Alora 0:00

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm so excited today. I have a guest Andrea Shaw, and she is a copywriter for the wedding industry. And we're gonna be talking about personality-based marketing, we're gonna be talking about websites, should you list your pricing, all the things. But before we get started with that, Andrea, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us how you got started in the industry?

Andrea 0:22

Hi, I'm so excited to be here. So I, like any good copywriter, backed into my job. I worked at an agency for a while and did some brand voice and marketing and SEO and all that, but I never actually did the writing. And then, and I'm sure this is familiar to a lot of people, I had a baby and decided why not start a business while I have a baby? And I started working as a copywriter and gradually ended up shifting to work with wedding professionals because spend a lot of time online, and I love working with people who are creating this community and these experiences offline, and I find wedding pros are so passionate about just creating spaces where people can get together and creating experiences, and it's something I love writing about and just working with. There's always something new and different, and my clients are so incredibly creative. I could never do their job. I would melt under the pressure of having to capture or design someone's wedding day, but I love living vicariously through them

Alora 1:20

That is true though. I think the wedding industry is very community-based, and we're all about a good time and an experience, so you're in the right place

Andrea 1:29

My friends are always jealous when I go to industry events 'cause they're like, "You get to do that as part of work? That looked like a really fabulous party." And I'm like, "It was because

Alora 1:37

Yeah

Andrea 1:37

I know is a party professional." Yeah it's a good time.

Alora 1:40

How did you become a wedding copywriter specifically? Did a wedding photographer find you or something like that? Yeah. Oh, okay.

Andrea 1:47

total luck. It was an elopement photographer found me and we started working together and I was like, "Oh, this is amazing." And it's also those one thing leads to another, where it's like you meet one person and then someone's "Oh, I love the website you did for her." And

Alora 1:59

really?

Andrea 2:00

yeah, it just goes from there. I'm sure most photographers start out the same way. You do one and then you do

Alora 2:04

Yeah

Andrea 2:05

And all of a sudden you have a career

Alora 2:07

Yeah. No kidding. So how did you stumble upon the belief that wedding photographers need to add more personality to their marketing? 'Cause I agree with this. I was like, "Oh my gosh, somebody else agrees with personality-based marketing." What does that look like for wedding pros?

Andrea 2:23

So I think it's maybe a little bit of a shift also, like generation to generation, like people are expecting to, because of social media and websites, they can get to know their vendors better, and especially photographers. are in the room with people at these emotional moments. You're spending a ton of time with them on the day, and that personality fit really gives them confidence. It gives them just this comfort level if someone's got a personality that matches they're expecting in their day. And there's no right or wrong answer. You don't have to have a big personality to have personality. Some people really want someone who's super low-key, and some people really want, that big stage mom, like taking up a ton of space in the room. It doesn't... It really depends on the person, but having that personality I think is so vital. And the other thing is, as you and I know, there's a ton of people in the market nowadays, and having your personality as part of your marketing is what helps you stand out from the 55 other people in your market who are also capable photographers with a good client experience. But you need to have that personality to stand out a little bit

Alora 3:32

Yeah. I feel like in the industry right now, I do wanna say that there is a lot of people doing the same thing and saying the same thing, and looking the same, and I feel like that's where you're going to stand out versus having to deal with price shoppers, being compared, or dealing with the, "Oh, we went with somebody else." And literally them saying, "Somebody else cheaper," I'm like, I'm My mind is really blown right now. So what do you see, like, the future of the wedding industry with this personality-based marketing

Andrea 4:04

I feel like you're right on that, yeah, if you wanna establish yourself as this person where someone comes to you and was like, "No, we were just waiting for the moment to book you," or they get on the call and they're like, "We just wanna make sure that you're the same as you are on your website, the same as you are in your marketing," what you want, is the person to come to you, and they know they wanna work with you 'cause they've seen your work and they like it. They know your personality, and they like it, and they just, ready work with you right away, as opposed to if you just are saying the same things as everyone else, it's really hard to be memorable. It's really hard to stand out, and people are looking at so many vendors nowadays, especially with photographers. not like they got three names and they're, like, looking at three people. With Instagram and TikTok and everything, they can scroll endlessly. They can spend 12 hours looking, so if you say something interesting and something different, you're gonna stick in their mind a little bit longer than if you're just saying the same things as everyone else

Alora 5:04

Yeah. I feel like, too, when we have my students do the artist story work where they have to answer questions about themselves, they're always like, "One, it's so weird talking about myself, and two, I don't know myself. I don't know where to begin. I don't know how to have a personality-based brand." So if somebody is stuck there being like, "Okay, what is this? Is it just me showing up on Instagram stories every day and just talking about my favorite drink?" Or what does personality-based marketing really look like?

Andrea 5:34

So I think what you said about showing up, it's like sometimes you need these repeatable things, right? I think it's tempting to feel like you have to show up and do something new every day, but we have to remember people aren't seeing every piece of your content all of the time. I made an Instagram post yesterday, and I think it got like, four likes. Instagram's just like, "No, I'm sorry.

