The business side of photography
Some photographers don’t understand the value of nothing.
Customer: I want to buy this $1,400 refrigerator. After you deliver it to my house and install it, I’ll pay you $200. How does that sound?
Store clerk: Our cost on that refrigerator is $800. If I accept your $200 then we’ll be losing $600 plus the expense of delivery and installation, and we won’t make any profit.
Customer: But isn’t $200 better than nothing?
Store clerk: Of course not. Forget it.
When marketing their photography services, professional photographers must recognize that business clients have different needs from retail customers.
For retail customers, those who purchase family portraits or wedding photos, the images themselves are the final product. But for business clients, photos serve as tools to achieve broader objectives, primarily to drive company revenue.
Retail customers make purchasing decisions based on a mix of emotions, whereas business clients are typically driven by one overriding emotion: fear. Fear of making a bad decision, fear of losing money, or fear of damaging their reputation in front of superiors.
For small businesses, where photographers interact directly with the owner, the goal is generally to help increase sales. In larger companies, the priorities can be more complex. While sales growth remains important, it may not always be the primary reason for hiring a photographer. For example, photos might be needed for public relations, communications, or brand positioning.
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My web site offers three ways for prospective customers to contact me: telephone number, e-mail address, and a contact form.
I thought that most people would use the e-mail link. My assumption was that people would prefer and trust their own e-mail software more than a basic web-page contact form.
Over the past three years, 5% of potential customers used the telephone number, 30% used the e-mail address and 65% used the contact form.
Forms can capture not only the person’s name and e-mail address but also any other information you might need. However asking too many questions risks turning a simple contact form into an interrogation and frighten customers away.
Contact forms are easy to implement. Web hosts usually include CGI-based e-mail forms. Blog software either has contact forms built-in or there’s a free plugin available. There are a few third-party-hosted form services.
Contact forms do attract spammers and there are ways to minimize this nuisance. But any spam that does come through a contact form is far outweighed by the benefits of having such a form on your web site. I mention this because I’ve noticed that many photographers’ web sites don’t have a contact form.
When a corporate photographer arrives at an office to do business portraits, someone will always say, “I don’t like having my picture taken”, “I hope I don’t break your camera lens” or “I never like pictures of myself”.
The reasons for such comments include:
(1) They’ve never had a decent portrait made of themselves.
(2) They’re exhibiting lateralization of emotion.
(3) They’re very self-conscious or self-critical.
Let’s look at each of these three in more detail.
(1) This first issue can be easily solved by hiring an experienced portrait photographer and staying away from cheap, amateur-like photographers. You get what you pay for.
A good photographer can produce a portrait that the customer will like. If you know you’ll be getting a good result, you’ll look forward to the photo session.
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There was a Toronto photographer who did “three-S” portraits. When someone arrived at her studio for a business portrait, which she hated doing, she would tell them to “sit down, shut-up and smile.” She would then proceed to photograph them as quickly as possible.
Most companies know that business portraits are important. When a business hires a corporate photographer to produce portraits of its key employees, these people should be warned that they will be asked to smile. This is not meant to be cruel and unusual punishment.
A smile need not be a big, toothy grin. But a friendly appearance is important and that comes not just from the mouth but also from the eyes.
By having the employees smile, the photographer is following proven science.
A recent study at Penn State University found that when you smile, you don’t only appear to be more likable and courteous, but you actually appear to be more competent.
– Ron Gutman CEO/founder of HealthTap
If a photographer is comfortable with the prices they charge, then their pricing is too low.
A photographer should never set their prices based on what they would pay because the photographer is not the customer. Pricing should be determined by the value to the customer, not value to the photographer.
A customer’s willingness to pay hinges on their perception of value. Their perception is always different than the photographer’s.
The photographer sets the price and the customer sets the value.
If a customer decides that the value is equal or greater than the price, then they’ll invest in the photography services. For commercial and corporate photography, value is determined by the usage of the photography and the intended outcome of that usage.
Of course, to justify their prices, a photographer must always make sure their work creates value for the customer.
Once a professional photographer understands this concept, they’ll be comfortable with uncomfortable prices.
Following on the previous post that photography is much more influential than text, here’s a quote that might be familiar to some:
In a world which is expanding day by day, literature is no longer enough . . . Our busy age does not always have time to read, but it always has time to look.
Those words are from French writer Theophile Gautier who was commenting on the power of visual arts including the new art of photography. The quote is from 1858.
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