Market Strategy
 

Well, now that the U.S. will have a Liberal Democrat for president and the house and senate are bleeding blue, what will be your strategy in the years to follow?

Will your prices go up, down, will you quit the business, or go underground and not report your income...i.e. go cash only?

Will they have to "pry your video camera from your cold dead hands"?

Dave, I'm not wanting this to turn into an ideological discussion. I'm simply stating a fact, and with that, what is your business plan? Does anyone anticipate economic issues that changes your game?

I've always viewed this industry as somewhat recession proof, however, since video is not yet considered a necessity in a lot of Bride's minds it might be the first thing to go. I've yet to see a slide off and we've had a pretty bad economy for the past year or two. We are still growing so I'm encouraged that we will at least maintain what we've been doing and maybe continue to grow. Hopefully the ever falling ceiling on who is considered "rich" won't drop to my level too quickly.

I don't know if having a democrat as president will change anything, but I don't foresee any changes to what we do and the amount of people we book. Maybe taxes will change that, but I seriously doubt that.

The way I see it, if taxes go up on small businesses .. I'm just going to have to raise my rates and hope that works.

I don't have any changes in mind at this point. I will book weddings... go to work... deliver a quality product and if things change around me, I'll be forced to adapt.

I'd like to see this topic go away.

I'm with Nathan, no matter how bad things get, or what happens to the economy... people will still get married! And, a lot of those people (I think) will still be willing to go into debt for their wedding. Yes, as videographers we are pretty low on the totem poll of priorities with most brides, but there will always be the few that got to have it all! Really, we haven't noticed any difference in our earnings since the economy started to slip, if anything it's continued to get better and better. So I'm very optimistic about the future, because if it's this good now, it's can only get better when and if the economy improves, right?

To be honest, I think a lot of the problem with the economy is that people are constantly being told that the economy is bad (media, etc.). I'm not saying there aren't problems, but when people cancel orders or bookings or whatever, and the excuse is .. well, we're just not sure what the economy is going to do .. it's silly. If everyone starts panicking and stops spending money, then we'll actually be in real trouble.

We are in real trouble, and you're right. The more people panic, the worse it can get. It's bad now. Lehman, WAMU and the country of Iceland's government banking have collapsed. Will it get worse or better? People acres smarter than I are debating that now. Answers are all over the map.

In times like this, people cut back discretionary spending because it's the right thing to do. Better that than running out of cash for food or housing.

The challenge for us, and I think the topic of this thread summarizes it well, is how we will/can/should adjust our marketing strategy to safely traverse the current economic terrain. I, for one, would be keen to know how others who do this for a living plan to adjust their business model. I prefer not to have to get a job where a key phrase is, "Can I supersize that for you for another 49 cents?"

We need to educate all brides that video is more important than photography. It's far more valuable in terms of what they pay for and what they get, especially in tough economic times.

I think we'd all agree the value in video is higher than photography, but convincing brides that video is better might be like herding cats.

Here's a thought. Partnering with a still photog and coming up with a package price for both. I know that some already do this.

It sure isn't an easy task but it aint imposible, Heck these guys have managed to do, so why couldn't we.

Video is better than photo

I have to disagree with you here .. I think the value of either depends totally on the individual in question. Some people actually get more emotional return from still images, and less from moving images. I just think we should be careful about trying to say one is a better value than the other, because they are really two different mediums.

It would be like trying to saying painting is better than sculpture.