Thoughts

Do not advertise unless….

……. you are serious about wanting more business.

Yesterday I was in a shopping centre and a 4WD pulled in beside my sports car as I was placing something in the boot.

I observed on the rear tyre and advert for a motel in Blenheim. As the guy got out of the 4WD I said to him " you are a long way from home", he said "yup", and carried on walking.

What is wrong with that you may ask, well to put it simply, here was somebody that had read his advert, and showed interest in what he was advertising, and he said "yup" and kept on walking.

While what should he have done, and what should you have done in the similar circumstance? Well you could have stopped and talk to the person that made the observation, you could have established that yes this person passes through Blenheim on the way to Picton at least once a year, you could have given him a business card was a special notation on the back for a free newspaper, you could have gained another customer. After all you did spend some money on advertising your business on your 4WD, and then you ignore every response (okay I am guessing) you get to you advert, or do you expect people to telephone you at your place of business, and plead for you to rent them a room for the night!

Okay let us convert this now to photography, you have the word photographer print on your car, or you are observed photographing a Wedding, or doing a commercial job, or photographing a family group, or whatever, this will of course raise the interest that everybody that comes across you, they may not know what to say to you, so they may say "are you a photographer", that is an invitation for you to start a conversation with them, find out how you can help them with photography, and There Will Be a Way, make an appointment to see them or at the very least give them your business card.

We will talk more about exactly what should be on your business card and how you can produce it, and how you can get your customer to keep it for a large number of years.

So if you do spend money on any form of advertising, and somebody response to it in any form whatsoever, take this as a genuine enquiry and treat it as such because whether you like it or not that enquiry has cost you money. For example if you spend the modest sum of $5,000 a year on all of your forms of advertising, including your premises, and you photograph 500 appointments, each appointment has cost you $10 each. Now most people spend well in excess of that and I doubt if you could get your appointed cost down below $10 an appointment, and so if you ignore that enquiry, next time just pull out a $10 note and burn that because that is what you are doing.