Senior Marketing
Thank you for visiting our page!
We appreciate you taking the time to visit our studio’s website to learn a bit more about how we have radically transformed our senior business in just one short year. First and foremost, you more than likely arrived here after clicking on a Facebook ad. We would suggest bookmarking this page to ensure you have access to this link in case the ad does not reappear on your FB timeline. Second, you'll notice that this isn't some fancy sales and marketing website. This is a unpublished page within our studio's official website. My wife and I are working photographers and not quote 'rock star' speakers. This is our full time job and you can follow links at the bottom of the page to see our normal day to day work. While we do create excellent, saleable work, we are creating epic imagery for each and every client. However, our marketing is top notch and because of that, we have exceeded our own expectations for bookings for the Class of 2019. After reading these details, you will have the opportunity to purchase the specifics of our entire process via digital download for only $79. We want to go ahead and let you know that up front so you realize that the investment you would make is a very small one for some amazingly effective senior marketing methods.
First, we’re currently photographing 65 Class of 2019 seniors who are representing our studio as Spokesmodels for their respective schools. These 65, by themselves, will lead to $91,000 in final sales. In fact, this group has already paid us almost 22% of the $91,000 or $19,500!! And, that rolled in during February and March! I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s always nice to get some extra income in during the slower winter months.
If you did the math, you realize that our Spokesmodel sessions average $1,400 a piece for us. While we do have a small minimum order, almost all of our Spokesmodels exceed that. We aren’t here to tell you that we end up with $10,000 sales...we wish we did, but that’s not happening in small town Georgia. But we do end up with a very respectable average for a mom and pop studio with zero employees.
We’ve been blessed to be in this business for 24 years and during that time, we’ve seen some amazing changes to this industry. The huge storefront studio is a relic of the past. Now, you’ve got to be lean and quick on your feet to thrive in this ultra competitive environment. While quality photography gets you noticed, marketing is key to bringing business to your door. One thing is for sure, you better not sit still thinking that business will always come to you...you’ve got to go out and get it...each and every year. And this is especially true with the high school senior market.
So, back to our current senior season. As mentioned above, we’re in our 24th year of business and I hate to admit it, but our 23rd year really stunk. We got to the point that we were expecting our previous marketing plan to work just as well every year. Sadly though, our Class of 2018 totals were pitiful! We only photographed 59 total seniors for the entire year...59!
For a studio that specializes in senior portraits, that was a terrible number for us. That season ran from March of 2017 to end of February 2018 and we averaged just under five seniors a month! It almost made us think it was time to hang it up. However, we decided that we would set some stronger goals for ourselves and break out all the stops for the Class of 2019. I’ve got to tell you, the results have exceeded our expectations. The 65 seniors we are now photographing will provide us with amazing advertising opportunities as we showcase our work to their fellow classmates. As an added bonus to our studio, they will be completely finished with their sessions by May 31st. Summer is our primetime for seniors here in Georgia and we will have already completed 65 sessions at an average of $1,400 each before the summer even starts!
So, how did we do it?
That’s where we made some simple changes that really paid off for us. We’ve been dependent on social media marketing such as Facebook and Instagram for many a year and in the past it’s been great for us, but last year it seemed to fade a good bit. However, as mentioned above, we’ve been in business since 1994 and throughout the majority of those years there was no social media at all...and those were some great years for our business. So, we wondered if some of our old school marketing methods still had a chance to shine...and amazingly, yes...they not only still work, but they work unbelievably well.
We began our Class of 2019 Spokesmodel search process in January and we ended up with just over 100 people who were interested in advertising for our studio. We did have specific criteria that we looked for so not all were invited in, but we definitely could have ended up with more than the 65 we currently have. In fact, 30+ more people have reached out to us after we made our final selections...now we’ve hit 135 total people who wanted to work with our program! As we’re just a mom and pop studio, there aren’t enough hours in the day for us to accommodate that many, but it was amazing to see that our resurrected methods of attracting the Class of 2019 were really paying off.
So, here we are in April and we’re only two months into our Class of 2019 senior season. A season for us that runs from March of 2018 to February of 2019. Two months, that, if they mirrored last year, would have resulted in about 10 seniors walking through our door. But, this year, we’re at 65! We’ve already exceeded last years entire season by six sessions and there’s still 10 months to go! Actually, as my wife was proofreading this, she informed me we’re at 72 as our Spokesmodels are already referring their friends to us! That’s seven summer senior sessions that have already booked and paid their deposits. We’ve now upped our goal to 150 seniors for the Class of 2019. 150 seniors at our $1,400 average will generate $210,000 in sales...from one product line! That will be a 154% increase over our Class of 2018 numbers!
We are blissfully happy to see that this process is working so well for us this year. It’s challenging to be in this business when clients are not walking through your door and your phone is not ringing. Marketing can be one of the trickiest parts of this industry, but, when it’s done right, it can really make your year amazing for you.
We truly feel that the step by step process that we followed this year will work for just about anyone. Most photographers excel in the artistic side of this business but struggle when it comes to the business side. We're happy to say this method has worked wonders for us and it really wasn’t that challenging considering we made use of these same techniques 15 to 20 years ago. But, considering the unreliability of social media marketing these days, we felt it was a needed adjustment to a time tested program that we have been utilizing for years. Our Spokesmodel program has been in existence since 1997. Originally called Ambassadors and then Studio Representatives and now Spokesmodels, it is a process that has worked for many studios across the nation. But if you’ll notice, most studios only have five to ten seniors sign up in total...We’re at 65! And, we do believe that if you apply these same techniques, you’ll exceed your Class of 2019 expectations as well.
As we mentioned in the first paragraph, all of the details of our program are included for the low price of $79 and here’s what that will include.
A PDF workbook that provides you with a step by step guide on how we make us of our Spokesmodel program. We’ll include some historical knowledge about how we’ve utilized this in the past, what has worked and what hasn’t. We’ll also share what we feel is the best approach to make this work for different studios.
First, how do we market the concept to a current group of rising seniors. This is important, because if they don’t know about you or your program, you have zero chance of them contacting you. This is where we excelled by making a simple change this year. That simple change stands to make us an additional $127,000! We'll provide concrete examples of exactly how we reached out within our market and created the interest in what we are doing.
Second, how do we handle the inquiries as they come in. They’ve got to ‘apply’ first and then we’ve got to respond. You’ll get the details on how we handle the application process and then all of the specifics on what we discuss with them from that point forward...and it’s a lot. We actually have an entire scripted process that they experience that leads to them making a financial commitment to us, right off the bat.
Support materials...we’ve created a 16 page booklet that they receive and we walk them step by step through what will happen next. It’s important to maintain consistent contact with them as they’re working with your studio. They’re excited right off the bat and it’s your responsibility to ensure that they stay excited throughout the entire process.
How we utilize the Spokesmodels to lead to even more seniors. This part shares with you the steps to take to multiply that original group into your entire senior season. A large Spokesmodel group is great, but it means very little if it represents all of the seniors you’ll work with this year. You need to leverage their excitement into more bookings...and we’ll show you how we do it.
