Are your visitors looking for prices? Prove it!

Posted on July 22, 2009 by Dave J.

Are your website’s visitors looking for prices? Choose one:

  1. Duh. Of course they want prices.

  2. Okay … prove it!

If you’re the marketing guy, you choose #1. If you are the CEO, you’ll choose #2.

Dale Underwood at his B2B Conversations Now Blog has an easy plan to ‘prove it’: Publish B2B Pricing? Test the traction without actually doing it.

“In a previous post I discussed how the old rules of holding back budgetary pricing has put companies at a disadvantage with self-service oriented prospects doing research for solutions.

At the end of that post I posed a way to test the effect of offering budgetary pricing, not publishing it. It struck a chord with several readers saying they might try it and it gave me the idea to expand on how to test it…safely.”

So you basically take your ‘contact us’ page and duplicate it, but call it ‘pricing’. Then look at the traffic (as well as differences in submissions).

Dale’s company, EchoQuote has a unique tool that enables quick/easy budget quoting for your website. Because he thinks you might need his help after you finish this test. At the very least you’ll have a better conversion rate. And maybe the fodder to show management how much is being left ‘on the table’.

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  • Dale Underwood

    Thanks Dave.The only thing I want to clarify is that we are trying to determine if the desire for pricing is there, not whether pricing needs to be published. I am not an advocate of publishing pricing on B2B sites for a variety of reasons, the main one being "why waste a carrot"?Also, if the test is positive, I have a few ideas on how folks can implement it without using our service.Dale

  • Dale Underwood

    Thanks Dave.

    The only thing I want to clarify is that we are trying to determine if the desire for pricing is there, not whether pricing needs to be published. I am not an advocate of publishing pricing on B2B sites for a variety of reasons, the main one being "why waste a carrot"?

    Also, if the test is positive, I have a few ideas on how folks can implement it without using our service.

    Dale

  • Dave J.

    Yes, why waste a carrot! In the online world, pricing is all we have left to leverage. If pricing isn't published, we at least need to make it clear, and give them a path to getting the information.

  • Dave J.

    Yes, why waste a carrot! In the online world, pricing is all we have left to leverage.

    If pricing isn't published, we at least need to make it clear, and give them a path to getting the information.

  • Scott

    Pricing drives inquiries on B2B sites. Our company has expanded the range of items with pricing and all the priced products perform better than those with information.Pricing is essential for most industries. Most reasons not to publish prices (at least budget or ballpark prices) are easily overcome when the performance is taken into account.

  • Scott

    Pricing drives inquiries on B2B sites. Our company has expanded the range of items with pricing and all the priced products perform better than those with information.

    Pricing is essential for most industries. Most reasons not to publish prices (at least budget or ballpark prices) are easily overcome when the performance is taken into account.

  • Small Business Blog

    Dave, good article.The only reason why we don't publish our price list on th site is not because we are afraid to share it with potential customers but more becuase it eventually gets in the wrong hands such as the competition and is then misrepresented by them.

  • Small Business Blog

    Dave, good article.

    The only reason why we don't publish our price list on th site is not because we are afraid to share it with potential customers but more becuase it eventually gets in the wrong hands such as the competition and is then misrepresented by them.