Do My Wedding Packages Make Sense?

[Brock Burwell]

I am just starting into wedding video and I am trying to figure out the best way to price my weddings. I considered only having 3 wedding packages to make things easy on my clients, but I ended up adding the $1000 package for those who only want the ceremony filmed and nothing more. I just had a bride this week sign a contract for a wedding and it was for that smaller package so I think there is a market for it in my area.

My question is, do my packages on my site (below) make sense? I'm in a smallish market (Charleston, WV) and their aren't a ton of wedding videographers in the area.

So I know this is a really tough question, but do my prices make sense? Does what you receive with the packages make sense? The "Platinum" package is where I'm trying to point people with it's price point, but I'm not sure if that's wise or not.

Any advice you can give would be great.

PS - don't judge my site, it's not finished quite yet lol

Weddings | Paradise Valley Productions

[Chris Harding]

Hi Brock

Have you actually spoken to a selection of brides and asked their opinion...your site seems to be selling the technical side rather than the romantic side ... Most brides couldn't care less whether you have 1 or 3 camera people and even less interested about how many angles you can give them. All she is interested in is her end product not your tech specs so I would tend to push the descriptions towards her asthetic needs rather than offer all this tech jargon which she won't understand...she's far more interested in what you will cover and how you will cover it than how much tech stuff you have.

[Roger Gunkel]

HI Brock,

I pretty much agree with Chris, your site at the moment has no emotion in it, but plenty of technical stuff. You really need to choose whether you are selling wedding video, or general video

Wedding video is totally different to marketing other forms of video, you need to tempt brides to your video production by pushing the emotional side of the video content. As Chris said, brides will not be interested in camera numbers, angles or how many audio recorders you use. She will want to be dabbing the tears in her eyes when she watches her video because of the emotional content. Your site wording needs to get that across, perhaps with a totally wedding dedicated section to the site with some emotive stills and video clips.

Roger

[Brock Burwell]

Yea I think you both are correct.

When I first created the site, it was created for general video (corporate, businesses, etc) but after I created my first wedding video and began to get inquires, I thought I should jump on it and make it at least have a wedding page on my site.

Do you have any particular suggestions for what I should change?

[Chris Harding]

Hi Brock

If you are married ..get help from your wife otherwise ask girlfriend or even Mom ...A wedding web site as Roger says is all about memories, emotion and such topics not cameras and technical gear to boast about. I would also look at what others are offering in your area and beyond ... don't copy them of course but see how they create the correct scenario for brides and then create you own bit of text that brides will be attracted to.

[David Banner]

Good info. I agree with the others but want to add something positive as well.
Your site does clearly and quickly show what they are getting regarding the packages.

Brides are hard-wired differently than other clients. Anyone have examples of really effective wedding sites?

[Pete Cofrancesco]

I agree with what others said less technical. I would suggest researching wedding video sites, find the ones you like then hire a web designer to create yours in that style.Remove "Professional Quality Audio" List only the features that distinguish between the packages. Unless your bronze has unprofessional audio ;-)

[Kyle Root]

Concur with others.

Also sales training - start with highest price first for packaging and have 3 clear levels.

You can see my package set up here - Kyleroot.com/thank-you.html

I make mine fill out a form to see pricing. I may change that though. I go back and forth on that personally.

[Paul Mailath]

Hi Brock,

your packages seem to make sense but I wonder if you might be better bringing the numbers down - $950 rather than $1000, $2450 instead of $2500 etc. It's been a long standing marketing practice and while most people understand that it's smoke & mirrors - it still works.

you also need to work out which one you really want to sell, and think about pricing that a little better - given 3 choices brides will usually go for the middle one.

some people believe that it's best to keep it really simple and others offer lots of alternatives - it's what works best for you - talk to and listen to your brides, any brides

[Chris Harding]

Hey Paul

Have you watched the program on Foxtel about how our brains work? They did a test at a cinema with patrons and popcorn. They had 3 sizes (S,M,L) priced at $3, $6 and $9 and most bought the middle one.

