Business Day Thursday: How About A Customer Photo Contest

Good Morning Everybody,

Yesterday turned out to NOT be an easy day on the road as I had hoped. I was up by 6:30 a.m. and didn’t leave Chicago till almost 2 p.m. because of a few things I needed to tend to at the studio. A few more things popped up as I was driving across I-90 that needed attention too – it was just one of those days.

I knew I wasn’t going to make it to Minneapolis so I decided to get within a 100 miles or so and drive the rest today.  As it turned out the day really ended on a high note. 

I was heading west and I was so lucky to watch a beautiful display of clouds and sun for almost 2 hours of the drive!  I wanted to take a photo or two, but the windshield was so full of martyred bugs that the finished image would have looked like I had applied some weird Photoshop texture to it.  I just decided to enjoy the view.

The wonderful scenery continued as I made my way up Route 14 toward Winona, Minnesota [link] following the upper stages of Mississippi River.  I borrowed this image from the city website, but the view looks pretty much like what I viewed last evening – very beautiful.

When most folks think Mississippi, they think New Orleans, not Minnesota.  The drive was beautiful. After a good rest last night, I am ready to go today and am looking forward to the program this evening.

So how about we get on with today’s post so I can get back on the road.  Here we go…

How About A Customer Photo Contest

OK, I have to admit that although I’ve had this idea for a while, it began to gain traction last week during my CBTL presentation. You may ask why would anyone want to have a photo contest for their clients?  The quick answer is to keep your brand in front of their eyes in a very pro-active way, build business, and have a little fun doing it.

Today, everyone owns a digital camera and enjoys taking photos.  Just look at Facebook, Flickr, smart phones – photos are everywhere!  It’s time to leverage this ever exploding photo-enthusiasm into a business building, money making proposition for our studio.  I think I have a plan.

Hit the “Read more…” link below for the rest of the story.

Too many times we all want to market to the new customer even though the gold is already there in our own backyard with the people that love us, our current and past clients.

Here is my quick 7 step plan to run a photo contest for your clients.

1. Send a mailing out at least 2 times to all your current clients announcing your 1st annual customer photo contest where the grand prize is a Family Portrait package worth $500! Second prize may be 4 tickets to the movies, and third prize – dinner for 4 at a family friendly restaurant.  It’s all about family for this promotion.

2. Think through the rules of the contest, how the images need to be submitted, and how the winner will be selected.

3. Invite your clients to invite their friends to enter too.  The client who has the most friends enter receives a $100 gift card from your studio.

4. Add to the fun and let all the family members of all ages enter too. Having the kids involved will emphasize that this is a “family” project.

5. After the deadline closes, select your winners and call them with the good news and schedule their portrait session.  All is finished now , right – NOT!!!

6. Notify all the other entrants that the winners were selected and thank them for entering.  But thank them in a big way – send all entrant families a $50 studio gift card which they can use any time. 

Even though they didn’t win, they still will be motivated to contact you to spend the $50.  Not only that, but you’ve also got them thinking “family portraits”.  The suggestion of family portraits and $50 should motivate a few of them to call for an appointment.

The gift card creates what I call “client stickiness”.  They can’t use it anywhere else, only at your studio. The gift card  “sticks” them to you.

7. Recap the contest and winner in your next e-Newsletter including some comments from those that entered and the winner of course too.  Be sure to run a few photographs from the winning family’s portrait session too.

There you have it – a super simple way to increase and  build your family portrait business.  Make it an annual contest too.  Then each year it will gain momentum.

I got this post up fairly quickly this morning.  I would love to hear your comments on how we could fine tune the idea even further for out DPT community.  Just post your ideas an suggestions to the comment section below and lets see what develops. It should be fun.

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Hey gang, I’ve got to hit the road.  LaDawn flies in and lands about 1 p.m. and we’ve got to get the room set for tonight. How about I plan to see a lot of you at this evening’s CBTL presentation.  And, if you can’t make it, I’ll see you right here, same time, same place tomorrow.

Adios, David