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07/16/2006 03:36:06 PM · #1 |
Hi all: I have to write a paper for my MBA program regarding marketing. This is the assignment: Ask the interviewee to describe the importance of marketing to the organization and the top three marketing challenges faced by the organization.
Can any of you photography professionals tell me about why marketing is important to your company and discuss the three marketing challenges that you face?
Thanks!!! |
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07/16/2006 03:38:36 PM · #2 |
| Working on your MBA, go back to marketing 101, or even high school marketing and think about the 4 "P's" of marketing. PRODUCT PRICE PLACE PROMOTION. I think the first 3 are the most important in my business, proboboly in that order too. |
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07/16/2006 04:39:15 PM · #3 |
| UGH mrH I am looking for specifics from a variety of photographers, not vague generalizations. Details details! :) |
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07/21/2006 01:20:25 AM · #4 |
many (most) photographers do no marketing, or very little and almost none with any planning.
What kind of photographer are you referring to? Each will have a different take on this. PJ, commercial, wedding, studio - new in business or in business 10 years will make a difference too.
I know of a couple of big studios ($2 million a year in sales)and one loves direct mail the other does none. One has 4 studios, the other has 1. Both do primarly HS seniors or family portraiture. One has contracts with schools the other does not. Both have been around 30+ years.
What i see missing in the photography business is, well, business training. Successful studios are good, very good, at selling. They work at making themselves a 'brand' and market that, have a consistent product or look (lighting, BGs, etc) and stick with it, only moving slowly over time as customer tastes change.
Why marketing is important to my company? The same reason it is for any company. If you don't know i'm here, you can't do business with me.
Three challenges - being a small (one man) operation still pretty much in starup mode (less than 5 years old...less than 2 really) I am still learning what works in my market. The newspaper does work well here. One challenge I have is marketing economically to many segments - brides, families, pets, HS seniors. 4 very different markets. I have not gone after babies at all, or families much either. My biggest challenge is how to get to the HS seniors - the mall is too expensive ($700 a month), direct mail may work but it's also not cheap ($1500 to start) and one of my competetors uses billboards (also not cheap - he has 3 i know of, for 2 months - probably spent close to $6000). I have done no networking with vendors (florists, tux shops, caterers, etc). I have tried a bit, but they don't seem interested in it.
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07/21/2006 03:06:58 AM · #5 |
Marketing. I do very little.
Pretty much the only marketing I do is in the form of word of mouth advertising or networking.
I thought about Yellow Pages ads, newspaper ads, direct mail, flyers delivered myself by hand or in a flyer bundle. Really though, a lot of that stuff is wasted. I have never used a service through any of those things except maybe the yellow pages.
Basically I have found my best form of advertising myself is through word of mouth, and use of business cards at events. At a large community event shooting a "soccer party" there were probably 500 people there, and I was the only photographer aside from random parents with P&S cameras. Armed with nothing but a business card holder full of cards, and model releases for the parents to sign for their children, I got about 6 people ask me what kind of things I am willing to do and if I have a card. I was doing this event free for my local community newsletter which only has about 15,000 readers, but I find it is really worth it not only to help my community, but also my business. Those 6 business cards I handed out got me 6 paying jobs (strangely all for corporate functions). And to date, I have found 4 paying jobs just by having my name under photos in the community newsletter. I am a student, so this small volume is really nice, and gives me money to live on without having to have a typical part time student job.
I guess you could say, volunteering has been a good form of marketing myself, as now the publisher of the community newspaper has had me do a couple of paying jobs as well. They have other publications as well, and just being another photographer in their arsenal is helpful. Especially when they feel inclined to give me work over another photographer since I do work for them for free. I got paid the same rate as an established professional who has been in the industry for 25 years, and this is my first year as a working photographer. All due to a little charity work.
Networking also plays a big part. I have located some local hairstylists/makeup artists that are startups in the business, and we exchange referrals. If I need a model for something, I reccomend my networked stylists for their hair and makeup. Usually I am doing free work for these models in exchange for portfolio material and exposure, but they get 50% discount with my networked stylists. It works the other way, too. My stylists get a lot of wanna-be new and unexperienced models, as well as some well-established ones, and they reccomend me as a photographer and they get a 50% discount from me. I get (and give) quite a lot of business this way. Mostly I get established models (which is easier for me because I don't end up having to teach a person the basics during a shoot) and that works even better for me, because now I am not just taking photos of someone who is going to quit at their first failure. New models are great, I love to help them out, but if a model is already working, doing their shoots is fantastic because they will come back to me everytime.
I also have a "returning customer" policy. If you use my services once, you pay my normal rate. But someone who repeatedly uses my services will usually get a much, much lower rate. I am all about high volume, and low prices. These returning customers are my best marketing tool. They always tend to grab 10 or 20 business cards from me, and distribute them freely when the topic arises. (Usually, the people I do business with encounter others needing the same services, so it works well)
This works well for weddings, as well. I did one wedding for free, and they were happy with the results. They offered, since I wouldn't accept money, to let me display a little card holder with my business cards in it. Every single person at that wedding must have taken one of my business cards because I had to restock the holder 3 times. After about 6 months had passed I had probably 6 or 7 calls to do another wedding from someone at that wedding. It was probably because it was a winter wedding, and all the calls started around spring for summer weddings. I had to turn them all away, however, as I do not feel comfortable charging the "standard rate", and as someone relatively unexperienced I don't want to be accused of undercutting the local businesses. Honestly I will probably never do a wedding for a fee ever. I cannot justify charging 3000$ for 10 hours of shooting, and all prints charged based on what you want. I went to a wedding show, and picked up brochures from every photographer there, and that is the average price. At least 60% of them were shooting pure digital, and charged a flat fee + cost of prints. 3000$ for 10 hours of work? If an established wedding photographer does 4 weddings a month at that rate, working 8 months out of the year they'd be bringing in nearly 100k. To me, that is craziness.
I do a semi-sales related form of networking as well. I work with one particular salon that is newly established and does fine work, but does not have a huge and regular client base. Basically, when I refer a model to them for work, they give me 10% of the fee charged. They lose a bit of money, but probably have a regular customer after that. I make relatively little money this way, but develop a good relationship with them. I am hoping by the time I am finished with school in 2 years, I will have built up enough business relationships that they can fund my new career as a photojournalist. Freelance scares me, so I'd like to have some regular work as a photographer outside of shooting stories and sending them to newspapers and magazines.
My entire advertising costs at startup were about 300$ for setting up an account with a local printer to do my business cards and stationary. They also occasionally do booklets/flyers for me if I am doing a convention/show/larger function. Setting up the account was as simple as giving them the raw files for my cards/stationary, and paying for the prints themselves. I usually buy in batches of 2000 (divided amoung the items that is, so 1000 cards, 500 envelopes, and 500 sheets of stationary). So far in my first year I have spent in total about... 400$ on advertising. Not too shabby, really. I could have saved some money using a cheaper printing place, too, but I wanted a smaller, more service driven business, higher prices, but better staff.
But really my best form of advertising is someone telling someone else I did a great job, and that someone else liking the photos I took. I dare say close to 75% of my business comes from word of mouth (and not including networking).
I'm also writing a tutorial on this very thing :-)
-Hideo
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08/15/2006 04:35:08 PM · #6 |
| How is that tutorial comming? I would love to see it! (I just started a similar thread on how to promote myself, didn't see this one till now) |
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