This podcast is not for everyone. I mean, it's for everyone, you are welcome to listen to it. But the marketing strategy that I am outlining here today is not for everyone. If you are brand new to business, this may not be the right thing for you. If you are insecure about your work, this may not be the thing for you. And certainly if you haven't yet gotten comfortable with the sort of art of connecting with your subjects quickly and confidently, this is a strategy that you're going to want to
shelve for a later date. But if you're up for a challenge, and you're interested in doing something kind of buzzworthy in your community that may very well earn you some great new clients, then I want you to listen up because this episode has your name all over it. Welcome to this can't be that hard. My name is Annemie Tonken. And I help photographers run profitable, sustainable
businesses that they love. Each week on the podcast, I cover simple, actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way. Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard. You can do it. And I can show you how. I was thinking the other day about Sephora. Yes, the makeup store. A couple of years ago, I was given a perfume sampler for the holidays. And it was super
fun. It was a pretty little box that had eight nice little bottles, all samples of different perfumes. And they were presented really nicely. They had their names written out with little descriptions like they were a little wine bottles. It was like a really fancy box of chocolates, except I'm sure they didn't taste very good. Anyway, I had never tried any of these particular perfumes before. And there were a few that were you know, definitely
not my style. But there were also a couple that I really liked a lot. And the coolest thing about this box was that it came with a gift certificate that was good for a free full size bottle of whichever of the eight perfumes I liked the most. So once I had a chance to try them all and decide which one was my favorite, I just took the gift card to Sephora and told them which one I wanted. And they gave it to me for free. Pretty awesome, right. And it was a really great marketing
strategy. These perfume companies know that buying perfume for someone is really tricky to do as a gift. Generally speaking, you either buy somebody the perfume that you know that they already wear, or you don't buy them perfume, it's kind of a big limb to go out on to buy somebody else, a bottle of perfume that they have no say on. But if you give someone eight samples boxed up nicely, and all of that just
costs you the price of one. And that means that they then get to go get a full size bottle, you're likely going to have a lot of people springing for the gift box and at least some decent percentage of the recipients who find a new brand that they like. This is a great example of what marketers like to call a loss leader. Let's say a bottle of perfume costs $15 to make and it costs the consumer $50 to buy. The typical profit on the bottle would be $35.
Right. But if the gift box of samplers costs the same as a regular bottle $50 and it costs $20 to produce, you know, all those little bottles and the pretty box and all that is the packaging is more expensive, so it's a little more expensive. And then the recipient goes on to turn in their gift certificate and get the full size bottle. The manufacturers profit on that sale went from $35 down to $15. So typically, that wouldn't be very appealing to the manufacturer. Except in
this case with perfume. The manufacturer knows that if someone buys a bottle of perfume once, they're way more likely to buy it again and again. And maybe again. If that person buys the $50 bottle of perfume five years in a row, their lifetime profit on that customer goes from $15 for the one bottle to $155 over time. There are certain products out there that can be hard to sell for the first time because they require not just monetary buy in but sort of like a mental buy in.
