Marketing Plan & Pricing - Good Timing

As has been the trend during this semester, this week's readings coincided with some interesting and important discoveries.

One of the marketing strategies I've had all along is to partner with the local neighborhood business/community organizations in the areas I'm targeting to help ease adoption of local businesses to onlyinpgh. The reasoning behind this was simple--they're interested in promoting their local area, I'm interested in promoting their local area, so our interests should be aligned, right? Not necessarily, I found out.

I met with a large organization last week and through our discussions I realized that they actually see onlyinpgh as a competitor. The reason is that they get a large portion of their funding from memberships from local businesses, and part of the benefits they provide as part of that membership is promotion of their events on the organization's website and in their materials. Even though onlyinpgh and the organization are on the same "team," per say, we're competing for the same marketing dollars from local businesses.

This greatly impacts the "promotion" portion of the marketing mix and has the potential to throw some wrenches into my plan. This is doubly true since the social mission of onlyinpgh is to create more vibrant neighborhoods, and it's difficult to imagine succeeding in that if our actions put further financial pressure on already cash-strapped community organizations.

To address this, the first thing I need to do is get a better understanding of how the different community organizations I'm looking to partner with are organized and where they get their funding. I've previously met with several smaller organizations and no such issue has come up, so not every organization will see me as a competitor.

The other thing I'd like to do is position myself not as a competitor but as a benefit to local community organizations. For example, if I further involve them in the sales process by incentivizing their active participation rather than just ask them to open up their networks, it could benefit both of us. For example, if 10% of the monthly fee a business pays to have their activities on onlyinpgh go back to their local community organization, then we become a funding source rather than a threat.

Pricing, obviously, comes into play with this train of thought, and that's been something I've been struggling with. How does one get accurate feedback on a customer's willingness to pay? Does anyone have any personal experiences or suggestions for this?