The $67 Price Point

Unprecedented times. A global pandemic. Untimely lay-offs. And a global recession underway. Yet there is a service that is seemingly flourishing in these testing times.

While you’d assume that the pandemic has given a natural impetus to Digital Marketing, with thousands of offline businesses getting a digital makeover, and another few thousands getting incubated on the web, digital marketers are seeing more opportunity than ever in 2020.

The nature of the business has evolved from, primarily, large advertising firms working out of multi-storey office set-ups, catering to clients within their geographic reach; to small, fragmented and scattered businesses/independent digital marketers reaching clients across the globe through new channels like Upwork, Fiverr, LinkedIn etc.

In the economic sense, this shift on both the demand and supply side has led to a transition from an OLIGOPOLISTIC market structure tending towards PERFECT COMPETITION. For brands looking to employ these resources, it means they have the option of getting better quality work done at more competitive prices, whereas for digital marketers, it means that they have the option of working independently and with businesses they choose to approach and work with. And if you’ve paid close attention, you’d see this in practice already.

In comes Artificial Intelligence to, what I believe, power up the game, automate and improve efficiency in delivery. What’s fascinating is the advent of multiple AI-driven digital marketing tools that are creating a whirlwind in the DM marketplace during the lockdown. As just as the DM seems perfectly competitive, so does the market for these AI tools employed by Digital Marketers. And I say that because of the most important – price signal.

The market is global, the tools are AI-led and span across content creation, strategy and website building and if you noticed some recent ads – the price point is $67.

Dashnex Powertech (an E-commerce and Website building platform), Doodly (a Doodle Video Creation Platform), Content Studio (Content Strategy, Roadmap and Content Bucket Generator), Toonly Sales (an Animated Video Creation Platform) and Geru (a Marketing Funnel Generator), all seemed to share the price point of $65-69, and more so, $67 on their ads in the past 2 weeks, atleast.

Was this just a coincidence or was it the market forces telling us something more? Should us digital marketers be taking signs from the tools market to work on our pricing models? How long do you think differentiated pricing will work for the global marketing community?