Alora 5:51

Literally hates us.

Andrea 5:53

So you have to remember people don't see it all the time, so I think it's really useful to have these little anchors, these things you always come back to and people associate with you. For me, it's like Diet Coke. I'm always having a Diet Coke. Those little tiny things, and specific things. I'm always hammering away at specificity. say you like coffee, because everyone, for the most part, likes coffee.

Alora 6:15

Yeah.

Andrea 6:15

more specific. Talk about the weird snack that you make. talk about the fact that you bought an espresso machine and you spend 10 minutes a day and that little ritual is the thing that lights up your whole life. But get really specific with it, and just try to come up with these things that stick. But your stories are also a huge part of it in terms of thinking about the jobs you've had in the past, thinking about the weddings you've worked, and thinking about your personal life. And I will say you get to draw boundaries, so not everyone is bringing everything to the table. I, for example, I'm a parent, but I don't talk a ton about it. But I still have a list of stories that I do regularly tell and that I tap into. And when a good story happens to me, I definitely jot it down and I'm like, "Okay, we're gonna come back to this later in marketing because it's really useful."

Alora 7:03

Yes. Oh, I used to do that. I used to do voice texts in my notes anytime a story would come to me while I'm driving. Also can't find that, so find a better way to organize your thoughts. But I think that stories sell way better than anything else, and I'm curious about like your approach to storytelling, because the thing about wedding photographers is you literally get paid to be yourself, like, shoot your best work, and take care of your clients. Like, it's actually the best job ever. So how would people go about sharing about themselves that doesn't feel, like, icky or braggy or awkward?

Andrea 7:41

I would say, first of all, it's really easy to feel like you're the main character in everyone else's life, but you're not. Everyone is the main character in their own life. It is okay to A little bit because they aren't thinking about it as hard as you are. Like, we all are like, "Ooh, should I share this? I don't wanna seem braggy." But it's no, at the end of the day, if you're qualified, if you're experienced, you have to share those stories. And what I usually do with my clients is we start way back when. We'll go through childhood stuff. We'll go through previous jobs. We'll go through... I'll ask them what their toxic trait is. I'll ask them all of these questions, And you can find questionnaires like that out there. Honestly, sometimes I think starting with just a chain mail survey like we used to get back in the old email days will start triggering some things. you like, what you don't like, what was really informative in shaping you as an artist, what shapes the way you approach client experience. And think about maybe sometimes it's a bad client experience you've had as a customer yourself that has shaped your perspective and why you do what you do. But there are stories behind this. You just need to sit down with yourself. I'm a huge advocate of grabbing a pen and paper, or a voice note, depending on... Do both, because sometimes different things come out with different methods, too, is what I

Alora 8:56

True

Andrea 8:57

And start just thinking about all the different factors, all the different people, all the different experiences that shaped you and made you an artist, a business owner, just the person that you are. And I know a lot of photographers tend to start with the first time I picked up a camera story,

Alora 9:14

Yes.

Andrea 9:15

the reality is that occasionally there are some super interesting stories there. Sometimes people do have a really interesting story about past experience with that. But sometimes we need to go a little bit deeper, because everyone has that story. A lot of times with my clients, we find another past job that they've had that tells this entire story about how they approach their work. It shines a light on their expertise. I worked with a wedding photographer who had worked for a company that did retouching, it was like an ethical retouching approach. So they would do retouching for photos, but they wouldn't do dramatic, I think like weight loss retouching or something like that. And that really shaped her eye and her perspective, and she really wanted to share that story on her About page so that people would get a sense of, yes, she's gonna make you look your best, she's also not the photographer who's gonna change how you look completely. And if you want that, you can find somebody else to do it. And that's another really important thing about showing your personality. We all kinda get scared and back away because we're like what if it makes someone not wanna work with me?" It will, and that's okay, because the people For you will find you. But Do you really want the people who don't? appreciate your personality. I think a lot of times it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking we wanna work with everyone, and the reality is you don't want to and you can't because there are too many people anyways

Alora 10:40

You're like, "Actually, you don't even have the capacity to, so get that out your mind."

Andrea 10:44

Yeah, no, we don't. If you think about everyone getting married who can afford you in your area, if they all booked you, you'd be doing 17 weddings a day,

Alora 10:52

no, literally. Yeah, I think I just realized that going into ads, so realizing how many people there are in the world, and I was, narrowing down just in my area. I was like, "Oh, we're still at a million." Like, this... So you really don't need everybody. Let's, like, dive a little bit back here because there were some things that really triggered my curiosity. But do you have to do some, like, mindset training for people that kind of deal with, "I don't want to repel," or, "I don't like feeling rejection if people say they don't wanna work with me"? Or are you able to get them confident enough to say, like, "You know what? We're gonna put this messaging out there and attract the right fit clients"?

