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A New (Old) Business Idea
I know a professional photographer who has a side business many photographers ignore. She does professional head shots. Now I’m sure you are thinking “I can do head shots too,” but are you getting any business?
Here’s how she does it.
The client pre-sets an appointment with the studio, comes in, has 3-4 shots taken, and picks the best pose off a monitor with the photographer. Within a few minutes, an assistant color corrects and emails the image to the client. The entire process takes less than half an hour, and costs $50 cash, check or Visa for each image selected. No prints. No billing.
Could this work for you? Every professional needs a current head shot, but most don’t have one.
Why not?
Think about it from the customer’s point of view.
As a profession, we’ve trained customers that a visit to a professional photographer take hours and costs hundreds of dollars for prints. After all, isn’t that what happens with senior, wedding and family photos? So why should we expect them to think of a professional photographer when all they need is a JPG file for a company brochure?
For example, if you wanted to promote head shots, you could put a small print ad in your local business magazine, Chamber of Commerce newsletter, charity event program etc. with a “before and after” photo that says:
Executive Digital Portrait File for Web or Print
Ready in 20 minutes. Guaranteed satisfaction. $50
Call 555-1212 now to schedule an appointment
Actually, $50 is low. If the ad doesn’t work, try raising your prices. Just put it in front of local professionals who work or live near your studio. Make it easy to do business with you.
Try this for a month, and see if you can generate some new (old) business.
Tags: marketing, sales, selling
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AlliedMedia.net
June 10th, 2011 at 8:39 am
I can vouch for the basis for this promotion. This is just what we did when we went digital in 1996. We knew this Express Service would appeal especially to business people who were calling the day before (or after) the deadline for a PR photo. They would gladly pay a premium if we would pull this ‘out of the fire’ for them. Back then this was a specialty that our competition couldn’t match because they were still shooting film.
However, today this is not the case. And with the current economic environment business people have more pressure to to cost-justify such an expense. They must be able to see how a head shot will attract more business, increase sales, or differentiate their business from the competition. So if you decide to promote this service be sure to explain in the headline and copy how a head shot will do at least two of these things.
If someone needs a head shot for PR this could convert them from a prospect to a client, and give you the opportunity to do more business photography, event and family photography. But the with fewer people in Real Estate the pool of potential clients for head shots is pretty shallow. The good news is that EVERY every business has a need to attract the most desirable clients, increase sales, and make it clear why consumers should choose them over the competition.
This is where the greatest opportunity exists for most photographers. If you target businesses who need more than a couple of head shots and contact them with photography Programs that will help them increase annual revenue using photography to ‘tell their story’ through incredible photography for web sites, email marketing, social media, customer service, sales presentations, direct mail, annual reports, etc. the potential sales could be in the thousands of dollars.
And you won’t be just another photographer who can shoot heads. You’ll be an extension of their sales and marketing department and have just what you’ve given them: a way to attract the most desirable clients, increase sales, and make it clear why they should choose you over your competition. Cool!
Feel free to contact me at krussell@3lenses.com if you have questions or need help. -Kirk Russell, 3 LENSES MARKETING & DESIGN