As part of our ongoing efforts to improve the quality of Marketplace leads and to address a highly-requested feature, we’re trialing a budget-related question in Marketplace briefs.
Starting today, when filling out a brief, new leads will see one of two forms: the current form with no changes or a new form asking for a project budget. This change will be reflected in some of the briefs you receive.
As a guide, leads will be shown the average price range for their chosen service. (This calculation is based on starting rates set by Partners offering the service.) They’ll also have the option to click a button if they’re unsure on budget and open to discussion.
Since the purpose of this question is to enhance lead quality, you may temporarily feel like there’s been a slight decrease in leads, possibly due to a reduction in low-intent ones, but we’ll monitor this closely.
We hope this trial helps us gain some valuable insights that we can use to enhance the Marketplace brief in the future.
Great news. I guess the next step for Partners now is to reflect their pricing accurately on their profile. What is the best practice here to avoid missing out on lead?
Great move. I suggested this about two years ago. Finally glad to see this in place even at a trial phase. I know it works and brings in great qualified leads. Business do it in their funnel. Those prospects who are serious would then take the necessary steps.
I suggested Wix look at Bark and its funnel questions. They have mastered this. I used Bark but not a fan of the bidding system among other things. However, Wix Marketplace team can learn a lot from their refine funnel they have developer and keep perfecting over the years.
Where I’d like to see this take the next step, if it’s not built in already, is this:
A Prospect has option to put budget range and if they do, the leads are only sent to partners where this budget is within their suggested minimum. If prospect selects that they are not sure, then it can go to any based on the algorithm.
I believe Project description should not be optional… If one is serious then they should add a bit of information. This could also help in us as partners create automations.
Super! But I think the problem is that clients coming to us over WIX mostly think this is a platform where they can get cheap support. I have a small questionnaire regarding clients who want to have a SEO Optimization, which contains also the question regarding the budget. Many are afraid to tell what budget they have, because they think it could have been cheaper, if the wouldn´t have told about it.
There’s some really awesome feedback here that’s already been shared with the team.
@Vision_Marketing in which sense? Is there something in the marketplace as a product you feel needs to be done to accurately reflect pricing, or is this something you hope Partners will do?
@varun-d This looks pretty cool! From your experience, besides UX, what additional benefits would you say a range bar chart offers over an input field?
@Cyphas_Solutions This is great feedback. I’ll make sure the team has seen it
The average is based on the starting price of Partners in the marketplace (using the information Partners added to their profile about their average starting price)
It’s not compulsory, although those shown the trial will have the option of choosing “Not sure on a budget”
From my experience and discussions with other Partners, the listed prices are theoretical minimum prices, but dont’ reflect the likely price for the project. If the average minimum price is shown, this will create an expectation of lower prices than is realistic. This is likely to tend to push prices down at the cost of reduced quality. A race to the bottom isn’t in anybody’s interest.
maybe the reported prices for completed projects could be a better source of information. And additionally showing a range is a great idea too.
This is really going to change the amount of time and attention that us partners give to Wix Marketplace leads. The more information the better. We don’t want to deter leads, however requiring project description would be helpful as well to filter out tire kickers. Thanks for making this happen Noah and team.
This can actually go really bad.
In a lot of cases clients don’t want to reveal their budget before they are connected with a designer and have their questions answered. The connections gives them the opportunity to decide on the budget which is based on the conversation. The client understands the value and the scope of work and possibly might end up expanding their budget.
The other case is, the small task requests converted to bigger projects. This happens after the client has the experience with the designer and realizes that they should get more work done.
None of the above opportunities will benefit from the client stating their budget. If anything this should definitely not be a required field.
When I think about it it, if I’m filling out a form that asks me my budget it makes me feel like I’m categorized and I already feel like will not get the treatment and or the quality I want.
I’d recommend making the form more focused on the project requirements and specs versus the budget. This will help client understand the size of task they are requesting while the designer saves time on the back and forth trying to understand the scope.
I wasn’t referring to that, I was referring to collecting data to find out whether this feature is worthwhile or not. In my opinion, it’s not worth it if those who need a project don’t realise what it’s worth and it can be difficult for them to choose a price. In the case of marketplaces such as Wix, I think the designer/programmer should put up a “from” price list. It would make life easier for them and for those looking for the service. If the price is too high for a particular person, they won’t even get in touch and the programmer/designer won’t have to send proposals that will be rejected.
I’m very happy to see this being tested. I understand some potential problems others have brought up, but we definitely need a way to solve the issue of low-quality leads. I think something that should be required is a phone number as it’s currently optional. Someone else mentioned Bark and a great thing they do is verify phone numbers as well. That will all help with the low-quality problem while not scaring people away with a budget question.
If this does become permanent I have a few requests.
If an option is added to exclude leads from being shown to partners if they are outside their budget range, we need a way to turn this off. Our custom web design projects start at $2,500 or higher but for lower budget leads, we still have other directions they can go that would convert them to a customer.
Add this as a value to the webhook payload. We use Hubspot and each lead is sent as a webhook over to Hubspot to create a contact. Currently, the budget field is not something that is included in the payload.
