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Never Stop Marketing
A potential client called and asked if I would mail him a catalog and price list.
“Sure,” I replied, but noted that he could also download it off our website.
“I don’t know what your website name is,” he said. “I got your phone number off an ad in an old magazine.”
After I put down the phone, I was again reminded of a fundamental truth in business: never stop marketing. You can never know which advertisement is going to motivate a potential client to call.
It works like this:
- building business is the goal, marketing is the plan, and ads are the steps in the plan to achieve the goal.
- Your marketing plan should have 2 kinds of ads: those that build your brand and those that make offers to encourage sales.
- Brand builds trust and name recognition, while offers generate sales. You need both.
- If you don’t build your brand, you have to rely on offers (cut prices).
- If you build your brand but don’t have offers, you won’t have any sales.
- A potential customer needs to see your brand at least 7 times before they will to remember you.
- A potential customer needs to see your offer when they are ready to purchase.
- Measure results. If it works, re-use it. If it doesn’t work, try something else.
There isn’t any hidden secret to marketing success. You just have to do it consistently. As a business owner, you should expect to spend 2-3 hours every day marketing. If you aren’t shooting or selling, you should be marketing. Outsource everything else.
I’ve long forgotten which magazine the ad was in, but I am confident it was according to the plan.
Tags: marketing
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AlliedMedia.net
May 11th, 2012 at 10:32 am
Can you give us ideas of what you think are good offers to make for clients?
May 11th, 2012 at 12:42 pm
Durango, I work with the lab, let me answer with an example.
Let’s say you specialize in children’s portraiture. You would spend 95% of your time on Facebook, your website, and on ads showing examples of your work, building your brand as a fun, “mom friendly” studio. Then at Easter, you offer a “Children’s Easter portrait special package” with a coupon for some additional service if they schedule ahead of time. Your offer needs to fill 2 purposes: a specific call to action (pick up the phone, bring a coupon, etc.), and it should have value without lowering your prices.
I’m sure some of you will think this is pretty basic. But the secret is to do it consistently, be creative, measure the results, throw out what doesn’t work, and keep what does.
As to your question “where to find good offers?” I see lots of photographers helping each other by answering this question on blogs and discussion groups. And search this blog – I’ve read several examples here in the past too!
May 12th, 2012 at 12:08 pm
I would add a word of caution when using ‘offers’ to get people to buy. Most use such offers to either get people to buy when they want them to buy, or an ‘introductory’ low pricing offer will get them in and they can either up-sell or when clients come back they’ll gladly pay our regular prices. Once people pay lower than regular pricing it’s difficult if not impossible to get them to pay your regular pricing. Not only do these offers not produce enough sales, they rarely get better with time. I believe we must think about brand building as more than name recognition, and more about creating an emotional connection, and a desire to have an emotional need that photography will satisfy. My ideas for good offers are less about pricing promotions and more about featuring your version of an iPad. JD Photo Imaging has amazing products, effective materials to sell them, and even guidelines for pricing them. Show your photography in products that few people have in their homes and you won’t have to discount them to create a desire to buy from you, and pay premium pricing. If you’ve not ordered these materials from JD yet, do it now. Between now and the end of the year is the time when people will be most receptive. Really! Do it right now!
May 15th, 2012 at 1:53 pm
[...] week, you asked for examples in the Never Stop Marketing [...]