First Maternity Session

Pricing Guide for Photographer’s

Photographer’s Pricing Guide Series: Overview of How to Price Photography

7 Ways For Photographers To Increase Sales

As a photographer, your prices should reflect your talents, not the final output. Anyone can snap a photo and print it out on their home computer. Where the real talent comes from is within the photographer herself.

And by the way you present what you do to your customers.

It’s easy to increase your sales potential on every client. Start with thee 7 ways to put more pizzazz into the way you market your photography.

1. Create better packages.

People like deals. And they like to get what everyone else is getting. Packages actually make the buying/selling process a whole lot easier. Your customer can bypass the ala carte section, and trying to decide exactly what they need. Instead, they’ll simply buy what looks like a good deal. And if it’s your best seller, why not choose what everyone else is buying?

2. Don’t just sell one – sell multiples.

What if you could buy one for $9.99 or two for $14.99? Aren’t you more inclined to buy the two, even if you really only want one? Of course. It’s human nature. Just by selling your photographs in multiples, you’ll easily see your sales increase. After all, who can ignore a good deal?

3. It’s not all about the photographs.

When your client brings home her photograph, what is she going to do with it? She’s going to put it into a frame. Or she’s going to put it into an album. Or she’s going to scrapbook with it. Whatever your clients are into, find a way of incorporating that product line into your business. Don’t just sell your photographs. Sell everything about it.

4. Always have a special.

Just because your client purchased products from you months ago doesn’t mean they won’t purchase more. Offer timely sales throughout the year. Need some ideas of successful campaigns run in the past?

• Offer a 3 day event during your slow periods in which all past clients can come in and order anything from past photography sessions for ½ price. Only offer this to your customers that have completed their purchasing on their session.
• Any type of sale can be successful around the holidays. Offer free holiday cards with a purchase. Offer gift sets of frames and photographs. Offer gifts for grandparents a few weeks before grandparent’s day. There’s always a reason for a sale.

5. Offer your best deal before the event.

Aren’t you always the most excited about things during the planning stages? That’s also the time your most likely to spend. Whether it’s a wedding or a portrait, you can always excite people more before the event itself. It’s the anticipation. Use this to your advantage by offering special deals if they buy before the session. Buy one get one promotions on parent albums. Creating packages around specialty wall collages. Use your imagination, and sell while the excitement is high.

6. Use seasons and holidays to create special photography sessions.

What’s special in your area? For me here in Denver, it’s the Rocky Mountains. People love having the mountains in their portraits. And it’s easy to use this to your advantage.

Create special days throughout the year in which all of your clients meet you at a specified location for your special event. Several Saturday’s in September are perfect for photographing family portraits using the changing aspens. Or how about winter wonderland portraits in January when the snow is several feet deep? Because you’re meeting several clients in one day, schedule each client session every 30-60 minutes to guarantee creativity.

7. Free family sessions.

Who are your best clients? Offer them free family portrait sessions. If they’ve proven their value to you in the past, give them special rewards that tell them how happy you are to be working with them. Always reward your best customers. And because they have purchased from you in the past, even with a free session, you’re almost always guaranteed a sale.

