Recognizing the 5 Steps to Making a Sale
While marketing is not selling as such, sales and marketing greatly affect one another: Marketing creates the conditions under which sales can be made. This relationship is best explained in the diagram shown on the next page. It illustrates how prospective clients must move through a step-by-step process that leads to the ultimate sale and beyond to client loyalty. This process is profoundly affected by the success of your marketing.
Step One—Awareness: Clients will deal with you only if they know you exist—if they become “aware” of you. In order to achieve awareness, then, your marketing must spell out as clearly as possible and without any confusion who you are and what you do.
Step Two—Comprehension: Prospective clients also must “comprehend” what you do. If you advertise that you make the finest Giclée prints in town, you probably won’t sell many portraits to those who don’t comprehend what a Giclée print is all about. So your marketing effort must convey a message that is easy to comprehend, such as: “This is a photography studio that does romantic wedding photography, and they are located in the next town over.”
Step Three—Conviction: This is a critical step in “convincing” prospects to use your services. They will experience conviction only if they believe that what you offer might have some relevance for them. Conviction is built in many ways, including word-of-mouth-advertising. Clients who receive top-notch products and services from your studio will tell their friends about you. This facilitates conviction better than any advertisement can. So don’t overlook the power of testimonials, whether they are delivered in person or presented as part of your marketing.
Step Four—Trial: Once conviction is established, your next task is to induce prospective clients to “try” your services. Trial is greatly facilitated by an appealing offer or compelling marketing message, coupled with a “risk reducer” (such as a satisfaction guarantee) and a “payment facilitator” (such as a payment plan or acceptance of credit cards).
Step Five—Loyalty: The trial stage allows the photographer to do what he or she does best. When all goes well—when the product, the pricing, the promotion, and the place meet or exceed the expectations of the client—then it is possible for that client to develop loyalty: the ultimate achievement in the client-studio relationship.
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quick marketing tips
We were so overwhelmed by the response to our last batch of blog header templates that we couldn't help but make more! Here's a new batch to help you celebrate the holiday season in style. We've sized them to to work specifically with Marathon's Blog Software, but you can use them however you like. Just like before, these templates are absolutely free! Happy Holidays!
All the header templates are provided as layered Photoshop files. We've included some sample data, but you'll need to insert your logo and images. A basic knowledge of Photoshop and working with layers is recommended. Though Marathon cannot provide support for modifying these files, these PSD files should give you a great start! Each design comes in three sizes with matching sample color schemes to fit the available layouts of Marathon's Blog Software.
Want them all? Download here.
Instructions:
- Download the blog header design you wish to use. Within the downloaded ZIP file, you will find three different template sizes. Please open the PSD file that matches the blog layout you have selected.
- Select the layer of the image placeholder you wish to drop your first photo in to. Open the new photo you want to use to replace it, then drag or paste your photo directly over the image placeholder. Right click your photo and select "Create Clipping Mask". From here you can resize, rotate or drag your photo into it's desired position using the move tool. Continue repeating this process until all image placeholders are filled.
- Hide the logo layer and drop in your own logo. Feel free to add any additional design elements you want such as your tagline, address and/or phone number. Once you achieved your desired look, save as a .jpg file and upload into your blog via your Dashboard.
More about Marathon's Blog Software
With Marathon's Blog added to your website, you'll be able to present your most up-to-date studio news at the push of a button. Share your favorite photographs, announce your recent promotions, or tell a story! It's all about making a connection between you and your favorite people: your clients!
Marathon's Blog has been designed and developed by Marathon's own team of programmers with the needs of the professional photographer in mind. That means you'll receive Marathon's superb technical support rather than having to turn to a third party developer when you need assistance.
Features include:
- Customization through multiple layouts, color changes and a header image.
- A much wider aspect ratio to support today's larger/wider screens.
- Categorize your posts with easy to use Tags.
- Schedule posts to publish in the future.
- Link up to your profiles on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.
- Security features such as re-Captcha to prevent SPAM posts to your blog.
- Include videos and/or slideshows to posts from embed features found in YouTube.com, Animoto.com, or even Slide.com.
To start your own Marathon blog, contact a Websites Account Representative directly at 800/228.0629.
