I have always believed that there is one key to booking yourself solid as a photographer. And that is to create an experience that surpasses what the public has come to except. Mediocre guest care.
We need to surprise and delight our clients at every possible opportunity. Our photography is a by product of what we sell. We sell an experience. And that is why people choose us over walmart. They are looking for an EXPERIENCE. We are in a service industry and we came to this profession, not by accident, but because we were MEANT to serve others here. That is why we do what we do so well.
This isn't brain science. And I am not reinventing the wheel here. We all know in the back of our minds that we should be doing this. Treating our clients like gold so that they talk about us, and so that we are THE studio in town.
So what gets in the way? Why don't we all just do what we know we should be doing? Why don't we treat our clients the way we know we should be treating them? Why don't we just send that birthday card in the mail to that client today? Why don't we just take the time to call our client the day after their session and share in their excitement and anticipation of their portrait art... for just a couple minutes?
It's simple. Business gets in the way. There is always that Christmas special that we need to get out on September 1st and it's august 31st and were still working on it. Our orders for that day are late, and we forget to call our client that day to wish them happy birthday because we HAVE TO GET OUR CHRISTMAS SPECIAL OUT.
We are always chasing new clients, and we always will be because we don't have the time to take care of the ones we already have. It's a viscous cycle and when you get caught up in it, it is HARD to get out.
So, I could say the secret to booking yourself solid is to treat your clients like gold, but now we see that gaining control over the necessary evil, which is marketing, is what will ultimately give you the time to focus on what it is you do best. creating an amazing portrait experience for your clients.
Once you do that new clients will magically appear at your doorstep and your old ones will be begging for more.
So in seeing that is probably the biggest thing holding photography studios back from their true potential, I decided to do something about it. I wanted a low cost, auto-pilot marketing solution, that can take photographers through their entire approaching year, with less than a weeks worth of work done before the new year arrives, to develop a marketing plan, marketing implementation pieces, product presentation, financial forecasts and planning, and a simple yet powerful marketing maintenance schedule. All this stuff proven to work (by me and two other full-time photographers, and several others, which is where the beta testers come in)
With this out of the way, photographers can buy themselves hours upon hours of time that they can then focus on their client retention systems and perfect those before they get tired, worn out, and give up, out of lack of profit, and lack of sanity.
The beta testers will get the entire product to try and evaluate for free to provide crucial feed back about the program. All the pieces are put together and changeable using basic photoshop applications. And all the recommended suppliers for putting together the presentation were selected based on quality and affordability. You should spend less than $500 on your complete branding and marketing pieces for the entire year.
