Not directly related to the EA50, but just thought I would ask how people are finding the current UK wedding video market to be. I have so far done reasonably okay through the recession but have in the last 6 months seen a huge fall in the number of enquiries received. My average price is around £1200 so not expensive but not cheap either. What few enquiries I do get, all want discount and over the weekend I attended 2 fayres that had very few people there. When I speak to photographers, they tell me that of every 40 weddings they shoot, they might see a videographer only 5 times. I hear that the number of people getting married each year drops by 5% and it seems to me that the number of videographers willing to shoot weddings for £500 or LESS goes up by 10% or more every year. This makes for a discouraging equation and with the infamous 'shoot is yourself' and all their millions of £'s all over google, is it any wonder that enquiries are down? How do others feel about the current and future state of the sector?

Hi James

OK, not really related to the UK but here it's pretty constant at around 30 weddings a season for me but probably the best advice to wedding videographers is "don't give up your day job" ... I make around 30% of my annual income with weddings so I don't rely on them at all ...the majority of my work is Real estate video and photography and in Perth there is probably 1500 +++ photographers and maybe less than a dozen videographers so that gives you an idea of where we stand on the bride's priority list ...someone said it was way down with the chair cover bows and suchlike which gives you an idea where our importance to the bride is. Then again I'm quite happy doing a couple of weddings a month ...I don't think I could take a Friday/Saturday/Sunday schedule every week. I find it nice evenly dividing my time between commercial, weddings and relaxing and yes, you can still make your gear pay for itself with commercial jobs and do weddings as and when they come along.

Bear in mind that Perth had 11,000 weddings in 2010 and I did maybe 30 so assuming my other, say, 11 competitors also did 30 that's only 360 videos shot out of 11,000 ... around 3% ????

Try to put your cameras to other uses when you don't have any weddings booked

Chris

Hi Chris,

I too have been pretty steady at 30 a year although I broke all records in 2010 with 42. This year, so far I have 17 booked and just 1 for 2014. 30 a year takes enough time without corporate work as well. I do quite a bit of theatre stuff but can't seem to crack the corporate market - they don't seem to want to spend the money and am struggling to know where to pitch myself. Out of curiosity, what is the going rate in Perth for a day's corporate shoot and then a 2 - 5 minute edit of an online promo?

Hi James - I have 40 booked in for this year and half a dozen already for next year - I charge a little less than you - I deliberately priced myself in the middle of the market - somewhere between the 'cheap-n-cheerful' and the 'cinematic' people - it's working for me as for the first time ever (been 5 years now) I've turned a few jobs down - I aim to deliver in 8-10 weeks and taking on more work would increase that time, which I have no desire to do.

A lot of togs say that they see fewer and fewer videographers at weddings but when I ask prospective clients 'what made you think about having your wedding videod?' they mention friends that have recently married and regret not having it filmed! I have a few booked in this year where they've got a family friend to take the photographs as they preferred to spend their money on a video.

I've attended a few wedding fayres and every time seem to get only 1 booking so I've given up on that - more trouble than it's worth - I think brides and brides' mums are just shopping for ideas.

75% of my business comes through my website and the rest through recommendations. You are right where you say corporates don't want to spend the money - when I was starting out, in order to get some stuff for my porfolio I filmed a wedding fashion show at the local Mercure hotel through a contact at a local wedding dress shop - all FOC and a 3 camera setup - they loved the result and put it on their website etc. They then came back the next year asking if I'd do it again - when I quoted them a price (my basic price which is aimed more at registry office type weddings) they declined!

I think the video is last on a bride's list, and hence first to go if running over budget, but the thing they regret not having done.

People underpricing is more of a worry for togs, as someone does not have to invest as much money on gear to set up a business (on the face of it) - a reasonable camera and speedlight and you could pass yourself off as a pro - not as easy with video taking into consideration multiple cameras, audio recording devices etc etc.

Having said that I know of a wedding recently where 2 guys travelled up from Norfolk to film a wedding using DSLRs in Yorkshire and charged £200 - barely covered their fuel!!!

Regarding 'Shoot it Yourself' weddings are concerned - what a nightmare to edit that must be!!! Also amateurs filming in churches without any comprehension of the protocols involved are giving us professionals a bad name! No wonder we get some vicars who are 'off' with us because of a previous bad experience with some idiot running around behind the alter trying to get a good shot!

How does one get in to making promotional videos for realtors ?? especially in the UK ?? I would love to do other media related work along side weddings to be honest. It may even enable me to quit my mundane day job as at the moment weddings for me are as & when I get bookings.

