Pricing content is – perhaps unsurprisingly – the content category that helps your prospect understand how much they need to spend in order to work with you. Ideally, pricing content covers more than just how much you charge. It should give transparent information about why you charge that, and where possible, how that compares to others in your industry.
Why should I include pricing on my website?
Just for a minute, forget your own business. Close your eyes, lean back, and imagine you are Reginald P. Average, lifelong consumer and regular purchaser of items. What do you do when you want to buy… say… a festive neckerchief for your dog? If you’re anything like us, you’ll pull out your phone, open your browser, type in ‘dog neckerchief’ and start scrolling. You stop and click when you come across one in a fetching shade of aquamarine that’ll bring out your dog’s eyes, and perhaps set off your fancy new curtains. What questions do you ask at this point? Probably some variation of these:
- Will it fit my dog? He does have rather a stout neck.
- How much does it cost? I will not pay more than £800.
- Does that include shipping/postage and packaging?
And possibly…
- Does this product, despite the fact that it’s just a bit of cloth I’ll use to jazz up my pooch, fit my values?
If all of the answers are satisfactory, and as long as there’s not too much friction in the checkout experience, you’ll have that stylish accessory, and Dogachiefs.biz will have made a sale.
Now imagine that you, Reginald P. Average, have found the ideal neckerchief, but instead of a simple price there’s a note saying ‘Contact us for a quote’. Would you do it? Possibly, if it was the ONLY option that matched your dog’s seasonal aesthetic. But you’d be more likely to click away and find something with transparent pricing.
What would go through your mind when you got to the ‘Contact us for a quote’ section? Maybe something like this:
- Why can’t they just tell me the price and let me buy it?
- What’s so special about it?
- What are they trying to hide?
- Speak to someone??? Heck that. I’d sooner die!!!!! 🤢
Okay, enough imagining. Now, tell us why your business is different.
I can’t list pricing on my website, because…
If you’re dismissing this content category as not for you, just give us a chance. There are usually a few objections to using pricing content.
Our pricing is bespoke.
That’s okay; you don’t need to give an exact price for a bespoke service, but you can give a ballpark. Think about the simplest version of your offering – zero bells, whistles and extras. Do you ever sell anything cheaper than that? Would you be willing to? That’s your lowest price. Even if you do nothing else with this category, you can inform customers that your prices start from £X. That’s infinitely more useful than a giant (frankly, quite suspicious-looking) question mark.
What if a customer asked for your top-of-the-range, fanciest, most expensive, fully spec’d out version? Add all the extras and the cost of fast-track fulfilment. How much would that cost? That’s your upper price bracket. Now you can comfortably state that prices range between A and B. If your prospect has a budget between those two values they’re going to be much more confident in asking for a custom quote.
Can you help them feel more confident again – by first providing authority/education content that lets them understand what they want, then some more pricing content to show how each option will affect their quote? The example that Marcus Sheridan gave in They Ask, You Answer, was the custom options for his pool business. If you know that adding a fountain will cost X, and upgrading the ladder will cost Y, why not let the customer know?
I’d rather speak to prospects to give them a price.
But would they rather speak to you? Think about the neckerchief example above: how many keen purchasers will click away and never return without giving you the chance to speak to them? At least some people who want to purchase an eye-catching piece of dogwear online, and quite conceivably most of those people, do not want to have a chat about it first. That’s one reason why they’re online and not in your shop. And how many conversations have ended because the prospect simply doesn’t have the budget needed in order to work with you? By making your price range accessible to your website visitors, you let your prospects self-qualify (or disqualify), saving both of you time.
I don’t want my competitors to know my pricing
Do you know how much your competitors charge? You probably have a rough idea, and they probably know what you charge, too. If they really want to know, they’ll find out somehow, so is it really worth jumping through all those hoops to attempt to keep them out? It’s up to you of course, but our advice is always to focus on providing the best experience for your customer, rather than defending against a competitor.
Pricing content examples and when to use them
‘Why the price is the price’ content
Link from your pricing page to give further information on what the price includes, and how it’s affected by upgrades or changes to the standard offer. You can also send a link to this article when you receive pricing enquiries, to save yourself the time spent in writing out repetitive answers.
Hi {Prospect}
Thanks for your email! You’ve asked how much you can expect to pay for {Solution}, and since our quotes are custom, we’d need some more information in order to give you an exact price.
To book a call for a bespoke quote, here’s our link:
In the meantime, we have an article that explains how our pricing works and gives ballpark ranges for our most popular {Solutions}.
If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out.
‘How does our pricing compare?’ content
This can be scary content to write for businesses, but it builds a lot of trust and is genuinely useful for prospects, as well as you and your team. Take a bird’s eye look at your industry and clearly state where your pricing sits against the competition. There will be clients you cannot serve. But they will thank you for helping them discover affordable alternatives much more than they would if you spent 20 minutes on an ultimately fruitless sales call.
Pricing content can be a bit daunting if you’ve built your business in an industry with a big ‘Contact us for a quote’ culture, but Marcus Sheridan hangs his success on his open and honest approach to pricing. His story alone should encourage you to dip a toe into the cool waters of transparent pricing. If you’d like to chat about how pricing content can be included in your content strategy, book a call today.
