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Marketing & Pricing

So let's, talk about pricing a little bit, and we started to do so they have so talk about social media, little bit let's, go one more down there? Sure, yes, so social media we talked about this before social media, I can't talk to you enough if you are not using social media for your business, please, please, please give it a try or hire someone to do for you there people that will do this for you hire an intern or a college student. Social media is so important in fusion has a way of going viral because it is so unique and so different. One of the new things not fusion related that I just recently did a ce for a social media goes, was create facebook panners for my clients know the new timeline and you've got this gorgeous banner there, and I've created facebook banners for my clients and their beautiful super easy to make with the lunatic suffer and when I made them and added, and I think it was twenty t you're so into a into one of my albums, might insights grew by one hundred thou...

sand people, so that wasn't like a three day time span you want? I don't know if you can, but you get the idea there, so what happens with that is you can potentially give a huge spike to the amount of people that you that you get your work out in front of, and fusion has a way of really doing that through using twitter and facebook, even on your block and like we mentioned before with the wedding website, so take that into consideration making fusion people give it to somebody for free at first make a fusion piece so that you can just use it for promotion is it to get your business to stand out in front of your audience? So the website way do not talk too much about this, but you can use fusion as a promo video. This is something that I have on my website it's more of fusion claim peace that is on my website, so I wouldn't necessarily call it a promo video, but you could really easily particular a slide show like this and record yourself and audio to the sideshow when they first see it and talk about either the clients or tell a story to the clients about that wedding day. Talk about the way that you work dirty to the parts that they're seeing or if you want to do you like and I'm movie you can put those video clips together, so have a video clip of the an emoto and then maybe afterwards or before interchange it throw in you talking about about what you do an interview of yourself. We showed you how to do a submission video created life. You have pretty much do the same thing. Interview yourself, s o that is a really great a great way to use fusion on perma videos. How many people do? Same day slide shows? If you got any of the wedding people seemed a sly jones. You do wait, can I? From a cinema perspective, but it goes along the same line of marketing about a year and a half ago, when I really started get heavily into the d s a lot of video stuff, I started challenging myself to try to put together a video slide shows at my weddings of video, not photos video, and I would just pick like fifteen or twenty really cool video clips and this loop them put them together on the timeline in a video editing program, and loot them full screen on the laptop and the kind of look of tyre for wouldn't put them out stack of cards next to it. The first three times you did it, a stack of cards, we got work gone, right? And it was just because people were like, I can't believe I'm watching video night to this day, I still offer that as a product, we calm, same day at bloopers, where I just basically I do two types of same day and I do a full film that we show with audio at the end of the night, and I do a looper, which is like two or three minutes of video clips just over and over and over, looping and it's, usually done by the main course and it's out on the table and people go nuts, you'll look over and as a main course is winding down, the deejay hasn't yet started the party again. You look over this fifty, people standing around a little table like this trying to get a view of what's going on, and she'll do her same baseline show and put it out right next to it, and people are fascinated and the bride can't stop gushing and, you know, we're not generally doing it to get the praise that day, but we want to give the clients a little something, a little teaser that night, so that makes him really ecstatic that they booked us and it always works. Yeah, andi thing with if you want to add just three video clips you think of during the reception time, our cocktail hour time, you could add it twenty photographs and three video clips it doesn't have to be long, it doesn't have to be longer than honestly, thirty seconds are forty five seconds because you want that kind of a constant flow of people around it so you do a small thing like that lead animal to do it for you, download it and have it looping on your laptop it's really great I bring a t mobile, I guess it's like a flash internet portal mobile mobile three g's actually for g which is it? Andi? I bring that so if I don't have internet, I can just use that a lot of times I don't have internet, so I use that and I create my animal side shows the night of the wedding it's kind of funny on though if I'm not working at night she is she's out of the wedding although she's on her way home when I see I get the email that says and from animal says your video is ready, my confidence is on her way home because it's linked to his account are his emails the one that counts so if you get too comfortable where you could do same day at its evenly in a very small capacity definitely do it because it really it boom my business in the very beginning I mean it really I was getting enquiries left and right like two days after wedding's hi rob you're the videographer my friend sonya's wedding two days ago I've never heard of you until now, but we saw this in the attic put out I have to come to meet with you for my wedding in two years it's true though because it creates a viral it teaches people to talk about you the reason you know why we don't usually put it on a projector we have it on the small table is because you're teaching people to talk about two so they walk up and they see it and they're going to turn around go did you see that thing over there did you see with these photographers and that you know you can use fusion that way and keep keep people talking about you you know that will spread not only through all the guests there that we're not here about you but it'll spread about seventy times back to the bride and groom which will end up validating you know their purchase with you and their decision to go with you and I'm more credibility both them their decision into your company it's