20 Free or Affordable Ways to Promote Your Site

• #1 Video sharing sites like You Tube and My Space videos can offer you tremendous traffic for months or years to come. With so many new webcam avatars and video editing software, you don’t even need to be in the video. I recorded myself playing Mario Galaxy on the Wii, and uploaded it to many different sites, then added my site name at the end. In order to get the best exposure, upload your video to every video sharing site you can find. There are 100’s out there.
• #2 Article Marketing will never grow old or use less, it just evolves. We all know that article sites are a great way to get back links and exposure, but many are offering new incentives. Some sites offer pay per view, affiliate links, social networking, and much more.
• #3 Online Classified sites still do work, you just need to optimize them with good keywords so your ad will come up in the search engines. You need to also re-new them every month so your links will be indexed by the search engines on a regular basis.
• #4 Sweep Stake sites can offer you 100’s of visitors and back links for free. Instead of paying $49.95 for the next big traffic secret, hold a $50 contest instead, and submit your contest to all relevant sites. I guarantee your email list will explode.
• #5 Traffic Exchanges can offer you hundreds of visitors, but most of them will be untargeted or not interested, so you need to have a different landing page just for your traffic surfers. Most people show a squeeze page with just a newsletter box asking for them to receive a free report. Anything that will only take about 30 seconds, this way your surfers can join your newsletter and then move to the next site.
• #6 Make sure you add your site as your signature in all your email accounts. This only takes a few minutes to do, and you will be pleasantly surprised my the results.
• #7 Online and printed coupons can go a long way because everyone one is looking for a good deal. This method is quite affordable as well. Many online sites only charge a fee once your coupon is used, and you can order or make your own business cards that double as a coupon.
• #8 Social networking can be very beneficial if you have the time and follow the policies. Many business networks are popping up too, which will allow you to promote your business for free. It also pays to be friendly and make new friends, I have received some really great traffic techniques from my networking buddies.
• #9 Directory submissions may not provide you with much traffic, but it is one of the only ways where you can get 100’s of back links for free. Back links are very important when it comes to search engine optimization. Just keep in mind that it can take months to actually be listed. Many marketing gurus say it is best to join only new directories, this way your site will be listed in a matter of days. To find a list of 1000’s of directories just visit your favorite web master forum.
• #10 Forum posting can give you back links and visitors, but usually it’s just other members sizing you up, to see if you are worthy. So I recommend your signature should be an article or page that you receive pay per views from. For example your favorite videos from You Tube or a squeeze page.
• #11 If you have a very unique free service or tangible item you are giving away for free, submit it to free sites. They are always looking for great new offers for their customers. If your freebie is accepted your site will usually get a solo ad sent to their entire customer base, featured on their home page, and a permanent link, all for free.
• #12 If you or a family member travel a lot, make sure your site info is on your vehicle. My best friend has to remove her sign some months, because she gets more business than she can handle.
• #13 I could right a whole book on ways to create business with online auctions, but since this is already a lengthy article, I will only give you my favorite method. Since I enjoy to write, I write 3-5 page articles and sell them on eBay for $7.00, and of course there is always a link to a relevant site in the article. Plus I send a personal email to all my buyers, which has my main site in the signature.
• #14 Sponsoring any newsletter or charity is usually very affordable, and I am not just talking about business enzines. Most free sites (eCards, free stuff, etc.), are always looking for good sites. I sponsored a Free Stuff newsletter for $20, that had a database of almost 500,000 subscribers.
• #15 Expired domains can be a great alternative to traffic exchanges. You just need to make sure you research the domain before you commit to a purchase. Just be carefully with this method and think logically. If a company or person offers you an expired domain with 10,000 visitors for $20, than the traffic is probably computer generated.
• #16 Web 2.0 sites like Hub Pages, Squidoo, and Social Book Marking, are really a great place to start. Starting a business is hard enough, then forking out tons of money for hosting and etc., can really pile up. Not to mention you will get a much higher page rank for free. To me Web 2.0 is just Niche Building Sites evolving.
• #17 We know email signatures work, so why not having your site stamped or printed on every snail mail you send out. I have a huge red funky stamp that stamps my url on the back of all my envelopes. Since it is a fun design it does not look so business, so more people are curious about it.
• #18 Web Rings, Groups, Yahoo answers, safe lists, and blog comments can offer you some nice traffic and back links. However, since most of these methods are spammed to death, it may be a little difficult to find just the right ones. Most of these methods can be very time consuming and show little results, but with a little practice and research you will be able to find the best method for you and your business.
• #19 Viral Marketing is really not a method but many people have twisted the concept to make it look like a form of advertising. View 10 sites and then adding your site in the system is an electronic chain letter and nothing else. Every true advertising method you use should be an opportunity to go viral. You want customers to refer your site and come back because they want to not because they have too.
• #20 The most important and most over looked form of website promotion is Good Content. If you only have banners on your site or just a bunch of affiliate links, why would anyone want to link to your site, recommend it, or book mark it!