Yesterday, I shared my thoughts on how important it is to know the average price of the weddings that you are booking. You can have a very solid pricing strategy. But, when it comes to actually booking clients… if you tend to book the lowest priced service offering, you aren’t going to achieve your sales goals.

Here are 3 strategies for correcting your low average price:

Creative Commons: flickr.com/damongman

Creative Commons: flickr.com/damongman

1.) Set detailed sales goals

Sales goals need to go beyond “Book 20 weddings in 2015.” (I hear a lot of that.) They need to look like this:

Sales Goals for 2015:

8 Top Tier Weddings @ $6500
6 Mid Tier Weddings @ $4500
6 Low Tier Weddings @ $2500

I like to take it a step further and determine how your promotional activities will achieve these goals.

2.) Quit booking low-tier weddings so far in advance

Are you familiar with this scenario: Someone hires you 18 months before their wedding for the lowest package you offer. A few months later, someone wants to hire you for the same day. (And they are interested in hiring you for a higher priced service.)

Weekend dates are limited inventory. There are only 52 Saturdays a year. And, if you are like most business owners in this industry, seasonality brings this inventory down to ~20-25 each year. If someone takes up a spot of inventory for a low price, you’ve sacrificed being able to earn more on a bigger wedding.

One thing to consider is only booking lower priced services 6 months out (or less, depending on what you do).

3.) Raise your middle tier

There is a psychologic reaction to seeing these 3 prices:

$6500
$4500
$2500

Where did your eyes feel safest? (Most will settle on that middle price.) Make sure that middle tier is where you want to be in terms of average pricing. And, if it’s not, give it a little bump. When you know you need a big bump, consider removing your bottom price and adding above your top price so that it looks like this:

$8500
$6500
$4500

And… now… where do your eyes go? $6500, likely. Interesting. Now – your clients are spending, on average, your previous ‘big ticket price’.

Pricing strategy is a little more involved than that. But, that gives you a little food for thought.

Need help with this? That’s what I do. Shoot me an email to see how I can help your business: michelle@sageweddingpros.com .