But once someone has purchased that item once they become kind of hooked or loyal and they're likely to stay on as a customer
for a long time. Think obviously perfume, or hairdressers, or, oh, hey, photography, you know that I am all about selling to my existing customers, right, it's way easier to keep a client than it is to get a client for the first time, there's that real trust barrier that you have to get them over the first time that they hire you, that just gets lower and lower and easier and easier every time that you
deliver photos they love. And so my strategy is to proactively set myself up for the highest number of returning clients, by inviting my good clients into my membership after that first session with me. And if you don't know about the whole membership thing, either go check out revenue on repeat on my website, or go back to last week's episode, Episode 112, where I talk more in detail
about it. But before we can sell our clients into a membership, or even just have them come back as a plain old repeat client, we have to make them our clients in the first place, which is where my Sephora perfume sampler
inspiration comes in. For this strategy, you would want to partner with four or five other photographers in your market who are ideally priced, you know, similarly to you, but maybe have distinct styles from your style, you would then plan a mini session event and create a marketing strategy to spread the word about the event beyond your
own circles. So this could be you know, like a grassroots marketing event where you're partnering with a local business or maybe an influencer, who's shares a target audience with you. And oftentimes you can, you can pay for that, or you might be able to trade to have them either photographed by one of those photographers are all of
the photographers. And if your group has a budget, if everyone's willing to contribute some money, you could also do something like run a series of Google or Facebook ads to promote the event, what you wouldn't necessarily want to do is blast this out to your email list, as you will understand in just a minute. So the idea would be that everyone who registered would pay a normal mini session
type rate. And again, among the group, you guys would have to decide what that rate would be, relative to what your normal rates are. But for that rate, instead of getting one mini session with one photographer, the people who registered would get five or six, kind of micro sessions. One with each photographer involved, they would go around sort of round robin style, and get portraits
with each photographer. And then once they received their images, they would have the opportunity to choose one of those photographers from the group and book a full session with them. And the cost of that mini session would go toward the full session. So it would it would come back to them in the form of a discount. Regardless of who booked future sessions with the people who came the participating photographers would split the entrance fees equally minus any advertising or
event expenses. So everyone would receive some compensation for their time. And then the photographers who did book additional sessions would be giving up a bit of profit for those sessions due to the fact that, you know, they were giving a discount on a session. But obviously, the hope would be that they would then have a client who would return to them
again and again. And worst case scenario, if you were a participating photographer, and you didn't book any additional work, you would walk away with you know, a bit of money, some networking and an exposure, some portfolio material, and a bunch of shiny new email addresses on your list. So a few things to consider if you're interested in trying something
like this. First, you want to make sure that you're partnering with like minded photographers, who are going to create a positive experience for everyone involved. You also want to try and find photographers, like I said, who are similarly priced, and ideally kind of similarly skilled. This is probably the right kind of thing for people who have been in business for the same amount of time and are at a similar place in their
businesses. Ideally, you have different styles, but even if they're kind of similar, you yourself are going to be different and so you're going to connect differently with different people. Second, the group is going to need to agree on one person in the group to manage the registration and the communication process including collecting payments and signed
contracts. And since an event like this can be kind of logistics heavy, it may make sense for that person to be compensated a bit extra for that time and effort. And obviously you need to make sure that your accountant is not going to have a total meltdown if you if one person brings money in and then distributes it among the rest. So get that all worked out ahead of time. Third, don't try to
throw this together. If you are interested in hosting an event like this, for the first time in, let's say, August, I would start reaching out to potential partners no later than April, this is sort of like a, you know, let's really plan this and get it right so that when we show up, it's a great experience for everyone. Fourth, you want to make sure that the price you charge for the event pre qualifies the attendees as good potential clients, for any of
you. This should be fun, it should be different, it should be interesting, all of that sort of stuff. And it's a way for people to do a bit of comparison shopping. But what it is not is just you know a way to go get cheap or free photos, hopefully, the way that you position your messaging. And what this is, is that people understand that they're getting the opportunity to sort of try before they fully
buy. Finally, the group needs to brainstorm ways that you could tailor the event to be more appealing to your target audiences, you know, maybe part of the proceeds could go to some charity, you could do a raffle or giveaways, you could partner with aligned local businesses who could also help you spread the word but may want to show up at the event and also talk to
those people. The ideas are really limitless, I sort of would recommend that you start on the smaller side, keep it pretty simple or as simple as possible, and then potentially grow if things go well. But at the end of the day, live events like this are a pretty big commitment. But they can also be a ton of fun, and they have the potential to create a lot of buzz for your business. Is it a little risky to put yourself out there with other photographers in the hopes of getting noticed
and chosen? Sure. But no one who attends is going to know if no one books you. And even one great new client can make something like this totally, totally worth your time. Just like the perfume sampler, you are acknowledging that photography is about finding the right match, which it is. And finding the right match is just as important for you as it is
for your clients. So sit down, make a list of the photographers in your area that you think might make good partners and then send them a message with a link to this podcast episode. And then once you host your event, I want you to reach back out and tell me how it went. I want to hear all about it and if it is a success, or if you have lessons to share, I would love to bring you on the podcast and share that out with the world as well. Enjoy and have a great
week. Well that's it for this week's episode of this can't be that hard. I'll be back Same time, same place next week. In the meantime, you can find more information about this episode along with all the relevant links notes and downloads at this can't be that hard comm slash learn. If you like the podcast, be sure to hit the subscribe button. Even better, share the love by leaving a review on iTunes. And as always, thanks so much for joining me. I hope you have a fantastic week.