articles/Business/marketingyourproduct2-page2
by Ron Pybus Published 01/11/2006
To get a shop and its staff to market your product there has to be something in it for them. A free sitting for each member of staff means that they can directly sell your services from experience rather than second-hand. Free pictures for the shop's website costs little and being able to offer a quality product free, especially if it is exclusive, is an added advantage. The staff and the boss always get chocolates at Christmas and Easter. The shop links to my website and mine links to the shop.
Wedding photographers need to work with their regular venues. The venue should have an album of their work on display and the photographer should ensure that the albums are up to date and be full. The hotel I am in at the moment has a wedding book, but there are only 10 pictures in an album that holds 30, and they are very much a photographer's pictures aimed at the bride. If the pictures are selected with the venue in mind they will use the album to market their venue and your name will be quite visible.
Venues always have a need in January and February for images of their hotel and its grounds with summer sun and summer foliage, together with a bride and groom.
Stuart Schofield has gone one step further and brought together a hotel, a car company, flowers and cake supplier, and himself with a combined marketing package. This aims, not to sell the Friday or Saturday wedding but was sold to each participant company on the basis that they would be able to gain weddings on other days. It regularly brings in mid-week wedding bookings for all who buy the package, and the hotel, where brides go first, markets the package on behalf of everyone.
I also offer a discount package to parent groups at schools in the locality. This is not for school photographs but for family photos in my studio and again it brings in a regular flow of customers. The Parents' Association receives £5 from me for each sitting and thus is keen to promote the scheme in their newsletter to all parents.
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