
In order to determine an appropriate price point for each of the identified product tiers, I needed to establish market value. This posed a challenge as our competitors did not follow the same feature segmentation model. They also did not have many of the unique features our product offered.
My approach consisted of gathering competitors' various price points, feature count, and feature set value to each target audience. I then represented these data points in a comparison chart to map variances.
Defining Personas: Feature Segmentation
Leveraging customer data and competitive intel, I analyzed this information as my team gathered research in the target markets. I defined the different ways in which personas performed their jobs inside similar platforms while tracking pain points and feature requests in public forums.
The gathered research allowed me to establish clear value propositions, justify price levels, and helped to define the feature breakdown for 3 role-focused packages.
Price Tier Feature Breakdown
Finalizing the Go-To-Market Strategy
Price Tiers & Upsell Strategy
At each tier I established a clear upsell strategy both within the product itself and through communication triggers. This created a very natural progression for users as they become comfortable in their role and begin to explore advanced areas inside the platform. With each newly explored area, users are flagged in our CRM that trigger automated email journeys.
Role-Based Sales Positioning
Each product tier would meet specific needs of roles within an organization starting with the most basic and universal, to the specialized. Each tier's feature sets have a story of how they solve the daily problems of the role. These stories became my written sales pitches, ultimately connecting to a logical selling strategy and feature positioning to help facilitate product fit.
Establishing Product Metrics
In order to measure success at every milestone, I worked with the Product and Development teams to establish KPIs and set up automated reports to feed data back for analysis. This data relayed adoption rate, trial conversion rate, feature usage, abandonment rate, NPS scores, and more.
Product Launch Milestones
With the initial pricing tiers, personas, and selling strategies defined, I needed to test the market. In order to determine accuracy, I established key milestones for the product launch over the course of the first year. At each milestone, metrics would be analyzed and opportunities to shift messaging or target personas would be debated.
