Integrated Marketing and Influency Explained Simply
Don’t You Hate Pricing In Columns?
We don’t do that here, but we’re happy to talk about it—and why it’s the wrong way to manage business processes.
Think about all the tables you’ve ever seen that lay out your “options” in columns. More than helping you make a decision, they’re there to confuse you and get you to pick something, QUICK! Here’s an example:
If all that isn’t enough, there’s fine print. Here’s some of how—for example—one Search Engine Optimization company says “we won’t actually do the things we’re promising”:
Seriously: they’ll do SEO for you, but they’ll only do it on twenty pages of your web site. And they give you lots of “details”, but it’s a pretty good bet you won’t understand them. Now look at the pricing: there’s a $2,000 set-up fee no matter which of their plans you buy or how complex—or simple—your web site is! And by the way; there’s no difference between the plans that’s good enough to justify the difference in monthly prices. It’s all made up.
Here’s another table, from another SEO and Internet Marketing vendor. And this one is actually a lot better because there’s a sort-of delineation between the features of the plans they make available:
But wait a second. “Starting at“? What’s the point of three separate plans with “prices” if you don’t know what the actual prices are? Oh, and by the way: since the low price is more than most people think they’ll pay for SEO and the high price is less than most businesses which realize that professional marketing is not a $50-$100 / month endeavor, these numbers are, very simply, nonsense.
Pricing tables are NOT the way to pick a Search and Marketing consultant, or any other kind of consultant.
But People Like Tables
They probably shouldn’t. Most of the times tables and “plans” are a way to cram you into a box that the company selling you their services would like to keep you in. For example, we’ve talked a few times here about the way Hubspot does business:
- Hubspot Pricing (speaking of canned pricing tables!)
- Building a Moat Around Your Company
- The Evolution of Hubspot Pricing (another table!)
- And this General Overview of Hubspot
The truth is, Hubspot has the potential to be a great service, but in most ways their cram-you-in-a-box pricing approach pays off a lot better for Hubspot than for Hubspot clients.
Since every client is different and deserves to be treated that way, we try to avoid the whole table mentality. But realizing that we need to make this easy, we’ve created a table, and here it comes. But we believe we can serve you better if you just press this button:
Contact The Answer Guy NowThat’s it. Contact us, and let’s talk about getting your business processes in order. Not ready to talk? Afraid we’re going to try to fast-talk you into something you don’t want to do or can’t afford? No problem.
Here’s The Start-Up Plan Pricing and Options Table For Business Process Influence:
And Here’s the Obligatory “Guarantee”:
If we could give you your money back after we spent it delivering you services, we would, but … obviously that isn’t really possible. And by the way: we will get you first-page rankings, but we won’t “guarantee” it—if anyone ever tells you they can; run the other way.
Here’s our promise to you:
You WILL be happy with our work. We WILL get you noticed. We WILL increase both your prominence both in the eyes of Google and other search engines. We WILL increase traffic to your web site. And if you do a lot of other things well (and we’ll help), you WILL see increased revenue. Oh, and just as a kicker: Stay with any of our plans for six months and if you aren’t happy, we’ll work for another two months, for free.
Then again, that’s our policy for customized plans, too, so let’s talk:
Contact The Answer Guy Now
