Kick the dead horse again... getting people to buy prints.

3rdPlanetPhotography

I'm looking for the best tactics on how to run some things with my photo business.

The problem: since the dawn of the digital age (and I love it) the customer now can purchase their own prints at their one leasure. This removes me (the photographer) from the print purchses. I'm happy not dealing with all those prints but at the same time I find that most of my customers use the gallery as their "lets go look at our photos" album. I put the album there for them to order prints. I think the thought pattern is that when they get extra money they will then go order prints. The reality is that they will never order any prints if this is the case since "extra" money doesn't come by too often.

What do you (my fellow photographers) think is the right way to get customers to purchase their prints sooner than later?

I have posted some albums on competitors websites (collages.net) and since the albums are only live for 60 days that seems to get the rush on my customers to get their print orders in.

I'm not trying to compare companies, cause smugmug cannot be beat, but I am looking for others to give me some type of clue on how you would handle these situations. Non-expiring albums seem to draw cobb webs with my customers names on them....LOL

What are your thoughts? I'm thinking about opening a studio (year or two) and I will have to lock myself into something that works. Dis is the research.

Thanks in advance.

Andy

That's not really a good comparison, you can expire your albums on SmugMug too, you just have to do it manually. Sure, we could make it easy, but still, you can do it. And you can tell your customers in the gallery, and in your promotions, prices good for 60days.

3rdPlanetPhotography

Andy,

I wasn't bashing. I'm looking for advise on operations. I know I can manually do it on Smugmug and I respect that. I'm looking for a better way for me to run my operation and get people interested in getting their purchases completed as soon as possible. What is the best tactic that you've found for gettting the customer on the ball without electric shock?

Andy wrote:

That's not really a good comparison, you can expire your albums on SmugMug too, you just have to do it manually. Sure, we could make it easy, but still, you can do it. And you can tell your customers in the gallery, and in your promotions, prices good for 60days.

Andy

kc7dji wrote:

Andy,

I wasn't bashing. I

I know that

Andy

kc7dji wrote:

What is the best tactic that you've found for gettting the customer on the ball without electric shock?

You're doing it. Advance notice, expiring pricing, good photos, competitive prices.

You can lead them to water....

3rdPlanetPhotography

... but I'm getting them to water... now I want to drown a few of them .....

Andy wrote:

You're doing it. Advance notice, expiring pricing, good photos, competitive prices.

You can lead them to water....

photogmomma

I had the exact same problem! Here is what I do and it's REALLY helped my sales a TON!

• Post photos from shoot
• Send email letting client know that photos were available - and letting them know that they have 10 days to purchase at 10% off standard prices, then another 20 days past that before things are "archived"
• Send email 3 days before removing 10% discount
• Remove 10% discount manually at 10 days after upload (no email)
• Send email 7 days before "archiving"
• "Archive" photos - move to a new hidden gallery under that client so that it is always available, change old gallery to HTML only letting them know that they can have their photos unarchived at any time with a minimum $75 purchase
• Send email after "archiving" to let them know policies.

I use the fact that there is no limit on Smugmug to my advantage for setting myself out as different. I let clients know that they will always have access my all the photos I show them forever. So, in the case of a house fire, burglary or whatever, they will always have access to repurchasing - unlike most photographers who destroy their photos (that I've seen, anyway!). It's a nice difference, I think, and it costs me nothing.

I have found that most of my clients with only a few exceptions will order during the 10% off period. It's a PITA to change the pricing (I actually have "template" galleries set up for each set of pricing to make it easy to change), but it's been totally worth it. 10% isn't much, but it's enough in their eyes to make them purchase.

I might change the timing on the gallery for weddings (10% off for 20 days, online for 60 days or something similar taking into account honeymoons) to really push the purchasing.

HTH! Good luck! I'll be interested to see what you do.

Oh, and the way I say this to old clients who thought they'd be up online forever, I let them know that I was reorganizing my site and needed to make room for new clients. And that I wanted to start enforcing my new policies. I gave them more time, but I'm about to archive about 10 old clients and bring them into my new way of doing things. They were fine with it - AND I got a few small sales that I know I wouldn't have gotten otherwise!!

Stustaff

Ok first my disclaimer!

I am not a pro nor have I sold lots of prints! I have sold some though after struggling for a while!

I took some baby photos about 2 months ago, and put them in a SM gallery and sent the e-mail out. No joy.

I then had a chat with the parents and said are you wanting to order any? they said yes but we still havent shown them everyone yet because some of our family dont have the internet... and when family come to visit they dont wan to sit around a PC.

AHA I thought so I did them a print of every photo with a watermark on and told them they could show those to people and just write on the back who wanted what and at what sizes.

2 weeks later I have an order for 12 different shots in numerous sizes from 5x7 to 20x30 alltogether 32 prints.

I am now giving every client a small watermarked print of each of their images to look at, I either drop it in or post it to them with details of prices and sizes how to order etc in there too.

Only used this system on two shoots but working great so far.

I really believe seeing images in print gives that special something, that the net cant quite do yet.

Elaine

I'm no pro, and I'm not certain this will exactly answer the originally posed question, but when I read this, it reminded me of something I read by a photographer named Mark McCall. He shared this info at photocamel.com:


http://www.photocamel.com/index.php/topic,5495.msg41253.html#msg41253

(Not sure it's kosher to provide a link to another forum??)

Anyway, it might be different when dealing with wedding pictures versus other types of events, but the idea of giving incentives rather than discounts makes some sense.

Elaine

photogmomma

Elaine wrote:

I'm no pro, and I'm not certain this will exactly answer the originally posed question, but when I read this, it reminded me of something I read by a photographer named Mark McCall. He shared this info at photocamel.com:


http://www.photocamel.com/index.php/topic,5495.msg41253.html#msg41253

(Not sure it's kosher to provide a link to another forum??)

Anyway, it might be different when dealing with wedding pictures versus other types of events, but the idea of giving incentives rather than discounts makes some sense.

Elaine

AWESOME info! Thanks for posting!!

claudermilk

Excellent thread & info. This has given me some ideas to think about.