Andrea 11:30

So the nice thing is when you do the personality work in your website copy, usually then by the Land in your inbox, you're not getting that, like rejection outright. They, if they're not for you, and you're not for them, they just the tab and they move on. And you don't have to deal with that so much Person. But there is definitely a shift that people make. Everyone, people come for website copy for different reasons. Sometimes people have more leads than they want, and they want to narrow down the leads they receive and get ones that are just a certain market tier or who want a certain approach. One thing I'm hearing a lot lately is people telling me they want smaller weddings. They wanna do a more intimate wedding where they can focus on photographing, a smaller number of people, and they don't have to deal with the logistics of a 300-person wedding. So we can show that in your copy, and in the photos you choose, of course. There is a sense of yes, you need to do a little bit of mindset work. If your goal is purely more leads, then that's where the mindset shift comes in that, yes, in theory, showing your personality might make some people say, "You know what? This person isn't for me." But it also will make some people who might have overlooked you think, "Oh my God, I love her. I really wanna work with her because her work is amazing, and I feel like she's someone that I could have a glass of wine with, and we could have a really good time." Whereas if you're not showing any personality, they're not picking up on how great you are

Alora 12:55

Oh, that's so good. And I agree wholeheartedly as someone who built their entire business around a personality brand. When you find those right fit clients, you're like, "Can we be best friends? Like, I know you're super wealthy, but, like, we could hang out." And I actually would go out to dinner sometimes with my clients and have the best time. I'm curious about diagnosing, like, a specific messaging problem. So for example, if people aren't getting inquiries, what kind of messaging problem is that versus the person who's having too many inquiries? 'Cause you're saying, like, they'll hire a copywriter if they're like, "I'm getting too many weddings, and we wanna like, be more specific." But if they're not getting inquiries, are they not being specific enough?

Andrea 13:35

Yeah, a lot of times I think that's the case, that they're not being specific enough, that they're not showing, talking about their style enough, that they're not focused on client experience. And a lot of times it's easy to fall into the trap of looking at someone who's a super successful wedding photographer and saying, "Oh, they just have images on their website, and they're booked out, and they're in Vogue, so maybe if I do the same thing." And the reality is goes on behind the scenes in their business is completely different than what goes on behind the scenes of someone who's trying to their prices to $8,000 or something like that. And so what you need to do is think about a little bit more, giving a little bit more copy. For me, I'm an SEO girly, so it's also making sure you show up in search. If you are not getting enough leads, I would always tell people focus on SEO, build a blog, think about it is not gonna generate 1,500 leads the first month. That's not how SEO works. It's a long game. And same with showing up in ChatGPT or Claude or any AI search engine people are using. It's a long game, but then the results start to pay off over time. I know Experimented with ads, and that's another way that if you have a website that's gonna convert, that'll bring more people in, but you just wanna make sure that your website then gives them all the information they need so that if they click on your ad and they're like, "Oh yeah, I'm interested," leave them hanging. Don't make sure they have enough buttons to click, and that they've got enough information to take the next step with you, whatever that is, whether it's requesting pricing or booking a call to sit down with you or something like that.

Alora 15:09

Yeah, I agree. I believe that your website should be like your 24/7 sales system. And I was thinking like about a student when she was raising her prices from, like, 3 to 8K, and she was looking at all of the famous 10K-plus photographers. She's "Okay, but their websites don't look good." And I'm like, "That's not the point. They probably have wedding vendor networking systems. They probably have planners seeking them. You don't.

Andrea 15:32

Yep

Alora 15:32

Okay? we're crawling and climbing for our leads and inquiries, so you just put your best foot forward, and then when you're famous enough, you can dial it back. Like, that's the beauty of putting in the work and then reaping the benefits later

Andrea 15:44

Yeah, absolutely. there's a lot going on behind the scenes. they get referrals too. Once your name is in certain circles, it circulates and circulates. trying to get to those circles, you have to do it a little differently

Alora 15:55

So what would you say to somebody that's "Okay, I have a personality-based brand," and they probably feel like maybe it's too much because they're getting chaotic weddings or rowdy weddings. They're like, "Actually, I kinda wanna dial it back a little bit." Like, is there such a thing as having too much personality or being too loud or too obnoxious where it doesn't come across as professional?

Andrea 16:17

I do feel like if you share a few too many spicy takes online, and especially if you're sharing stuff about clients online, like complaining and that sort of

Alora 16:25

Oh my gosh.

Andrea 16:26

it's

Alora 16:27

Yeah.

