by Rob Savickis | Apr 6, 2018
Breakthrough Marketing has created marketing campaigns for event companies for more than three decades. We get a common question, which in this internet age has evolved into this: “Should we put prices on our website?”
It depends on a number of factors, but the quick answer is ‘yes’ for a typical photo booth company.
Let’s consider the pros and cons.
Con
What’s the first thing a prospect wants to know about your service? Price? When you provide package pricing on your website, you’ve made it very easy for them to shop your price. You run the risk that their shopping doesn’t end with you, but rather begins with you. What if they find a lower-priced competitor?
Pro
What’s the first thing a prospect wants to know about your service? Price? By providing them with your price you are making their shopping experience satisfying. Buyers get frustrated when getting pricing is a 2-step proposition instead of a nice single step on your website.
Con
What if you are one of the higher priced vendors in your area? You might lose the sale.
Pro
If you’re one of the higher priced vendors, you’ll waste less time with bottom feeders who’ll suck up your time hammering you for a lower price. If your website is professional and upscale, you’ll convey that you’re worth it. In other words, the look and feel of your website has to complement your price point.
Con
Your pricing is complex. Some companies, such as DJs and photographers, offer photo booth as an add-on to their other services. Is that you? Listing all your pricing runs the risk of overwhelming your prospects with too many numbers. You may not want to intimidate your prospects with all that detail. Here’s a good way to handle it:
“Depending on the package, our prices run around $175 an hour (or whatever the number). Our packages are fully customizable. In other words, we let you set the price by only including the services and add-ons that fit your style and budget. Call now for specifics: [#].”
An approach like this reduces prospect frustration by including a rough price point.
Pro
On the other hand, if you offer one service, photo booth, your pricing packages are going to be pretty straight forward. It makes more sense for you to list prices. You might even consider adding an options section, because up-selling on a website makes prospects feel less pressured than over-the-phone.
We have a DJ client offering a variety of services, including photo booth. His price point is on the lower end of the spectrum in his market area. For years, he listed his pricing on his website. When he hired us to rebuild his website, he asked us to remove his packages page to see how his site works without pricing.
The good news is that traffic to the site was great, but he began to convert fewer leads into clients. His market niche is “Walmart Brides” (nothing wrong with that, by the way), and they were price sensitive. Making them fill out a form to get pricing just wasn’t working with them.
We put the packages page back up.
That’s the beauty of your website. You can test different strategies.
A Boston photo booth company faces different challenges than one in Birmingham.
Test your prices on your website. Within several months, you’ll have enough data to know whether pricing on your website is a help or an obstacle to marketing success.
If you attended the 2018 PhotoBoothExpo, you may have had an opportunity to meet Karen and Tom Quiner. Breakthrough Marketing works with event companies in all 50 states and Canada designing and building websites. Are you ready for an upgrade? Call for a free quote: 515-276-9266. Email: tom@bmi-info.com. Check them out at BreakThroughMarketingInc.com
by Rob Savickis | Feb 18, 2018
With an audience of over 40 million monthly visitors across its network, WeddingWire has become a go to source for soon-to-be-newlyweds looking for vendors and services. With Photo Booths tied so closely to weddings, we are honored to have Sonny Ganguly, co-founder of WeddingWire, speaking at Photo Booth Expo 2018.
Sonny Ganguly leads WeddingWire’s B2C/B2B marketing strategy, customer acquisition, and community development. He is a widely acclaimed speaker, giving over 50 presentations across the globe each year on technology, marketing and strategy. Prior to joining WeddingWire, Sonny was in a management program at Wal-Mart where he led marketing, sales, and retail strategy development. Before this, he spent four years at Kraft Foods managing numerous consumer brands, including the JELL-O business, with P&L responsibility for over $800 Million.
Sonny’s topic at
Photo Booth Expo will be
Increase Your Exposure: Marketing to Millennial Couples.
He will be sharing ways that can help you put your marketing in sharp focus to better reach, impress, and connect with your target client: Millennials. Sonny will discuss how couples find their wedding professionals
today, and how you can stand out among the competition to grow your business.
Attend this session to learn:
-Effective customer acquisition strategies for Millennials
-How to stay nimble in a world of social, mobile and local
-The best technology for optimizing your marketing
Sonny holds a B.A. in Economics with a focus in Management and Marketing from The University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, where he served as President of the Marketing Club. Sonny is a founding member of NextGen Angels and an active member of the CMO Club, where he was awarded as a CMO Rising Star.
A big shout out to Dr. Drax and the Photo Booth Association for their work in bringing him to the show.
by Rob Savickis | Feb 7, 2018
Exhibitor News: First, I would like to thank HITI for being a sponsor and exhibitor at Photo Booth Expo since the beginning. Hiti has been offering the photo booth community a wide array of quality dye sub printers for many years now and continues to up the game with their latest offering, the 525L.
