Nice photo Robert. I look forward to seeing it all the time.

Dan,

I too am new to this forum, and so far it seems very intelligent compared o some others.

Discouraging though, is the fact that the last reply to this section was 15 days ago! I personaly feel this should be one of the hottest sctions.. Marketing is one of those things that we need to understand and almost all of us can improve on...at least I know I need to.

I live it Corpus Christi, Tx, but have had to travel to Chicago and Houston 3 times in the past 4 weeks! I love Chicago and we are thinking of relocating there around January, but there and Houston, and cities of the like, are not my idea of a desination wedding!

If I'm traveling to shoot weddings, I'd prefer it to be to Hawaii, Bahamas, Virgin Islands, etc. Never hurts to dream, right!?

I guess what I'm getting at, is that if I had a better grip on marketing, I may not need to leave my city as much I am needing to. Also, moving to a bigger, better (IMO) city, I'll need to really buckle down and market to the clientelle I want to attract.

I consider myself to be pretty good at what I do, but when I see guys here in Corpus that are clearly at a beginner's level charging $1,000 or less and being booked ALL THE TIME, it gets to be a little discouraging. So, you could be the best photographer in the world, but if no one sees your work, how much business can you get?

Well, I hope to see some more threads in this section, so I can learn something new every now and then. I've spent so much time worrying about equipment, post processing, lighting, and so on, that I never took the much needed time to get a better grip on marketing. Now I'm scared to death about it!

Thanks for your post Dan..

Thanks Dan for great info on this post

Hi Dan, thanks for a thought provoking post.

As a relatively new studio owner, I am always looking for ways to cut costs while expanding my level of service to the client. One example is proofs. It is too easy to come out of a family portrait session with 100 digital exposures because first they want one daughter's family, then the son's family, then with the family dog, then the entire family with grandparents, then just mom and daughters and granddaughters...we have all been there. The problem I find is I present the client with so many images they have a difficult time deciding which images they like best. I am now using Lightroom to rate each image and reduce the numbers to a few of the best shots, then post those images in a low rez format on a website instead of printing proofs which not only enables everyone in the family to see them at their convenience, but eliminates the cost to me of printing. Most clients like the concept of web-based proofs.

However, the problem I encounter with wedding or family portraits is all the interested viewers have their own opinion over which images are best for enlarging. The decision making process is suddenly taken out of the hands of one person and put into several. I like eliminating the cost of proofs, but get frustrated at the time delays involved while everyone discusses each image. Any suggestions on how to streamline the process so a decision to purchase is reached faster and easier, or does offering more options just naturally breed this situation and I need to accept it? I do use printroom.com for event and wedding purchases, but have kept tighter control over individual and family portraits. Maybe I should consider treating them more like I do weddings and events?

Thanks for your time and advice,

Tom Brooks

Aloha All!

Thomas, I feel ya, bra! Not sure this is a "marketing" disscussion, but, what the hell, eh?!

Personally, I think the more images, the better! More sales! Also personally, I refuse to post on a website for proofing! As you said, Thomas, it takes forever to get an order that way! I've only posted images to a website once...only got one small order from it and it took a month! That's CRAP!

Here's how I do it: If it's a Studio session we go right into the viewing room after the session, or I send them away for lunch and we do the previewing soon as they get back. If it's on location, I have the client come in the next day, or the day after...as soon as possible.

I start with a slide show of all the images, then we go through them ALL, 2 at a time to narrow it down to their favorites of EVERY pose. I think you need to keep control of the preview session and make them choose one or the other of every 2 images. Then when we go to the next pose, even if it's the same group of people and just a different pose, I only show that pose.

After going through all of them this way, I'll put their picks up on the screen and ask if they want to narrow it down further. Before I was using projection, I did it the same way on my 22" monitor. Usually at this point they like everything that's on the screen, so I ask for the order. "What would you like of each of these?"

Since I've been projecting previews, at this point I ask if they would consider decorating the walls in their home with portraits, and which ones they would consider for that. When they tell me, I then show them those images at 40x50, then 30x40, 24x30, 20x24, 16x20...and by the time I get to 16x20, they usually stop me and say, "Oh, that's too small!" Uh Huh!

Before when I used paper proofs...back in the days of film...I had to make an appointment for the client to come back in a week or 2 weeks to preview. The excitement isn't there 2 weeks after the portrait session! There's no urgency to order. A former apprentice of mine has been using a website to post previews, and it's been driving her crazy waiting and waiting for itty bitty orders. Not my idea of a good business model.

All my best!

