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Could you use some extra money each month? Creating a price list and making it work for you can be one of the biggest challenges you face in business. When done correctly though, it can be a great source for increasing your regular income.
In this video, I share 15 Secret Photography Price List Tricks to increase your sales.
The video includes some easy and practical ways you can make your price list work for you.
Let’s face it. If you make it easy for your clients to buy your artwork, it will increase your sales dramatically.
Video Transcript
Hey, guys. Mark Rossetto here and welcome to this video on 15 Secret Photography Price List Tricks to increase your sales.
I love price lists. I know some people hate it and the biggest challenge I have with my coaching clients is discovering your price list. It can take weeks, days and even months to develop.
In this blog, I’m going to give you 15 quick tips to increase your sales!
1. The “Sweet Spot”
Starting with tip number one: introduce something I love the most called the “Sweet Spot”. This is when you have three spots on your price list. For example $1,000, $1,500 and $2,000.
So when a client asks “how much is your photography worth?”, you can say “well, it depends on what you’d love to have”. For $1,000 you can get one 20×30 inch frame or canvas as a hero feature print in your home. Or for $1,000, you can get four 12 x 12 inch canvases that tell a story of the family – one of the family, one of the kids playing together and then each of the kids individually – and we tell that family story. Or for $1,000, you can get, say ten 7 x 5 inch prints in a mat that you can frame yourself. It’s a little bit of a DIY and a way to get more.
So, having that sweet spot in the prices, you’re then asking “so what do you prefer? A hero, a story or more of?” When they give the answer, they’re not choosing on price, they’re choosing on what they want to have. That’s the first little hack.
2. Same Price, Similar Size
The next one is the same price, but similar size. So, you can see behind me here, I’ve got a 20×30, a 20×20 and a 30×12. It’s all the same price, just pick one. Yes, the cost of goods is the difference of $10 or $20 or $30, but don’t confuse it. Make it easy for a customer to buy.
3. Portfolio Box & Albums
The next trick is to make your portfolio box and your album with the same amount of images and the same price. So you can then say, do you prefer an album you can open and close to tell a story that you’re going to have forever and pass down for generations? Or do you prefer a box where you can take the images out, hang them on the wall and add to them with additional shoots?
4. Same Price, Similar Product
Also make the canvas, the frame, the wood prints all the same price. Make it easy for your clients to make a decision about what suits their home. So, whether they want canvas, frame, the wood print – it’s the same price, just pick one.
5. The Bottom Price
Make your bottom price, your entry-level product, quite expensive. So, our prints were $250 for an 8 x 12 in a mat. Now, you’re saying, “that’s a stupid price. It’s really expensive.” I know, it is. But what it gives us the scope to do is then give greater discounts with the more they buy, because when they buy four for $1,000, they get one for free. When they buy six, then they get two for free. And so on and so on. So, it ended up being once they get 20 prints, it’s only going to be about $110 to $150 each. So, it’s shows greater value. The more they buy, the better the value is.
6. Packaging
Make sure you understand your packaging. Don’t give away your beautiful, exquisite deluxe boxes and albums in your lowest packages. All they’re paying is for the packaging. The box and album (no offence) is just packaging. It’s the images themselves that they love, so don’t give away beautiful, expensive boxes for $800, $500, $1,000 when all they need is a nice basic craft box, or a portfolio box or a sample box for that lower kind of value. When they spend $1,500, $2,000 and $3,000, that’s when they get the beautiful bamboo boxes and glass acrylic lid boxes and the beautifully designed packaging, because that’s what they value and what they’re paying for, okay? So, it’s only packaging.
