pricing

The Four-letter F-word

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Search for the most powerful words used in marketing and the most cited word is the four-letter F-word, Free. The word Free gets customer attention but is it really effective in making sales?

The F-word is so overused these days, that we almost automatically tune it out. We know nothing is really free, there’s always a catch. Free will get attention, but it’s never taken seriously.

It’s important for a business to remember that your customers are not looking for Free. Rather, they’re looking for good value for their money.
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Pick Any Two

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Remember the consumer saying: “Good, fast, cheap. Pick any two.”

A similar saying is: “High quality, low price, good customer service. Pick any two.”

Of course, we want all three. But that elusive combination doesn’t seem to exist.

When a customer tells a photographer that their photo fees are too expensive, the photographer should then ask: “Okay, I can can give you a lower price but what do you want to give up, quality or service?”

Customers who only shop price are customers that a photographer can live without. These people don’t value a photographer’s work.

Bargain hunters don’t understand that a cheaper price only guarantees them of getting less for less.

What a photography assignment might cost is always less than what it will cost from not having that photography done at all.

Many businesses don’t realize that most commercial photography doesn’t really cost anything. If $1500 worth of photography helps generate $20,000 worth of business, then there was no cost for the photography. The photography was a business investment where the company put money into itself.

 

By The Value

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Of course the list of prices in the previous post, By The Pound, is meaningless. No one sells a house by the pound, no one buys a car by the pound.

A house is priced on the subjective value of its location, the quality of design and workmanship that went into the house and the cost to build.

A car is priced on the subjective value of its brand, the quality of design and workmanship that went into the car and the cost to build.

Yet some people expect photographers to price their services by the hour or by the picture rather than by the value of the photography plus the quality of workmanship and the cost of production.

When some businesses search for a corporate photographer, why do they shop price first, value second? The only products sold by weight or volume are commodities like fruit, vegetables and gasoline. Almost everything else is sold by value.

A can of Campbell’s vegetable soup is 99¢ while the “no name” brand of vegetable soup is 60¢. Which soup would you buy?

After tasting the thin, watery, no name soup, you’d either go back to the higher-priced soup because it has more value, (i.e. better taste and more enjoyable), or you’d lower your standards and stay with the cheaper product to save money.

It’s the same deal with photography. A business has to decide whether to lower its standards and use cheap photography, or go with higher-priced professional photography because of its higher value.

 

By The Pound

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Just for comparison sake, here’s the approximate cost per pound, (Canadian dollars, taxes not included), of a few items:

Nikon D3X camera: $2,828

Apple iPhone (base model): $2,200

Nikon D3S camera: $1,818

Nikon 24mm f1.4 lens: $1,527

Nikon 300mm F2.8 lens: $869

Nikon 14-24mm f2.8 lens: $847

Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 lens: $622

MacBook Pro 15″ laptop (base model): $330

Mac Pro desktop computer (base model): $75

Think Tank Airport Security roller case: $38

Porsche Boxster (base model): $18

House in Toronto: $1.06 (1600 sq ft., freestanding, single-storey brick house including foundation. Assuming $340,000 and 320,000 lbs )

House in Toronto: $0.71 (2200 sq ft., freestanding, two-storey brick house including foundation. Assuming $425,000 and 600,000 lbs.)

 

Don’t even mention the cost of medium format cameras and digital backs:

Phase One 645DF camera + P45 back + 80mm lens: $5,206 per pound

F-35 Lightning II fighter jet: $4,780 per pound

 

Now do you have to ask why photographers charge so much?

 

Filter Your Vision

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I’ve been wearing eyeglasses for about 25 years and need new glasses again :-(  . Over the past 12 years or so, my average cost has been about $360 per pair of prescription glasses, (averaged from seven pairs purchased from five different stores).

If I had chosen name-brand designer frames, the cost would have been higher; if I had selected the free frames, the cost would’ve been lower. (My sister used to work for the largest eyeglass retail chain in the country. She said their free frames cost less than $2 each.)

Some eyeglass stores (aka “optical stores” or “vision stores”) frequently have a two-for-one sale. So if a pair of glasses cost me, on average, about $360, then a two-for-one sale should mean that I can get two pairs for about $360, right?
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Beginner’s Guide to Negotiating Photography

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A very long post for photographers learning to negotiate photography fees.

“Money can’t buy happiness but it can buy a better quality of misery.” – anonymous

 

Three important points to remember when pricing photography:

1.  Never give a price over the phone. When someone calls and asks, “How much do you charge to shoot this?” don’t give a price over the phone. You need time to get more information, figure out all the details and then determine the proper price.

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