Options
Prices or no prices?
dipphoto
Registered Users Posts: 112 Major grins
I guess there is 2 parts to this question:
1. Is it better to list your types of photography or to offer packages for your types of photography?
2. If you do packages or even list do you give a price or ask them to call for a price or say nothing of or about a price?
1. Is it better to list your types of photography or to offer packages for your types of photography?
2. If you do packages or even list do you give a price or ask them to call for a price or say nothing of or about a price?
Advance thank you to you!!0
Comments
Price matters to EVERYONE! Not everyone can afford your price, but everyone cares!
What I recommend is looking over other photog's sites and emulating the one/s you like!
Yeah that's what I did and then lowered the prices... But think I may do something even a tad lower just to start to pick stuff up and get my name out....
Aaron Wilson
http://www.dipphoto.com
Normally the lower your prices the lower your clientele.....so if you are lowering to discount pricing then you will get the discount shoppers.....my experience from 30+ yrs ago was as I raised my prices my clientele got better, quickly.....but if you have prices already out in the world and you start lowering it could be detrimental to your business, especially when you try to re-raise to catch up to cost of living and such......i would recommend a few FREE sittings and a 1 or 2 month special price on prints but not an actual lowering of prices....
just my 'umble opinion .....and I have always had printed prices...............
Lowering prices and undercutting other shooters is what is stuffing up this entire industry.
You also need to determine what the real problem is, your prices or what your offering.
If you don't have the skills to produce work which meets an acceptable standard for the industry and can charge suitable rates for, you shouldn't be taking money at all and should concerntrate on refining your skills till you can produce work of a standard that is worthy of mainstream industry rates.
While you can lower your prices, people will still have a certain expectation of quality regardless and will expect you to meet that standard.
Aaron Wilson
http://www.dipphoto.com
People like a package deal - they prefer to buy a complete service and not have to worry about what is not included.
People also like to know the price. It prevents them being embarrassed by having to back-off because you are too expensive, or not calling at all because they think they cannot afford to hire a pro.
Aaron Wilson
http://www.dipphoto.com
but knowing FB out did myspace and a few others and ranks as high as they do today due to social media and people that I want to reach are out there on FB... I took off the $call and put a price there.
It doesn't mean its right... or wrong but I feel if I want these "fans" or friends to use me vs sears or the mall places I better apply to there wishes!! yes I said sears and mall places as that was the top answer to that survey!![/QUOTE]
Basing your Business marketing on what people on Facespace tell you....
All I can say is your a far braver man than I Gungadin!
Putting specific prices on your site merely allows people to compare how many 8x10'S and 5x7's they get for x dollars.
And to be brutally honest, the rest of the marketing on your site does nothing to change that at all.
I looked at your boudiour page.
As someone that has done this work over 20 years I would think that at least where I am, your pictures would fail to impress most potential clients.
Unfortunately, the copy you have on that page sounds more like it came from a dictionary than something that is designed to inspire people to make a booking and pay you to take their photos.
When I go to your site, the first pic I saw was of a light house or a control tower of some sort. Next pic that came up was a couple on a beach that was distorted widthwise and frankly was not a picture that I would think was difficult for anyone with a rebel and a kit lens to shoot the exact same thing. Next shot was of the bridge which was nice enough and then came a shot of a model lying on a rock in a bikini again looking very unasthetically distorted. It then continues, bridge model, bridge , model etc.
By this time I'm a bit confused, exactly what market is this dude trying to tackle? I look some more ( Probably getting beyond the interest level of most potential clients by this time) and see mention of engagements, head shots, portfolios and other things under pricing but nothing of weddings. I stumble across that elsewhere.
If I'm a wedding client, I'm long gone by now but in the interests of trying to help and hoping it's not taken the wrong way, I continue on and read some of the sub headings. Again they are about as compelling and would motivate me to have pics taken about as much as looking up the description of the word in the dictionary but it is very clear from the copy and the illustrations that your real intrest lies in shooting boobs and butts.
The thing is you are trying to address a whole range of other markets and confusing them with the T&A work. As someone that has been doing that for 20+ years, it's is my considered opinion that the shots you are showing would attract plenty of male viewers but would in the majority of cases, repel a lot of potential Female clients. Yeah, guys book boudiour shoots for their other halves but in my experience, its about 10% of my bookings, maybe less. The shots that appeal to women however also appeal to guys but not the other way around too often.
I also work in a few different markets but I make the major ones look like I'm a specialist at it. I do glam and that's all you will see... on my glam site. No shots of bridges or landscapes or kids with puppies or brides or cars or flowers or anything else but T&A shots which is waht the viewer came there for.
On my corporate site you don't see T&A shots which would be a real put off to that market and on my event site you don't see anything that dosen't relate to event work.
I'm a specialist in each and present myself as such clearly and with a complete focus on the market the people are interested in on that site.
Now there are some things you can put together effectively like Family portraits, engagement and wedding work but I would say it is a big mistake to have some rather .... provovative.. shots of a well endowed chick in a hot tub ( and 2? galleries of it) when you are trying to address the family portrait and engagement/ wedding markets.
Not going to impress a lot of females that want pics of the kids or the husband to be with the busty Bikini babe with a look on her face that's going to distract the other halfs attention to the difference between her left and right one and the potential clients IMHO .
By all means, do it the other way round, promote the weddings to the glam clients, I do and get a great percentage of bookings from it but it only works one way, not both.
Now the reason I'm talking about all this is to make the point that I believe your current concerns are off track and basically irrelevant at this time. I would say that showing prices or not is compeletely and utterly irrelevant to your booking rate at this point. You have far bigger fish to fry.
Most people aren't going to be impressed nor motivated enough to get as far as worrying about what you charge... except for the price shoppers and I'm not sure your really lowball enough to impress them either.
Price is the LAST concern of a potential client and you ( and 90% of other shooters have to get that in your head.) On a significant purchase, people will not be motivated to buy something on price if they don't like it unless there is no other alternative.... and there are endless alternatives in this game as you would well know!
You need to look over your entire site from a marketing POV, not what a lot of kids on faceache tell you from their biased POV. If you asked them how much a new car should cost, they would probably all tell you under $1000. Would you think that unless that was the price of your vehicle you wouldn't sell it?
Decide what market(s) you want to persue on a given site and match up the markets that are complimentary and create new sites for those that are not.
Write some copy that would be what a customer wants to hear and addresses their concerns, fears and dreams and show how you can are the guy that fulfils what THEY want.
Then give them some examples.
Overall you really need to forget about Facespacedout and hit the marketing, sales and business sites/ books and understand what it is you really have to concern yourself with and why at this stage worrying about displaying price or not is utterly irrelevant.
That is of course unless I am completely wrong and your getting a regular stream of paying clients every week and then i'll start asking how to run my business on social stalking sites as well!