AS SEEN IN
AS SEEN IN
For the last month, we’ve been FLOODED with requests to make the Telesummit recordings and speaker products available for a little bit longer. So we went back to all 15 of our wonderful Telesummit speakers and we agreed to give you one more opportunity to tune in to all this great education!
There’s so much information out there today it’s hard to decide what’s worth your time to read. Every day I get so many RSS feeds of new blog posts that I end up ignoring most of them (except for Seth Godin of course). We believe it’s so important to read what people outside of our specific industry are doing in order to gain perspective and inspiration for new ideas.
Yesterday we emailed you a survey about Cafe Joy. If you haven’t already, could you please help us out and take just 5 minutes to fill it out? We promise it won’t make your brain hurt like figuring out sales tax. We’re just really interested in what you think and want to make Cafe Joy everything you need it to be and more.
Congratulations to Laura Reese and Dan Ablan, our Summer Contest Winners. We had such a tough time choosing a winner between the two of these awesome Cafe Joy members that we decided the BOTH deserved to win goodies from Wild Sorbet and other Cafe Joy sponsors. See for yourself what Dan and Laura each did to help their business this past summer. I bet it will inspire you!
I am sitting here in my living room watching my kids sort, count and trade their halloween candy and my husband just turned on Fox and Friends morning show. To my delight, the guest was Gary Vaynerchuk, the wine guy. He was brilliant. Obviously he was on to promote his new book, Crush It, but his spin was great. He was showing which wines to pear with which candies! He showed which wine goes with peanut butter cups and why, which wine goes with chocolate coated candies, etc.
I had the opportunity to interview Eric from Animoto a few weeks ago. He shared some really cool ideas about how other studios are using Animoto to grow their business. So if you’re looking for a few great ideas that you can do quickly and inexpensively – listen to the audio here!
Make sure you tune in for a FREE Cafe Joy member call on Monday, November 2nd at NOON Central time (1pm EST, 10am PST). You’ll hear from a Cafe Joy member on how she’s growing her business, learn what’s coming up soon with Cafe Joy and hear a special SURPRISE! Just call in to 712.432.0075 and use code 574743 to join! And make sure you tweet your questions in to @sarahpetty and we’ll answer as many as we can.
A great big Joy congratulations goes out to Melissa De Luna for winning the Master Photographers’ Marketing Series Telesummit $200 Am Ex gift card. Like several of you, Melissa took the time to fill out our quick survey after the Telesummit and was the randomly chosen winner.
Having a web site is a must in today’s day and age. While some people may still go to the Yellow pages to find a photographer, most rely on referrals from friends, the impression they’ve gotten from your storefront, marketing materials and advertising. Here a quick, inexpensive way to make sure when someone searches your speciality (weddings, kids, family) + photography + your city name, you appear in the search results.
Use Keywords in all of your blog posts and within web site content
How important is it as a boutique business to have something tangible to hand a prospective client that gives them an immediate impression of your business rather than saying you should check out my website (when you get home and hopefully you remember me when you are in front of your computer)? No matter how great your website is (which it should be fabulous), as a boutique business you need to do the unexpected.
People expect you to hand them a business card. They expect you to maybe have a brochure to hand them. They expect you to say “Go check out my website.” What they don’t expect is for you to hand them a mind-blowingly creative marketing piece. We suggest creating one (yes, we said just one) marketing piece that becomes the “This is who we are” establishing piece. We would rather you use your budget to create that one wow piece than waste funds on a sad little template postcard or other mass advertising effort. When you can afford to do a second activity really well, then add that.
There may be slow times in your business when you think the only way to attract clients or generate transactions is to offer a discount. But we challenge you to an alternative that is better than discounting—adding value to your existing offerings.
In your business, you can more readily attract the right clients by adding a value-added incentive when your clients make a purchase. For example, you might offer a free body-sloughing treatment when clients purchase a full day at the spa. Or you could develop a loyalty program that gives your clients an incentive to return to you, maybe even more often than they typically would. This could be anything from a free gift with purchase to a special service to an extension of their service.
This value-added strategy focuses on rewarding your clients when they spend more versus discounting the product before they’ve made an investment. By doing this, you keep your entire margin and you aren’t devaluing your brand to your clients. They are motivated to purchase because of the extra incentive you are offering.
Where do you look for new ideas to perk up your business when you’re in a rut? Sure you can find great things from industry leaders who are top of their game but once you, too, become a master in your industry, how do you keep innovating?
The Photography Business Institute exists as an alternative to college or trade school to coach professional portrait photographers as they build sustainable businesses. Request more information to learn how the Photography Business Institute can transform your life and your business (all without missing a single family dinner)!