3000% Increase in Sales

[tmac]

James, you are right.

I'm sometimes guilty of eating table scraps, yet I do manage to purchase fonts. And I don't always buy them for a specific job. For example Actium: I keep going back and looking at it and my consumerist impulses grow in proportion to my available credit.

[Renaissance Man]

When I saw LiebeErika in this thread (https://typography.guru/forums/topic/85530-forwarding), I really liked it but didn't buy it.

When I saw LiebeErika @ 25% off, quite by chance, I bought it.

I suggested a while ago that MyFonts put on sale the same fonts featured in their monthly newsletter.

[apankrat]

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html

A highly recommended read if you are trying to decide between $5 and $45 per weight.

[Joe Pemberton]

Tweet tweet.

[hrant]

{To Follow}

[Ryan Maelhorn]

As to selling our own work, I would just like to say that people will value cheap things cheaply, and expensive things expensively.

There are exceptions to this rule of course, but in general it holds up.

[zachhinkle]

I think the way some of us think about the value and distribution of fonts is a bit draconian.

We all agree that people's hard work is valuable, and that good fonts are worth money. That isn't debatable.

What Steam does for videogames is outstanding. Steam sells millions of games in an age of piracy and penny pinching. People happily spend their hard earned money on games because the games are good and the prices are amazing. Steam's christmas sale, for example, had games from 60-90% off. Good games too. I personally purchased dozens of games that I haven't even played yet just for the fact that they were great games and the prices would never be cheaper.

Do video games take a lot of time, talent, and resources to create? Yes. Are good videogames worth money? Yes. Are the distributors, creators, developers, or game community the lesser for selling their games at a heavy discount? Absolutely not.

Perhaps a great font like Bembo isn't something I would purchase. I have other nice serifs that do a fine job. Now, if the Bembo family went on say for say, $20 I would be extremely likely to purchase it because it becomes an incredible value for me.

Discounted sales on fonts would be huge and I support the idea 100%.

[hrant]

Good observations and points.

To me the main problem with discounting is people
come to expect it, and wait for it. It's extremely hard
to ever bring your prices back up (if you ever want to).

hhp

[kentlew]

Discounting, as a business strategy, is always a numbers game. Is the decrease in margin made up for by the increase in volume?

This is never a simple question, except in hindsight.

[dezcom]

The issue is the maximum size of the total market. Example:

Item 1: Toilet paper; Max market: 99% of worlds population

Item 2: Average Font; Max market: 0.001% of worlds population

Item 3: Typical Computer Game; Max market: 15% of worlds population

I am not saying my figures are very accurate, I am just saying the orders of magnitude is reasonably close.

[eliason]

So maybe the right strategy is to repurpose some of my test specimens as toilet paper!

[hrant]

When FontFont released Ernestine* in mid-December they offered
it at 75% off for two weeks. From what I can tell that was the first
time they tried this. I'm not permitted to share the numbers, but
apparently FF was happy with the results. Personally I'm waiting
for the 2012-Q1 numbers to see whether getting the publicity and
an established base out there has had a domino effect (although it
might still be too early). In any case, to me it's much better to offer
a steep discount either at the very beginning of a typeface's life or
after it flatlines; the last thing you want is customers watching and
waiting for discounts...

* http://ernestinefont.com/

hhp

[dezcom]

It seems to me that there are about 4 kinds of type buyers:

1. The big guys who buy lots of seats and often custom fonts. They need more exclusivity to ensure brand imprint. They need broad worldwide language support and numerous weights along with support and back up. They frequently work with established houses that can come to them with options, do testing, and offer after sales service.

2. Large publishers or advertising groups who may need some exclusivity but for a shorter time span and perhaps not quite in the custom market. but need a bit of hand-holding. Need good language support but perhaps only one script.

3. Graphic designers, freelancers, smaller publishing shops, who need very little supplier input but have much price negotiation with their own clients. They may not need exclusivity but they can make multiple uses out of one purchase for work after the initial use of the type. Some students edge in to this area who will shortly carry their catalogue of type to freelance usage. This group needs a broad range of things but not always. They may need display faces with limited weights but book faces with a broader spectrum of choices. They don't expect to pay for after purchase service but need rock-solid products which just plain work as expected. Reasonable price but with expectations for multiple use drive them but mostly, their client's needs.

4. One timers, hobbyists, scrap bookers and some students who just like the stuff but may never be in a position to make money from it. These folks have limited language requirement and limited weight usage. They buy on a whim and assume type should be almost free. They make no money from type, it is more recreational for them. Quality is often not recognized by this group and the certainly make use of free type. They are the least technically savvy and may not even be sure how to load a font and determine if it is working properly. Cheap price and high novelty drive them.

Does one price fit all? No... But neither does value and quality and service.

If you want to make money on volume, design type for group 4. Make it cheap and don't dwell on it much. Think of it as a consumable with little longevity and no sense of quality. Release very often and batch bunches of your older faded stock with slash/cut sales. You don't need a sales force or much of a craftsman's sense of pride to sell here.

For number one, big guys, you need a core of operations that can handle these clients--in other words an investment in staff, and capital as well as a good base of connections and clients who "know you". You can make money here too but you need a big investment to do well. The work must be quality work but not too leading edge to appeal to the market. This is a collaborative approach. You need to understand business and be able to work with different sets of people. This is not the place for someone who just wants to design nice type. This is a place for a business head and a process thinker who has access to all the other pieces of the puzzle.

The other two groups are tougher to pin down because boundaries get fuzzy quickly. These guys want great design because that is what they assume they do. They need a mix of both innovative and workhorse type. They need to be able to more than cover type costs with usage but do not have deep pockets. They prize quality highly but can't afford boutique prices.

Which is the most lucrative market? Depends on who you are as supplier. Can you deliver the goods that are needed? Can you support the client segment? do you have access to the client segment in a usable way? What satisfies you? in the "make money vs design great type for your own sense of pride" continuum. You have to know who you are and what motivates you as well as who your market is and what motivates them.

Align yourself with the market that fits you. Are you a big profit guy or a "love of craft guy"? You need to go for the mix that you can live with as a person and live on as a human being. Mix and match if that is you but realize that every venture has some sort of price for some sort of reward. The price and reward can be either monetary or pride, whatever floats your boat. Just be able to accept what you wish and work for with all of its ramifications.

[apankrat]

Stop with Stream, just stop. Forget about the games. Don't anchor there, look at a larger picture.

There are different categories of buyers, especially for such a niche product as fonts. If you are pricing your fonts too high, you are aiming at agencies and missing out on individuals. If you are pricing your fonts too low, you are getting to the "mass market", but commoditizing the font, making it less appealing to the larger agencies. Why you guys are so resistant to the idea of scooping up low-budget buyers once a year with a deep discount sale (not 5-15%, but 50%... something that would make an impulsive purchase an absolute no-brainer) - that frankly I don't understand. $60 per weight should get you a flow of well-budgeted customers, and $5/weight would get you a burst of those who are ready to pay you less, but pay no less.

Also, this is an excellent opportunity to develop a mailing-list (or Twitter, or Facebook) following that can be further used to market new designs and what nots. Just put a small plug on a website saying "we have a deep discount sale once a year, sign up if interested". Guess how many of those who really like the font, but find it too pricey will not sign up? A rhetorical question.

[brianskywalker]

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