Have prices on website or not?
 

I have been debating on taking my prices off my website, will this help generate more leads? My prices are very reasonable, so thats why I figured I would put them up. I have been watching my webstats, lots of lookers, but not a lot of people emailing or calling. Dont get me wrong, I am still getting jobs.
Just wondering if you have done better without having prices on website.
thanks in advance.

I think the question is not how many more bookings/enquiries you will have, but what sort of person are you when it comes to business.

For the 4 years I've been doing this, I've always always had my prices shown clearly on my pages. That's because I want people to make their own decisions on my clips and my prices, and then phone me. At that stage, i'd say 90% will book me there and then.

But maybe you aren't so busy/lazy(!) and feel you can reel them in on the phone when they make that first phonecall. Personally, I don't work like that - I dislike being a salesman (formal or informal) and reeling people in and pushing them for higher packages. But I am not in the slightest saying that is wrong, just that it's not me. Some people are VERY successful at reeling all enquirers towards the top package. But the negative side is, you'll take a LOT of phonecalls, and face rejections (yep, there's always brides asking for the £500 budget package!)...whereas I never get that = easy route? :)

something to think about!

Hi Andy

People are basically lazy and most will not bother to email you for prices. Not showing your prices can also tell a bride "if you have to ask the price, then you can't afford me" That's fine in affluent areas but doesn't work for most of us!!

I get clients who will even book on the phone because they tell me "your site has all the information I needed to make a decision"

Up to you but I like to give the client enough information to be able to almost make a decision become she contacts me!!

Chris

When i started, i didn't have the prices listed, but after countless calls of brides and grooms just to ask the price range, I gave it up and posted the price list;
I can't tell if I get more, or less bookings, but I certainly get less useless calls, and as Richard says, 9 out of 10 callers are booking with me.

Very subjective topic here... If you are doing something unique that no else is doing in your area, or country for that matter, people will want YOU not your prices. If you are charging a lot of money for your packages you should probably be a better salesman, have a sales script, etc... I lean more towards the side of not posting prices, but that all depends on the quality and uniqueness of work you put out, IMO. There are guys like Chris P. Jones who does not post his prices and then guys like Joe Simon who put only the base prices down... why is that?

What kind of marketing are you doing? What kind of people are you marketing to? Does your brand represent a high value?

Just things to think about...

awesome, thanks guys! I have my prices on my website, but wanted to get some feedback. really appreciate it.

Yes to prices. Or at least what we do which is an indication.

Sure, if you remove prices your enquiry rate will increase, but youll spend a lot of precious time talking to couples who most likely simply cannot afford you.

You can have your full prices listed, but then your risking people being put off before you get a chance to do your sales bit to them or your locking yourself into a fixed price.

We have an indication to the price. So if were way out their budget people dont have to bother. But if the price sounds ok then they can enquire to find out more. We've managed to upsell our higher packages a few times by doing that.

I think no prices is always a mistake. I know that from personal experience if im looking for something then I want to see at a glance roughly how much it will cost. If there are no prices listed then that instantly says to me "Must be expensive, wont bother asking".

Back when I shot weddings I had virtually everything a bride needed to make her decision on my website: prices, samples, even a copy of the contract to download and view. 90% of my bookings happened over the phone with no "sales meeting". I hate sales meetings and will do anything to avoid them.

Now that I'm doing mainly corporate videos and events, it's much more difficult to have all the info available on a website. Each project is different and needs a personalized quote. So now I'm back to sales meetings...

I find that most brides want to meet me in person and I'm basically selling my personality just as much as my product. So I say "No" to prices on my website. Besides, I don't charge the same for a wedding that is 5-minutes away from my home as I do for a wedding that is 5 hours.

Whether or not to post prices on your website depends on a number of factors.

Are you competing on price or product? You have to ask yourself this question honestly. If you're competing on price, then it's a no-brainer ... put your prices on the website. If you're competing on product then you have to look at some other factors.