I must be in trouble, for me, it is my day job and has been since 2005. Most of my business comes from word of mouth, very little from the web. For wedding videos, I think I am on page 16 of google - I am useless at that stuff. Forty weddings Peter, that is impressive. I am not sure how easy it is for full timers and part timers to sit side by side, what other professions have this problem - please let me know if you can think of one. I actually think this is the main reason why wedding videography is not higher up the list. I am sure James' work is great, but for every good part timer, how many £200 merchants are out there. The industry will never get off the ground as long as this remains the case, (which it will as the poor old media students straight out of college simply can't find work - too many Spielbergs and not enough funding)

Get a good website James - Brides will def go straight to Google when looking - I've launched a second site to try and bring in more work so I can be a bit picky and spread it out over the year, instead of the scrum that is May to September

I got a wordpress site up for £300 (designed it myself though as I was a graphic designer in my former life) and £50/year hosting

You could get a site up for much less than you charge for one wedding - keep it well updated with a blog/facebook etc. I now prepare a minute highlight clip of just about each wedding for the week after it was shot - Google loves sites that are constantly updated.

Pete

Got a website Peter and blog when I can. I come up locally when searching for something like 'wedding videos leicester' but for 'wedding videos' I am non existent (or page 16 like I said). Any tips for a generic search like that?

Well - you really want it optimised for the area you work in rather than be too general - get some text on your homepage that contains the names of your surrounding areas (maybe Loughborough/Melton Mowbray/Nuneaton etc) for your blog posts include the venue name and location (for example 'Recent wedding at Allerton Castle in Knaresborough, near Harrogate') but don't include a link to the venue unless it's reciprocated - I was advised that's bad for SEO.

I also use Google 'Blogger' and have a dedicated facebook page - also a You Tube and Vimeo channel - keeping them updated is the key

The majority of my income is from wedding video work and has been for many years. I do carry out some school and music shoots but they are only about 10% of the turnover.

I also film around 30 weddings per year and keep my price under £1000 as I see 1K as a psychological barrier to the client. After almost 28 years, 60% of my weddings are recommendation, with most of the others coming from wedding shows. I am very selective with shows and only exhibit at those that I know bring in lots of brides and are affordable for a one man business.

I totally agree that the percentage of weddings that have videos is extremely low, however the number of couples that regret not having one afterwards is quite high. For me, that is the main focus of my pitch at shows, to gently explain why I think video is so important. The vast majority of brides at shows are not interested in video because they see it as something technical that they don't understand and have no interest in. You have to appeal to the emotional side of the bride, reminding her how many of her older relations at the wedding may not be arround in a few years, and how it is a chance for their own children to see all the family together. I always emphasise how emotional the day can be and how the day will go so quickly that they will never take it all in. The video is the only way they will ever see their own wedding complete with sounds and emotion.

I would say that at least half of the non recommendation weddings that I film, are for couples who initially had no interest whatsoever. It's our job as videographers to raise interest and expectation in couples rather than waiting for them to come to us.

Roger

I come up locally when searching for something like 'wedding videos leicester' but for 'wedding videos' I am non existent (or page 16 like I said). Any tips for a generic search like that?

I"m getting a lot of traffic after each wedding when I place a 2-3 minute highlights online, most of these clips are password protected, my latest trailer (wedding from 2 weeks ago) got watched 300 times on the facebook page of the couple the first 3 days. I got my first request for a new wedding from a couple that saw that clip today, so that has been working well for me.

Another major client catcher is to make a short clip from footage from a wedding but with more emphasis on the venue, like below one, one of the first thing a couple looks for is a venue and when they look the clip might appear on the first page in google as well, I also send the clip to the venue and in this case they liked it and added it to their site and facebookpage. I don't charge any money for such a clip and place it on my blog, but it generates lots of traffic to my site and secures new bookings as well.

These 2 thing definetely provide me with the most new assignments every year. Then how you appear in google doesn't matter that much, it's the couple or the venues facebook pages that do all the "seo" work for you. Many times they link directly to teh video on your site which will have a positive impact on how your site scores in google.
https://vimeo.com/49190567

I think the its really important to keep your image up to date aswell. It is good to look at your business from a clients point of view. Your website needs to stand out, not blend in. As a photographer we shoot around 40 weddings per year. In our area every second person you meet is a photographer. They buy a dslr and get a facebook page and away they go. We have to combat this by not competing with them but being different from them. Late last year we had a new website built which is "respnsive" so it looks different depeding on the screen you view it on. A lot of brides will search from there phones too so making your website appealing and easy to use on all devices is a must these days. our website is VIBE Photography - wedding photography - central coast - hunter valley - sydney - newcastle photographer (http://www.vibephotography.com.au)

As a photographer I have noticed over the last 9 year that I have been shooting full time. I went from seeing a video once a month to just a few times a year. In our area, the video campanies didnt move with the times and really struggled to get any business. Now there are next to no one shooting video in our area. This is why around 2 years ago we added it to our package as an option. In Sydney (one hour away) there are a number of really great video guys and from what I can see are charging good amounts of money and getting lots of work.

