u/czerrr

I've been pretty "anti website" because my business is a marketing company, not a website company. So anytime we've needed to build landing pages or full websites (for seo), we've just included it in the package.

And i wish i could say i had a revalation and decided to start charging for it, but it kind of happened by accident. Since raising our floor pricing to $1250, we've lost out on a lot of enthusaistic potential clients simply because we had nothing to offer them. So in trying to find a middle ground that isn't marketing (they don't have the budget for it), i created a website / foundational package that helps businesses get their online prencese to a more respectable spot. A website, help setting up their google business profile, and helping them create their social media accounts.

While a couple of the closes were for those businesses that aren't quite ready for marketing yet, some of the clients we have closed also wanted to "reset" their online presence. And so it's been a nice little discovery that....well, we can charge for website work.

It also has helped with the process. Instead of it being super complicated with launching ads, seo, and a website. Now it's website, then marketing. A bit simpler.

And even more so, 6 websites at 1500 is an additional $9,000. Can't really complain about that.

One thing I like about how i've built my businesses is that.....i really have been leaving a lot of money on the table. 6.5 years worth of not having set up fees/ websites fees. Sometimes when i "fix" something (even accidently), it ends up with more revenue. Sometimes

This also lends itself for people getting on our maintenance program. Which currently we charge $100/month. BEST thing about it is that we have semi-sold marketing customers for when their ready to active their marketing.

I often get asked "I'm just getting started, what do I price my marketing services." And to some extent, people ask how do you go about raising prices, and what do you do when you have a bunch of different past/grandfather price points?

Here is how I have gone about it. Keep in mind, im sharing what was the average customer. I also had clients pay more, but far less of them.

This is also showing some of the hires I made that are still here. What it's not showing is the hires that are not here, or didn't work out.

Phase 1 - 2020 to 2022. - this helped get to 30 customers, low friction sales, lots of work and lots of chaos lol. Just me as account manager, google ads specialist, salesperson, website coordinator (worked with a website contractor)

$250/month for a new wordpress website. Typically 10-15 page. Google Ads services that routed to their homepage. No tracking. Also included basic seo optimizations and google business profile manage but at an ultra light level. Monthly Loom Reviews

Also did a lot of "whatever they will pay me for" work like random projects. Website builds, Helping other agencies with their google ads / meta ads, email newsletters, social media postings

Phase 2 - 2023. got to 50ish customers. Allowed me to hire first full time employee. I still mainly focused on organic social media content, sales, google ads management, landing pages, google reviews. First employee primarily helped with website coordination with the website contractor

$500/month - basically same as previous 250.

$350/month Starter pacakage for just google ads or meta ads. Basic landing page, tracking just forms or click to calls.

This is where the clients / businesses started leaning more local service based. the "who" we help became more obvious as well as "who can we actually help" and with what services.

Phase 3 - 2024 to first half 2025. Started separating the services. Hired 2 more people so a team of 4. Existing employee moved into an SEO role. The two new employees focused on google ads, landing pages, and general "assistance" on projects. I still mainly handled organic social media content for the business, sales, account management, still created and managed the google ads but had some support. Still did the monthly loom video reviews

$650/month - for google ads/meta ads. No website build. Included landing pages, call tracking with call rail and got into conversion tracking and reporting with Google analytics.

$1k/month - same as the now 650 package but includes SEO.....and a new website build lol. At this point, we have a dedicated person for SEO

Phase 4. Second half of 2025. Hired 2 CSM's and 1 Google Ads/SEO Support

$1k/month - Same as previous 650, but now we added in WhatConverts for lead attribution. As well as now being able to integrate with client CRMs. A little more technical with our website work.

$1,750/month. The new ads+seo. This is when I finally figured out that doing multichannel marketing is difficult, not easier.

Phase 5 - current 2026. One more recent hire. team of 7 people, plus me we are 8. I mainly focus on organic social media , sales, and trying to build systemized solutions for our team.

$1500- We now charge for websites, instead of including it in the marketing.

$1,250/month - Google Ads/ Meta Ads

$2,250/month - Paid Ads + SEO.

So the question is, how do we manage all these price points, at all these different points in time?

I've kept it quite simple. We go to our clients who are on the lower tier and basically say - if you are happy with the way things are, you are welcomed to stay at that tier. However, here we have this new tier that comes with this new stuff. Some clients stay on the legacy pricing and we keep the legacy service. Some clients upgrade. Some clients we "forced" upgrade simply because it was way out of scope. Some of those agreed, most left.

It ends up looking something like this

Legacy Clients (Paid Ads / Ads SEO): keep it active, no tracking, light touch

Current Pricing Clients (Paid Ads / Ads + SEO): actively try to grow, full tracking, deep dives

This also brings the weirdness of churn. At one point, our most popular packages were the 250 and 350 packages. But since we don't offer those anymore, they naturally age out. Especially if/when a client says hey, what can we do to improve, and we say hey, we can upgrade to the next tier. Some do, some cancel.