When we started out we were offering a product that was a step above everyone else in our area, and our pricing was also a step above. We chose not to list our pricing because we needed to get people into the studio and try and sell them on the product first. It was a very successful strategy as we often booked couples who would have never called us had they seen our pricing first. So you have to consider your product and how your pricing compares to your competition, as well as how your market is educated in terms of your product. It may very well be more advantageous to leave your pricing off for now and encourage studio consultations.

On the flip side, we are now providing our starting rate on our website. Why? Well, we've become so popular in our area and are getting enough referrals and inquiries both locally and nationally that it made sense to start qualifying couples before we got them into the studio. We typically spend 90 minutes or more in a consultation (keep in mind we're also presenting our photography services) so it made sense to eliminate any consultations where our starting price was an issue for the couple. Could we still book some of those couples that are getting scared off by our starting rate? Sure. But the key is that in the last few years we don't 'need' to book those couples. If they don't book, another couple will book in their place. So in the interest of maximizing the use of our time (consultations), we now pre-qualify by listing our starting price on our website. We also further pre-qualify with a phone call, but that's another topic entirely. d;-)

Travis, what if a bride emails and asks your prices? How do you respond? I don't post my prices because I also want them to see my product. If I posted my prices, the bride would never come see me. Thank you.

If a bride emails and asks for pricing, we reiterate our starting price and explain that we provide complete information on our packages and pricing during our in-studio consultations. For 9 out of 10 brides this is fine and we just schedule an in-studio consultation.

For that remaining 10% who replies and still asks for complete pricing by email, we simply explain that we don't email our complete pricing information out because the products and services we offer are very in-depth and we need to have them at the studio for them to get the most out of it. About 50% of the time this results in a consultation booking, and the other 50% of the time we never hear back from the bride. We're okay with that, because if a bride is so hung up on the prices/packages and isn't interested in meeting with us in person, she's probably not a good fit for our studio.

I should add that when a bide contacts us by email we also have their phone number 99% of the time. So we always follow-up by phone first if at all possible. On the phone it's much easier to ease the bride's mind and get her to commit to an in-studio consultation. Email is just set-up by nature for requesting information and not connecting personally. You must genuinely care about the bride and develop a personal connection when you're on the phone with them.

Travis, thanks for the response. I don't post my prices, but do send them when they ask. I'm going to try your approach of telling them my starting prices and that's all. When they email me, they don't always give me their phone number. One bride did give it to me and I called, she responded "I'm at work!" and hung up. It amazes me at how some of them can be so mean, even though they reached out to me first.

You're fortunate. Imagine what you would endure if you got the job from someone that rude.

On the more serious side, it's always a good idea to ask if it's a convenient time to talk when you call someone. If someone is preoccupied or busy, they may resent your timing and react harshly. It's also a good idea to indicate that you are responding to their email, phone message etc. rather than just jumping into your pitch. Some people automatically put up a defensive wall when they smell a sales pitch.

Sure thing, Michael. We use contact forms on our website that have a phone number field so most of our brides provide a phone number by default. Sometimes they don't, though, and when that happens we send them a very polite email expressing how we can't wait to chat with them and would like them to provide a number we can reach them at. It doesn't always work, but it works enough that it's worth the extra effort.

Trust me, we all deal with brides that are abrasive and rude and whatnot, and it's no fun for sure .. and luckily they never book with us so it's all good. d;-)

Also, Jim is spot on about calling people. It's always a really good idea to double-check that you've caught them at a good time. The last thing you want to do is start talking and not realize the bride's boss is expecting her in a meeting or something. Besides, even if the time is right, it makes people feel more valued and important if you check that they aren't too busy to talk.

That's some great advice Travis! I'm most definitely going to pick up the phone before I hit the reply button from now on.