I would say spending some money on your business by updating your website and making sure it ranks well would be a good investment. Also pricing is important. Too many people put caps on there prices like I read somewhere above about $1k wedding. If you can market yourself and provide a service and product soemone wants then pricing is not as big a factor as you may think. ( years ago our base package was $600 so I know what it was like to deal with that market) Our current photo packages are average around $6k and can sometimes with video and a few extra head up around $10k so there is still money out there. Our video is only $1600 or $2500 but its still worth it for us. When we get better we will increase this. By creating a name for ourselves and a personal approach we can charge alot more. By looking after clients and wedding realted business then word of mouth will really help too. Noa's idea above is great! While in the video market you dont have the same competition as the photography market you do have the problem of people not giving it a high enough priority. This is where your image and the way you market yourself counts. When I see clinets to talk about booking us for our photography I show them what we do with video. 99% say we dont want video before they come in but we are now booking around 20 videos a year from couple looking at our photos, so the market is still there and I know people who are 100% video are getting more work then they need.

Running a photography or video business is 10% the art and 90% business.

I think a moderator should move this thread to the Wedding / Events section.

I have another question that i'll throw in which is sort of related for the full timers in this business.

How long did it take to establish yourselves when you started off?

Well what i'm really asking is after how many wedding samples (if any) being placed on your website did you start seeing an increase in inquiries which led to bookings?

I understand certain members here have been doing it for years and years so have plenty of repeat customers all the way up to 60% of the business they generate is from recommendations - but what about others? or is that the ONLY way everyone establishes themselves ... over time ?

how many wedding samples (if any) being placed on your website did you start seeing an increase in inquiries which led to bookings?

I gave 2 examples that lead to bookings and just placing a trailer on a website isn't one of them. You can't just place a trailer online and wait untill someone finds you when you start a business.

Hey James

When I started off I had one!! A friend's wedding that I did for free ... we all have to start somewhere.

I have 30 sample clips on my site but they are just clips of various bits of various weddings ..like a bridal prep, a civil ceremony, a church ceremony, and bits of some receptions. My thinking (which could be entirely wrong) is that I show the bride how I cover various aspects of a wedding and the fact that there are different people means I have experience and haven't just chosen my best clip in the last 10 years and used that!! I also like to show what I do exactly as it pans out, no special treatment just how the brides received it. That way might not be the prettiest but I never have a bride come to me saying "My wedding video is nothing like the samples I looked at" ... What they get is close to what they see in my samples.

The important thing on your site is to establish that (a) You are capable of shooting a wedding and (b) you have shot a bunch of weddings already so you do have experience with weddings

Chris

Lots of interesting ideas here, most of which I have tried. I certainly target venues as well as the facebook pages although I haven't done a short clip dedicated to a venue, so perhaps that is an idea and worth doing for free. The first wedding I shot was for a friend and even then I charged £500. Alongside that I set up my site and initially asked for £795 as an average. People found me on the net/yellow pages ( bearing in mind according to the 5% average drop per year in people getting married, there were 40% more looking back then) I met with them and showed them a DVD and it just went forward. I feel that even if you are just starting out, you still shouldn't charge too little, else you will never get your prices up to a level where you can afford to do it full time. (Similar to Peter's experience with the fashion show). It is true that we must make a B & G appreciate the importance/value of a video and that many brides regret not filming it but I am reluctant to threateningly say 'you might regret it if you don't' - it just doesn't seem appropriate. As for 'Shoot it yourself', I would shoot myself if I had to be one of their editors! Makes no sense to me, we all know that the filming bit is the easy part, I would quite happily shoot a wedding for £500 and say, here 'edit it yourself'!

James?

It might also be your price?? You might just be too expensive for budget brides and too cheap for higher end brides. I adjusted my prices by a mere $200 back in 2010 and BAM..the bookings just ground to a halt because it simply wasn't the market sweet spot any longer ...I know brides could easily afford the extra $200 but they were used to that segment of the market being the old price and anything over that price was simply a "he's too expensive ... rather go for the other guy" It really doesn't matter if you offer less participation ...as long as your price is within range of your target market ...I have no idea if 2000 in the UK is considered budget end or high end but it seems like it is the wrong price for brides ... Compare with your competitors (brides will !!) and if you seem to be out on your own with pricing then try either raising or lowering to what others are charging and bookings will change

We have to be realistic and if 6 other videographers are all charging between 1500 and 1700 and James is charging 2000 then James is disregarded .... and the same goes if you are substantially lower than say, the 2500-300 competitors.

