3000% Increase in Sales

[apankrat]

This topic was imported from the Typophile platform

In the light of this thread I just remembered this piece of news from a year ago - a half-price sale of a game resulted in 3000% increase in sales.

<quote>
* 10% sale = 35% increase in sales (real dollars, not units shipped)
* 25% sale = 245% increase in sales
* 50% sale = 320% increase in sales
* 75% sale = 1470% increase in sales
</quote>

Some strings attached of course, not exactly the same product type, but still I suspect that those of you guys open to licensing experiments may find it quite interesting.

[Dunwich Type]

Discounts do result in extra font sales, but the numbers are very different from first-part discounts on Steam, and the Steam model is largely irrelevant in comparison to fonts. This is because:
• There are literally tens of millions of people capable of buying and playing games using a service like steam. The number of graphic designers in a position to actually buy fonts is in the tens-of-thousands. So there’s a hard limit in how big a font sales spike can be.
• Because the market for fonts is so much smaller advertising budgets are also much smaller. Valve spends millions of dollars to promote its games. No type designer can do that—most type designers are making less money in a year than Valve spends advertising a single game. When Valve has a sale thousands of people are waiting for it. Not many people are just waiting for that one font to go on sale.
• Games are inexpensive entertainment items and there is a constant market for them as impulse buys. Even discounted, fonts are professional tools and usually purchased only as needed. This is why fonts discounts happen mostly during August and December when the design market slows down. Discounts during the rest of the year just eat away at profits on sales that would occur anyway.
• Discounts should be irrelevant to serious designers as fonts are professional tools and their cost should be passed along to clients. Designers with serious fonts budgets aren’t pikers working for clients who nickel-and-dime everything. Constantly experimenting with pricing and promotions to try and dredge up some extra sales from the bottom of the barrel eats up time that could be spent drawing more fonts to sell to serious designers.

[apankrat]

Deep discounts is a way to scoop out all fence-sitters and everyone one else on a tight budget who is interested in a product. You seem to be sweeping these people aside and focusing exclusively on "serious designers". That's your choice.

[dezcom]

There are not that many "fence sitters" and many of them are not interested in the work that goes into making a respectable font. Even if you achieved 100% of the type market with a 75% price cut, you would be nowhere near a 1470% increase in sales.

[apankrat]

Chris, I can tell you that I have a wish list of about 20 typefaces at the moment. And even though I don't need any of them I would gladly buy a half of the list if it went on a 50% sale.

With regards to "not that many fence sitters" - if you have actual numbers, I would be very interested to look at them. Otherwise the only way to gauge them is to try.

Also, keep in mind that this is a short once-a-long-while event. Deep discounts cannot be permanent, because that will just kill the regular sales.

(edit) PS. I am not advocating this approach by any means. It may or may not work. It may or may not be a lot of effort for too little benefit. But the reason I posted this in the first place was that I can see this working on me. I would buy some typefaces that I would have not ever purchased otherwise.

[andreas]

Buy 10 typefaces for 100% and make you and the designers happy.

[Don McCahill]

Alex

As others have mentioned, the type craving market is small, and while you might have a list of 10 fonts, 99.99% of the world does not.

I used to sell newspaper advertising. It bothered me when people would put an ad in the paper, and then complain that it didn't boost sales. I tried to impress on them that ads work best when the message they have is noteworthy, like a significant sales deal.

I think the other thing works just as well. You can cut prices 75%, but there will be no reaction unless people are made aware of the discount, and it is something that is in demand. The problem is, as others have said, that fonts are not heavily advertised.

It would be interesting if one of the font retailers like FontShop or MyFonts was to run a weekly sale. I suspect that it would result in increased sales. The big question would be: how much?

[Dunwich Type]

Chris, I can tell you that I have a wish list of about 20 typefaces at the moment.

So use them in 20 designs and charge them to your clients.

[aluminum]

I don't buy fonts as often as I'd like to primarily because I do mostly web stuff these days. But I have made impulse purchases over the last couple of years...one being James' Recovery (it was at an easy 'impulse buy' price point) and several from Dino's DSType when they had a large sale. Granted, DSType's wares were getting a lot of awareness before the sale, which probably helped.

So, anyways, I am but one fence sitter.

I think the 'non piker serious client' designer is a valid market just as much as the 'freelancer who has an eye on a few faces just because they really like them' market. I think one can market to both using the occasional discount model. Designer A needs a face when they need it. They have the budget to buy it at that point. Designer B doesn't need a particular face, but would like to have it if/when they see a discount.

It's sort of like airfare. M-F the airlines charge what they want as most business travelers will pay whatever because they have to get from point a to point b. Tourists can get a discount by flying weekends and waiting for that occasional discount on a non-full flight.

[apankrat]

So use them in 20 designs and charge them to your clients.

Unfortunately that's not an option. I am my own client.

---

It would be interesting if one of the font retailers like FontShop or MyFonts was to run a weekly sale. I suspect that it would result in increased sales. The big question would be: how much?

I assumed that MyFonts allowed for setting font discounts already, and I further assumed that pretty much every reasonably active foundry has a Twitter/Facebook/etc account. If they are in fact going to run a 3 day 50% sale event, the news will spread. The deeper the discount, the more the viral effect is going to be.

