Tag Archives: selling

MorePhotos, Raise the Bar, Sell Photos Online

Quick! Post a photo now!

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As photographers, we have a tendency to keep up a shield around unedited photos. And while a poor quality image will do no good for your brand, we must weigh out perfection with the old proverb  “He who hesitates is lost.”

Image posted quickly

Case in point:

I attended a wedding 9 days ago that hired one of the top rated photographers in the world as well as a photo booth with props. The photo booth posted the images to Facebook by the next morning. A frenzy of tagging and sharing instantly exploded. Countless people have their profile pictures set to photos taken by the booth (that conveniently has their logo on the bottom) and the photo booth company is in my news feed every time I open Facebook.

Photos posted from world renowned photographer? Zero. I have full faith that his images will end up in albums and on walls and will blow people away, but as far as marketing goes, I know who everyone is talking about right now.

Speed has value, so does perfection. Choose your process accordingly.

Back to Businss by Michael Connors & MorePhotos Staff, MorePhotos, Sell Photos Online

Annual Family Portrait Reminder

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The last few months we have talked about leveraging your advantages, or using what you have that the new photographer does not have. We talked about making sure you are always sending a thank you and a call to action with each order. We also spoke about wedding photographers using images of venues to your advantage.

This time let’s talk about your past clients. What are you doing with these valuable connections? Many of them want to come back, but just need a a little nudge, a reason to pop back in the studio.

Example: Family Portraits

Keep your calendar from the previous year’s appointments and send a reminder the next year about two to three months prior to that anniversary. Follow up with a phone call a few days after they receive the postcard/ email. Remember that a small amount of work is required to keep your existing clients coming back. It takes much more to earn new business.

Here’s an example letter to get you started.

Dear Michael Connors,

I hope your family has had good health and happiness this last year. It has almost been a year since your family portraits and wanted to send you a reminder to get a date set for this year.

We had a great time working with your lovely family and we would be honored to be the photographer that will keep documenting your family in photos for you and future generations to enjoy.

As a valued client we wanted to offer you  $50.00 off the setting fee.  Since we took your photos out in the woods behind your house last year we suggest using the studio this year or we could go to (fill in your other favorite location).

We appreciate your business and look forward to seeing the gang again, how is uncle Joe’s foot?

Give me a call and we can talk about the perfect place for your photos this year!

(add Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, web address and hours to every correspondence)

Johnny Bob Photography
44444 US Anywhere
222-222-2222
Office hours

Blog post by Michael Connors

MorePhotos, Sell Photos Online

Sell Photos on Spec- through your website

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MorePhotos.com just improved upon an old feature called Archiving. The purpose of archiving was to give clients a call to action. If you don’t order now, you will have to pay more later. This has been very effective for our photographers, and Bill Hodge from Grad Portraits decided to take it to the next level.

He posed the question, “What if we charge our clients before viewing their image?”As every photographer knows, people can’t wait to see their images, its just that not everyone is willing to purchase their images. By putting a little skin in the game upfront with an access fee, they are invested in the images. In return, they receive a gift certificate to use towards their purchase and 3 days to view all archived events. Now they have a gift certificate they don’t want to waste, which results in higher sales for you.

Charge clients for the real value, which is to VIEW their images.
Charge clients for the real value, which is to VIEW their images.

This workflow works best for spec type images: action sports, grad photos, and most other event images, but please share your stories below.

By the way, Bill set the access fee at $10 and the gift certificate at $20. He saw a 250% increase on his first event over the previous year.  This is extra impressive knowing the event’s sales had been declining. Go see what you can do!