At first, I was thinking membership program (i.e. watch over my shoulder as I create the widget).
But then I remembered working with a music producer who was in a slightly similar situation as you.
He had his hourly gig producing music for people. Then, he started posting tutorials on youtube showing people how to produce music.
Here's where it gets interesting...
He started getting requests for the heavy metal drum tracks he was creating in the videos (guitarists like to jam over the top of them and/or drop them into DAW's and make recordings). So he started to sell them as downloads.
He makes them in a variety of styles: speed metal 120 bpm, death metal 80 bpm, Metallica style 140 bpm, etc. (how's that for a niche?)
He was only selling the downloads as an mp3 for like $5 per. $5 was fine but I felt like he was leaving money on the table (plus we needed bigger margins and high average purchase value to run ads).
So, what we did was create different packages with different price points.
The packages were:
$5 Non-commercial (standard quality mp3, non-commercial use - you cannot sell music recorded with this track)
$20 Premium Non Commercial (high-quality wav, midi files, non-commercial)
$50 Commercial (high-quality wav, midi files, you could sell any music you created using these tracks)
CALL FOR QUOTE (usually $500+) - Exclusive (high-quality wav, midi files, commercial PLUS he would take it out of the store and nobody could ever purchase it again).
On top of all that, we made it very clear that he is available for custom projects (which he would quote specific to each project).
For the record, these price points were loosely based on pricing strategies outlined in Perry Marshalls "80/20 Sales & Marketing" and Russel Brunson's "Dot Com Secrets" Value Ladder.
So with that in mind, and without knowing the specifics of your project, I feel like you might be able to do something similar.
Are there any common parts or models in your niche that you could offer? Having well made, fully constrained, clean library parts could be worth paying for.
Maybe offer the minimum they need to get the part made or rendered to place in an assembly (like a parasolid or whatever). You retain the right to resell to others, they can't sell it and/or you maintain some sort of copyright on it.
Maybe you have a basic version of the part but if they want to modify it or discover the secret sauce they have to pay a larger fee.
You could use YouTube videos as your bait, just don't give away the farm.
Not everyone will want to create the part themselves, if you price it the files right, it might be worth it to just purchase it. I get this as an AdWords consultant... some want to learn it themselves, some just want you to do it (I know @andy_black talks about this as well).
And you could offer a membership and a high ticket version of your services for interested parties.
A little rough but I hope that helps.
SIDE NOTE: For what its worth, I have experience in your niche. I was a mechanical draftsman/design assistant for a custom lighting company for 17 years. I went from drawing with pencils and using electric erasers in the early 90's to 2D Autocad and then on to Solidworks in the mid '00's.
But then I remembered working with a music producer who was in a slightly similar situation as you.
He had his hourly gig producing music for people. Then, he started posting tutorials on youtube showing people how to produce music.
Here's where it gets interesting...
He started getting requests for the heavy metal drum tracks he was creating in the videos (guitarists like to jam over the top of them and/or drop them into DAW's and make recordings). So he started to sell them as downloads.
He makes them in a variety of styles: speed metal 120 bpm, death metal 80 bpm, Metallica style 140 bpm, etc. (how's that for a niche?)
He was only selling the downloads as an mp3 for like $5 per. $5 was fine but I felt like he was leaving money on the table (plus we needed bigger margins and high average purchase value to run ads).
So, what we did was create different packages with different price points.
The packages were:
$5 Non-commercial (standard quality mp3, non-commercial use - you cannot sell music recorded with this track)
$20 Premium Non Commercial (high-quality wav, midi files, non-commercial)
$50 Commercial (high-quality wav, midi files, you could sell any music you created using these tracks)
CALL FOR QUOTE (usually $500+) - Exclusive (high-quality wav, midi files, commercial PLUS he would take it out of the store and nobody could ever purchase it again).
On top of all that, we made it very clear that he is available for custom projects (which he would quote specific to each project).
For the record, these price points were loosely based on pricing strategies outlined in Perry Marshalls "80/20 Sales & Marketing" and Russel Brunson's "Dot Com Secrets" Value Ladder.
So with that in mind, and without knowing the specifics of your project, I feel like you might be able to do something similar.
Are there any common parts or models in your niche that you could offer? Having well made, fully constrained, clean library parts could be worth paying for.
Maybe offer the minimum they need to get the part made or rendered to place in an assembly (like a parasolid or whatever). You retain the right to resell to others, they can't sell it and/or you maintain some sort of copyright on it.
Maybe you have a basic version of the part but if they want to modify it or discover the secret sauce they have to pay a larger fee.
You could use YouTube videos as your bait, just don't give away the farm.
Not everyone will want to create the part themselves, if you price it the files right, it might be worth it to just purchase it. I get this as an AdWords consultant... some want to learn it themselves, some just want you to do it (I know @andy_black talks about this as well).
And you could offer a membership and a high ticket version of your services for interested parties.
A little rough but I hope that helps.
SIDE NOTE: For what its worth, I have experience in your niche. I was a mechanical draftsman/design assistant for a custom lighting company for 17 years. I went from drawing with pencils and using electric erasers in the early 90's to 2D Autocad and then on to Solidworks in the mid '00's.
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