value

Topic of conversation

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Why do people shop at dollar stores? Is it for the customer service, the wonderful store ambience or the quality of the products? It’s only because of the prices.

Why do people buy coffee at Starbucks? Is it for the customer service, the wonderful store ambience or the quality of the products? It’s certainly not because of the prices.

Consumers choose to shop at a particular store for a variety of reasons and price is not often the primary motivator. Instead, customers search for the best value for their money. Value is always in the eye of the buyer, not the seller.
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Expected Value

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Do you have a spare $800,000?

If yes, then HTT Technologies has a nice automobile just for you.

HTT (High-Tech Toys), in Quebec, has designed its 750-hp Pléthore LC750 supercar for a very exclusive audience. HTT has been quoted as saying that its target customer is the billionaire auto enthusiast. (The 390-km/hr Pléthore LC750 is cheap when compared to the 415-km/hr Bugatti Veyron Super Sport which is $2.5M).

If the price tag isn’t exclusive enough, the company says it will build only 99 cars. Exclusive design, exclusive price, exclusive production.
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Break Through Technology

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Here in the Toronto area, the Ford Motor Company is currently running a radio commercial promoting its new vehicles. During the radio spot, a man exclaims that the technology in his Ford is so advanced, “I feel like I’m driving a computer!”

Huh? Who wants to drive a computer? Who wants their car to feel like a computer?

Many car companies promote the high-tech gadgets in their cars because that’s the easy thing to do. But technology isn’t an end point. It’s a tool. It’s a description.

What does this have to do with photography?

Clients don’t care about the technology behind photography. They don’t care about megapixels or megabytes. They don’t care what’s under the hood.

All they care about is results. Good pictures on time. No surprises, no excuses.

Clients want value not technology.

 

Make Sense

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A few things don’t seem to make sense:

— Order a $1.49 hamburger at a fast-food joint and you have to pay before they give you the food.

Order an $85 steak dinner at a restaurant and you don’t pay until the food has been eaten.

 

— Some amateur photographers spend thousands of dollars buying top-of-the-line cameras to photograph things a $400 camera could do as well.

Some professional photographers who own top-of-the-line cameras use a cheap toy camera to do their photography.

 

— A company spent about $47,000 to buy five full-page black-and-white ads in a Toronto tabloid newspaper. Then it budgeted less than $500 for the photography for those ads.

Why not spend $25,000 for five half-page ads and then budget, say, $2,500 for the photography? Not only would this save the company thousands of dollars but the better quality photography will earn the company more attention.

 

Lower The Bridge or Raise The Water?

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Having to lower your price is the penalty you pay for not having raised your value.

If a photographer can’t sell value then they may have no choice but to sell (low) price. Choosing to lower prices is a business strategy that will follow that business for a long time. For example, WalMart will always be associated with “cheap” and everyone knows cheap isn’t really good because good isn’t cheap.

Remember that value is in the eye of the customer. Extra prints or fancy leather albums may have value to retail customers (e.g. weddings and family portraits) but they won’t have any value to commercial or corporate customers.

Part of the job for commercial photographers and corporate photographers is to understand what their business customers need, what has value to them.

Low prices might be okay if the photographer can compensate with a continuous high sales volume. But a high sales volume means a high work volume. To support a low-price business strategy, a photographer will have no choice but to work more and more.

Makes no cents.

 

Different Value

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When you ask how to attract more customers to your photography business, the common answer is to stand out from the competition. But of course, this is easier said than done.

Most photographers use similar cameras, lenses, software, lighting equipment, and computers, and many are capable of producing images of comparable quality. So, how can you truly be different?

In the era of film photography, standing out was a bit easier. Back then, being different may have meant having the skill to track fast-moving subjects with follow-focus, knowing how to use flash/colour meters to accomplish great lighting techniques, having darkroom experience to make custom prints, using a large-format camera, or developing a unique photographic style.
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Secret Values

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When a business hires a photographer, it’s not just about purchasing images; it’s about gaining value from those images. Companies don’t invest in photography for the sake of having pictures; they use it as a tool to gain a competitive advantage.

Commercial photography should be viewed as an investment in a company’s future. The right photography can build trust, enhance a brand’s image, and attract customer attention. If the photography helps a business achieve its goals, the cost of that photography becomes only a secondary consideration.

It’s not about what the photography costs; it’s about what it earns for the business.

Customers are more likely to buy from businesses they trust, and quality, authentic photography plays a key role in building that trust. The right imagery can make a company appear more approachable. Effective photography can lend power and credibility to a brand’s message.

When choosing a photographer, it’s not about finding the lowest price, it’s about seeking the highest value: the value the photography brings and the value the photographer provides.

While most professional photographers understand this, the challenge is helping clients recognize the true worth of the investment.

 

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