We’re currently helping an A/E firm go through a website redesign and they’re taking on some of the responsibility to rewrite a portion of their service page content. This naturally led them to ask the question of “do you have any recommendations or have a good outline to follow?” It was then I realized the lack of content that exists for this topic in relation to professional service firms and wanted to produce something that is helpful to not only their firm but also yours.
The structure for a service page is simple:
- Setup the value that service provides
- Explain how you deliver it differently
- Introduce your proven process for delivering it effectively
It sounds simple from 15k feet, but after executing on it the biggest mistake often made is including too much of the details. Meaning you have a service and completing that service involves performing 10 different tasks and we tell you about each of those 10 tasks. This often happens because we start to think the details are what lead to the value and are also what differentiate us. However, neither is true. Uncovering effective value statements and true differentiators is simply hard to do and can honestly lead to some hard conversations. So let’s look at the questions you need to be asking to land on the information your service page needs.
Before you Write Anything, Get the Proper Story
Anytime we begin copywriting we always spend time interviewing the various service experts within a firm. An initial question set example looks something like this:
- Who is the ideal client for the service? In other words, what kind of company or person is the service designed for? Go beyond the easy answer such as defining a market (e.g. healthcare companies). Instead, look to be as narrow as you can. Such as a type of company who operates in a specific geography that carries these 3 niche challenges that we’re not only aware of but bring expertise on.
- What is the real value of the service to the client? This one is always the hardest for anyone to think about because you really need to get them below the surface. These values can be both tangible such as 10% cost saving which goes right to their bottom line, as well as intangible such as it leads to more consistent performance which could be in the form of more reliable on-time delivery for a manufacturing facility.
- What is unique or different about the service vs. the competitors’ offering? These differences could be process related, team expertise related, time to completion related, etc. It’s easy for someone to provide a generic answer such as “we’re more experienced,” so you will have to ask follow-up questions. How are we more experienced? Can we tangibly show how we’re more experienced?
- What is the cost of NOT using the service? This is a little more of the fear factor. What can go wrong for a client who doesn’t implement it? What do they risk if they forgo using us?
- How is the service delivered/accessed? This is a simple process question. Do we have a methodology for delivering the service dependably to the client time in and time out? Can we convey this visually through an infographic that makes it easy for a prospect to understand?
- Does the service work in tandem with or depend upon any other service offerings? This is your cross-selling question. If someone has a need for one service does it imply they’re also going to have a need for another service you offer? If so, you’ll want to introduce this additional service by creating interest in it and ultimately moving them further through your site over to that page.
Hopefully this helps you in preparing to write an effective sales pitch on your service pages. If you have any questions in relation to what I covered, or possibly omitted that you were hoping I would hit on, feel free to ask below and I’d be happy to add more perspective.