funny watching the virus spread go from person to person and then you see like girlfriend's dragging their boyfriends across the dance floor come and look at this you've got to see this we were at a wedding that recently it's pretty bad but the girl the girl had inquired with me and she says, well, you know it's great I'm looking forward to meeting you but you're gonna be doing my friend's wedding in a couple of weeks so we'll just meet that I'll get to introduce myself to you then it's true no problem you know? So we put out the scene they added luper that night and she came over to the table and she's gushing over it and I think her boyfriend was like there's no way I'm spending money on high end video he wasn't in the video thing and there's a lot of guys like that you know, people like that like like I feel guilty okay powerful yes thing is powerful we kind of touched on this when we were talking about the way that we sell the fusion physical fusion album and any fusion product is easy to upsell either before or after a shoot robin I have done this before we've created a fusion piece because we love the wedding and we just want it as a as a promotional piece andi showed it to the client and they go crazy and you know it's an easy upsell and it's not a lot amount of time and you can use it for promotional purposes anyway so it's like here here's to get up so so it's a way to make more money even after the fact you know upsell onto your back and once they see it they're emotionally invested so you get a dollar amount of immunity to the parents incentives and throw ins and way offer like the movie posters as an incentive and throwing we don't do monetary discounts, so what they say, you know well, is there any wiggle room were like that was your room, but I'd be happy to give you this this or this or choice of this or this or, you know, instead of dvds on tv, these am blue regs and what does it cost means really not much compared to that? What they're spending over also definitely fusion fusion for incentives or as an incentive and thrown is really great like we mentioned before robin I used fusion as a way to get them to book both of us like you could only get products like this if you're hiring robin and we have unique situation that way, however, you can use it just as an incentive in general hey, I'll give you a movie poster, you know when you book something that has a great perceived value of five hundred dollars or so, but it's only costing you maybe thirty or forty so just another way that you can use it as a marketing used to book more clients and to make your packages have more prissy value to them. If you have not yet gone into fusion and this is your first venture into it, my advice would be to create a fusion product frieda, just create one and have it as your demo and show it to everybody and if you have to, if you get better a couple weeks later, due another one it's an investment of your time, it's like advertising, you know, I know a lot of tigers don't do print out pronounce because just useless, you kind of get lumped into a bridle mag with a bunch of other print advertising, you know, without much another of other photographers who are buying print ads and you get lost in the shuffle and you really don't stand out. I would rather spend my money in the form of time because time is money and just sit down and do a piece of work that I'm proud of to show it around and show it to everybody with every client that walks in the door, every client that inquires with you sent it back and email hey, I just wanted to see this new thing that we're doing love for you to come in and meet, so we could talk about it more and just get it out there that's when we started doing fusion that's, what we did, we showed it to everybody, I think we should be plastered it all over the place, and it really got a great reaction, and if you're in a market where nobody's doing that sort of thing you do, you should expect the same result. You know, so let's talk about the pricing, this is what everybody's been thiss pricing we're about to give you does not include what we charge to shoot because, again, we're that unique position where we have two different companies in a lot of times were being hired to produce two separate products and that the fusion is sort of the merger between it's, the link between us and the incentive that they get for booking both of us. So we're charging probably we both have our own packages for photo on video and then the fusion our adam, so we're just adding these on as as allah cart to what's already booking us if you're in the position where you want teo, either make more money for the time that you shoot if you're shooting it solo, or if you're in the position where you need to hire somebody to come on the wedding day with the or or even a regular shoot. If you don't want to shoot solo and you don't want to be responsible for both the photo and video clips, take that into consideration, too. Maybe you're paying your second shooter another three hundred fifty dollars, you know to come on and shoot the wedding day or part of the wedding day, you won't need it for the whole reception. Right? So keep that in mind factor that into your costs. I mean, obviously it just makes sense and mark it up because labor is not cheap and you should be making money and I know we all come from different markets where photography is worth more or less depending on where you are. But if a client sees value and something they will find a way to pay for it if it means that much to them, it really is true. So the movie posters we talked about we charge five hundred for if we're not throwing it into sweet deal and fusion slide shows the simplest thing that we showed you this morning six hundred bucks. How long will it take to build that? Sure, our half hour? Not even having right with teaching and ours. So you're talking. We'll get the return of the r o I on, you know, the return on investment are oh, I return on investment. So fusion slides us six hundred bucks, and once we have a role in our business, once somebody books us for our top tier or top package and then plus all the atoms we raise our prices because that means just a good general rule we need to get it means that people are with somebody somebody other is willing to pay that and not everybody books are top package we have the middle package, which is the target, which we try to get people to book. But if somebody books that top package, that raises the roof so the price of everything rose up. Okay, I mean, that's, how we were able to thrive in a recession with this whole model, all right, fusion album, the digital version. Like we said before the contest winners guessed that right? Twelve hundred bucks that's what