Its been an interesting last month dealing with a lot of prospects that are doing a great deal of research before purchasing. Personally I think this is great as the more knowledgeable and the more questions they ask the more informed decision they can make. I spend my time doing a lot of educating on our industry as some of our prospects are start up companies and some marketing people are still learning about online marketing. It still blows me away that some prospects can not understand that their are differences in quality of products. And yes the price is generally the determining factor. I had one client choose to go with another Search Engine Optimization (SEO) package because the other company charged no setup and a monthly fee of $29.99. Our price for our bronze package was $2,000 setup and $250 per month. Well I wonder which package is going to be more effective. If you are good at SEO you are at minimum charging $100 per hour (at minimum). So this company can spend 18 minutes of their time on your site. What this tells me is that they are not effective, their model is likely to get a large number of clients in a 12 month contract and make their money off of volume, doing little work and hence offering customers very little in the way of return on investment. In our business you do get what you pay for.
Similar with websites, when we put together e-commerce stores they generally start at $4,500 and go up from their based on features. When you think of this investment, if you are starting a mortar store and you could start it for $4,500 you would jump at the chance. Pretty good bang for your buck, but I still get customers after I have spoken to them that can seem to understand you have to pay for quality. Online marketing is not that different than other industries. You do not pay the same hourly rate for a bookkeeper as you do for a certified accountant. You do not pay the same cost for a junior lawyer as you do for a lawyer that has 15 years experience in his field. Similarly with our industry if someone is charging $3,200 to setup an e-store you are likely getting someone that is more junior in graphic design, web programming, SEO and knows little about how to market your brand online effectively.
I wish our industry was as easy as the restaurant industry, people understand that a $5 meal at McDonald’s is not going to be the quality of a steak dinner for $25. But online marketing is similar. The only way you get really good at this industry is by experience. If you are paying less you are not getting the highest level of online business advice, product development and online brand marketing.
I encourage you to take a look at the credentials of the leaders of the company you are considering. If there is not a profile of the leaders you are generally dealing with someone junior that has less experience in this field.
So remember in online marketing you pay for quality lows fees should scare prospects more than excite them. The industry is still young customer’s will get it eventually. Thanks for listening.