7. Cost of Goods
Oh, we could talk about this for a long time. My advice for cost of goods is keep it at least, even if you’re a brand new photographer, at 25%. You can get portfolio boxes with a USB with 20 prints that are only like $60 Australian and you can sell that for, I don’t know, $500, $800, if you’re at that lower end of the market. If you’re at the top end of the market, if it’s a $200 box, you should be selling it for $2,000 at 10%. So, let me repeat that. 25% is like the max that you would do for cost of goods. 15 to 20% – you’re in a pretty good spot there. 10%, that’s where you want to be as a professional studio that’s selling beautiful artwork. 10 to 15% is where you want to be. 5%, high five to you. You’re a rock star. Now, I’m saying that you’re thinking, “5% of goods. What is there at 5%?” Five 8 x 10’s in a mat costs me $40, maybe $50 bucks. Maybe $10 each, okay? I was selling that for $1,000, so that is 5% of cost of goods. So, keep your cost of goods low and make sure you’ve got the right products to suit your price list.
8. Album Pricing
So many people ask, “how do you price your albums?” Well, you’ve got your…just say there’s 10 images and it’s $200 per image, so it’s a $2,000 album because it’s got 10 images. You want to show some value and you make it, say, $1,500 because you want to show the value of what you’re doing and that the album is a good price as well.
9. Price Reveals
“When do I give my price? When do I let them know? Do I give it at the start when they inquire, the full price list?” No, you don’t. This is how I recommend it. There’s a three step reveal for price.
10. Step One: the website. I can’t stress this enough. Put room views and products and pictures of products on your website so people can understand the value that you are giving them and showing them. If you call it the deluxe heirloom family album created with beautiful embossing: what the hell does that mean? Show a picture of it, okay? Anyway, that wasn’t the point.
11. Step Two: when they book in, give them a price like a guide. It’s the broken down price list of all the general prices. You don’t need to go through every single intricate price list option, just give them the basics. Prints, albums, boxes, wall art, collections: they’re all at this price. Then, the third reveal is at the shoot.
12. Step Three: When you finish the shoot, before the design appointment, they get the full price list. When you give them the full price list, it is then that they see the true value because they can actually physically see, pick up, touch, hold all of your products and understand the value that you are also giving. So, then when you display your price list in your studio, do it in a beautiful, designed book or a beautiful, designed folder like a restaurant, like a menu. Don’t just do it on a A4 piece of paper. It looks cheap. Make sure your brand is consistent the whole way through.
13. The Upsell
Okay, my favourite one: “would you like fries with that?” Do you have products that you can say, “would you like fries with that? Would you like family prints? Would you like something for the grandparents?” Do you have basic products on your price list valued between, I don’t know, $100 and $400, like an easy open-close book with an image on each kind of side that cost you $30 that you can sell for $200 or $300 to sell for grandparents? If you can increase your average by $200 to $300 per client, what would that mean to you? I’m sure your bottom line would be very happy and your profits will go, “wooo.” Sky rocket.
14. Add Value
You can also add value. If you don’t want to be giving away products and you can’t sell the extra products, you can kind of do a little bit of a value add. A value add product is like this slide show. It costs you nothing, it’s perceived high value, but costs you nothing to produce. You can spit it out through Animoto or ProSelect or iMovie or something like that. If you can add value to your client, it will increase your sales. “If you buy this, then I will give you the slide show as a complimentary gift from me to you, valued at $400, for free.” Add value people.
15. Easy to Sell, Easy to Buy
Now, last thing. Make sure it’s easy to sell and easy to buy because a confused mind says, “no.” So, make sure you display your price list in a really clean and simple way, so that your clients can understand your products, your price and the value, the sizes and everything else about the price list. Make sure it’s clean, simple to understand, because if it gets too tricky and too confusing and too many options, your clients are just going to tune out. A confused mind says, “no.” And they’ll think about it later.
With the 15 steps I’ve just gone through, I’ve made it really easy for our clients to choose the image they like, in the size they like, in the product they like, in the shape they like, to suit their home and style because everything’s the same price. Not everything, but for what they’re looking for, everything’s the same value. Just pick one. Frame or canvas? Just pick one. Box or album? Just pick one. Square or rectangle or circle? Just pick one, it’s the same price. Make it easy for your clients to buy your artwork and it will increase your sales dramatically.
I hope you enjoyed that. Have a fantastic day. Bye bye.
