Authentic photography for corporate social media

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Press junkets are common in the newspaper industry. A junket is a third-party-sponsored event where that third party is looking for some free publicity. For example:

• A car manufacturer will take a group of writers to an exotic location where they can test drive a new vehicle. Of course, the car company will pay all the expenses.

• A travel company will pay for everything when it flies reporters to a series of tropical destinations so they can experience the locations firsthand and then write about their adventures. (Although I’ve been told by one such travel writer that these excursions can often visit a number of destinations in as many days and it can become a gruelling endurance test.)

• An entertainment network will fly writers to Hollywood, New York City or the location of a movie shoot so they can meet and interview the actors and director.

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Use You Clues

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When a customer is searching for a photographer, they don’t just look for pretty pictures on a web site and the lowest price. Instead, they’re looking for clues that a particular photographer is worth hiring at whatever price they might charge. The customer is looking for value which is quite different from low price.

Every professional photographer pretty much uses the same camera equipment, same computer and same software. Most photographers can, more or less, shoot the same pictures although this can vary by a huge margin. So how do you increase your value to the customer?

You have to offer something that customers can’t get from any other photographer. And what can’t they get from any other photographer?
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Transactional or relational photography?

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In general, there are two types of customer: transactional and relational. Although, most customers alternate between the two, depending on what they’re purchasing.

A transactional customer cares mostly about the current purchase and its price. For example, you probably have transaction-based interactions with gas stations, convenience stores, grocery stores, auto insurance agencies (at least here in Ontario), carpet cleaners, etc. You don’t really care which business you purchase from, you just want a good deal. Most customer interactions are transactional.

A relational customer, as the name suggests, is more interested in forming an ongoing business relationship. A purchase is based not so much on price but on previous experiences with that vendor. This type of customer wants low risk more than low price. For example, you may have a relationship with your dentist, doctor, favourite camera store, car dealership, hairstylist, etc. A relational customer is often a repeat customer and they tend to spend more.
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Peak Photography Experience

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The word “photography” sounds a lot like “psychology” doesn’t it? :-)

To help market their business, a photographer is always told to be different from other photographers. But most photographers misunderstand what this means.

It’s not so much about the photographer being different but rather it’s about the customer being different. That is to say that a photographer might be considered different if they can make the customer feel different (i.e. more satisfied) compared to another photographer.

Psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s Peak-End Theory says that we judge a past experience not on the overall experience but rather on our memory of the peak moment(s) of that experience and how the experience ended.
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Refunding Photography

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Photographers, what’s your refund policy?

While there’s no Canadian law that requires a business to refund a customer’s money or to make an exchange, except if a product is defective or a service is not delivered, it’s probably a good idea for a photographer to have some sort of refund policy.

The easiest refund policy is: “No refunds!” But that won’t inspire consumer confidence.

Note that “Future Performance Agreements” in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Ontario allow a customer to cancel a contract and get a refund if the photographer fails to give the customer a written contract.
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Recycling The Trash

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Here in Ontario, we’re in the early days of a provincial election and the three political parties are on the campaign trail.

This post could’ve been about the fact that the Conservatives don’t even have a business portrait of its leader and that several of its candidates also don’t have headshots. No portrait = invisible.

Or this post could’ve been about the NDP which had to cut-and-paste its candidate headshots onto a matching background since the party couldn’t figure out how to organize consistent portraits in the first place. [Edit May 13: It appears that the NDP’s first attempt at cut-and-paste onto a high-school blue background was so bad that they did the cut-and-paste all over again.]

Or this post could’ve been about the media handout pictures from the three parties. Those photos have no captions, no IDs, no information whatsoever. They are useless as media handouts.
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Are press releases dying off?

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A journalism site recently posted an article titled “Has social media finally killed the press release?”

Here’s a truism: any time a headline is in the form of a question that can be answered with a yes or no, the answer is invariably always no. If the answer was yes, the headline would be in the form of a statement not a question.

Social media makes it fast, easy and free to send out information to the masses. But that was never the purpose of a press release, or at least a press release from a smart company.
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