Hi, Everyone.
Several days ago one idea became in my head 
For authors to better understand buyers, it would be nice of Envato to make something like a questionnaire for buyers, which could be filled in after a purchase. Not as an obligation, but as something like “help us become better for you.”
Simple questionnaire with following questions:
- How important for you is the final cost (possible answers)
Variations of answer:
- not important at all, as long as the track fits my project (to a reasonable extent)
- the lower the better
- both - I filter the tracks from the lowest price to highest and go up until I find what I need
- Do you use the price range filter to set up upper and lower price limits (possible answers)
Variations of answer:
- Yes I set up the upper price limit (20, 30, 40$ for a track)
- Yes, I set up the lower price limit
- the price is not so important, as long as a track fits me (if it fits me, I’ll buy it for any adequate price)
- What is your attitude towards low-cost tracks (possible answers)
Variations of answer:
- positive (there are good ones)
- negative (I mostly don’t even listen to those)
- neutral (depends on a track)
- What is your attitude towards high-cost tracks (possible answers)
Variations of answer:
- negative, the most of those are too expensive
- positive, a good work can’t be too cheap
- neutral, there are prices too high and too low for me to consider
- Do you find it comfortable to use the search, and what can be done to make it better (empty box for text)
- What else can we do to better provide you with the best music for your needs (empty box for text)
And if authors had access to the survey results (without any disclosure of buyer’s personal information) it might help both authors and buyers and maybe Envato for best optimisation of search algorythm.
It is only a suggestion to further improve a good market, build up customer loyalty and make authors more invested in their work.
Would be perfect to see answer from Envato Team and other authors about this idea.
Thanks.
20 Likes
I can not warm up to the idea (except the part about search) for these reasons:
- It shows insecurity. As an author you have to define your worth.
- Costly and a waste of time for envato to draft and execute a survey, they probably have secret statistical data as to how customers search the price filter anyway.
- Priorities should be on curated playlists and tweaking search so good, new, and different music is getting presented
- I personally have gotten my answers to all of these questions about price importance, Professional people are more concerned with a track that works for their project period.
- It is up to you as a professional to decide your worth, but know that if you price yourself as cheap, easy to get and border line worthless, you and your entire portfolio will be perceived that way by customers.
- I am not interested in what is better for buyers. Why? It’s already good for them. They have tons of cheap and flexible options for them right here and on elements. Making it even better for Customers has nothing to do with a pricing survey. Customers want good music, fast, presented in a user friendly easy to navigate and audition manner. I am interested in more revenue for me. I have accomplished that once again in December because of ADP. My Best Revenue month of 2018 occurred today and it’s only the 11th of Dec.
- I don’t care what the customers attitude toward higher priced tracks are because my price is my price. I am defining what my product is worth and you should too. Do so knowing that generally speaking a cheap date is not appreciated.
- Indeed the KONTAKT sounds are becoming very “AI” sounding, so if you want to create a better experience for YOUR customers, you better start recording a real guitar, real bass, real drums, real sax, real percussion instruments so your music does not sound like robotic AI. Easier said than done, but try your best. If you do use virtual insts…do everything you can to bring out a human feel in the track. This is advice to myself too.
- A competitors site already conducted such a survey and customers overwhelmingly indicated that it’s not about “low price” but finding great music for their projects. They also, indicated that subscription options were not important to them either.
- Even if the survey yielded details or evidence that customers do prefer tracks in the $5 to $30 range, I still would not lower my price because my price is my price and I decide what my work is worth.
6 Likes
True, but 99% of authors follow the recommended prices set from Envato. Those recommended prices are what feeds that insecurity. Rather remove recommended prices totally or at least increase the spectrum a lot on all licenses.
If Envato can provide us some real data of this, how customers set their top limit or bottom limit in price that would be great. It´s also likely that many of these price sorting behaviours comes from authors which makes it a bit blurry though.
I do 100% agree that the most important part is surveying how the customers feel about the current search engine, and there is where the most valuable information can be harvested.
1 Like
Lets not forget that tracks can be quite different in terms of what customers they appeal to. One size fits all pricing is not necessarily the best approach for all authors.
Currently there are 463 000 ish tracks priced $5-$50. 1500 ish tracks are priced $50-$150. Guess where its most saturated. Personally I would be very interested how many % of AJ customers are operating with budgets in the medium-higher spectrum.
I don´t see any problem with a customer survey. We all know that price dumping can increase sales number, but how many music producers are really aware of what they can charge for tracks aimed at medium/high budget advertising clients etc? It´s probably way more than authors are aware of.
Also if you think about the future of the AJ market, it´s quite important that authors are aware of how much they are worth. We all saw how credits customers were treated like digits in the overall accounting. It´s naive to think that we authors are not digits in the overall accounting as well at the end of the day. The more authors that are aware of their worth, the better it is for our future here with all its challenges.
Everything you say is wonderful.
But I dare to assure you that I created this post not for lowering prices or uncovering some secret super secrets. All that I have suggested is just an example of questionnaire questions (which is not so expensive and not so difficult to do, for example, using simple Google survey or similar services - there are plenty of opportunities now).
But first of all, I, as an author, want to get feedback from clients and make the most profitable offer for them without loss for myself, as an author. And I think this is supported by many authors and many clients will appreciate, become more loyal and come back here (in Envato) again and again. This is the main goal. Become more helpful to each other, that’s all.
And everything you say is fine and I agree with you, but I just want a little more for all of us!
Thanks.
+1
maybe also for curators… they have the responsability to select the music
1 Like