When HITI asked me to review their new 525L, I was especially honored as I have been using one of their earlier printers, the P510L, for several years. The P510L has proven to be extremely dependable. I use 2 of them in my business and have never had a breakdown. 5 years running and they continue to provide the same high quality output and color that they did on day one.
So, I just unboxed the 525L yesterday. Two great things caught my attention right off the bat. First, you can go 500 prints without a paper and ribbon change. Changing paper and ribbon is not something any Photo Booth operator looks forward to, especially when facing a lineup of 50 people waiting 
to use the booth. It is such a relief to be able to go 500 prints between paper changes, rather than the 330 I had been used to. The 12.8 second print speed for 4×6 is among the fastest in the market and I am thrilled that I can now buy 1000 prints for just a bit more than I used to pay for 660 prints—this has lowered the cost per print by a considerable amount.
The second thing that struck me was just how simple it is to load the paper and ribbon. I like things easy and intuitive and loading the paper and ribbon into the 525L is about as easy as it gets. There’s a simple guide right on the printer, it takes less than five minutes. Understand, of course, that I have had a lot of experience with many different dye sub printers, so while it may not be as easy for everyone, even beginners should have it mastered after just a few tries.
I look forward to many years of productive use with the new 525L and once I have had it out on a few jobs, I’ll report back on how well it’s performing—But I predict it will be just as rock solid as my P510Ls, which are still in use.
You may also like: 10 Best Sublimation Printers by Stacy Johnna
by Rob Savickis | Sep 1, 2017
On behalf of all of us at Photo Booth Expo, My heart goes out to all who have suffered tragic losses from the effects of Hurricane Harvey. Earlier, I saw a post from Julia Lewis-Martinez of www.popstudiosprops.com in which she said she will be donating 60 percent of her sales for the next week to the Global Giving’s Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund.
In that spirit, I too would like to do what I can to help on behalf of Photo Booth Expo.
For the next week, anyone who purchases a key pass to PBX 2018 using the code RELIEF will receive a $150 discount (cost is $99 rather than $249) PLUS I will donate $50 from each key pass sale (using the RELIEF code) to the Global Giving’s Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund (minimum $500 but hopefully more). On September 7 or 8 I will disclose the results and scan the cheque that will be sent the following week. To get your key pass using the RELIEF code go to www.photoboothexpo.com and select register. You enter the code on the 3rd page to reduce your price.
The Disc Jockey News Labor Day Telethon
I would also like to draw your attention to a telethon that is being produced by Disc Jockey News to help those in the flooded regions rebuild after this horrible mess! Here are the details from John Young at DJN:
The Disc Jockey News and DJNTV crews will be doing a Labor Day Telethon for Houston beginning Monday September 3rd at Noon.
This event will feature a silent auction with over 30 items (more to be listed tomorrow on that webpage.. just keep scrolling down to see full list of offerings) ranging from software, to training, and gear for your events!
The auctions open at noon Monday. You need to be registered on our website to be able to bid. You can register (or if you are a subscriber and log into our website you just need to log in) by hitting this link: https://discjockeynews.com/register/ That way you can sign in on Monday and be there to put in that last bid as the auctions close! You will notice that 4-6 items will close at the top of each hour from 7 pm central to Midnight.
You can find our more on the donating and process by hitting this link
Posted by Rob Savickis, Producer of the Photo Booth Expo.
by Rob Savickis | Aug 3, 2017
Thanks to feedback from previous year’s attendees, the 2018 Photo Booth Expo has been expanded from March 12-14 to March 11-14—and—with 400 booth spaces this show will be be nearly three times the size of the first show (which was just three years ago).
Register Now – Use code PBXSHOW2018 to get a key pass for $89 till August 15.
No more choosing one speaker over another
One of the things requested on the 2017 post-show survey was a single track of speakers so attendees would not have to pick one seminar over another. This year, there will be one primary track over 4 days, with side tracks of sponsored and 3rd party seminars. Seminars will be scheduled on the hour rather than every 45 minutes. The show floor will be open Monday from 5-8 pm, Tuesday from 11-5 pm and Wednesday from 11-3 pm .
PBX attendees will have complimentary exhibit floor access to the Mobile Beat DJ show which is just a short monorail ride away at the Tropicana.
Photo Booth Marketing: The Digital Sales Funnel
Recently added to the list of speakers for the 2018 Photo Booth Expo is Jordan St. Jacques. Jordan St. Jacques is a Coder & Tech Entrepreneur working out of the prestigious Bayview Yards Innovation Centre in Ottawa, Canada. With a background as a Promoter and Digital Marketer, Jordan is uniquely qualified to discuss how photo booth operators can use digital tools & processes to leapfrog the competition and book more gigs. In this advanced digital-marketing session, Jordan will show you how to bring more traffic to your online platforms and how to use advanced tools in your digital campaigns to generate leads, and close more clients.