Andrea 16:27

vibe. I would recommend people don't do that. I would definitely say there's ways to fine-tune, right? If the weddings you're not getting, or if the weddings you're getting don't represent the kind of work you wanna do, that's always a balance between copy and images, because I think the images on your website play so much of a role also in the work that you get in the future, and you want the two to be in sync. So if you're talking about intimate weddings on your website, if you wanna do weddings that are 50 people and under, don't then have the hero shot on your homepage be this, zoomed out wedding where there's 300 people. Like people take Account as much as the words. Maybe more. The words are the supporting context, but the images matter a lot. I do think you can like sometimes lean too much into... if you're finding that you've leaned really hard into having a big, jokey, showy personality and you're not getting the kind of weddings you want, dial it back from a 10 to a 7 and see what

Alora 17:20

Yeah

Andrea 17:20

You know? And yeah, just it's, marketing is an experiment, so I always, I firmly believe if you're not getting the results you want, whether it's too many leads or the wrong kind of leads, try it a little differently and see what happens after a month or two.

Alora 17:33

I love that we're talking about positioning, which is, like, my favorite bread and butter, but also websites. So I know that we were gonna talk about listing your pricing on your website. Should they do it? How should they do it? What are your thoughts about it?

Andrea 17:48

I am very pro listing your pricing on your website. I will say, if you... I always include this disclaimer. If you are booked out at the price you want with people you like and you don't show your pricing, I can't tell you to change that. If it's working for you,

Alora 18:03

Sure

Andrea 18:03

stops working, consider showing your pricing. But for everyone else, so much time on Reddit reading what people are saying about the wedding industry right now, and they are so frustrated about not being able to find pricing. It's the number one thing. A lot of them will say outright, if I can't find some hint of pricing on your website, I'm gonna close it and move on." Now, they don't expect a line by line, accurate, this is exactly what you're gonna pay. People are, most people, I will say most people, are sensible about it. They understand that you're not gonna be able to give them a detailed price without some information from them, they wanna know, if they have $5,000 budgeted for a photographer, they make that work with you or not? That's the question in their head. And what's really interesting is I see it even at the super high end of the market. Someone who has $30,000 budgeted for a photographer, they will still be asking about people 'cause they don't wanna go and inquire with someone who charges 60 or $80,000. Nobody likes the vibe of having to say, love you, but I can't afford you," on a call or Like that. It's painful. Who likes that? You don't... Nobody

Alora 19:13

Yeah.

Andrea 19:13

to do that. Imagine if you went

Alora 19:15

It's embarrassing, I guess, when you think about it

Andrea 19:17

yeah, imagine if you went to Nordstrom, and you gathered a bunch of clothes, but they didn't have price tags on them. And then you had to go up to the counter, and they were like, "Oh, this is how much it costs," and you're like, "Oh, that's not what I was planning to spend. Let's put this back." I think that's how they approach it. I also feel like the current generation, it's just like a shift. It's not just Gen Z. It's millennials too. We are used to having pricing at our fingertips. I feel like 25 years ago, you didn't, people didn't have their pricing on their website. You had to call them. You had to get a quote. Can you imagine, like white,

Alora 19:48

no.

Andrea 19:49

and all that, call,

Alora 19:50

That's literally terrible.

Andrea 19:51

and...

Alora 19:52

No, thank you.

Andrea 19:53

But they're used to having information at their fingertips. They're used to being And see what a flight costs, what a, a moisturizer costs. This is just another item on their to-buy list essentially

Alora 20:03

Yeah. It's almost like you're turning people away that are probably willing to move their budget around just to work with you. But because it's nothing, it's like I don't even know what to compare this to. I don't even know what your starting rate is. I don't, I have no idea what to expect. I don't know the average investment. So, that makes sense. It's always made sense. I've always been pro pricing. Not the full package and delivery, 'cause I feel like at that point they can price shop themselves out of it, But there needs to be something on there. Yeah. Why do you feel like people don't list their prices? Have you heard?

Andrea 20:35

couple reasons. I think people are afraid of price shoppers, that if they put their price on there, someone's gonna look at it, and then they're gonna go and find someone else who's cheaper. I have also heard Say they don't want their competition to know exactly what they charge,

Alora 20:48

OMG. Andrea, please.

Andrea 20:51

is interesting. I, but I also think that it's ultimately hurting you. I can't quite understand why behind it, if the competition knows what you charge. Yes, they might undercut you in theory, but in practice you should have a brand, and you should have marketing that makes it hard for people to go with someone just 'cause they're $500 cheaper. You want someone to say, "I'm gonna book Allura because she's awesome, and it's worth paying 500 extra dollars to work with her, or 2,000 extra dollars to work with her," whatever it is. But those are the two main ones that I've heard, is they don't want price. They don't want the tire kickers who are just like, "Oh, the lowest price." But those people, we're never gonna get rid of them completely. I always tell people, "We can put pricing on your website. 100% eliminate those people." They're always there.

