The topic of your presentation at Week of Market Research will be "Increasing customer value: Successful value-based pricing in practice". Who should not miss your presentation? 

Dr. Ludger Rolfes: All companies who would like to know more about how they can more effectively align product development, communication and pricing with the individual needs of their customers. 

Sign up for the webinar (11 May, 14:00 hrs., in German)   

What can we expect in your lecture? 

Dr. Ludger Rolfes: In my presentation, I will show how value-based pricing approaches can be used to identify and evaluate competitive advantages and how companies can use them to ensure greater price acceptance – particularly in the event of price increases. 

From your perspective, what is so special about value-based pricing? 

Dr. Ludger Rolfes: Value-based pricing is primarily a pricing strategy in which prices for products or services are set on the basis of the value perceived by the customer - the customer value.  However, if the customer value is not only recorded for the product as a whole, but also for individual product features, this information can provide valuable input into targeted communications and sales collateral. So for example, these materials can be made to highlight the product features that are particularly valued by the customer. Value-based pricing can therefore be much more than a pure pricing strategy. 

What role does value-based pricing currently play in your projects? 

Dr. Ludger Rolfes: With rising inflation and the general cost of living, a key objective for many current projects is to examine the scope for price increases. Therefore in preparation for a value-based pricing strategy, we always determine the customer value of single product features in order to provide arguments for price increases and their implementation.  Ultimately, value-based pricing fosters price acceptance. 

What other applications do you see in your projects? 

Dr. Ludger Rolfes: In many projects we already use value-based pricing in the concept or prototype phase of the innovation process. This allows us to identify at an early stage which product features customers value and to direct product development directly to those features that generate a competitive advantage. Value-based pricing can thus already be used in product development to develop customized products and increase customer value. 

How do you proceed with such projects?   

Dr. Ludger Rolfes: After we have recorded the individual characteristics of a product to which a value is potentially attributed by the customer, we record the corresponding willingness-to-pay either via conjoint analysis or by determining the values of perceived price and performance differences between offers. With the help of the CV Pricing tool developed by Produkt + Markt, data from different sources and methods can be processed and the advantages and disadvantages compared to competing products can be shown in monetary units. Recommendations for value-oriented communication and pricing can be derived directly from this. CV Pricing thus significantly reduces the complexity of determining and preparing value-based pricing information and enables companies to develop value-based pricing strategies for different market situations. 

Sign up for the webinar (11 May, 14:00 hrs., in German)   

Dr. Ludger Rolfes specializes in Innovation Marketing Research and Pricing. In his role as division director at Produkt + Markt he helps international companies to identify product opportunities and to develop wining pricing strategies. 

 

– published in German on marktforschung.de –