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blog
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downloads
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holiday
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internet
Determining the needs and wants of prospective and existing clients is critical to the well being of a photographic business. This task is a function of marketing, which is essential for the success of a business because it can:
- Open the door to new clients
- Increase word-of-mouth referrals
- Add value to products and services
- Make sales to clients much easier
- Foster customer loyalty to the business
Because it is an ongoing process, marketing requires a plan that involves identifying prospective customers; determining their needs and wants; creating a demand for the products the business sells to fulfill those needs and wants; then selling and servicing the client so that satisfaction and referrals are ensured.
Understanding the Marketing Mix
The components that affect the success of a marketing plan are often referred to as the “Marketing Mix,” which involve the key factors that typically affect consumer purchasing decisions: Product, Promotion, Place and Price. Also referred to as “The 4 P’s of Marketing,” these variables, which change from one target market to another, must work together to satisfy consumers within the specific target market. In the portrait/wedding photography industry, the 4 P’s function as follows:
Product is defined as a combination of benefits, features, and services designed to satisfy the needs of a specific market. Consumers of photography typically react to benefits, not features. Features are facts about the product, while benefits are what the product does for the customer. It is benefits that the customer buys—not features. Following is a comparison of how features and benefits differ:
Product: A professional portrait
Features: A beautiful background, outstanding lighting techniques
Benefits: The subject looks great!
Product: A wedding album
Features: Contains 40 pages of images
Benefits: Captures the beauty of the most romantic day of your life and preserves that priceless memory forever
Product: Senior portrait session
Features: 60 poses, including 3 clothing changes
Benefits: You get to express your fantasy in the latest fashion poses that will make you look and feel like a fashion model.
Effective marketing, then, stresses the benefits of a product and not its features, and smart marketers know their products and the benefits they bring to clients inside and out.
Promotion is that aspect of marketing in which a seller actually reaches out to potential buyers. It directly relates to how efficiently the business communicates with its target consumers, as the types and numbers of consumers attracted and the time and money spent in attracting them ultimately will judge the success or failure of promotional efforts. Promotion informs prospective customers that the company has the right product, available in the right place, at the right time, and at the right price. The promotional message is intended to tell potential clients just how your products and services meet their needs and wants and, in the process, it performs the critical function of creating a desire on their part to patronize your business.
Place typically involves the means of getting the product to targeted clients. In marketing photography, however, this has less to do with distribution than with the comfort and enjoyment that clients experience in doing business with the studio. The location of your place of business affects both the kind of customers you attract and the perceived value of your product. Location also affects the prices you must charge, so good management dictates that a balance be struck between operating in the ideal location and how much overhead the business can assume before its products become overpriced for the market.
Price factors take into account profit margins, the studio’s place in the market, and the effectiveness of the studio’s marketing and selling plans. Price is the single component in the Marketing Mix that directly affects the company’s ability to generate sales and create profits. Because many consumers consider price to be an indicator of value, it is both a communication device and a competitive technique.
As you might expect, the central elements of the Marketing Mix—Product, Promotion, Place, and Price—are intertwined to the extent that a change in one nearly always affects and/or necessitates changes in the others.
Listed below are some of the key Marketing Mix considerations that consumers will take into account when they make purchasing decisions involving portrait/wedding photography.
| Product |
Promotion |
Place |
Price |
| Quality |
Marketing Budget |
Location |
Price List |
| Style |
Public Relations |
Accessibility |
Special Offers |
| Brand Awareness |
Media |
Ambience |
Sales Incentives |
| Reputation |
Message |
Comfort |
Perceived Value |
| Satisfaction Guarantee |
Community Buzz |
Client Experience |
Satisfaction Guarantee |
| Packaging |
Personal Selling |
Service Levels |
Selling Plan |
| Service |
Testimonials |
|
|
| Uniqueness |
|
|
|
The better you know the market you intend to serve, the better able you will be to develop appropriate Marketing Mix strategies for designing appealing products, providing an engaging experience in a pleasing environment, adopting appropriate pricing structures, and creating promotions that result in profitable sales.
Categorized In:
quick marketing tips
The WPPI 30th annual trade show is March 8-10, 2010 at the MGM Convention Center in Las Vegas Nevada. Marathon is providing passes for FREE! All you need to do is click the link below, download the file to your computer, print it, cut it out, and bring it with you to the show. For more information on WPPI, click here.
