The Goldhat Blog

Antonio Rangel, associate professor of economics at the California Institute of Technology, led a study where 20 people participated in a blind taste test of various wines. The only information given to the tasters were the “prices” of each wine. They priced a $5.00 bottle at $45.00, a $90.00 bottle at $10.00 and, as a control, a $35.00 bottle at its actual price.  The affect that price had on each taster’s perception of quality was incredible, even to the point where the $5.00 wine was consistently rated tastier than the $90.00 wine. So powerful was price that when they put the tasters through an MRI machine, the scans indicated that each subject’s brain went into overdrive working to perceive quality that really wasn’t there.

It’s not a huge jump to assume that price is also a big factor when it comes to the content we consume on the internet. Most online content is free, and many will argue that some of it’s even better than the offline content we pay money for. But because the consumption of content is an extremely subjective experience, can we fool ourselves into thinking that the price we pay doesn’t affect our experience of internet content the way that it does for wine?

If you offer your content for free, chances are that more people will read, watch, or listen to it. You’ll get more traffic and you’ll get more subscribers. But will they appreciate your work as much as paying customers would? If they don’t invest any money into your ebook or web template or video tutorial, what’s to separate the perception of your web content from the flood of all the other free content out there? You can create great quality content, but the prejudice that comes with the “free” price tag is still there, and can take a lot of effort to overcome.

If someone pays money to have access to your content, however, they’ll pay more attention to it, they’ll make an effort to get every detail and nuance, and they’ll spend time finding ways to appreciate your work. Your customer wants to get their money’s worth and they’ll do it–even to the point of fooling themselves that they like your content more than they actually do. Although it sounds deceptive, it’s a hell of a lot better than fooling them that they like your content less than they actually do.

Charging money for your content will separate it from the crowd. Forget creating free ebooks, free videos and free articles in the hopes of getting traffic so that you can leverage it for profit in the distant future. Ask for money now and people will give your content the respect that it deserves.