Alora 21:37

I'm gonna be there

Andrea 21:38

try it too. They will go through your form, and they'll say, "I only have 10% of what you charge. Can I work with you?" And at the end of the day that's something... I'm sure that KT Mary still gets people who fill out her inquiry form, and they're like, "I have a $10,000 budget," and that's just not what it costs to work with her. And I'm sure she has to Those people out too

Alora 21:59

Yeah. It's almost like you're just trying to avoid any situation, like any negative situation, but then you're putting yourself in a negative situation where you're losing potential inquiries and losing potential couples that probably would've been a good fit. I feel like for the competition part, that's might just be more, like, of a scarcity mindset, because if we're doing our personality-based marketing, then there is no competition, essentially. Yeah, maybe they charge the same rate as you, and you guys came up at the same time, but have you both shot the same amount of weddings? Have you guys invested the same amount in gear and you know, coaches? I think there's just so many variables that just go into pricing versus being like, "Oh my gosh, they copied my pricing." You know what I mean?

Andrea 22:41

Yeah I do agree. There's a lot of variables, and like I said, you also don't need to put a fixed price on your website. Usually what I recommend for people is a minimum or a range. That's what I do with a lot of my clients, is the average couple spends between X and Y with us, That gives you a lot of wiggle room because obviously a 25-person wedding versus a 300-person wedding, they're not gonna cost the same. You're gonna have

Alora 23:06

Yeah

Andrea 23:06

associates, you're gonna have to do all this stuff. If you do film, if someone chooses a film add-on, that's gonna cost... There's a fixed cost. film and pricing is a whole other ballgame because I do feel like that's an area where the current generation loves film, but they don't really understand that there's a fixed cost to film, that you can't negotiate away the cost of physical film and developing and all that. In any case a range is really the best way I like to do it with my clients, and I usually think of it as don't put your absolute lowest number at the bottom of the range. Give yourself a little wiggle room so that if someone really cool comes in, but they're slightly under that bottom number, you can be like, "You know what? I'm still good to work with you." If someone reaches out, say you charge 8,000, and someone reaches out and says, "I can't do more than 7,000. Can you work with me?" And you look at, and you say, "Oh, this is a venue I've always wanted to photograph." Yes. You've given them a little bit of wiggle room,

Alora 24:00

sure.

Andrea 24:01

because there are reasons sometimes to dip below your average pricing. It really depends on the situation

Alora 24:07

I had situations where a couple was getting married, and their budget was lower because her mom was sick, and she was gonna pass away soon. And I'm just like, "Absolutely, I know it's the weekend of Thanksgiving, but we'll make it work." And come to find out, she was, like, a Teen Vogue model and I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm so glad I got to do this." You just never know. Pricing is so variable. This that could be, like, a whole hour topic, honestly

Andrea 24:31

it could. And I will say that I recommend, like experiment with it. If you don't have it on your On for... Give yourself a little bit of time. I would try three months to actually gather some data, unless you get a bajillion visits to your site every week anyways. But give

Alora 24:45

Yeah

Andrea 24:45

some time, gather some data, and see what happens. If you put it on there, do your inquiries go up? Are they good inquiries? That's the other thing. what happens, and if it doesn't work, you can take it off. I'm not here to tell you that if you get data showing that it gives you terrible leads, you should keep it on there. But I do feel like you are missing out on some people who can afford you, but they don't see a price, and so they move on. They just, they don't wanna deal with the juggle. They are working and trying to have a social life, and balance all these other things, and the last thing they want is to have to contact people for pricing, or they're so afraid of getting on a call and getting a hard sell. That you will be like, "Okay, here's my pricing, and I'm not gonna let you go until I have your credit card." They're terrified of that

Alora 25:31

Also that's happened to me, and it's the ickiest, like, it's the most disgusting feeling ever. I was like, "Wait, I thought this was free, what's happening?" So, I mean, I wanna go back a little bit because I'm just curious. You said you've been on Reddit. Like, what are they saying about the wedding industry in general? I want some spicy takes. I'm here for it

Andrea 25:49

Okay, so I feel like one thing that's going on is, in general, I've noticed people don't know what anything costs in the wedding industry. If you think about Up in your feed Instagram or on TikTok, you're getting these beautiful influencer weddings. You're getting these Vogue weddings. They're gorgeous. also cost an enormous amount of money, People are like, "Yes. That's what I want." But they don't understand. There's no price tag on them. Even the thing I think of a week or It was a couple weeks ago, the Euphoria wedding, where the one character is like, "I want $50,000 worth of florals," and then florists were like, "Okay, that actual wedding was $150,000 worth of florals." So now everyone has this number in their head, and that's not achievable for that amount, and I think that's one thing that's really happening a lot, is that people are shocked when they find out how much things cost because just don't have context. There's no... And people don't see that many average weddings in their feed. They don't see that many $50,000 weddings in their feed, and so it's all these lavish, beautiful... the florists get the worst of it, I think, because Any idea how much florals cost. But that's one thing. I do see some people still promoting the idea of the wedding tax, if you say wedding, costs more, which it might, but for good reason. There's usually a reason why it costs more if it's a wedding and I don't need to go into detail, but you know all. You know that.