Do you know your numbers? (all numbers posted below are ballparks of my numbers - your's may vary)

What are your overhead costs for the year? What are your average variable costs for what you sell? What is your average sale? What is your average add-on sale (online sales to wedding guests for example)?
How much do you spend on advertising, percentage of gross sales?
What part of your business is the most profitable? (families, babies, weddings, seniors??) In hard dollars and TIME too! How much do you spend marketing to get each client in each category?

Here's why you want to know! To shoot a wedding to the proof stage costs me 15 hours, $75 for an assistant, and $15 for marketing wallets at the reception, plus some gasoline.
To do an album costs me perhaps $250 in materials and 5 hours of time.
The first part gets me $900, the second $1500. The second part is WAY more profitable. Shoot to burn? No way in hell will I do that as it's not profitable.

So a complete package costs me 20 hours and $400 for an average of $2200, or $1800 net profit.

What does it cost me to get that wedding? Hmm...bridal shows, handouts at the shows, mailings, websites (beyond just my own), client meetings (not all book of course), album samples, framed prints, etc. $3500 for a year perhaps (off the top of my head) I do 15 to 20 weddings a year, but this 'season' I've booked 5 for 09 and 7 for '08 off the bridal shows/mailing/web this year. That's 12 bookings for $3500...nearly $300/wedding! (Industry average in the USA is $200 BTW). I suspect I'll book 4 or 5 more this year and haven't mailed to the last bridal show brides yet, but that's in teh dollar total.

But that makes my net per wedding $1500.

Overhead last year for me, exclusive of rent (home based biz) and marketing was $13,000. So if all I do is 15 weddings., that's $900/wedding in overhead costs (yeah, I spent a LOT on gear - call it growth /startup phase costs). Still, $1100 a month is nothing if you have rent and utilities in your costs. My net per wedding is down to $600. And to get that I spend 30 hours/wedding - BUT I have overhead time - book keeping, marketing, planning, etc. I guess that to be 25% of my time, so 25% of the income must go toward paying that. Now I get $450 for 20 hours of time...$17.50/ hour. And from that I must pay my income taxes.

HS seniors...I don't shoot as many as I'd like. This year I'm kicking up the marketing bug time. Why? My numbers tell me to!
A shoot/projection proof/edit/package takes me 8 or 9 hours. My average is $800 and cost of goods is just under 17% (again, industry average for all photography studios, the cost of goods sold is 20%) So I net $664, but I can shoot 2.5 seniors in the time it takes to shoot a wedding, and there is no travel, and my cost of marketing to seniors is low (probably too low which is why I don't have as many as I'd like). I think in '07 I spend $400 on senior marketing to get 8 seniors - $50/head! My net profit for the same hours of work on seniors is $1534. less 25% OH time payment and divided by 20 hours of work...$57 an hour!

So I can spend my marketing time/money on weddings ($17.hour) or seniors ($57/hour).

Unfortunately, seniors is a shrinking market around here, photography wise, with all the soccer moms out there competing with us 'pros'. It's the same in the lower end of wedding photography as well. I lost a wedding this year i'd like to have had to an $800 shooter (but no album).

For seniors it's selling the experience as much as the photos. Create a buzz and they'll tell their friends. Photography is changing - it's not just the pictures anymore as one person pointed out - "I can pay you $800 for senior pics and i have pics. I can go to bestbuy and get a rebel kit for $800 and have pics AND a camera!"

So what do you need to make, net, in a year, to make a living? Lets take my numbers as an example.
$60,000 after costs is my goal. If I net $900/wedding I need 67 weddings at an average of $2100/wedding. (again, going with averages - a typical wedding budget is 50% on the reception and 10% on the photography - a few phone calls will tell you what weddings in your area cost, and therefore what your price point, should be.)
Don't know about you, but I can't shoot 67 weddings. So I can hire photogs to do it for me, but then my $900 drops to maybe 400/wedding. So I might need 100 weddings. Now marketing and the business model are changed completely! And your gear will wear out quicker so your costs go up a bit.

Let's reverse the numbers - $60,000, plus $13,000 in overhead and we want to shoot 30 weddings, our variable cost is $400/.wedding so that is 12,000. $85,000/30 weddings so we need to average about $2850/wedding.

Lets say $2950 and 500 in costs - we'll give the bride EVERYTHING - 30 side bridal album, 2 parent albums, printed 4x6 proofs, a calendar, HiRes on DVD and a framed wall portrait. We only need one package. Offering a loss-leader package, while tempting and an oft used business ploy, may kill us. Say a $2400 deal with no parent albums or DVD. In a price concious market we may sell too many of those and kill our average. So lets add an $3450 package..but what to add to that? An engagement session, photo guest book maybe...

That's my thinking or 2009. I just have to get my photography and @ss-kissing, I mean customer service, up a bit to be the upper middle in my market.