Inexpensive services to offer local businesses?

I provide online marketing services to local businesses, I have services that cost $500 per month and up. I am looking for an entry level monthly service that would provide the business value and not take a lot of time every month to do. I am thinking a price point of $5 to $10 per month, I don't need to make money on this service, but don't want to lose money either. It will basically be used to get businesses into my funnel so that they can be more easily up-sold later.

I already offer free audit reports to get businesses in the door but, feel if I could get the businesses that can't afford the full service onto a cheap monthly service it will give me more opportunities to interface and build trust.

Do any of you guys have something you offer or know or something that might fit this bill?

Why so low? Would they take you seriously if you offered that price to them?

Maybe marketing advice for given time/interval. Think of it as like a weekly/monthly check up, hopefully this atleasts provides something new to think about

DawsonHayes said:

Why so low? Would they take you seriously if you offered that price to them?

Maybe marketing advice for given time/interval. Think of it as like a weekly/monthly check up, hopefully this atleasts provides something new to think about

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Thanks for you input Dawson,

They are priced that low so you can get hesitant customers in the door. It is simple psychology, customers are more like to buy from someone they have already purchase from and trust. While they are using this service I am able to go and speak to them and build enough trust to get them to buy one of my full services.

Marketing advice is an, idea but the plan is to build trust by giving them free advice. Really need something tangible that they can see.

mat_440 said:

They are priced that low so you can get hesitant customers in the door. It is simple psychology, customers are more like to buy from someone they have already purchase from and trust. While they are using this service I am able to go and speak to them and build enough trust to get them to buy one of my full services.

Marketing advice is an, idea but the plan is to build trust by giving them free advice. Really need something tangible that they can see.

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Customers also judge a product or service based on the price. Selling something for $5-$10 other people sell for $50 will attract a certain demographic, but will never maximize profits or come close, and will turn off big clients. They've been there and saw that and realize that price means something, it's a store of value. Simple economics.

Free advice? Nothing in life is free. Why not figure out a gift or additional bonus you can give? Or a huge initial discount or trial offer?

LakeForest said:

Customers also judge a product or service based on the price. Selling something for $5-$10 other people sell for $50 will attract a certain demographic, but will never maximize profits or come close, and will turn off big clients. They've been there and saw that and realize that price means something, it's a store of value. Simple economics.

Free advice? Nothing in life is free. Why not figure out a gift or additional bonus you can give? Or a huge initial discount or trial offer?

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I get your point, but I am trying to find a service that is worth $5-$10 a month and others should be selling for the same. My first thought was installing analytics and then using that to send them a monthly report that gives their kpis or giving them access to a dashboard, this would be worth $5-$10 dollars a month and would not take much to implement. Along with the monthly service would be quarterly consultations (free advice/consultative selling) which will be done by our sales staff. I know google analytics is free and why I did not go forward with offering it as a service, but this is the type of thing I would like to offer clients for $5-$10 per month.

mat_440 said:

I get your point, but I am trying to find a service that is worth $5-$10 a month and others should be selling for the same. My first thought was installing analytics and then using that to send them a monthly report that gives their kpis or giving them access to a dashboard, this would be worth $5-$10 dollars a month and would not take much to implement. Along with the monthly service would be quarterly consultations (free advice/consultative selling) which will be done by our sales staff. I know google analytics is free and why I did not go forward with offering it as a service, but this is the type of thing I would like to offer clients for $5-$10 per month.

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While installing Google Analytics is easy, waiting for them to give you access to their FTP / WP backend is often hard. Most have no idea what it is (or forgot their login), and you will have to go thru a couple emails to instruct them where to find it etc. Then you will get into liability issue since you accessed their site, and all in a sudden, their site no longer works and so on..

Do you REALLY want to go through all these for just $5? And do you really want to market your skills for just $5? It's going to be hard for you to charge anything over $10 after that otherwise, they will think its very expensive.

Dont sell yourself so cheap. Even what seems to be the most basic will take a lot of time with difficuly clients. Expect to spend atleast 2 hours getting that information and answering questions. Do it for atleast a $60 setup ($30/hr) + $15/month. If you sell too low you'll just get the really bad clients. Sell too high and you may appear incompetent later. Find a sweet spot. Use analytics to see when you start losing profit.

The customers you are going to get from this are going to be lousy customers.

No serious businessman is going to set up a payment each month for a $10 service. The overhead makes it costs more than that just to get the invoice paid.

you would be better off just sending them a free ranking report and telling them a few suggestions to improve their SEO. Then follow with a new report when the ranking goes up.

If you insist on this, reports are the way to go. I offer a package of 4 reports (seo eval, ciattions, rank tracking, broken links) for $20 a month. That is as low as you can really go and make it worth your time.

You gotta quit chasing the cheapies.

Thanks for all the advise. I will look into using techxan's report idea. I'm not necessarily chasing cheapies, I see it more as a prospecting tool. If I never convert them fine, I just break even on getting the opportunity to try and up-sell warm prospects who have already bought from me. This will also give me the opportunity to get in with new businesses before they have a full marketing budget set and let me explain how much they should be spending on marketing their new business.

some extremely. valuable. advice. in this thread.

mat_440 said:

They are priced that low so you can get hesitant customers in the door. It is simple psychology, customers are more like to buy from someone they have already purchase from and trust. While they are using this service I am able to go and speak to them and build enough trust to get them to buy one of my full services.

Marketing advice is an, idea but the plan is to build trust by giving them free advice. Really need something tangible that they can see.

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The idea you have is what's often referred to as a "tripwire." But doing a service for a few bucks a month is such a hassle. Create something "tangible" to give away or sell instead like a small book or report. You do the work just once and they can get the goods immediately. Caveat: you actually need to be helpful.

I think if you offered a service for 1/2 of what other Marketing Consultant charge and you can provide value and show that others are charging more for the same great service I thing this would be sufficient enough to acquire new clients. This would only make sense if you are actually turning a profit with a minimum amour of work.

If you really want ideas of inexpensive services, try browsing on Fiverr in the e-marketing (or something) section and look at what these humans are willing to do for 5$. Then charge your customer 19,99$ for it.

Lol! Bonombonom hit the nail in the head!

DawsonHayes said:

Why so low? Would they take you seriously if you offered that price to them?

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Exactlythis. $5 and $10 for businesses per month is absolutely nothing. In order to make yourself seem worthy of a service, you need to charge a price that gets their attention.

I just want to say something to all the people who associate $5.00 and $10.00 per month business as being "nothing"... and "not worth the time"... And "Cheap Demographic".
What I'm getting ready to say, I've said in about 40% of my 15 or so post's on this forum and I will say it again... RECURRING MONTHLY REVENUE! (RMR)

RMR, currently, is worth between 35X and 45X. If you have a bulk portfolio, 2000+ accounts, its worth more than 50X.

What that means is... If you sell someone a service at $10.00 per month, contracted over time... Even if its only 24 or 36 months, you can sell that accounts RMR for somewhere between $350 and $450, TODAY.

Do you know how the security system monitoring business works? How much it actually costs to have a security system monitored? Around $2.00 per month for wholesale central monitoring. The day you get someone to sign a monitoring agreement for $20.00/month, there are companies that will buy that contract from you on the same day for $700.00-$900.00+. RMR is huge for corporate finance. How can HostGator and Bluehost pay you $100+ in affiliate money for every $4.95/month account you sell? Because they sell that RMR for a high multiple. In fact, they probably have open ended and scaling credit lines that grow with every new account.

Even if you get a low "multiple", like 20 or 25, how hard is it to sell someone on $10.00/month, with you knowing that your check is a cool $250.00 as soon as they sign. Do you currently have 100 contracts paying you $10.00/month? Depending on the business, I'd give you $20,000 without even blinking.

3PM


p.s. Apologies if I sounded a little aggressive here. And I guess it would be good to answer the op's question...


OP,


First, think to what you know. If online is your thing, stock pile an arsenal of affiliate offers that solve specific problems that prospects might have. Simply knowing all the resources that are on the market will allow you to seem "in the know".
I would start with hosting. Either selling it as an affiliate, or getting a reseller account. Heck, while talking to them about their online business, a friendly conversation about their data security might lead to a $10/month cloud account-That has a $200 affiliate commission. That same conversation, might lead you to refer them to your local ADT distributor for their security system, which is another $200+ to you.

Are you good at Help-dask type stuffs? Well forget that, outsource it if you can sell it... $20.00/month for 2 hours of technical support each month, auto-draft required. You give them a 1800 to call, which is your professionally outsourced help-desk that charges you $8.00/hour for actual phone time. You can offer reputation management, again something I would sell off as an affiliate.

Maybe these few things will help you along, they should atleast open the door to up-sells and long-term business, while not letting you go broke.


Again

3pm

bonombonom said:

look at what these humans are willing to do for 5$.

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#DIEING right now.. I really am rolling out of my chair. It never, not even once, fails to shock the hell out of me when I spend a few minutes cruising Fiverr. Some people will certainly do anything for a Fiverr.. lol

3pm

oh yeah... Great advice to cruise Fiverr for gig ideas.

i agree with the other few who say you should not price so low... as many customers rank you on the basis of your pricing... if you are competitive they are in but if you are too low they start suspecting