Alora 27:21

Yeah, totally

Andrea 27:22

What else do people say? I think the algorithm on Reddit and elsewhere tends to surface negative stories, so people are just scared about hiring someone and they won't show up or booking a venue and then the venue gets sold and they won't honor the contracts that they have and that sort of thing. Those stories, news has them. TikTok has them.

Alora 27:46

I was gonna say TikTok,

Andrea 27:46

TikTok loves, and it it's what gets attention. You don't...

Alora 27:49

Yeah

Andrea 27:50

TikTok doesn't go viral if someone's "Here's my wedding, and it was beautiful, and I had a great time." If you're Becca Bloom, maybe it does, but everyone else, it's like the average wedding doesn't go viral like that. One more interesting thing I've noticed, going back to pricing, is that people on Reddit and on TikTok are compiling spreadsheets of quotes they're getting and sharing them with other people. Yeah. It's really interesting. So especially, I think that happens a lot with venues because if you think about a corporate venue, especially if it's a hotel owned by a bigger group like Marriott, they don't put, a lot of times they don't put pricing on the website, and you have to fill out, RFP form and all of that. And so some people are like, "Okay, here's the quote I got," and they're putting together spreadsheets so that other people can get a sense of "Oh yeah, this I'm not gonna bother. It's too expensive," or, "Yeah, this is in my budget." that's really fascinating, that people are it goes back to pricing. If they don't see it, they're starting to reach out to their network. And the problem with that is that you don't... What I always say is when you don't share your own pricing, you lose control of the narrative. So Of yours that ends up on a spreadsheet like that could be two years old. It could be the price for the cheapest wedding you've ever quoted. That, like that one you said where you made it work for a couple on a special occasion, and Price that's out there. So that's a reason I really recommend putting it on your website because then you are in control, and you have the accurate, up-to-date pricing on your site.

Alora 29:15

My mouth is dropped.

Andrea 29:16

Yep. People are organizing. They

Alora 29:19

Like,

Andrea 29:20

It's

Alora 29:20

it's, it is. It just leads me back to that statistic going around that this is, like, the information generation? how to plan a wedding. Here's the venues, here's the photographers, here's the videographers. Like, subject to change, but I just, I could not imagine, like, my two-year-old, three-year-old pricing being listed somewhere in a spreadsheet,

Andrea 29:40

Yep

Alora 29:40

and then people making a decision. But you're saying this can all be avoided if you just list your prices. Like, that,

Andrea 29:45

Exactly.

Alora 29:46

yeah

Andrea 29:46

Thing, if you have your prices on your website, people still might pull a quote, but it might be like, I don't think there's anything really wrong with showing that if you got quoted and you say, "Yeah, here's what's included in the package. This is the quote I got. I had this number of people," and all that. But just having that range of pricing on your website gives someone some context for that, so that Someone says, "She charges $15,000," they can go to your website and be like says her average price is 9 to $12,000, so maybe that person wanted all the bells and whistles," or something like that

Alora 30:14

Yeah. Okay, question. Because I was doing pricing audits, and I remember seeing a range. Our prices range anywhere from 4K to 50K. What? Okay, 'cause my brain was like, what? How?" So is there a range?

Andrea 30:32

I'm not...

Alora 30:33

You're just like, "Oh my God."

Andrea 30:34

this a photographer?

Alora 30:35

This was a photographer,

Andrea 30:36

Okay

Alora 30:37

they're also thinking about video, and they're also thinking about hybrid, so it's all three. And there's also the possibility of Super 8 and film. And as a person with wedding industry knowledge, that broke my brain. I was like

Andrea 30:52

Yep I'm trying to compute that one.

Alora 30:54

Okay, yeah. Just take your time.

Andrea 30:56

I'm thinking like the low end. So one thing I tell people is, if you have a price for courthouse elopements or whatever that are like two hours, don't put that at the low end of your range. Separate that out because Want the person who's having a perfectly average 100-person wedding to see the court, the courthouse elopement price that's two hours of coverage and be like, "Yes." people latch on to the first number they see. So that's one thing. Thinking, okay, if your lowest end of your range is like those exceptional really small weddings that you do, I wouldn't include that as the low end of your range. I feel like there's context needed. Just putting that range is okay, I have... They're gonna leave with more questions than they started with. But if you frame it with a couple sentences that say, "Our, range from $4,000 for one photographer and six hours of coverage to $50,000 for a large wedding where we bring photo, video, content creator, super 8 film," like whatever all it is. They just, people need a little bit of context, 'cause then they might look at that number and be like, "Oh, yeah, okay, I get it now." But I'm, you can always give a little bit of context. And I play around with different things for different vendor categories too. With planners, I sometimes talk about like maybe the budget doesn't make sense because $300,000 looks very different if you have 30 guests or 300 guests. So sometimes we'll talk about per guest spend or something like that. There's different ways to contextualize pricing, but I do think some context helps if you have a very broad range to give them an idea of what they're getting into.

