Price Point Blogging?

“Be specific when it counts,” advises Robin Ryan in the book 60 Seconds & You’re Hired!, referring to salary discussions during job interviews. “Try this,” she suggests: “According to all the salary survey data, someone with my ten years of experience would be in the upper 70s…I was thinking $78,000 is what I’d accept.”

Many business websites fail to address the subject of pricing, observes Marcus Sheridan of socialmediaexaminer.com. Instead of addressing the number-one consumer question up front, they decided to wait until the initial phone contact, or worse, the first sales appointment in the home. But, although this “hidden approach” may have worked in marketing five or ten years ago, today’s consumers don’t like their core questions to be left unanswered, Sheridan states firmly.

From my point of view as a corporate blogging trainer, the topic of “price point blogging” fits in nicely with the overall concept of putting information into perspective for clients. The typical website explains what products and services the company offers, who the “players” are and in what geographical area they operate, and the better ones give visitors at least a taste of the corporate culture and some of the owners’ core beliefs.  It’s left to the continuously renewed business blog writing, though, to “flesh out” the intangibles, those things that make a company stand out from its peers. For every fact about the company or about one of its products or services, a blog post addresses unspoken questions such as “So, is that different?”, “So, is that good for me?”

Pricing is one of those sets of facts. With the typical company or practice offering many different product feature and service benefits, pricing must be put into perspective. There might be dozens – or even hundreds – of factors that dictate the ultimate pricing any consumer would pay.  Because of this, says Sheridan, “it’s best to offer ranges, not definitive numbers, allowing potential clients to get a feel for the cost and know if they’re at least in the ballpark.”

Karen Greenstreet, writing about Self-Employed Success, offers nine reasons you should – and then ten reasons you shouldn’t – put pricing on your website or in your blog. On the negative side:

• Your competition can find out what your pricing is
• You’re worried about “price fixing”
• You want the chance to establish rapport before talking pricing
• You want to stay away from tire-kicking, price shopping customers and clients

Reasons Greenstreet found in favor of discussing pricing upfront include:

• Honoring customers’ time constraints
• Positioning your brand as, for example, a low-cost leader or the expert who people pay more for
• Many customers will not do business with a company who is not forthcoming about pricing and fees

Whatever you decide, make sure your decision based on what’s helpful to your customer and right for your marketing plan, not based on your fears about what “might” happen, is Greenstreet’s parting advice.

Think about offering perspective through price point blogging!