They then upped the price of the middle one to $8 and most patrons then bought the large one (they were questioned and replied because it's only $1 more) Marketing is a science it seems? Also they discovered that the human brain struggles to make a decision when given more than 3 options so based on that it's unwise to offer brides many different options! In fact I have heard a lot of wedding videographers say that the best option is to offer just one package only! You can always offer smaller packages as optional extras but it guess it helps offering a base package from bridal prep thru to the dancing as most brides choose that anyway from my experience.

Oh, I wish I was a much better marketer !!!

[Noa Put]

They had 3 sizes (S,M,L) priced at $3, $6 and $9 and most bought the middle one.

All my clients pick my most expensive package, but that could be because I only have one full option package :)

[Robert Benda]

Go with two or three packages.
Ditch the 'silver' 'Gold' Platinum' labeling.
I personally don't think the client cares about the number of cameras.

I focus on:
hours of coverage
What films I deliver

As for your selling.... write everything to focus on this: what does it do for the bride? What is her benefit? It might be emotional.

Figure out what package you want to do the most, and what price is appropriate, then make your other package(s) based on that. So, I offer three, but only two realistically get booked. The highest option is to make the others look better, and there just in case. Then I've got a half day or 6 hours and full day, or 12 hours, and I want people to book the 12 hour day. Its not really *that* much more expensive than my half day option. So far 5 out of 6 clients for next year took all day.

https://shesaidyesweddingvideo.com/w...video/pricing/

[Chris Harding]

Hi Rob

I'm sure brides don't care about technical details! Grooms might if they are tech heads but brides are the ones that usually book ...it really comes down to what coverage you offer for the price .. I have never had a bride ask me about cameras ..(neither make, number or type) I still think that like Noa one package is the answer ..if they want less, they will ask you but if you offer less they might pass you by! If you do want to offer lower packages then maybe dual branding is a good idea ..I have seen it done quite often. One website as "Ultimate Cinematic Wedding Films" which has all the bells and whistles and then "Budget Wedding Videos" if you want to target low income brides and shorter coverage. Our problem is that we offer both photos and video and do combined packages so having one package might let us lose out on a bride that already has a photographer. We also do a few live broadcast weddings so it get complicated.

[Nigel Barker]

[QUOTE=Robert Benda;1925086]Go with two or three packages.
Ditch the 'silver' 'Gold' Platinum' labeling.
I personally don't think the client cares about the number of cameras.

I focus on:
hours of coverage
What films I deliver{/QUOTE]
Packages where you explicitly state how many cameras or how many operators etc are going to be a rod for your own back if there is ever a problem with a camera or your assistant. Far better to focus on hours of coverage & exactly what the deliverables are.

[Robert Benda]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

Hi Rob

I'm sure brides don't care about technical details! Grooms might if they are tech heads but brides are the ones that usually book ...it really comes down to what coverage you offer for the price .. I have never had a bride ask me about cameras ..(neither make, number or type) I still think that like Noa one package is the answer ..if they want less, they will ask you but if you offer less they might pass you by! If you do want to offer lower packages then maybe dual branding is a good idea ..I have seen it done quite often. One website as "Ultimate Cinematic Wedding Films" which has all the bells and whistles and then "Budget Wedding Videos" if you want to target low income brides and shorter coverage. Our problem is that we offer both photos and video and do combined packages so having one package might let us lose out on a bride that already has a photographer. We also do a few live broadcast weddings so it get complicated.

I ran into complications with combining services, too. I have been a wedding DJ since 1998, and a few years ago started offering the option to book DJ, video, or both (and photo booth and up lighting). It did OK, but I like making the client's choices simple. Now I have two different companies again (though both are just me).

As for the more practical stuff, I put more info below my pricing and packages, so if they want more details, they can have it. Technical explanations, like number of cameras, are in my contract, but not on my website.