SaaS and Web App companies must manage marketing metrics, but before diving in too deep, answer these two questions.
What if I told you there are two questions that you probably don’t immediately know the answer to but if you did would absolutely change your view of your self-service “sales funnel?” Would you want to know what those questions are?
What if I told you that answering these two simple questions could lead to massive improvements in sales and conversions? There is a good chance you’d want to know what those questions are, right?
And what if I told you that you probably *already* have the answers to these questions? Now you’d want want to find out what the questions are even more, huh?
Okay, okay… so the first question is “What is the ranking of your pricing page on your marketing site?”
Why is that such an important question to ask? How is it “critical?” Well, I’ve seen firsthand and heard anecdotally (I’d love to hear from you in the comments) – across different markets and app types – that the Pricing Page is often the #2 most visited page on the marketing site of SaaS & Web Apps.
[pullquote]”After our home page, the pricing page is the second most visited page of the site” – Duane Jackson, CEO of Kashflow[/pullquote]
That’s right… after the main page of the marketing site, the Pricing Page is the #2 MOST VISITED page on a SaaS or Web App vendors web site!
And yet, the Pricing Page is often the MOST NEGLECTED page on a SaaS or Web App vendor’s site. That doesn’t add up, right?
In fact, take Duane Jackson, CEO of Kashflow who told me “after our home page, the pricing page is the second most visited page of the site” … and this was a surprise to him. He hadn’t thought about it until I told him to check it out.
I’m just not sure I can convince you that the Pricing Page is important – but maybe your customers can.
I want you to go figure out where your pricing page ranks on your marketing site so you can get a feel for how important YOUR CUSTOMERS think the pricing page is… after you’ve read this entire blog post, of course.
In fact, look at how many people go to the pricing page right after the first page and then look at how many convert to paying customers. Hmm… not as many as you’d like, right? Why is that…
Okay, the second question is “What percentage of visitors to your site enter for the first time through your Pricing Page?”
You have to be aware that some visitors – more and more each day – are bypassing traditional entrance points to marketing websites and are going straight to the Pricing Page of SaaS & Web App vendors. I’m not talking about those that enter through landing pages associated with campaigns, either.
I mean those that literally hit your Pricing Page first whether that is from reviews on other blogs, affiliates, coupon code sites, organic search results, or Google Sitelinks – the direct links to pages within your site that you don’t control!
Of course, as you add more and more value messaging to your Pricing Page – a top recommendation to improve the conversion rate of your pricing page – the more your pricing page will become an entry point via organic search results. Which is a good thing, but…
This is why you must think of your Pricing Page as if it were a stand-alone LANDING PAGE. What happens when someone sees your pricing page without any other context?
Ask yourself this very candid question… Can people even tell what your company or SaaS does by looking ONLY at your pricing page?
Yikes! What if that is how people enter your site?
Is your pricing page a good first impression? An actionable first impression? Your goal is to convert visitors to customers… period. Are you going to do that with your pricing page as it is today?
So, if you don’t know what percentage of your first time visitors enter your marketing site through the Pricing Page, then you need to go find out as soon as you finish reading this entire post.
Overall what this bypassing of “traditional” entry points means is that your “sales funnel” – the Main Site to Features Page to Servcie Tour to Pricing Page to Sign-up to REVENUE funnel that you so carefully orchestrated – might NOT be the way your customers choose to move through the “funnel.”
You must be aware of this – where do they enter from and if they don’t bounce from the Pricing Page (leave the site without going anywhere else) where do they go? If you have a 100% conversion rate from those that land on your Pricing Page for the first time and also sign-up for a premium plan, than you don’t have to listen to me. Everyone else… you probably should.
Even your customers are telling you that you should listen to me.
So, the two questions you absolutely MUST ask yourself now, and on an ongoing basis are:
- What is the ranking of your pricing page on your marketing site?
- What percentage of visitors to your site enter for the first time through your Pricing Page?
This isn’t measuring metrics as much as understanding behaviors. I don’t care if you get 7 or 7000 first-time visitors hitting your pricing page, what I care about is where they go from there. If they hit the main page first, where do they go from there?
If it is the Pricing Page that they hit second, why are you neglecting it? Why won’t you put a concerted effort to make it as powerful a marketing page as possible? Why won’t you turn your Pricing Page into a First Time Conversion Machine?
This all holds true 10-fold if the pricing page is the entry point for any statistically significant number of first-time visitors.
I can’t force you to understand how much money it could be costing you as you continue to neglect the #2 MOST VISITED page on your site – the Pricing Page.
I can’t force you to understand how some simple but powerful changes to your pricing page that you could implement TODAY with minimal effort or cost could boost conversions and help you make more money.
It is up to you to come to this conclusion.
Are you ready to admit that your Pricing Page is important and deserves more attention than you’re giving it?
Cool… go watch a FREE video on the Basics of Pricing your SaaS or Web App (available in the SaaS & Web App Pricing Resource Guide). This is a 15-minute video that will change your ideas about pricing… forever.
If you’re curious how we could improve your Customer Acquisition process – including your Pricing Strategy, Pricing Page, etc. – contact me and we’ll setup a time to discuss your options for improving and accelerating customer acquisition.
– Lincoln
(972) 200-9317