Natalie Louie is a Product Marketing strategist and leader who can build, scale, train and manage teams or roll up her sleeves to create and operationalize repeatable playbooks around positioning, messaging, go-to-market, product launches, customer journeys, training, competitive intelligence, win-loss analysis, customer and market research, sales enablement, pricing and packaging.  

She is a strong operator and strategist adept at working with C-level executives, board members and cross-functional teams to ensure alignment and execution excellence for projects inside and outside of her scope. She loves telling a great story where the customer is the hero. 

In this episode, Natalie talks about shifting pricing mindsets in the digital products space particularly under the subscription pricing model. 

 

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn how to introduce a new recurring revenue model into your pricing system without getting rid of your one-time transaction 
• Learn how to make a win-win situation both for you and the client you are serving when introducing a recurring revenue model both for your hardware and software products 
• Find out all about new product pricing in the introduction stage, how to set prices for the very first time 

 

“Businesses are budgeting for how am I going to budget to unlock new growth going to a new normal, that COVID-19 brought out. And it’s all about making the right investments in your business so that you can adjust to new normal, which is all going to be in the digital space and digital world.”  

– Natalie Louie 

 

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Topics Covered:

01:34 – Natalie talking about her new role at Zuora 

02:07 – What does Zuora do 

03:55 – How inconvenient doing your subscription manually can become  

05:58 – Difference between manufacturing and software companies getting into recurring revenue 

08:23 – What should you anchor your pricing on 

10:05 – Replacing a one-time transaction with a recurring revenue model 

14:07 – Introducing recurring revenue pricing slowly  

15:00 – Talking about ancillary products and how does this work 

18:03 – How to go about introducing new services you are not so sure about 

19:27 – Narrowing your choices and finding out the best pricing strategy 

22:03 – Mobility as a service in the car industry service 

24:19 – Discussing hardware companies’ challenge with subscription pricing and overcoming it 

25:57 – One big pricing advice she gives that can make a big impact on anyone’s business 

 

Key Takeaways:

“Because they know what their product is, I’m selling my product, tell me the price point. And I have to switch the conversation to say, actually, it’s not about your price points. In fact, that’s the last thing that you figure out when it comes to switching to a recurring revenue model, you first have to think about what are you selling? What do they find value in?” – Natalie Louie 

“Just because you’re ready, it doesn’t mean your buyers are ready. So, they have to be ready for a new model. And you have to show them right that you can deliver it and have those customer touchpoints, and then you’d be delighted. You need to make sure everyone’s on board. And that just takes time.” – Natalie Louie 

“Software for free and charge for the hardware, but flip it the other way. Because that recurring relationship and payment for that software – that can go into pretty much infinity.” – Natalie Louie 

“If you’re just introducing those new services, and you’re not even sure how you price it, or package it, or to use it, then give it for free, because the data you’re collecting is very useful. And so, while you’re giving it for free, you’re creating a direct relationship with your consumer for the very first time.” – Natalie Louie 

“But the idea is if you build this long-term relationship with a lot of value, and you’re able to grow that customer lifetime value, in the long run, you’re going to win out and you’re going to have more revenue, and you’re going to keep growing.” – Natalie Louie 

 

Resources / People Mentioned: 

• Zuora 
• My Fitbit 
• Siemens 
• Caterpillar 
• Honeywell 
• Adobe 
• Ford 
• Impact Pricing Podcast: Natalie Louie Episode #9 
• Impact Pricing Podcast: Natalie Louie Episode #41 

 

Connect with Natalie Louie:

• LinkedIn 

 

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn