Marketing for SaaS and Web Apps / Freemium / Pricing

We get the question a lot and, while It might be a too little, too late since the Pricing Page Tune-Up™ service is ending on Friday, maybe this will help. We still need to get a couple more folks to sign-up so we can hit our goal of doing 50 of these, and perhaps by answering some FAQs and being a bit more clear about what, exactly, the process is and what you'll get out of the service will help.

The following is from a PDF that we send clients after they sign-up and most of it was going to appear on the new marketing site for the service. If we ever bring this service back, much of the new marketing site will be familiar to you after reading this. If you want a Pricing Page Tune-Up, you need to sign-up by Friday 8/6... its only $99!

The Deliverable - What you actually get

You will receive a 15 - 20 page PDF report via email that details the results from the Pricing Page Tune-Up™ service.

The Process - How we come up with the Deliverable

The Pricing Page Tune-Up™ is unique to each client. A Sixteen Ventures consultant will perform the following for each client:

1. Capture images of the following pages
   1. Your main marketing page
   2. Your pricing page
   3. Your competitors pricing pages
2. Review pricing page goals and context answers provided by client during sign-up
   1. Increase Sales - For many SaaS & Web App companies, a zero-touch, fully automated sales and provisioning process is the goal. Knowing this is the goal will help us determine if there are barriers, including funneling leads to a nonexistent sales team, that could hinder the achievement of this goal.
   2. User Growth / Traction - This should only be associated with Free or Freemium services, but is often mistakenly attached to companies with Free Trials. If a company will charge customers but use a Free Trial to allow customers to “kick the tires”, all efforts should be put to Increasing Sales with Free Trials a step to making a sale - not as a stand alone effort.
   3. Lead Generation - SaaS & Web Apps do not have to use a zero-touch, fully automated sales and provisioning process. There are always going to be situations where SaaS sales requires human intervention. Whether that is pre-sales engineering, on-boarding support, or custom quotes, there are going to be times where getting contact information and context to forward to a sales person is the only way to go. Many companies have both of these scenarios and by attempting to fully engage with all customer types from a single pricing page the message could be lost causing potential sales to be lost.
   4. Market Position - Are you the low price leader? The high end niche player? Pricing has a lot to do with this. But if you have a high price and low-end messaging around that price, your market position can be hurt. Market position as defined by Sixteen Ventures is your position in the mind of your market against your competitors' value proposition.
   5. Other (added by client) - Did we miss a goal? Let us know if you expected something else from your pricing page. Quite often, the only options checked are More Sales and Lead Generation. It is not clear to many companies that their pricing page can perform so many duties at one time.
3. Review and markup the main marketing page
   1. Could include other pages if main page is not clear
   2. Looking for Key Marketing Elements (KME)
4. On the Pricing Page the consultant will review these five elements in context of stated goals and provide visual as well as written feedback on these elements:
   1. Overall Page Design - How much of the key information required to make a buying decision is above / below the fold, is it clean or cluttered, is it a “presumed sale” page or an effective marketing vehicle, etc.? 
   2. Call to Action - Is the main headline compelling, is the call to action tied to the marketing message of the main website, are the sign-up buttons prominent and do they have a strong call to action, etc.
   3. Use of Free - Is there a free trial or a Freemium offering, is it clear what the customer gets, is the free trial length clearly defined, is the upgrade path from free to premium clear, is the free trial tied to specific price tiers, etc.
   4. Value Messaging - Is this a marketing page or an information page, is the marketing messaging from the rest of the site carried over to the pricing page, does the pricing page maintain momentum from the rest of the site, etc.
   5. Trust Factors - Are there customer logos present on the pricing page, is there contact information prominently displayed, are there security / anti-hacker badges present, etc.
5. The consultant will move through the buying or sign-up process if not clear (if possible)
6. Generate a priority list for each of the six areas showing what needs to be worked on immediately
7. Gather examples from the pricing pages of other companies to compliment our recommendations
8. If you listed competitors...
   1. We will do the same for their Pricing Page - though with less detail while still hitting on all the same points
   2. We will often explore competitor sites beyond the furnished link to bring better context to the competitor review
   3. This shows you what they do right and what they do wrong - so you know where you stand and so you won't copy them!
9. We will generate a PDF and email the report to you on the day we told you it would arrive - though it might be delivered after regular business hours in your time zone.
10. Once you have a chance to review the report, if you have questions / comments and would like to setup a time to go over your results, just call (972) 200-9317 or email pricing@sixteenventures.com