When we asked SLPs in our marketing survey whether or not they shared their prices publicly, they had strong, but differing opinions.
Pricing is both an art and a science, especially so for service businesses. People inquire about the costs due to varied standards and skillsets among therapists. Knowing if you should or should not display them is crucial to your business strategy.
So as an SLP or Speech Therapy business, should you show your prices out in the open?
To answer this question, we present to you our marketing survey results and the insights for and against pricing strategy. We will also give you a peek at our scientific approach to answer this particular question and how we execute it for one of our clients. We hope our article will help you decide on the pricing strategy that suits you.
Our Survey Results at a Glance
The majority of our respondents, around 85%, have said that they don’t show their prices in their marketing. Their support mostly lies in capturing leads and talking directly with prospects.
The remaining 15% of our survey respondents said they show their service price. While this is a modest number, the respondents expressed that they do it for transparency and some say they are legally required to do so.
Below we’ve listed more information on the benefits that each side expresses for choosing their strategy.
Why You Should NOT Show Your Prices
1) You will capture more inquiring leads.
If you opt to build a contact form or query form, it’s possible to collect email addresses from more inquiring clients.
In addition, getting them to reach out with their specific queries will be an opportunity for you to provide a better description of your services via a call. You can then tailor a pitch that is more suitable to their needs.
2) You will get fewer price-based rejections, and gain leads that are less cost-conscious.
I feel like people get scared off sometimes by just seeing a price. They need to be educated about how great our services are, once they feel “good” about how they’re being helped, prices aren’t as big of a deal.
Nowadays, the market’s attention span is short and decision-making happens in an instant. And so, a mere glance at your prices will be the do or die of doing business with you or competitors.
When people realize that you are out of their budget, they can leave without a second thought. Rate judgement can happen as well when you are extremely under their budget. Website visitors might think less of your service and leave as well.
You can avoid these immediate rejections by encouraging your potential clients to inquire about your rate. You will have a better opportunity to engage on a personal level this way.
This will lead to dedicated and engaged clients than those who immediately exit your website after dismissing the lack of price.
3) You can focus on the business’s relationships and experience
Listing your price removes the human element, and can lead the client’s experience as more transactional. There’s the risk of turning clients away without a chance to provide information.
You will get leads when you incentivize your prospects to contact you. Discovery calls and direct emails end up being more memorable than a simple glance at your web pages.
Leads that currently don’t have a budget can turn into an opportunity when you present your value well. They may also lead to referrals to other people on the market for speech therapy, such as better-fit clients or even family and friends that have the budget to book your services.
Your website should be seen as a showcase of the service you provide. Give clients an opportunity to engage, instead of being just a brochure website.
4) Have better opportunities to talk to potential clients
I prefer to schedule a free call with someone so they can hear my voice and I can pitch my services.
If you are at ease with being on the phone, then keeping your pricing hidden might be a better option. Put your clients on a platform where you can show off the value of your speech therapy services.
This does not of course mean that you should depend on everything on your call. Having appropriate information on your website and landing pages can be just as valuable to your revenue as a pricing strategy. They affect whether or not your potential clients will actually reach out to you.
Why You Should Show Your Service Prices
1) It is straightforward for your client.
A fundamental advantage for both parties is that it saves both of your time. Your website visitors would be able to check your pricing structures with a glance.
If you leave out your prices, clients are bound to commit to a longer inquiring time. It may become misleading for them to invest their time only to receive a quote of the costs they can’t afford in the end.
I don’t want people to call me just to realize they can’t afford services.
Also, you may also receive more quote queries if you don’t have your pricing structures up. Responding to all of them is time-consuming and, especially when you don’t have the manpower or automation system in place. Leaving pricing up will keep your inbox open for more valuable queries.
Handling your inbox shouldn’t be a hassle. If you’re looking for some help in streamlining or automating your email (or any system), let us know.
2) You will receive more informed leads.
Your potential customers will have an idea about your offerings before they even reach out to you. By the time they make their query, they (hopefully!) already considered the costs for their buying decision. You have an assurance of their genuine interest in your services.
As a customer, I prefer it. Customers, in general, prefer price transparency.
While you’ll never be able to avoid the money talks in a sales call, a price upfront will provide a benchmark for your service value. This can lead to fewer negotiations at the moment of a discovery call.
3) It can combat any negative perspectives on pricing.
People may assume the worst if kept in the dark. Showing your pricing builds confidence in your customers. This works especially well when your pricing is a key selling point when compared to the competition.
Customers often shop around other businesses or competitors to get the best value they can find. By not showing your service price, then you are letting the client assume your value for money. Doing so can turn for the worst if they deem your services more expensive compared to the competition.
A Controversial Concern: Insurance
With all these valuable insights from other SLPs, how do you further determine what strategy works specifically for you?
We’re currently working with a private-pay exclusive SLP client that has the same question for their webpage, with goals to find out which one will perform better on Google Ads: a page with pricing, or without. We’re conducting an experiment and will release the results on the blog, so sign up for our newsletter to stay updated.
Solution: Run a Split Test for your Practice
To provide our client an accurate strategy backed with data, we are conducting an A/B split test.
A split test, also known as an A/B test, involves creating two versions of your webpage (or landing pages): one that lists your prices and one that doesn’t. The idea behind it is to split the web traffic evenly between them (50/50) and track their performance.
Proper analytics and conversion tracking are key to a successful split test. If you’d like our help setting up a split test on your website to help in your pricing strategy decision, sign up below for a free 30-minute Zoom call and talk with us.