Chris

Instead of dropping your price, raise your image. There is alwys a transistional period when you make a price change but it doesnt last.

Offer something extra like an e shoot or have a champagne viewing, when you finish an edit send the couple an invite to view it with family and friends etc. Think of some point of difference but dont get caught in a price war. Just think of ways you can add value and make sure your presentation is as good as it can be.

I think that is the problem Chris. It does seem that £1200 is £200 the wrong side of £1000 and leaves you in no mans land. I don't want to go to the top end though as generally all that means is more cameramen, lights, directors!!! My clients come to me because of my low profile, they definitely don't want all that jazz. Tricky, will leave the prices as they are for a bit as wouldn't want to upset my existing bookings. Then review in the autumn. Thanks again.

Some very good points here that I need to take into consideration.

Love the community here!!

Hi Justin and James

Whether you raise your image or not, if you are in a "no man's land" with prices it will never help. By all means raise your image, titivate your packages and then raise your prices so you are in the "more expensive" ballpark and not inbetween budget brides and higher end brides. Take a look at the car market and see how they work ..they also have a "no mans land" zone so if all the budget cars are selling around 15K and the luxury ones at 25K no one wants to look at a 20K car cos it's either an overpriced budget model or a cheap and rubbish luxury vehicle.

I find the budget market more fun and less demanding BUT I still cost out weddings at my standard hourly rate.. I just make sure that if a package is $1500 then I'm providing "X" hours of my time and effort. Believe it or not there is also a rounded off physical barrier for brides and charging 1899 instead of 1900 does actually influence their buying decision ... the retail market never sells a fridge for $700 here it's always $699 which to shoppers is a LOT cheaper!!

Chris

Hi Chris we might have to agree to disagree on this one :)

I dont think small jumps in price such as $1000 to $1200 is going to make any difference. I believe if someone likes what they see and they like you (couples need to connect with you) then they will pay what you are asking with in reason. So we cant just put any number on it we have to be realistic, but a couple of hundred dollars wont lose a sale if they want you.

The problem with the cheaper market is it is more focused on the price and they want everythng for nothing. I believe if you can move up in the price range, as long as you can show value for your product then you will book weddings.

There are couples that wont even look at a certain price range because its too cheap. The perception would be they are not good enough.

Another point and this might be more directed at photographers ( which I know is not the same) the market is saturated with competition but most of it is in the lower price point. Moving up to a higher end market also gives you less competition. The market might be smaller but the competition is also less. You cant just quadruple your price and offer the same product, but offer something unique and offer a service to go with it and if people like what they see they will buy it.

There will always be different markets and more then one way to do things. Its important to remember the true cost of running a business too. Its more then just your time shooting and editing. To work out the true cost you need to take into account equipment , computers, insurance, travel, super, software, phone, etc etc many more things. These are fixed costs that will be there with or without work coming in. Working for too little would not be worht the time and effort that goes into running a business.

Going up doesnt mean you need extra shooters or directors etc. I shoot 90% of my work alone my wife shoots the video again 90% alone.

Like I said there is more then one way to do it but if I knew in the early days what I knew now I would have moved prices much quicker then we did.

Hi Justin

Fair enough! I realise its not a hard and fast rule ..I was simply reporting on my instance and yes, technically a few hundred either way shouldn't make any difference. Over on this side of the country brides seem to place us video guys in a price bracket for some unknown reason ...I have had brides book me and be quite annoyed that the "other guy" had the cheek to try and rip her off and charge almost $100 more than me ... That's hard to argue with and I don't drop my prices ever for any bride I really don't know why they penny pinch here!

The business side is so very important!! I have had many arguments on this forum about guys doing beautiful cinematic masterpieces for a mere $2500 and then proudly tell me "This took me 60 hours to edit you know" Nice profit you made on that one dummy!! Very few video guys look correctly at the business side and actually cost out a wedding correctly ... there is no real point in working you butt off and then finding out that you are making a cool $10 an hour shooting weddings!!

(I was with a DJ (father and son) on Saturday at my wedding and he told me that he costed out his weddings over the year with all business costs included and figured they were making 52 cents an hour ... yet he still continues???)

What do you UK guys cost your time out at over there??? My costing is based on $75.00 an hour but Justin is in the BIG city so his would be higher!

Chris