Cheapo Videography = Headache for All
Question: It is a very competitive market producing wedding videos where I live in Chicago. To get the business, I’m thinking of seriously undercutting my prices to beat the competition. Average wedding videos are $1500 to $2500 depending on the package. I want to offer a simple, single camera shoot package for $500 for 8 hours of work. Is this a good strategy?
Answer: When you undercut the market so severely you shoot yourself in the foot not to mention achieving other negative results. We’re going to let Scott Bourne, Publisher of Photofocus.com summarize. He touches on some good points in a recent article geared for wedding photographer’s but it can also be applied to wedding videographers as well. He mentions:
a. You cheat the client. This is the worst point. That’s right, the client who’s once-in-a-lifetime special day has just been handed to the cheapo wedding photographer is not going to be well-served. A true professional has skills that Uncle Harry doesn’t. The better the skills the more longevity in the business and the better the chance the client is going to get images they want to come back for.
It’s impossible to run a sustainable business over the long haul, deliver good quality and care for the client at lowball prices. I’ve been around a long time. I’ve seen dozens of businesses fail using this model and more importantly (and more to the point) have seen dozens of brides’ wedding memories ruined by photographers who had no business being there in the first place. There’s no do-over on a wedding. It takes a decent budget to get a decent result. Good reliable gear with backups cost money. Training cost money. Quality wedding prints, albums, books and gallery wraps cost money. If you sell a bride a cheapo wedding DVD with packaging that falls apart because you couldn’t make enough profit doing the cheapo wedding shoot, how does that serve the client? These are people’s lives you’re messing with. What could have more value than the wedding album – the first family heirloom of a brand new family? Think about it.
b. You are selling yourself short. If you do it on the cheap, you are probably losing money or coming close to it. Maybe you’re working for minimum wage once you pay your expenses and grunt out a few bucks for yourself. You’re worth more than that. Have some self-respect. Don’t whore yourself out. Ask yourself, “Am I really only worth $8 an hour?” Pricing is the hardest part of any photo-related business. But it’s called a job because it’s hard. Don’t be lazy. Get training in how to competitively, fairly and appropriately price your products. There are lots of resources out there. Learn. Apply. Do. Don’t decide you’re not worth it. I think we’re all worth it. We deserve to be fairly compensated for our time, our education, our practice, our overhead, our gear, our licenses, our insurance, our taxes, our cost of goods sold and everything else that goes into doing it right. When you devalue yourself you leave potential business on the table – cheap weddings/portraits are just that, poorly executed products. The single biggest mistake most new pros make is under-pricing, not under-exposing.
c. You’re dragging down an entire industry. If you come into the market as a weekend warrior and start selling cheapo weddings against established businesses who have already set the industry standard, every cheapo wedding you shoot diminishes the industry. You’re participating in self-destructive behavior which is against your own interests. How can that be smart?
Scott goes on to say:
In closing, remember this – photography is an incredible career field if done right – if you get the reputation for being cheap you won’t last long – because you’ve got nothing to fall back on. Develop your skill set first, then your marketing, then launch with a product that has the value it should and more importantly value that will last – cheap candles burn fast and they’re gone.
Scott, we couldn’t have said it any better.
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A great article with clear advice about the drawbacks of lowballing on your prices.
However, I’d like to make a point about charging low prices when starting out, since that’s how I built up my business (whether or not you may approve of this method or not…)
I was a newspaper photographer that started out advertising low prices ($500-$800) for wedding photography and videography. It got me enough jobs to build my portfolio and experience. I also felt that I was serving those customers who were hard pressed for a $500 videographer and let’s face it, there are many in this economy that are going to have a friend, family member or “lowball” videographer do their wedding simply because of price. (And, they’ll get a poor quality product for what is one of the most important days of their lives.) In my case, I felt that I was providing a level of professionalism beyond Uncle Al, though still a novice wedding videographer, but I was also helping a couple meet their budget and remember their special day.
Four years later, I’ve grown my business and pricing structure considerably to match what most videographers charge in my market. But, I think the important thing in charging so little when starting out is to be transparent about the reasons you are charging only $500. I was clear with each couple that I worked for that I was in the beginning stages of building my wedding business and portfolio. I showed them the small sampling of past work I had done and asked them to review it carefully before trusting me with their wedding video. They always seemed to appreciate that and I was hired on the merits of what I was capable of up to that point.
I’m not going to come down on anyone who chooses to “lowball” as a means of starting out in the business, but I despise false advertising. If you are entering the market with unbelievably low prices, be clear about WHY they are so low so that you aren’t dragging the rest of the professional videography market down with you.
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