Download your free WPPI pass.
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downloads
What a Difference a Year Makes
This time last year McDonough, Georgia photographer Ronnie Owings was in a terrible funk. After 22 years in business, this accomplished Master Photographer was about to look for another line of work due to his frustration with recessionary pressures on his business and the general fatigue associated with running any small business over the long haul.
In spite of his outstanding portrait photography skills, his winning personality, and the fact that he owned one of the most attractive indoor and outdoor studio complexes imaginable, Ronnie was very close to throwing in the towel: His sales had hit a plateau, his sessions were sluggish, and he had racked up more debt than he was comfortable with. Seeing the recession beginning to unfold all around him, he updated his resume and was weighing options for selling his business property.
Fortunately, he didn’t act hastily; instead, he stopped to analyze his financial options from every possible angle, coming to the conclusion that sticking with his business offered more potential rewards than “being the last one hired and the first one fired somewhere else.” He began to make common-sense changes to his business: Some were easy, but others—such as downsizing staff—were devastatingly hard. You can read about the changes Ronnie made to stabilize his business on Marathon’s blog by clicking on a link at the end of this story.
In that Marathon blog post Ronnie said: “I began to think of myself as the owner of a brand-new business. I was starting over from scratch.” Letting go of valued staff members was not only hard on a personal level, it meant that Ronnie would have to take over the workload. By the beginning of 2009, his biggest worry was how he would cope with doing selling and workflow processing on his own.
Almost a year later, Ronnie Owings is upbeat and truly excited about the future of his business. “My debt is nearly paid off, so that dark cloud has lifted,” he said. “And I was relieved to learn that I can get through a senior seasons by myself, and I’m actually enjoying selling . . . something I never thought would happen. Of course I’m working longer hours, but I’ve learned to be much more productive. And interestingly, the business is more exciting to me than it has been in a long time.”
Most surprising to Ronnie is that he no longer dreads doing sales. The former “sales phobic” reports that his senior season sales are up, and he credits his use of ProSelect projection sales software with helping him to sell more wall portraits than he ever dreamed: “When we sent out proof books, as many as 10 percent didn’t even place orders. With ProSelect, when I sit down with clients and present their images, I can feel out their reactions to the poses. Then I make recommendations as to the best images to purchase, starting with wall portraits. Now 90 percent are buying wall-size prints! What really helps is that I can pull up a photograph of a fireplace in the ProSelect ‘room view’ feature and show clients the various sizes above the mantle, which makes the correct size perfectly obvious to the client. We are also selling lots more images in multi-opening mats and frames because the ‘layouts’ feature allows clients to see the images projected in exact size, showing them in the mats and frames.”
Ronnie’s new approach to sales also has made incentive selling more effective. “Before when we presented incentives, we would say ‘If you hit this level, then you get thus-and-so,’ ” he explains. “Now I can adjust incentives to benefit each specific client. I can say ‘If you purchase this, I can throw in extra wallets.’ This works so much better than just going through a list of possible incentives because I’m understanding the needs and wants of clients so much better.”
As busy as he has been dealing with sessions and sales, Ronnie also has kept his eye on marketing activities that have attracted a whole new client base. Last spring, when one client responded to bunny portrait promotional signs he had placed on his studio property, she shocked Ronnie by saying that she had been driving by his complex for years and had never recognized that it was a photography studio! Ronnie immediately remedied this problem by purchasing and installing a large studio sign that leaves no doubt about what goes on at the Garden Cottage.
Ronnie also had Marathon Internet Services update his website via a cost-effective and quick-to-launch Package Site, in which he spotlights two “new” product lines: wedding photography, which he hasn’t offered for years, and pet photography, which he has never actively promoted.
Ronnie reports that just being seen at weddings and at a local wedding show has made his business more visible and helped to attract portrait clients. A hastily produced “model search” for dogs resulted in so many calls that he decided to have Marathon design and print a 20" x 6½" (5" x 6½" folded) promotional brochure that has attracted pet sessions as well as family and children’s portraits including one or more family pets.
According to Ronnie, this past year of reinventing his business has resulted in a renewal of his interest in professional activities as well, and in September he decided to enter print competition for the first time in years at the Georgia PPA Convention. He was delighted to learn that his recent preoccupation with business hasn’t dulled his artistic edge: All of his prints scored well over the blue-ribbon category of 80, and four received “Distinction” honors in the awards judging.