Alora 32:30

Yeah. My advice for them was just to give out certain pricing guides that actually tailor to their inquiry because that slapped me in the face with confusion. I like that too, of just like providing context and be like, "The 50K is actually for everything we've ever offered in the entire world."

Andrea 32:46

Yeah. A team of

Alora 32:48

For...

Andrea 32:48

and a

Alora 32:49

Yeah.

Andrea 32:49

24 hours on your

Alora 32:51

Exactly

Andrea 32:51

that sort of thing, and that's reasonable. But, and I know some people even expand this into a blog post. Go a little bit more Here's three sample weddings we've done. Here's what a 4K wedding looks like. Here's what a 50K wedding looks like. Here's what a 12K wedding looks like. And it down a little bit so that people can get a sense of that. You can definitely expand on that in other areas. I've seen some people do really phenomenal marketing on Instagram or TikTok too, where they are breaking things down. Photographers, it's a little trickier because the deliverables aren't quite as easy to show. But I've seen, I think, a designer do a tablescape, and they broke down every element of the tablescape, and then showed what that would cost per guest. What it costs when you do these candles, what it costs to rent the linens, the plates, all of it. it was really beneficial for someone who's planning the wedding to be like, "Okay, this is beautiful, and now I know it costs $125 per person to have my table look this good."

Alora 33:48

Andrew, you just gave me the best idea. For everybody listening to this podcast, you're welcome. But since people have no idea well, the average person doesn't really have an idea of what things cost, it only makes sense to create SEO rich blog posts that kind of answer that question and walking them through your process. And if this is the information generation, then put out more information so that they're well sold before you have the conversation anyway. And if your prices are listed on your website, the only question is, "How can I work with you?" at this point

Andrea 34:18

Exactly. And you can even do, you can get creative, as a photographer, I would encourage you also to talk about pricing for photography. But also if you wanna create blog posts people read, talk about how much a wedding in your area costs. Talk about what they can expect to

Alora 34:33

உம்

Andrea 34:34

on different categories. I have a planner client who's done this, and she gets so many hits because based in Napa Valley, and a lot of people who come to her area are from out of town, so they have no idea how expensive things are.

Alora 34:47

Sure.

Andrea 34:49

And she has this blog post that breaks down like you might expect to spend this much on florals, and it's all ranges based on her experience. But if you create content based on overall pricing expectations too, then they go to your site and they're like, "Oh, okay, so she's really informed. Now I can go look around the site." Anything you can do to get them to your site, and reading about you, and seeing your photos, and intrigued about working with you. And then if your site's designed to convert them, i'm so pro blogging. I- it's so unglamorous, and it works

Alora 35:24

Yeah, but you're a copywriter, so aren't you kind of biased?

Andrea 35:27

100% biased. And then also I'm biased because as a copywriter, it is hard to create as exciting of content on Instagram and TikTok because it's do you wanna see pictures of my screen? It's not as exciting as photographers who have all this beautiful material to work with

Alora 35:43

That is true. I do feel like to your point that you mentioned probably a half an hour ago, that you were saying that the images really do support the copy. I'm heavy on picking the absolute best images that work for what you're trying to do, images that are aligned with the client you want to attract, but those images need to actually speak, I think, to, like, a specific feeling, a specific moment, or something more attached to what you're trying to put out there. And I don't know. I feel like when it comes to blogging as well, like, I think in the past you just posted a wedding, posted their story, and the vendors, and that was good enough. But I feel like now you need both education, and now you need the visuals. Now y- like, you need a lot more information I'm seeing. Now a question I have before we close this out is what would you have to say for people who have destination weddings, though? Because, maybe they travel, but th- they don't probably travel as often to all of these different countries. Like, how would they even educate their couple on the expected expenses of a destination wedding? Isn't that something they could've, they should know?

Andrea 36:49

Yeah, and I feel like that's again where you can blog about that a little bit and give some examples like, "What does it look like to hire me to travel to Costa Rica? What does it look like to hire me to travel to Italy? What are some examples of what the

Alora 37:02

Do I like that?

Andrea 37:04

Blog about it, but also do include some of that on your page when you're talking about your services. And just make sure also, they wanna know, I think with travel, people wanna know at what point will I know the final cost, right? So make sure when you're talking about your process, maybe in your frequently asked questions section, let them know that, "When I send you a proposal, it'll include my travel costs." Or at what point are you deciding these travel costs? Because I think that's a big question mark for people, and nobody wants to be, like, surprised by fees that come in

Alora 37:37

Yeah

Andrea 37:37

And that's a general rule for any kind of copy that you're creating, is make sure people know what to expect with your client experience. So they know what to expect in terms of when they're gonna get a proposal or when you'll be in touch with them in between booking you and the wedding. Give them a little taste of that. Don't just say, "Reach out to me." Say, "I, I will give you... We'll s- we'll get on a call. We'll talk about your wedding. Once you have a destination fixed, we will adjust for the final travel costs." Or maybe you're brilliant and have it all worked out, and you don't even need them to have a destination. You just have a flat fee, whatever. But make sure they know, too, to expect that because, again, they have so much going on in their head that the last thing they want is to be sitting there and be like, "Okay, so when was I gonna get that proposal again? This person says this." They don't wanna be... also, the other thing is they're the information generation, but they're also the quick response generation, and they really wanna hear So that's another thing that plays into it.

