Business Day Thursday: Is It Time To Lower Your Wedding Prices? 7 Ways To Beat The Low Price Wars

Good Afternoon Everybody,

Are you ready for the kick off convention of the new year? We've been spending all day repacking the bags getting ready to attend Imaging USA starting this weekend in San Antonio, TX. It's not been much of a break since we got back to Cincy yesterday but we are still looking forward to catching up with friends and seeing the great programs and exciting vendors at this year's convention.

I've been keeping things kind of short with all the hustling and bustling - so let's get right to today's post.

Is It Time To Lower Your Prices?  7 Ways To Beat The Low Price Wars

That's a question that should rile up the forces - "What do you mean, lower my prices? The competition is already killing me  with low prices. If I lower them any more, I may as well go out of business because I wouldn't be making any profit at all!"  I know, I know times are more competitive than ever in wedding photography. New photographers keep coming out of the woodwork and the prices are dropping like lead balloons.

Does that sound familiar to anybody? Actually, it should sound familiar to everybody because it is the NEW REALITY in the wedding profession. So what is a person suppose to do? To me there is only one answer - bring even more value to your offerings without lowering your prices. That may be easier to do than you think.

Hit the “Read More…” link below for the rest of the story.

Here are a few of my suggestions:

1- Include a disc of the images after a certain album minimum $$$ has been reached. Basically, you get to include a disc of images worth several hundred dollars at no additional charge - that's BIG perceived value, and you continue to still be making your sale.

2- Create picture packages for parents that include several gift prints, frames, canvas wraps, etc. Photographers have for years just sold the 8x10 print. By bundling items together and offering them at a reasonable cost the client can easily see the real savings over the individually priced items, plus you get a bigger sale.

3- When you sell the deluxe album, offer a companion album, maybe a press printed book, at very little increased cost. These are easily produced by many, many companies with Zookbinders and ACI being my favorites.

4- Whether you sell albums or just deliver a disk, including an engagement portrait session could prove to be a nice add-on to your top package. Your cost - only your time. Perceived value, let's say $200. This can then lead to "save the date" items, sign in boards at the wedding, Facebook images, etc.

5- Offer a free image design package. If you've included an album in your packages, the album design would already be included but at least show the value of that service - that value, maybe several hundred dollars.

If you deliver on a disk, the image design service is a great way for you to showcase their images on an iPad or on their computer and Lumapix makes it easier that ever to do just that.

6- Don't forget to offer a DVD of their favorite images, too. Animoto makes it simple, easy, and inexpensive to do just that. Perceived value – again a few hundred dollars.

7- Offer a retouching/image enhancement service at half price. Hardly any photographer offers anything like that to their clients. With a little Photoshop expertise and a few actions, you can make anyone look good in no time. Perceived value - $200.

Anyway, I think you get the idea. It comes down to offering what so many other photographers don't offer. That means they can only get the premium services from you and at a very good price.

Prices are getting cheaper and cheaper everyday and the customer is settling for a lot less than they ever did before. It's our constant job to continue to put quality and service in front of the buying publics eyes so that can learn to really see the difference.

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Hey gang, that's it for me today. We been at it all day and still need to pack up a few more things. I'll have a post up late tomorrow so you have a little time to get to today's post.

See ya' tomorrow everybody, David