Do you charge a fee to reserve your service for a game or games?
Here's the situation. Every season I attend the Meet the Team banquet for our high school football team. I sit at a table with my sign up sheets and answer any questions parents may have. My sign up sheets are limited to 3-5 players per game( for Quality not Quantity) at the end of the night Varsity is 90% full with JV and Frosh at maybe 40% . At the end of the season some parents take months to order. So I thought if they had a deposit (a deposit that would be deducted from there order) that may encourage them to order in a more timely fashion..
Chuck: It seems to me you're going through a lot of bother without guaranteeing commitment. At the extreme, what's the point of signing people up if the question of whether or not they purchase images remains up in the air? I'd suggest you re-think your approach to incorporate a package plan for which parents pay half up front (you don't shoot their kid unless you receive the money), and half on delivery. They pay a set rate for a specific package. At the low end, they get a CD with x number of jpgs images straight out of your camera (no processing time on your part). At the high end, they get a CD with x number of professionally edited image files. There's no previews, no proofs. There's just a decision to hire you and a decision about the specific package they want. Half up front, the other half at delivery. It's much too easy for parents to sign up and have you shoot their kid if there's no cost associated. And if you're letting them see the images without having to pay, well, I'm not surprised things are happening as you say they are, especially if they are viewing the images online, which would be enough for many.
I also encourage you to set this up so that if you are shooting only one kid at a game, those parents are paying a somewhat hefty fee, say $250. But if you are shooting 2 kids, it's $350, and 3 kids (your max) it's $450. This would provide incentive for parents to come together as a way of saving money, since it would be better to pay $150 (1/3 of $450) than the $250 it would cost if your kid were the only one being shot.
This may not work. Setting this kind of system in place may result in few or no takers, but at least you won't be wasting your time shooting and then waiting for orders.
The bottom line here is that it doesn't make sense to wait until after you've done all the work to find out whether parents are willing to spend money on your photos.
Im having trouble with your grammar. Are you saying that you are doing this, will do this, or have already done this?
Regardless... when it comes down to all the sales models that are out there... I have done them all. Sorry to say, at least in this area .... nothing works.
I cannot agree more with what Russ has said above. 2 years ago I shot all of my youth sports action on spec. sales. I just went out and shot for the leagues I had a T&I contract with, handed out marketing materials that led everyone to my website, posted the images and waited for the sales to come in. It's no secret that online sales have taken a drastic turn over the last few years. Even though my images are downsized, watermarked and right-click protected, it still isn't enough these days. Some folks are happy enough doing a screen grab and as long as they can print off a 3x5 or something similar in size, even with the watermark on it, they will. The bottom line is, if they don't have to pay for it....THEY WON'T! As good as your work may be, nothing compares with free in the eye of Joe Consumer.
So, with that said, and a year of shooting action behind me with less than stellar sales results I made like Wylie Coyote and went back to the ol' drawing board. I saw that my average action order was between $50 - $100 and I really wanted to push my posters so what I came up with was an Action Photography Deposit that had 2 pricing tiers. The 2 price levels are put in place to draw a line in the sand, so to speak, to seperate the poster customers from the customer who may just want a few nice action shots to order smaller prints from. I have a $50 level which will get their athlete enough action shots so that they can order a handful of small prints. Then I have a $100 deposit level for the customers who are interested in our custom poster line. This gets them several more action shots from different angles, etc. as well as a quick portrait taken before the game or after the game in case they decide to go with one of our posters that include muti-shot action and a portrait. I just explain to them that the deposit is higher because there is a lot more work involved, not only creating the images, but culling through them to get the best images to make the poster, as well as time spent editing the images. The deposit is then deducted from their final price of the poster.
In doing this, it made my life a lot easier this year since I was primarily concentrating on only those athletes who paid a deposit, and wouldn't you know, sales came in a LOT FASTER and virtually everyone had ordered within 60 days of the event. I also found that since they had already spent the deposit, they ended up spending more, therefore my average sale went up as well.
I have not tried what a lot of you are doing, (and what Russ mentioned) and that is selling photo cd's to individuals. I do offer a team disc option for $250 and that basically will get me out to a game, shoot the game and then put the images on a dvd and they can make copies and distrubute to all the parents, but I believe I only sold a few of these last year. I guess with most parents having cameras, they still believe they can get the same shots we get, or they are happy with what they are getting I should say.
I hope others weigh in on this because even though my method may have worked well for me, it may not be something that works for others. Best of luck.
Very informative post with some options to take into consideration. I too hope others will chime in. I'm doing the "shoot the games on spec, put them on Zenfolio and hope for orders." Slim pickings so far.
P Alesse wrote:
Im having trouble with your grammar. Are you saying that you are doing this, will do this, or have already done this?
Regardless... when it comes down to all the sales models that are out there... I have done them all. Sorry to say, at least in this area .... nothing works.
Paul
I have been doing the process of the "free" sign ups for the last 6 season's.
Thanks
P Alesse wrote:
Regardless... when it comes down to all the sales models that are out there... I have done them all. Sorry to say, at least in this area .... nothing works.
So, lemme see if I understand. You're having people who want images of their kid sign up in advance, yet they're not paying anything up front to sign up? The only income you're seeing from this is if/when they order prints online? I'm sorry, that just doesn't seem to make sense. Why bother having them sign up? Sorry, I don't get it. Why aren't you having these people pay you up front?
I offer three sports action package options for those who sign up in advance. With each option the client knows I'll shoot a specific number of games and they'll get a specific number of prints. They can always purchase additional prints, but they'll know up front how many games they get photos from and how many prints they can have for each package. With each higher-priced package they'll get discounts on posters or other things. I also offer a season CD for a flat rate. I find that many parents are choosing to go with the CD option, which is fine by me as it's easier to batch process, burn everything to a disk, hand it over, and move on.
As the photographer, you know when you head out to shoot an event you're doing so for a specific client who has already paid you to shoot for them; you're not just shooting on spec. Parents who buy the package feel as though they're getting special treatment because they know I'm focusing just on their kid and they don't have to worry about getting quality action photos. Those other parents who ask if the images are going to be available for purchase online later get the line, "I'm sorry, the Jones have hired me to focus on getting images of their son/daughter." (this often results in additional package sales that I'd never see in online purchases).
Is this a perfect way to doing it? Nope; probably not. But for me it's a heck of a lot better than just shooting on spec and relying on online sales after the fact. Those sales have virtually dried up over the last few years.