Alora 38:35

How quickly? Like less than 24 hours?

Andrea 38:38

So what I tell people, and this is for my systems people that I work with, I like to have like an automated email that goes out to people I recommend my clients do. Like one automated response, and then just let them know too some contacts, because I think it's not always logical for people who work a Monday through Friday, 9:00 to 5:00, that you might not be in the office at certain times, or they work a Monday through Friday, 9:00 to 5:00, so on Saturday they're looking at vendors, and they send out And it doesn't always occur to them that Saturday at 3:00 PM is not when you're gonna be responding to an email in busy season. So make sure that they know what the expectations are, even if it's just saying in that automated response, "I'll get back to you within 24 hours. I'll get back to you within 48 hours about my availability." or maybe you have someone who's handling your inbox, and then they can get back to them even quicker, which is such a wonderful thing when you can do that. A lot of my photographers who have scaled their business are, have someone who's just in the inbox handling these things all the time. Because if you do respond to people quickly, I think you'll see more of those turn into inquiry, or those inquiries turn into calls and turn into clients.

Alora 39:48

Yeah, I agree. that's why I always had the HoneyBook app on my phone because I will be, like, at an appointment, and I will respond in 30 minutes to an hour, and they'd be like, "Wow, thank you for responding so quickly." I'm like, "Early bird, early bird."

Andrea 40:00

Yeah, unfort- like, do I wish it weren't true? Absolutely. Yeah I wish we weren't all glued to our phones all the time, but It does make a difference, for people it does make a difference, and it's worth just angling to get that. If you are your business, two, three more clients a year can make a real difference, and if this is the thing, if

Alora 40:18

Yeah

Andrea 40:18

quickly is the thing that gets you those three more clients, then I would say it's worth it

Alora 40:23

Oh my gosh, Andrea this was such a good podcast. I had It has gone so many places and circled around so many. My favorite was about the Reddit, but I really do like how they all played into each other, because if you have a personality-based marketing, and you don't have to really worry about, comparison so much, and then listing your pricing, the way your pricing is being listed, and just so many things, and just realizing in the wedding industry that the people who aren't, educated on the wedding industry, we're so used to it because we're in it. But people who are like, "Oh, I'm getting married for the first time," maybe they haven't been a bridesmaid 10 times, 'cause I have. I've been 12. I literally said I'm retired, actually. I will not be

Andrea 41:04

essentially, like

Alora 41:05

a bridesmaid-

Andrea 41:05

the movie. That's amazing. Yeah, but, and even sometimes when you're a bridesmaid, you don't always know what people are spending. You know what the dress costs, you know what, but like,

Alora 41:14

Sure

Andrea 41:14

all the time. I don't, I was just in a wedding, and I don't really know, like I, I know general budget, but I don't really know the cost of everything. You

Alora 41:23

Yeah.

Andrea 41:23

I don't know what they spent on They had beautiful flowers, so

Alora 41:26

They had beautiful flowers.

Andrea 41:28

it. was worth it

Alora 41:29

and I feel like, too, with the way, inflation is happening, like these are just... It's not like complaints or excuses, it's just the reality,

Andrea 41:35

Yeah

Alora 41:36

And so people just don't really know what to expect anymore. So maybe if people are asking questions, it's not offensive. Maybe they actually just don't know. They're not being a difficult client, Not everybody's trying to probably get a deal. So that, that was interesting for me to hear. But Andrea, please let us know where connect with you work with you. Tell us all the things. You got something for us?

Andrea 41:58

I do. Come find me on Instagram and Threads. I'm AndreaShawCopy. I do post on what I'm finding on Reddit sometimes too. I post little

Alora 42:05

You should.

Andrea 42:05

and that

Alora 42:06

Yeah

Andrea 42:06

so that you can get insight into what people are thinking, because anonymous and people will say everything, and it's really super beneficial. So I do post about that. And then if you are interested in working with me on your website copy, you can come find me at andreasaw.com, and I would be so thrilled to work with you and bring your personality out on the page and get you more of the clients that you're gonna love working with

Alora 42:27

Yay. Ugh, this was so amazing. I feel like everybody who listens to this, their mind is gonna be going like, in so many directions, but such good stuff. I feel like I'm actually gonna take a listen to this again. So thank you guys so much for listening. Have a great rest of the week.