we charge again? What was the time invested on that? If you were a little bit more probably. You know, an hour opposed to a half an hour on the side show. You have to take into account the time that you shot it. You tell them to shoot it or let's say you paid a videographer three, four hundred bucks to come out and shoot it. Okay, this is our market. If I were higher, a videographer experienced videographer somebody who knows what they're doing with a dslr camera to come out and shoot for six hours on an event it's going to be anywhere between three and five hundred bucks. Okay, so you factor that in plus is what say an hour and how to get it done. You're looking at your figure, your free time is worth what our well, that would be eight hundred dollars an hour if you were hiring out paid four hundred bucks for someone else to come to that part of the work, it's only an hour of your time that will be him. Charlize in area who doesn't want to make a hundred bucks an hour physical fusion albums? We talked about this it's going to vary it's going it's going to be dependent on the outer company, but we are going to mark it up three times, whatever our costumes. Yeah, that's a general, if you guys are familiar with that rules, just a general rule of whatever something cost you the new times at times three that will basically be a dollar amount that will make you creating that and your time that it is worth it created and the amount of money that it cost you to run your studio during the time that you're creating that product, we'll make you profitable if you are time's in your cost of sales times three just just a general rule. I don't even know where her that general somebody recently said it was it was the times five, and I'm like, okay, more for that, teo, you gotta consider your market and you also consider where you are in the business, you know, it really is tough to kind of when especially getting started. To feel confident charging you know but you know your work is worth something your time is worth something you have to think of it this way what do I want to make per hour? What is my life? What is my time away from my family and my children and my you know, home worth to me work is not contrary to popular belief we work a lot but it's not the most important thing it really is and if it were in the cards for me to go on tomorrow to not have my business, I'd be okay with that because it's not my life my work is not what defines me all right? So putting a price on the hourly cost of my labor means you know, I'm getting I feel good going to work I don't feel being I don't feel good being taken advantage of my clients there was a time in my business where I did right philip you know, I was charging way too little and the work was good work, but you know, I had no business sense, you know? It was sort of like, okay, I'm just charging what I think I can get that book as many weddings as possible and when I found out was I was working my butt off and nobody was appreciating me and on top of that you're working so much that you've built a life style that isn't one that you want. Nobody wants to work, you know, one hundred fifty hours a week, so just that was our little by little soapbox right there about why, where you are worth what you're charging and more to the you, tessa earlier was telling people, look at your prices before coming and meeting you. Oh yeah, so they don't get sticker shock. I've heard such strong arguments from both sides. I'm very, very tortoise too do I put my prices directly on my website? Do I create like mice? Pdf catalogue that I send them when they contact me? Or do I just wait so I have that in person face to face and I can try to convince them to book with me. What? What in your experience, what has worked for you, it's? Been two full. We've had see we're in a market that's just you know where we live is just outside the number one of the biggest wedding markets in the world. Ok? The northern new york, new jersey areas, the jersey shore areas, one of the biggest markets. Thanks to, like, you know, southern california. Okay, so we have a range of clients that will spend way more than they should. And when your clients that don't spend enough on their weddings we applied just can't afford to spend it up so what we're finding was I would send out my I've always wanted to give my prices out ahead of time on dh there was a time when I stopped and when I stopped and people came in I was finding that more often than not they were sticker shock and they were just like way one three thousand dollars for a video it's like you know and but then on the flip side there were those clients of those people that would come in and see the work and see the value that go you know we really don't have the money but you know we're gonna go back to our parents were going to lobby for this because we really see what do we really want you to have that those are the most dangerous lines because they expect the world which is good it's okay to expect you know they want to get with what they're getting for their money they want with their promises we wanted the liver that but then it's the clients that come in and are concerned about money but just put so much value on the product and our services themselves those other clients that we've tried to book so the only way to get those clients is beyond the front say hey you know what? These are our prices you know, come on in me they see our prices and still want to eat with us we know they're serious right? And then we know that they don't book it said that point was something that we did wrong was likely right? So I'm the same way I said I have a starting range in an average client investment on my website, but then when the email me ascend the length that has a catalog of all my pricing and I just find that to lace waste less of my time and there's because I also think think of it the other way if you're a consumer in your shopping and you're busy and you're working and you're trying to plan a wedding, the last thing you need to do is spend an hour of your time just trying to get the prices out of somebody, right? So do the bottom line is do it works for you if you're booking jobs, not giving the prices that have the time and clients come in and they sit down with you and they're booking you that's great, but if you're both great is one hundred percent you're not charging enough great is eighty percent you're not charming enough if your book rate is fifty percent, you're not charging enough inhumans both great people that inquired right? Come in yeah, right, you know the people so you need to you know what? What is it easily I shoot for twenty percent. If I could book two out of ten, you know that. Inquire with me. I'm happy.