NEWSLETTER for OCTOBER 1983
Volume No 65
N.Z.P.P.A. CONVENTION   RONALD FRIEDMAN

• He says that people buy from one photographer instead of another, not because

• the person they buy from is a better photographer, but because they are sold on what that photographer has.

• When you are looking at what to sell, you should look for the difference between you and the other photographer.  This is often referred to as the differential advantage.

• He said most businesses fail because they fail to meet the needs of the market place.

• You must be aware of the needs of the market place.

• What does the market want?

• How are we going to get the goods that we have into the hands of the public?

• Your location is important.  People must know you exist.

• He defines the difference between selling and marketing as....

• Selling equals getting rid of what you have.

• Marketing equals having what the market needs.

• He feels that a third of a page or smaller is ideal for a newspaper advertisement.

HOW GOOD IS DIRECT MAIL ?
One of the speakers at the Seminar was a woman who six years ago purchased a woman's fashion shop in a location that had nothing going for it.   I think she said it had a take away on one side and a T.A.B on the other.

They were lucky in those days if they saw one customer a day and the only good thing it had going for it was that it had extremely good car parking.

She decided on what her client base was going to be and then started out with householder type circulars that she personally delivered into letter boxes.

She slowly built up a client list and first of all had these on cards and then on sheets that she could Xerox the names off and finally now has them in a computer.

She has in excess of six thousand names on this list and she can sort this list into any of the following...

She can make up a list of people who haven't purchased since a specific date or people who purchased over a dollar amount or people who purchased a typical type of garment, or she can sort the complete list into postal codes to save on postage.

She regularly sends out a fashion news letter always incorporating in it a personal touch and always giving something free.   She always gets a six percent result in the first week.

I can see a lot of parallels in her business to the average photographic studio.   She is in a specialized business... people buy from her regularly and she has repeat customers.

Naturally a photographers list may have to be larger because of the periods between the times they can purchase Photography... unless you offer something different each time like "family groups" and you sell to them... Copy's and you sell to them....  and who is to say that they should not have a portrait or a family group done each year   

CREDIT CARDS
It was brought out at the direct mail seminar that you should be using credit cards.     They say with direct mail you get a ten to twenty per cent larger response if you make provision to pay for something by credit card.

You also get five to twelve percent more people telephoning in for your product if they can quote their credit card this of course does not apply to having your portrait made.

This to me means that if you^'ll accept credit cards in your business mention it on all of your advertising material you will get more and more people  paying for the photographs with credit cards.

O.K. you have to give a small percentage away but that is more than offset normally with the extra orders that you get.

MORE ON THE DIRECT MAIL SEMINAR
The speaker, a Mr McDonald stressed that direct mail is a me to you business.

No other advertising medium can offer this personal service.

He then mentioned key rule "A.I.D.A." that should be followed in writing direct mail letters such as....

ATTENTION
INTEREST
DESIRE
ACTION

He stressed that you must do what you promised, WHEN you promised you would do it in every instance.

In writing direct mail letters there are key words that have maximum effect such as
- NOW - FIRST - HOW - WHY - ALL - AMAZING -UNREPEATABLE  etc.,

A lot of thought must go into the way that you make your offer.   He cited the following example whereby an item can be offered at "Half the price " OR you could
"Buy one and get one free" OR You could offer 50 percent off".

All of the above mean the same thing, but in practical test cases it was found that the "buy one, get one free" had by far the most effect.

Almost always the letter should be started with a question to gain the readers attention.   In many cases this can be written on the outside of the envelope in a bold manner, if this is done who would not then want to open the envelope to see what was inside.

In summing up Mr McDonald mentioned that direct mail advertising generally takes more planning and production time, but dollar for dollar nothing succeeds like direct mail.

DIRECT MARKETING SEMINAR
The Direct Marketing Semiar was held in Auckland on Tuesday the 20th September to a packed Ballroom of about 300 people.

There was a line-up of very good speakers ... and like all conferences some were a lot better than others.

Some of the points raised were ...

In America householders received between 5 and 6 pieces of direct mail every day.   This means in New Zealand we are massively under developed in the direct mail industry.   Statistics from that country indicate that only three in a hundred pieces of direct mail do not get opened.