Abridged and reprinted with permission from her blog, Marketing Interactions.

When a prospective buyer tries to choose among sellers, going after a reduction in price is the easiest option on which to focus. With the commodity status of many products, differentiating by price seems the easiest way to choose when the belief is that all the options enable the same outcomes.

And therein lies the rub. Even though many products look alike, the outcomes that buyers can gain from them can be wholly different based on their unique circumstances and the expertise of the company providing the product.

What a grand opportunity for educational content development.

Educational content can point out underlying (and often unrecognized) costs and consequences companies can incur by only focusing on price. Dispelling these misconceptions and pointing out your extra expertise can go a long way toward making the price issue less relevant, and can even make your price seem like a bargain.

If you can get to the root of the prospect’s problem, you’ve gained additional insight into how you can address their pricing concerns from a value perspective.

For example: If they only equate the cost of your solution against solving the predominately obvious problem, but not the underlying root cause, your price can take a beating.

Get your customer to focus on all the economic costs they’re not seeing. The result is less focus on pricing because the value of the product has escalated. This means you need to shine a light on your expertise and the successes your customers have achieved.

By getting out in front of this issue with educational content that helps your prospects understand the situation, your sales cycles will shorten and your reps will have fewer obstacles to overcome when they get face-to-face with the buyer.

When your company is the first to help them simplify and understand the true issues they’re dealing with, you can become the “anchor” on that subject, setting a high bar your competitors must surpass, putting you exactly where you want to be.

Ardath Albee is CEO & B2B Marketing Strategist for Marketing Interactions, Inc..

Posted in Marketing and promotion