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Companies market products to consumers by using a variety of pricing strategies to first attract them, keep them and then encourage them to spend more than they intended. This is most common in the retail industry but have can it be applied to teaching.
First, companies start with entry-level products that customers can easily afford and do not think twice about buying.
Once in the store or on the website, the company offers the customers "upsells" or add-ons to the entry-level products. These upsells can be used to enhance the basic products. Since the upsells are usually a fraction of the original product's cost, customers most often go for the upsells. The key to the upsell item is that it adds value to the original product by making it more convenient or adding another neat feature.
Finally, companies sell the "creme-de-la-creme" or inspirational products. These products are often complicated and represent a big jump for the customer to purchase. Most of the times, the customer can do without the product but desires to incur the costs associated in purchasing the product.
First, companies start with entry-level products that customers can easily afford and do not think twice about buying.
Once in the store or on the website, the company offers the customers "upsells" or add-ons to the entry-level products. These upsells can be used to enhance the basic products. Since the upsells are usually a fraction of the original product's cost, customers most often go for the upsells. The key to the upsell item is that it adds value to the original product by making it more convenient or adding another neat feature.
Finally, companies sell the "creme-de-la-creme" or inspirational products. These products are often complicated and represent a big jump for the customer to purchase. Most of the times, the customer can do without the product but desires to incur the costs associated in purchasing the product.
As a teacher, you can use pricing strategies to integrate technology into your courses. Let's consider the three levels and how you can be related to technology.
Level 1: Consider entry-level technologiesThese are basic technologies are not necessarily the least time consuming, but are very easy to learn. These technologies have very few entry barriers to begin using them. Emailing would be a good example of an entry-level technology to try for your classroom. It is easy to learn and is well-known by everyone. I use email regularly to communicate with my students throughout the course of the semester.
(Image credit - http://pixabay.com/en/email-e-mail-message-internet-268494/)
These technologies can be added onto the entry-level ones. The add-on technologies increase the value of the existing technologies by enhancing features and making it easier to use. Emailing with an Instant Messaging feature or using Google Docs to share documents via email. If you already use an entry-level technology think about adding an "upsell" technology to enhance the features.
(Image credit - http://pixabay.com/en/google-search-engine-browser-search-76517/)
Level 3: Inspirational technologies
These technologies are considered "big ticket" items in that they do require a higher learning curve and may take a bit of time to master. Teachers often use these technologies after mastering level 1 and level 2 technologies. Making a course website, creating an infographic, using Photoshop or creating a database are good examples here. To incorporate inspirational technologies into your classroom, consider taking a course, buying a book or getting a tutor/mentor to help you.
(Image credit - http://pixabay.com/en/html-file-type-source-code-code-154434/)
