The fall is such a wonderful time of year for most states. Late September thru mid-October we start cooling down and needing light jackets in the mornings & evenings again. With that comes the changing color on the trees. It makes an ideal time to do family portraits.
The timing is also ideal. Late September is before the holidays start kicking in and many people start working extra hours as retailers begin feeling the holiday push.
That means right now is the time to start organizing your campaign to market to those families out there. Families are such a critical foundation of your business. It represents future children, senior and wedding photography to market back to.
It takes about 6-8 weeks to put together a promotion. You need to gather samples for your advertising and create any physical marketing pieces as well as your social media strategy. Marathon Press makes it easy and affordable to do this. Learn more here.
It’s also an ideal time to call your VIP customers and personally invite them to book a session to get the best time slots now before they fill up. These are the customers who are loyal to you and are in every year with a good order. You know them on a first-name basis. These are the people you want to reward by gifting the session to them for being a VIP client.
Besides photographing the family you can maximize sales by doing images of just the kids together, mom and the kids, dad and the kids, just mom and dad, and so on. And if they have a family pet? Invite them to bring them along. A good majority of people consider their pet as a family member!
Holiday cards are always a big part of the product mix. Marathon typically runs their BOGO special starting on their 5×7 cards from October thru December so that also helps your bottom line.
Finally, portraits make the best gifts to give during the holidays. You want to remind your customers of that in all your advertising. Also, make sure your website supports your campaign and has additional information that inspires people for family portraits.
This is why you want to start planning 8 weeks in advance. Make a checklist of what action items you need to get done and put it in priority order. It’s also a great time to post a “Models Wanted” on your social media page to generate early sessions and get some fresh samples. You can comp the session and give them a discount off your traditional prices if they want to place an order but they aren’t obligated to purchase anything. Again, this is to help you get some fresh samples.
Good luck!
