articles/Business/promotingyourbusiness-page4
Published 01/06/2010
For this promotion we had two photographers shooting as we maintained our studio schedule too and we ran the promotion over two successive Saturdays so as to allow for dad to be in the portraits if desired.
Autumn Leaves
This was simply a copy of Portraits in the Park but instead of being in August it was in the Fall. Most families looked forward to these sessions as Fall has the added colour that is popular with everyone. We designated the park we were to use and the clients came to the park with their cheque book or credit card. We usually had sessions every 20-30 minutes, so we had a photographer in the park all day until the last session was completed. For some more demanding clients we arranged to visit their home if they had Fall colours in their yards so long as the appointment was within the scheduled promotional window.
The worst scenario was the weather turning bad, in which case we gave a rain-check.
Hallowe'en, Toys For Tots
Over a period of 19 years we collected some 5,000 toys for the Marine Reserve, Toys for Tots program. For this we created a Hallowe'en set in one corner of the camera room, spider webs, pumpkins, loose straw, bales of straw and lots of leaves that we had collected during Fall and, in exchange for a brand new toy with at least a $10 value, we would produce two 4x5 portraits.
This promotion appealed to two kinds of people: those who appreciated our programme for such a charity and who often would bring more than one and sometimes three or more, and those who could not afford our studio rates and took advantage of the promotion to obtain portraits for a $10 toy.
The annual promotion generated some nice reorders and more than paid for the upfront costs and we got a lot of pleasure from it. There was a lot of entertainment from the creativity of the costumes of the participants.
Hallowe'en may not be a popular celebration in the UK, but it could be something to introduce and create a new interest. People like to dress up for fun and if you market properly it may well be successful. If you prefer, why not create a similar promotion for Guy Fawkes?
There are 0 days to get ready for The Society of Photographers Convention and Trade Show at The Novotel London West, Hammersmith ...
which starts on Thursday 1st January 1970