Now that you know why so many people love packages, let’s go in and share with you exactly how to set up your own packages, so that they can actually start to sell themselves. Now the very first thing that you want to do with your packages, you only want to have 3 packages to choose from. The reason why is that there is a lot of psychological reasons why, but you don’t want to give anyone too many choices, because when you give any consumer too many choices, it makes it hard for them to know which one to pick. When people get confused like that, it’s hardly a lot of times they might not pick any of them.
The second reason is if you have 3, you can strategically price them in a way that … And you are going to want actually to make the first one very unattractive. That’s just like get someone in the door, but make that your actual bottom of the barrel package that you don’t want anyone to get. By doing so, you’re going to naturally force people into that middle package, which is right where your sweet spot is. For me with what used to be our 8 hour wedding package, it came with an engagement session and it came with the digital files, but it didn’t come with an album. That brings me to the next point which is you’re going to want to have that top package there, which has 1 or 2 main pull through items that it’s going to be something that your client will definitely going to want, and the only way to get them is to either add them on your out cart menu at the bottom, or jump into that third package. Another idea is must haves, and what must haves are is you really want to make sure that you are including things into your packages that are things that your clients really, really want.
Those are going help pull your clients in to those higher level packages. For me with our wedding photography business, it was engagement sessions, it was having a second photographer, and an album. Many of those things you don’t want to include in that base package, right? Because then you’re giving people the must haves in that bottom price point. You are going to want to reserve those for that middle package, and then make sure you have at least one of those in your highest package to help pull people up into the different price points. As I just said, you want to make sure that you don’t have that base package on the bottom be very attractive, because money is going to flow to wherever the lowest amount is. If you have a base package that includes that second photographer and then engagement session, you’ll probably going to end up hurting yourself, because a lot more people are going to be booking that bottom package than you really want.
Really the whole goal here is just send them up. One thing that definitely helps is you’re going to want to list these 3 packages on your price list in descending order. You are going to want your highest package price at the top moving down to your cheapest. The reason why it’s just another psychological aspect that it’s totally natural for us to price anchor on the very first number that we see. Let’s pretend that my top package is $6,000, and then now I have a $4,000 middle package, and the bottom on is let’s say $3,500. You can see when your client’s eyes start at the top, $6,000, that’s the number that goes right into their head. Suddenly what you’re doing is that you’re making those bottom packages and really where you want is that middle, you’re making that seem like even a better deal than it really is, because they’re using that number, that first value that they had as their price anchor. Now the real key though to get people to go from moving up into these different packages is this idea called marginal value. Really the idea is simply, how much more are they going to be able to get in value, or actual price point.
The whole idea here is if for me, if the middle package is what everyone wants, but then I want to really get people into the top package too, and that’s where I have the biggest, most rand 12 by 12 wedding album that we have, but there’s still going to be a discount there. At the bottom I can show them the only catalyst, here’s how much that album is if you want to add that on down the line, let’s say it’s $2,000.
Let’s say if they ascend up to that top package, maybe it’s only next to $1,000, because obviously there is some bundle savings for them too for you to encourage them to purchase now. That’s marginal value, and you really want to have a good idea of where that stands with your packages, because when you can really make that feel like a good deal to them, that’s what’s going to pull them through and you can … The proof is in the pudding. You can say, this wedding album, if you come back you definitely you totally can, but it’s going to be a $2,000 album, but if you go on and go for this top package, you’re going to get it right now, and you’re going to save money. That’s the idea of marginal value that helps tremendously with selling packages. Lastly, to really make sure that your packages are selling themselves is you have to have sensible price gaps. You can’t expect someone to double their price and go from maybe a $4,000 package to an 8 or $9,000 top package. To really get someone to get off that middle ground and ascend up, you really want to try and keep every step of your package within the 20 to 50% range.
What that means is, let’s say that your middle package is $4,000, and to really put the odds in your favor that you can get them up to that next highest package, you would try not to go more than another $2,000, that would be 50%. Anywhere from 1 to $2,000 would be perfect, and that will get you a lot of people to make that decision to move to the highest package, because they see a marginal value in there. There you have it, you have my very best tips on how you can create your own price lists full of packages that will help them sell themselves and make you a lot more money..