instafotos

The Profitable Studio weekly newsletter. Loaded with marketing tips,
success secrets, spelling mistakes, 'cuss words, odd-ball ideas and

the occasional insult. For the professional portrait and wedding

photographer.

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"Salary is a matter of self-worth and self-proclamation."
Pricing.

Every new year I create a new set of goals. One of which is updating my studio pricing, so it's fitting that we get into pricing this week.

There is a bit of an art to pricing, and there is no exact approach in my opinion.

Other opinions may differ, in that some folks believe that pricing is merely a formula, or worst yet, they believe that the way to determine prices is to look at your immediate market, average out the prices of all your competitors, and make yours a little less. D'uhh. That's about as dumb as anything I've heard.

Granted, I may look at what my competitors are charging, simply so that I can charge more. I don't want to be the cheapest or market my wares based on price.

Pricing is multidimensional and faceted. Some of the key influences are:
*the marketplace
*your ability to sell
*your product
*pacakging and bundling for added value
*service included
*branding in your community
*your self esteem and self confidence

That's the short list. In time, as part of one of th e issues of the Platinum Club newsletter I will explore this in great depth.

Here's an email I received from John on this topic:
"Hi, Can you give me any indication how relevant your marketing tips might be to my particular location? I have a studio in Jersey, Channel Islands (part of Britain). The island is 9 miles x 5 miles with population approx 80,000.

The only reason I ask is that many of the marketing strategies I have investigated (from the UK mainland) simply would not apply to a small island set up like Jersey. I don't expect you to say "Don't bother" but would like some reassurance before I purchase!

Hope you can help. Thanks John Laurens"

"John, my attitude has always been to never compete on price. Have a voice in the area. Be different. Have offers, packages, memberships, markets, and attitudes that stands above the rest. Don't worry about what the "competition" is doing. DO your own thing. You can, and should keep an eye on them, but not obsessively so. Do you do babies? children? Always been a lucrative market for us. And it leads to family sessions and more.

In our area, we're swamped with competition, including not only the dept stores, but a franchise type digital studio that offers decent, well priced sessions. We've competed head on with cool offers, affiliation marketing, newsletters and direct mail, just to mention a few strategies.

What's your 5 year goal/vision? What about the next 12 months? Always start there. Then bring a quality product combined with the right attitude. the right attitude by the way isn't: "that won't work in our area" but sounds like: "ho can I make that work here?". Start the innovation and creative brainstorming. It all starts with the right attitude.....and some ingenuity....

cool?

yours in photography,

Robert Provencher

Check out the Profitable Studio Platinum Club Newsletter


Author of 'Exposed: The naked uncencored truth to running a

successful photography business'