Tradeshow Tips: Pricing Your Photo Booth, Discounts, and More!
So you've mastered your design and booth location for the upcoming tradeshow and now you're wondering about pricing your photo booth and discounts.
Have no fear, we're here to give you some good tips that'll help you know what you should offer to clients at your next expo!
Ready? Let's jump in!
Price
People tend to go to trade shows for one reason, to get a discount. So, it's absolutely vital that you offer one for your services as well.
Of course, your price must be lower and it should also be time-sensitive. Usually we discount a little-bit or we offer extra value, which we're going to talk about a little later.
The reason your offer must be time-sensitive (and when we say time-sensitive, we mean that it should expire at the end of the expo) is because people are at their highest emotional setting while walking around.
After all, they're seeing all these cool things while at the show and they must book before they leave.
But, when it comes to pricing, you shouldn't be throwing an arbitrary 20% or 30% off.
Why?
You have to take into account the costs of doing business. You want more clients, but you also don't want to end up working a job for little pay. It just doesn't make sense.
This is where it's important to add perceived value to your services. Perceived value contains things like backdrops, props, or things that add value, but have a very low cost for you.
What sounds better? An $800 rental at 20% off? Or a $1,600 rental at 50% off?
We think most people would say the latter. There's something about 50% off that triggers people's minds to say, "I need to get this right now!"
So what if you don't offer a $1,600 photo booth? This is where perceived value add-ons come in like we mentioned earlier. Backdrops, props, unlimited prints, social media upgrade, USB drives, you name it. All of these things together add up to $800. So now, your photo booth rental that was $800, is now $1,600.
That's insane!
And since all of these upgrades cost you next to nothing, you're able to offer a 50% discount, maintain your profit margins, but still sell your services more. It's a win-win for both you and the customer.
Deposits
You're likely to have a lot of people interested in booking your photo booth at a trade show, so it's important that you streamline the deposit process as much as possible.
After all, you don't want people to change their minds as they're waiting for you to figure out how much their deposit should be.
With that said, you should have a set price instead of a percentage. This will allow you to quickly collect deposits and close the sale!
Keep it simple, though. Try to do a $200 or $400 deposit, something like that.
It needs to be low enough to where the customer makes an impulse decision, but also high enough to where they don't want to take it back from you or refund it.
You may also want to consider offering refundable deposits. The reason why refunds work is because it pushes people to go forward with the deposit.
You want people to not have any setbacks, no buyer's remorse, just go forward with it on the spot. Once they've made that decision there's a mental shift that happens and then people start justifying their purchase.
In our experience, out of dozens of bookings, very few cancel their bookings. But, by not offering a refundable deposit, you may be potentially losing bookings because people aren't sure.
And that's it! We hope that this article will help you price and discount your photo booth at your next expo! Want to learn more about maximizing the design and location of your booth? Check out this article here!
Want to learn more tips and tricks on how to have a successful photo booth business?
Check out our other blog posts and our 26-Episode Video Series where you can hear from real PBSCO Photobooth owners on how they've led their businesses to success!