Eliminate Low-Budget Prospects with Published Pricing
Attract your dream clients: Coffee Shop
Worried about getting too many leads, and finding out that many of them can’t afford you?
When you go into a clothing store, you get an idea of whether or not the items are within your budget by checking out a few price tags. If you’re willing to buy a piece for the listed price, you buy it; if you aren’t, you move down the rack, or to the next store.
Now, what happens if you’re shopping and you pick up an item, but can’t find a price tag? Sometimes, maybe, you put it in your cart and ask the cashier to check the price for you — but most people would consider putting it back. After all, why go through all that extra effort?
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright once complained that after he got famous as an ar
chitect, “normal” people wouldn’t approach him with design commissions — they assumed they could never afford his help, which wasn’t quite true. He could have solved this problem by publicizing his prices…and so can you.
Publishing your prices on your website can help clients determine for themselves whether they can afford you. A range is OK — you want to share a general idea of where your prices start.
The Danger of an Unclear Price
If your price point is unclear, potential clients won’t have a reference point, which means they’ll have to guess. If they guess that your pricing is lower than it is, it’ll waste your time — and theirs — to clarify. And sometimes it will lead to your dream clients passing you by.
What if your published prices scares off your dream client? I’d say, they weren’t really your dream client if they didn’t want to pay you a fair price for the work.
When you’re clear and straightforward with your pricing, there won’t be any surprises after you’ve already invested an hour of your time with a lead. Publish your pricing to deter any clients that can’t afford your rates, right from the start.
Examples
For example, one of my clients is a mobile app developer. They were being bombarded with leads — but many of those leads were just people who wanted to “partner” on an app.
Essentially, they wanted my client to build the app for free, with a slim chance at profits, if the app did well. But that wasn’t always obvious from their initial email, so their sales people would spend time researching the company and communicating with the client — just to find out they didn’t have a budget.
So they updated their landing page to say that apps typically cost $5,000 to $15,000. The results? The bad leads disappeared overnight.
Should you offer packages?
You can’t go through a McDonald’s drive-thru without being asked if you’d like fries and drink with your meal — that’s because add-on sales add up to big business. While packaging services isn’t right for every agency, you should consider whether it’s a fit for you and your clients.
For instance, someone who needs web development for an ecommerce site probably needs product descriptions. You could partner with a copywriter and offer product descriptions on a packaged basis.
However, you’ll want to take a number of things into consideration when making this decision, including the type of agency pricing model your business uses. If you offer a service where the price can differ greatly, based on the specific details of the project, a package probably isn’t the best fit for you.
What’s on your agency marketing checklist?
Whether you’re struggling to wean yourself off a client who makes up too much of your business, or just trying to grow the number and quality of leads you attract, these tips can help.
Spend some time to determine your specialty, establish yourself as a thought leader with content marketing, and publish your prices proudly — and before long, your dream clients will be drawn to you like a moth to the flame.
What else do you do to keep your pipeline full of your ideal clients? Tell us in the comments section below!