articles/Business/promotingyourbusiness-page3
Published 01/06/2010
So here are a few to start with.
Mother and Daughter Glamour
Actually the mother and daughter focus was an adjunct to a glamour promotion. This promotion works very nicely leading to Father's Day but works without the Father's Day theme. The promotion included a portrait session and an 8x10 inclusive of both hair and make-up, so we had a make-up artist and hair stylist attend to every client. The idea of he hair and make-up is one of the key draws to the promotion. It is a little bit of fantasy that moms find appealing and when there are daughters three and up, the fantasy is equally appealing to the children too.
Of course you need to have a couple of examples to show in your mailing so there is a little up-front expense. A couple of examples are shown here.
When promoting this, theme pricing is obviously a factor. Discounting a published price list is not recommended. Instead create a one-off price for whatever package you offer so that however you price it, it cannot be compared with any other listing on your current brochure or price list. It does not need to be 'cheap', just attractive and it needs to be profitable too. And this applies to the other themes we will discuss here, but the package should be affordable in the market to which you are mailing.
Hats
This theme was very attractive because it allowed for a greater range of portrait options, covered all ages, and could have included men and boys, though ours only attracted the females.
Dress Up
This promotion appealed mostly to moms with children, though there were a couple of mothers who had portraits on their own. Most of the portraits were of younger children and some of the ensembles were quite creative. But it should be noted that in many cases we needed to also arrange a suitable backdrop, so be sure to have a range of options available.
Some parents had ideas but not the attire to work with, so having a generous wardrobe in-house is a great advantage and which could be helpful in the long term too. In a few cases we arranged a special set or backdrop so it was never a rushed session; we aimed to make the experience memorable and win a new client for the long term.
Faces
In this promotion we encouraged clients to accept really close-ups and, for the fun of it, children could make weird or funny faces and we offered storyboard frames with a sequence of facial expressions. Some sessions resulted in really delightful expressions as we communicated with our little clients to get spontaneous expressions and we offered frames with multiple openings for 4x5 portraits as packages and the options to extend it from three to five or more.
This flexibility was very helpful in expanding the total sale value.
Portraits In The Park
This has been one of our most successful promotions and it also generates the highest average order. It might seem an obvious offer as portraits out doors are very popular. But the great majority of potential clients do not know that we are more than willing to shoot outdoors. But the theme here is that we spend the entire day (or days) in the park.
Of course the risk factor is the weather. But included in the offer is that should there be bad weather on the day of the appointment they get a 'rain check' to be used later. Also if you have a location fee for sessions this is waived for the promotion, which in our case was a saving of $150, another incentive. We offered a session in the park and an 8x10 at a price that could not be related to our existing price structure.
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