I am new to the whole business world. I haven't taken any business classes, so please answer accordingly.

I am wondering what percentage of my sales should I be spending on give-away items such as albums or free prints. Specifically, I'm wondering about bonus or incentives levels. If the clients spends $x, then they will receive y for free. What percentage of x should I spend on y? Or am I looking at this all wrong?

Thanks for any input.

Smile

Smile, I hate seeing questions go unanswered, on any forum, but I really don't have an answer for you either. If you charge high enough up front, then you may be able to give a little more away. But remember, it's a business, and no matter how much you want to be accepted, and liked as a kind photog, you still need to be compensated for your time.

It all goes back to percieved value again. If the client FEELS like they are getting a bargain, then they will probably spend more. So, giving away a couple of free images, like 8x10's, is cheaper for you than giving away a free sitting fee. If you give away the free session, you're not getting paid for your time, and there is no guarantee they will buy anything.

Good luck figuring it out!

Jess

Good point Jesse. I am starting an executive portrait program where the incentive is to have the company book a certain number of portraits in a day--the incentive is an extra image--not a discount like I had originally planned--much better "goody" in their eyes [I hope] and no out of pocket moneyfrom me [either in coming or out going].

Aloha Smile!

Of course it depends on the market you cater to, but some portrait marketing gurus say to never give away prints! And there are many who have seen a big increase in their bottom line by offering incentives of various types.

I've heard and read that little things like key rings, picture frames and the like make good incentives.

What I've been doing for the past year or so is to offer Portrait Collections rather than keeping the Creation Fee completely separate from the prints. For example, I offer a "First Collection" which includes the Creation and the first 5 - 8x10 portraits prints. From there I offer a 15% discount on additional portrait orders. This has been working pretty well for me.

On another topic: Projecting> I think it was you who asked to be kept updated on this, so I had the Sanyo projector demoed here a couple weeks ago, and am expecting mine to be delivered tomorrow. I've framed a 40x50 blank white canvas to project into, and I'm finishing the mounting setup today.

I haven't had time to learn the software yet, but I've downloaded the ProSelect studio workflow software and will be playing with it as soon as the projector gets here. I'll let ya know how it goes and what difference the projection makes in sales.

All the BEST!
SPC II

My approach is going to be based on past experience and techniques I have learned from operating a service based company and heading up 4 different fund raising events.

1. Assign 10% of your profit to promotion and price accordingly.

2. NEVER DO ANYTHING FOR FREE. That said... anything you give a client should have an advertising slant and should always have your name and contact information on it.

Suggestions

* Key rings that have a picture of the subject on one side and your studio contact information on the other side.

* Small 4 X 6 framed shots that have your contact information on the backside and your name on the picture.

* Doing small community events where you can donate your talent in exchange for bylines, or providing a single picture photo shoot for a door prize. (word of mouth is powerful)

Example

I just spent the last couple of months (about 3 to 4 hours a week) doing a photo accounting of a play in our town. In exchange they agreed to let me do the shadow box (my name was on every picture and my contact information was at the bottom of the display), I was listed in the program that went to every person coming to the play (over 1,000), all photos in the paper (including a full page spread with a color blow-up of one of the pictures) had my name as a byline, a listing on their website giving credit, and smoozing rights at all parties and gatherings (carried lots of cards with me). End results?

4 bookings for promotional headshots for talent agencies

1 professional model that is going to help me train the other three and myself on posing techniques the agents are looking for.

1 booking for a wedding in 2008

Smoozing rights created the starting of a network that included some very influential business owners that want to see my work.

Finally, over two months of practice doing low light photography without a flash that will give me an edge at my first wedding coming up next month.

Let's look at this a different way:

Instead of figuring out what you need to give-away to be successful, FIRST determine how much money you need to make to survive. If you need $50,000/year (after taxes) for rent, car, food, health insurance, clothes (and so forth).
Then add on business expenses (say $20,000) for equipment, office supplies, phones, web, you get the idea.
That means you need to have $70K PLUS taxes, PLUS the cost of the materials (albums, prints, and other stuff).

As you can see it adds up quite quickly.

If you want to work 30 weddings a year, each wedding needs to bring in a bit over $3,000.

Now, how much do you want to give away?