Only a year after Ronnie Owings faced the most difficult challenge of his professional life, his hard work and tough choices have brought about a personal and professional renewal. He sums up the transformation this way: “For the first time in years I know who my customers are. Now I talk to them personally before the session and then do their photographs, so by the time the sales appointment rolls around, I’m chit-chatting with them just like an old lady . . . I’m really having a ball with my clients, and I’m loving the business!
To read about the changes Ronnie Owings made to get his business back on track, you can go to the April 6 post on Marathon’s blog by clicking here.
You can learn directly from Ronnie by taking part in his Marathon webinar, scheduled for January 19. Mark your calendar now and check Marathon's webinar schedule in the weeks to come for exact time. To receive regular webinar updates, click here.
Your blog is a representation of your studio, so it's a good idea to dress it up nicely. Give your Marathon Blog a unique look by adding a personalized header image. To help get started, we've created the following templates and are providing them to you for free!
All header templates are layered Photoshop files. While sample data is included, you'll need to insert your logo and images. A basic knowledge of Photoshop and working with layers is recommended. Although Marathon cannot provide support for modifying these files, each PSD file should give you a great start! Each design comes in three sizes with matching sample color schemes to fit the blog layout you've chosen.
Want them all? Download here.
Instructions:
- Download the blog header design you wish to use. Within the downloaded ZIP file, you will find three different template sizes. Please open the PSD file that matches the blog layout you have selected.
- Select the layer of the image placeholder you wish to drop your first photo in to. Open the new photo you want to use to replace it, then drag or paste your photo directly over the image placeholder. Right click your photo and select "Create Clipping Mask". From here you can resize, rotate or drag your photo into it's desired position using the move tool. Continue repeating this process until all image placeholders are filled.
- Hide the logo layer and drop in your own logo. Feel free to add any additional design elements you want such as your tagline, address and/or phone number. Once you achieved your desired look, save as a .jpg file and upload into your blog via your Dashboard.
With Marathon's Blog added to your website, you'll be able to present your most up-to-date studio news at the push of a button. Share your favorite photographs, announce your recent promotions, or tell a story! It's all about making a connection between you and your favorite people: your clients!
Marathon's Blog has been designed and developed by Marathon's own team of programmers with the needs of the professional photographer in mind. That means you'll receive Marathon's superb technical support rather than having to turn to a third party developer when you need assistance.
Features include:
- Customization through multiple layouts, color changes and a header image.
- A much wider aspect ratio to support today's larger/wider screens.
- Categorize your posts with easy to use Tags.
- Schedule posts to publish in the future.
- Link up to your profiles on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.
- Security features such as re-Captcha to prevent SPAM posts to your blog.
- Include videos and/or slideshows to posts from embed features found in YouTube.com, Animoto.com, or even Slide.com.
To start your own Marathon blog, contact a Websites Account Representative directly at 800/228.0629.
Categorized In:
blog
|
downloads
|
internet
New Themes
Choose between 3 layouts to get your blog just the way you want it.
Tags
By tagging your posts, you can group them into as many descriptive categories as you like.
Post Scheduling
With this feature, you can write new posts now and schedule them to publish any day you like.
Comments
We've made big improvements to how you manage visitor comments and added optional inline comments!
Page and Link Sorting
Quickly re-order your pages and links.
Social Networking
Make it easy for your clients to find your profile on Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter.
Various Interface Updates
To make room for these features and make existing ones easier to use, we've reorganized the admin navigation. Representatives are available to help or you can visit our support site if you have trouble with any of these changes.
If you have any questions about this upgrade, please contact a Websites & Services Representative a 800/228.0629.
Categorized In:
blog
Chris Boswell Boswell Photo commented on December 19th, 2009
This story excites me as I'm in one of the very slow periods and my bank account doesn't reflect success. Instead of advertising in Phone Books, the Newspaper and Google, this year I decided to invest in education. Pro4um, Sandy Puc, Bruce Hudson and Scott Crosby have received my Advertising dollars to get me over my hump. I'd love to hear what you did to recover. I'll buy your webinar on January 19. Look forward to hearing about your currect success story.