value

Give Your Photography Value A Nudge

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Price is set by you, the photographer, but value is set by your customers. Your task is to align the two. You have to align your prices with the perceived value of your photography.

Perceived value refers to the benefits a customer believes they will receive from your photography. The higher the perceived value, the greater the customer satisfaction. Additionally, a higher perceived value allows you to charge higher prices. Since a strong perceived value benefits both you and the customer, it’s essential to focus on enhancing it.

While price will reflect tangible factors like your time and costs, value is subjective. It’s emotional and varies from customer to customer. Value to the customer depends on:
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Understanding Photography Pricing

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Price is set by you, the photographer, but value is perceived by the customer:

Perceived value = Expected benefit(s) – Perceived cost

where Perceived cost = monetary cost + the effort needed to make the purchase.

If Expected benefits = Perceived cost, then value is zero. The customer probably won’t buy.
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Price for the End Result

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A 19-metre-tall rubber duck floats in Toronto Harbour in Toronto, Canada, 01 July, 2017. The duck was in the city as part of the celebrations to mark Canada’s 150th birthday.

This is just another view-from-my-office photo.

Corporate customers don’t buy photography, they buy outcomes or end results. How much is that end result worth to the customer? Or to rephrase that, how much does your photography contribute toward achieving the customer’s goal?
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By The Hour

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Another basketball photo because I seem to shoot a lot of basketball. This fisheye photo was shot from my photo seat while waiting for the game to start.

This is another view-from-my-office photo.

Imagine if a restaurant charged for its meals based only on the time it takes to prepare the food. What if clothes were priced based only on the time it took to sew that piece of clothing? How about a grocery store that priced by the hour: for example, you get all the groceries you can grab for a rate of, say, $200/hour.
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Value Is A Two-way Street

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Over the past month, I lost photo jobs to photographers who quoted:

1) $1,200 for a two-day shoot in two cities 100 km apart, including 22 business portraits, 11 environmental portraits, and up to 66 finished images delivered.

2) $1,500 to photograph a four-day business conference.

3) A photographer, self-described on his website as the “best professional headshot photographer in Toronto,” who quoted $3,000 for 120 business headshots. That’s just $25 per headshot.

Whenever a customer declines your quote, ask what the winning photographer charged. Some won’t share that information, but they might if you explain that you’re simply trying to understand where your pricing fits in the market.

Was I disappointed to lose these jobs? Of course.

Was I upset? No.

What I can’t figure out is how these photographers make money.
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Photography value and quality

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When hiring a business portrait photographer or other corporate photographer, you might be tempted to shop by price. You may think that the lowest price means the best value.

With some tangible products, the lowest price can be the best value. But this doesn’t apply with services like photography and especially not when quality matters.

What’s the difference between value and quality?

Value: Usefulness or importance.

Quality: How good or bad something is. A degree of excellence.

Ideally a photograph has both high value and high quality but that’s not always the case. For example, a poorly exposed, out-of-focus family photo can be very valuable to you.
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Discard Discounts

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A photographer can’t discount their way to success. If it was possible, don’t you think every photographer would be doing it?

When you discount, you penalize customers who pay your normal price. For example, after buying a $400 winter coat, do you feel cheated the following week when the same coat is discounted 50%?

When you discount, it means you have no other value to offer the customer.

Discounting attracts price shoppers. Is that what you want? If you offer a discounted price of, say, $99 for a business headshot, then you’ll attract $99 customers. If they like your work, they’ll tell all their $99 friends and you’ll get more $99 customers.
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