The constant changing in pricing is not pretty, but here are the reasons why i recommend this way

1 -In the beginning, you want low friction. Figure out who your customer is, figure out what services you can offer that of value

2 - You build a book of business. The more customers you have, the more opportunity that is possible from that customer base. If you start with higher prices, it's harder to do that (unless you can and want to try, then go for it of course)

3 -The right pricing for your business is not really a known yet. Do you want to be high volume, low touch point. Do you want to be higher touch point and charge a bit more? Do you want a team or do this on your own. Do you want to hire in house or go contractor? Do you want to have a local team, or do you want to hire globally? All of these questions are tied to how you price your service

Last point, is that I didn't really account for my ability to actually be able to go out into the world and be able to attract customers, and close customers. Meaning - I was just trying to pay my rent when i got started. It just so happened to go very well, and so the increase in pricing is me continually trying to improve what we offer, as well as position ourselves a little differently.

I literally don't ever pick up my phone when a new number calls. But I always check to see if it's a real number and if it is...I text or call back depending on the business.

This business, happened to be a larger business. So I called back in less than 5 minutes.

Had a brief call with with what seemed to be the Sales manager. Listened to their current situation and what they are looking for. He seemed to like how we could help, so he requested an in person meeting. Normally, I wouldn't do, but this one seemed like one to attend. Also, there is some fun in having in person sales meetings sometimes. It was an interesting type of business.

Scheduled the in person for next week. Next week came. I walk in, there's 4 people sitting in chairs ready to discuss. The owner, sales manager, IT person, and maybe like the operations person.

They started off with "What's the magic bullet that can help us grow". My immediate resopse was....there really isn't a magic bullet. The "magic bullet" is just doing the best practices. Using the budget effectively. And creating real, manageble epectionations.

They then toured me around their facilities. Pretty cool stuff.

A week later, they called and wanted to move forward with our highest package. I sent the invoice. They paid the next day.

No fancy automation talk, no "we will grow your business 10x". Just, hey - we are essentially your marketing dept. We are happy to be of service.

It's funny because this lead came from an organic google search. We weren't even the first company that they called, but we were maybe the only one that called back lol. So yea, sometimes.....it's as "easy" as just being available for when a client is looking for services

Breakdown of leads

Tiktok - 4 leads (detail shop, party rental business, electrical business, construction)

Local seo / google profile - 2 (Metal Recycling Business, Dog Boarding business)

Referral - 1 (lighting decorations business)

Personal FB - 1 (electrical business)

Here are the specific actions I have taken:

1. i’ve gone tiktok lives multiple times a day instead of once a day. i’d say from 1 hour a day to 3 hours a day. Just answering questions as well as just keep the conversation casual and friendly
2. i’ve posted on my personal social media an update as to who i am and the business i have been building. that’s on the feed
3. on my stories, i sprinkle in stuff about the business with no direct ask
4. i’ve boosted some of my tiktok content. $36 spent so far
5. on my business ig - i go in a like / comment existing clients as well as clients who use to be with us in the past
6. im still posting 4-6 times a day across tiktok, fb and ig. one small adjustment i made is adding in a cta in the video. i have not really made any content with an "ask".

Some additional things I might add in

1. send a soft hello to previous clients that the relationship ended on good terms. not an ask but a how’s business going and how have you been and if it goes past that great if not great as well
2. adding in meta ads budget for organic content that has been performing well

My business has lost about 10k in revenue, so I'm trying to gain that back lol. We aren't in trouble yet, but definitely want to be a bit more aggressive with acquiring instead of fully relying on organic leads to come in on their own. I'm open to other ideas if anyone has suggestions!

The exchange from freeing myself from the day to day operations is placing trust in our team and not budding in. letting employees handle their role. yes provide support, but letting them do their own thing

when mistakes happen, i FEEL like i should jump in and save the day.

but if (very egotistically) i think that i can save the day. then im not actually growing the team nor the business. im hiring people to do work that im going to do anyways. which is redundant.

so instead - i observe the plays, play out. and i have to say, our team does a fairly good job. they help each other, they learn, they deal with real problems.

i was looking at our revenue and we are actually down about 10k MRR between june and july. we had a 5k client that had to cancel, as well as a few others the pauses/cancelled.

this is where i think leadership matters the most. do i panic and freak out. do i blame the team. do i do nothing. do i observe the game and say, this is normal ebb and flow of business. slow month made seemlingly worse from a couple cancellations.

not to mention this is somewhat my own fault. I took the majority of june and half of july off to enjoy time with my family and also the world cup. Now that im back in the drivers seat, leads are up and we've closed a couple of new clients. Which is another sign telling me that even tho im not in the day to day operations with our existing marketing clients. I'm very much super involved in client acquisition. and it showed with my minimal activity in creating content and engaging with potential customers.

now that' ive started pulling my own weight on what i provide to the business, lead flow is back up . We are still producing quality work, and the slow downis more than likely just a dip, but if we keep doign what we are doing, it will work out.

kind of like losing weight i suppose. it's unreasonable to have perfect days every day, but when you have a "bad" eating day or week or month, the best thing you can do is go back to the things that were working

trusting the team. continuing to market. continue to provide quality work