I do however agree that it is likely to work much better for the pricier fonts that are already well-marketed and that are in demand.

[Nick Shinn]

I try to strike a balance between designing/making fonts, and marketing them.
With a little time left over for Typophile, which I find more interesting than Twitter or Facebook.
My business philosophy does not include discounting, for various reasons.

[oldnick]

It would be interesting if one of the font retailers like FontShop or MyFonts was to run a weekly sale. I suspect that it would result in increased sales. The big question would be: how much?

A few months back, MyFonts sent out a newsletter promoting ten fonts under ten dollars each—not a sale, simply the regular retail price. Two of my $7.95 fonts were among the ten spotlighted. The result? For me, over $5,000 in gross sales for one week...

[Nick Shinn]

Well, I wish they had included one of my fonts!
Paradigm Standard sells for $9, but not a lot of interest in it -- I conclude that it would have been better to make it a freebie, with the upgrade to the Pro version being the money-maker. Perhaps I don't publicize it enough.

[oldnick]

Nick,

Don't be shy: let the folks at MyFonts know about this hidden gem. They were VERY pleased with the overall results of the promotion, and are likely to repeat it.

[Dunwich Type]

A few months back, MyFonts sent out a newsletter promoting ten fonts under ten dollars each…

Maybe we should lobby MyFonts to let us plan our discounts far in advance to all coincide with a monthly discounts newsletter. The MyFonts mailing list is probably a much better option than hoping word will spread through designers, because MyFonts will hit a LOT of non-designers. I would be more interested in discounting with some serious promotion behind it.

[aluminum]

"because MyFonts will hit a LOT of non-designers"

Maybe worthy of a separate thread, but out of curiosity, any idea how much of one's fonts that are sold go to working professional graphic/media designers vs. other fields?

[Christopher Dean]

.

[evanbrog]

I'm a freelancer, for the moment, anyway, with a list of about 20 fonts I'ld like to buy for myself. I graduated 2 years ago, and perhaps unlike a lot of people out there my age, I DON'T think everything on the Internet should be free. But considering the current job market and my all around poorness, a good enough discount would probably be the tipping point to me buying a font that I just want to have. Some are simply way to expensive and a discount isn't going to help, but others...

Btw Shinn you'll be pleased to know your Eunoia Reg. & Round are on my list.

[apankrat]

Here's another take on the same idea - http://www.humblebundle.com - this one with the real-time numbers.

Oh, and at least two of these games - Braid and Machinarium - are really really good. Do check them out :)

[quadibloc]

Who purchases typefaces?

People who buy videogames buy them with their own money. So a discount makes a big difference to them, and impulse purchases are a normal phenomenon in that market - because a game is something one can have a lot of fun with.

When it comes to typefaces, the way I see it, the market is broken down into a number of segments.

One group is ordinary computer users who would like to have a selection of typefaces to use on their laser printer - other than the limited number that comes with their operating system, or the somewhat greater number that comes with Microsoft Office.

If they purchase Corel Draw, or their computer came with Corel Office, their font requirements would mostly be met, because they would have professional versions of pretty well all the old standbys - Garamond, Baskerville, Palatino, Optima, Cooper Black, Hobo, Papyrus - and would not see a need to obtain more.

The people who would consider spending even $20, never mind $200, for a typeface like Williams Caslon, Starling, Times Ten, Goodchild or even Stone... work for art departments and the like. They're not spending their own money, and they are purchasing typefaces for the specific requirements of a job. Yes, there is a possibility of buying a few typefaces on spec if it's anticipated they'll be useful multiple times in future work, adding to its perceived quality - but price elasticity is still far lower in this kind of market.

This situation may change in future, if typefaces somehow become perceived as more of a fun thing to play with. For example, I could see more ordinary people being in the market for fonts if they were:

a) more likely to be licensed for, and
b) easier to be used in

web pages.

Thus, I think that font foundries are acting soundly by not perceiving the likely results of discounts to be anything like those which would apply in the video game field.

This is not to say that they're necessarily selling an awful lot at high prices either; it seems to me that there are a lot of commercial typefaces out there, only a limited portion of which will ever achieve any significant success. But since there are many typefoundries that appear to be thriving businesses, throwing up their hands and quitting the business doesn't appear to be the necessary solution. They're managing, and they will monitor market conditions and respond to them with due caution.

[Bert Vanderveen]

You a painter? You buy paint. You a designer? You buy fonts.
You a poor painter? Make your own paint out of dirt and stuff. You a poor designer? Change careers. Or make your own fonts.

[tmac]

"You a poor designer? Change careers."

There would hardly be anyone left.

[Dunwich Type]

There would hardly be anyone left.

I’m pretty sure there would be a lot of well-off people left if we could chase off all the people who work for table scraps. Ann Landers used to say that people can only take advantage of you if you let them, and designers should think about that when the clients are trying to nickel and dime every job down to a tiny sliver of a margin.

[apankrat]

Thus, I think that font foundries are acting soundly by not perceiving the likely results of discounts to be anything like those which would apply in the video game field.

If I may direct you to my own reply to James back in March.

[RadioB]

can someone send me a message if DTL fonts ever go on sale:>

in my very humble opinion I don't think fonts should go on sale