- [Adelaide] Should I have prices on my photography or videography website?
- [Jay] Ohh, I will tell you exactly what I think.
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Hi, this is Jay P. Morgan and Adelaide Lawren.
And we're going to talk to you about putting prices on your website, yes or no.
I know Jay P. has very strong feelings.
- I do. If you're in the commercial photography world, if you are into
editorial advertising, a commercial work, no prices on the website, tacky, tacky,
tacky. It just doesn't work. It just doesn't serve that market. They're going
to want to talk to you and show you the project and pricing comes after that. So,
it doesn't work for that market. - No, it doesn't.
It's definitely depending on the project and what they want to do.
What is important is that you want to have your prices on there, cause a lot
of people are going to skip right by you if they don't see the prices. I don't know
if you've seen the E-surance and Geico commercials. But E-surance has hit Geico
pretty hard about having people call, make a 15-minute phone call, 'cause people just
don't call anymore. It's very, very true. So, when a lot of people see that they can
call on the website, they just, "Uh-uh." they skip you. They don't want to do that.
- They want to see the prices. So, we had this conversation with Amanda Regis
last week. In her market, in Virgina, she puts her prices on her web page because
when she does her senior portraits or that kind of work, she wants people to know how
expensive she is, because she doesn't want a lot of people that are not pre-qualified
calling her and saying, "Well, I want an 8 by 10 for five bucks." And, she wants
all those people to be off her list and not bother her by calling. So, putting
the prices up gets rid of all those calls.
- Yeah. That's a great example of making your website your sales person. And so,
what that's doing is giving you qualified leads, so you know that people aren't
going to waste your time calling to see if you can cut them a deal. They know
exactly how much it costs. Something that I really encourage is not just putting
your prices on your website, because a lot of people haven't worked with
photographers and they don't know the value they're getting. And so, I also
recommend having...showing them the value of what they get. And so, whatever
your package is, I really recommend making a visual for that, showing them
all the different things they get in it with the price and then an explanation
of what that package is.
- You know, the higher those packages are, creating a package is like giving a person
permission to spend the money. If you don't have a $5,000 package, if you don't
have a $6,000 package, no one's ever going to have permission to spend $6,000.
But as soon as you create packages in that range, then people will have permission
to spend that kind of money.
- Exactly, and a great way to price it out is to have a middle package and call
that like your best package or your best value package, or your most popular
package. And then, the one above that, is higher up, of course. And the one below
that, is lower in price. But the one that's higher in price, you can also add
at the bottom, an explanation that they can add onto this package, so that it can
go higher if you'd like. Now, it's so great about having this explanation
written out, is that now, you're helping your SEO, the Google bots and the Bing
people. They can see what's going on in your website and you can start ranking
for those things. It helps.
- Well, that's excellent. So, bottomline, should you put your prices on your
website? It depends on what kind of work you do and it depends on your market.
But I think for portraits, weddings, and that kind of world, yes. For commercial
photography, editorial photography, no.
- Uh-uh. Now, what's really important is if somebody is looking at the prices on
your website, they probably want to buy something with you. But what's so funny is
that you have to spoon-feed people so they'll do it. So you need to have a
button on there, a call to action that says, "Book a shoot. Check availability."
- You can have a calendar there that says, "I've only got these dates available this
week or this month, before we book up, so click here. Schedule your day." You know,
a lot of people are doing that now, where you have a calendar that they can book
themselves in, put their phone number in, then you can call them back and
solidify that, but a place where they can be called to action to make the decision
and to commit themselves.
- Yes, this would definitely increase leads just by asking them to do something,
then they'll be able to take action because they've been invited
to take action.
- A counter on the page, where they'll look at your prices, that shows number
of set-ins, available this month...
- Ohh, I like that. - two, one, you know, zero, you know,
is a great idea, something that creates urgency, so that they have to get
themselves on a page and book their set-in before the time is gone.
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