Last year we had our starting price of $3000 on our website. It was nice because our consultation to close ratio was 95%. So far for 2010 we have been experimenting with NOT having any pricing information on our website. It's been working out quite well! Although our consultation to close ratio has lowered to about 75% our total number of bookings are higher. We have gotten WAY more inquiries, and yes a lot of them are on shoestring budgets and are crossing their fingers that we are going to be in their price range, but I think it's been good because it has given us the chance to educate a lot of brides who otherwise would have been too sticker shocked to even pick up the phone or fill out our e-mail form... many of them have been able to see the value in our product and have booked.

There are two kinds of phone calls. There are those that start with "How much?" and then there are those that start with "Please tell me you have my date available!!!" You are ALWAYS going to get the "price is most important factor" brides, it's just a question if you want the opportunity to educate them that "you get what you pay for" or not. Like Travis, I pre-qualify my brides by giving them an idea of "what most brides tend to spend with us", but usually follow that up with a quick little spiel about how we would love to give them a complete breakdown of our pricing and "incentives" in a consultation at our studio. It seems to be going pretty well. I think eventually we will end up going back to having a starting price on our website as we are almost full for 2010.

There are many differences between the various markets we all in this forum serve but one thing seems common and that is that far too many clients make price the first consideration. I think, this is, in part, due to the fact that far too many people think that a moving picture on a TV set is television, especially if it's them in the picture, and make no value judgement about what we all consider quality.

A second reason is that as video producers we're far too low down the decision timeline. Why photographers are so high and we so low is beyond me and don't even ask me about the brides who put a chocolate fountain, harpist and flowers from Hawaii ahead of us - when in all probability they're on a diet, tone deaf and allergic to pollen.

We've recently tried to do something about it and whilst it's too soon to judge the effectiveness we've got editorial in a bride mag, editorial on the bride mag's website and local press editorial too. The idea is DVD wedding invitations. OK, I know the fact that we have an on-camera teleprompter from our corporate days helps but otherwise I reckon it's a couple of hours work, and 40 DVDs - and we have our own duplicator.

If the extra work is the downside, on the upside it means the client decides to buy us much earlier and as far as the work's concerned, it happens well in advance of the wedding and can be easily fitted in with other stuff. We're looking at other ideas - we've already added a 3D Video section (vows, promises and exchange of rings) with playback at the reception without wearing daft glasses either! (though of course 3d doesn't advance the timeline) - if anyone's interested I'll post them here once we've launched.

Hi Philip

I have always been impressed with your advice and marketing skills and innovative ideas but for some reason I never bothered to click on your website.

I have now and wow!! if I was a bride I would be impressed!! The other companies wouldn't stand a chance!!!

If one takes all the extras you provide that normal videographer's dont, then yours must be the best deal in the UK!! Your marketing skills are excellent and yes, we do seem to be low down in the "pecking order" and it's about time that changed. The Invitations are a way to make things like that happen and only for a small cost.

Keep up the good work!! BTW: Is that your pic on your website (not Nikki!!) with the white hair??? I thought I was the only wedding videographer in that age group???

Chris

Chris, there are three grey haired people pictured on the website.

One is a charming lady Vicar who rose in my estimation when she asked a stills photographer (pink shirt, high price and high self-opinion) to leave the church because he was intruding on the ceremony.

The second is Canon Ted Crofton of Eccles parish church, part of whose excellent homily is to remind couples that people have been standing on the same spot, making the same vows as they just have, for over 800 years.

I'm not them and I've been grey for years!

Hi Philip

Good one there!! The lady Vicar now rates high with me too!!

I was actually referring to the two pics on the features pdf file..the lady on the right must be Nikki and I just assumed that the guy on the right with the fig rig is you???

It's just nice to know that the industry still has some of us oldies left !!

Chris

Sorry didn't mean to be coy. Yes the old bugger is me!

I'm a big believer in having the prices on the site. If a potential client loves my video work and knows that my prices are within their budget, they have already qualified me as a vendor that'd potentially like to do business. As a result, my booking rate is about 85%.