What do you think the % of your clients come from these combined?
1. referral from your previous client
2. referral from your friend (word of mouth)
3. from people seeing their friends facebook page and see your photos
I am just trying to figure out about how many % comes from purely from old school marketing (bridal show, ad, google ad word etc.).
schwettylens wrote:
1. referral from your previous client - 95% schwettylens wrote:
2. referral from your friend (word of mouth) I don't really have friends - 0% schwettylens wrote:
3. from people seeing their friends facebook page and see your photos - maybe 5%
schwettylens wrote:
I am just trying to figure out about how many % comes from purely from old school marketing (bridal show, ad, google ad word etc.). Back when I was starting out we booked a good number from wedding shows. Now, I think we're too expensive. We don't do any kind of traditional marketing otherwise. So 100% of our business is from some kind of referral (cold searches from google never convert for us).
Would you guys do simple advertising? Such as putting your name/phone/website on your car? Like magnets or on your rear window? It cost me $40 for window sign so at least my name is visible to people on the road which I am a lot.
We are still a fairly new studio (only been pushing into the market for the past 18 months or so), so we have not had a decent previous client base as we do as of fall this past year.
1. referral from your previous client: 20%
2. referral from your friend (word of mouth) 10%
3. from people seeing their friends facebook page and see your photos 20%
others:
Studio walk-ins: 5%
Facebook ads: 5%
Bridal Shows: 40%
We have a double edge sword, we get lots of great clients from outside our area, NYC, Boston, California, etc who come to our area for their wedding. Many have friends who will not come back to the area to get married and thus we have very low word of mouth. Even with their praises. I would say most years 30% of our couples are local. From that group the WOM is very high.
We advertise with a higher end wedding magazine and that brings lots of hits for us with the out of town clients.
FotobyMomo wrote:
Would you guys do simple advertising? Such as putting your name/phone/website on your car? Like magnets or on your rear window? It cost me $40 for window sign so at least my name is visible to people on the road which I am a lot.
Hell no. When was the last time you saw a luxury product advertised on a car?
FotobyMomo wrote:
Would you guys do simple advertising? Such as putting your name/phone/website on your car? Like magnets or on your rear window? It cost me $40 for window sign so at least my name is visible to people on the road which I am a lot.
Magnets/car advertising seems cheesy and risky. I wouldn't consider hiring a photog who advertised on their car... but that's just me. But I would take note maybe if I was a thief looking to score some expensive camera equipment.
schwettylens wrote:
What do you think the % of your clients come from these combined?
1. referral from your previous client
2. referral from your friend (word of mouth)
3. from people seeing their friends facebook page and see your photos
I am just trying to figure out about how many % comes from purely from old school marketing (bridal show, ad, google ad word etc.).
1. 80%
2. 15%
3. 5%
We don't advertise at all... so all of our work comes from referrals. Occasionally, we'll get someone who google searches for their particular venue and finds us. Our Facebook number is low i think... but we only started our fan page in Aug. 2010 so I have a feeling that segment is going to grow.
I actually decided to start tracking this to see how marketing etc is working for me.
These are figures only for MAIN shooting, I also track second shooting but that would skew the results
2009
100% friend referrals
2010
50% referrals from photographers/people asking on FM
25% friend referrals
25% paid marketing
2011 (booked so far)
50% facebook
25% referrals from photographers/people asking on FM
25% paid marketing
....
in terms of number of inquiries the paid marketing kills everything else... mostly though that's because the inquiries from other sources are nearly 100% conversions. I'm actually working on figuring out whether the paid marketing is actually worth my money... I think I'll give it two years and then look at it again.
good question, thanks for asking it!
P.S. I might be weighing facebook a bit much on the 2011 answer. I have at least one wedding where I'm not sure what exactly it was... she was at a friend's wedding and saw us in action, then saw the work on facebook and loved it.... so at least one of the results in facebook is more a combo result he he
Referrals from previous clients... 2%? referrals from planners and vendors... 50%. The rest from google. I'm in a destination wedding market though and it's pretty uncool to rip off your sorority sisters idea and get married in the same place as her 800 miles away.
New law in effect about vehicles, weight, and signage. If anyone wants more info I can look up links, but basically any vehicles that can gross over 10K and are used in business are now requiring commercial registration, special testing, including med exams for drivers, and on road tests. So your mini cooper is fine, but some of us truck, SUV, van guys have to watch what we're placing on our vehicles.
Probably the hardest hit are the really small innocent businesses (think grandma pulling a trailer to craft shows as a small vendor of quilts, hehe) and things like handymen or landscapers who might not be hulling huge loads, but have signage and conduct business using a vehicle.
I only know about this because I'm into racing/offroad 4x4's etc and do run around with my truck at +10,000 GVWR at times moving these types of vehicles. Its also applying to people who accept sponsorships.
100%, but a number of ours come from different sources than the 3 you listed. I just started tracking these a bit more diligently so I don't really have an accurate breakdown. But if I had to pick from the 3 options you listed, it's tough because many of our clients fit 2 or 3 of the categories.
FotobyMomo wrote:
Would you guys do simple advertising? Such as putting your name/phone/website on your car? Like magnets or on your rear window? It cost me $40 for window sign so at least my name is visible to people on the road which I am a lot.
sure i would... if i wanted thieves breaking my windows on a regular basis.
ksmahgrts wrote:
sure i would... if i wanted thieves breaking my windows on a regular basis.
Hasn't happened to me yet to be honest. Then again they can come and look inside my car and see its empty and realize it'd be pointless. Plus it's an SUV so they can even look in the back (no trunk locks to break).
One thing, not sure if this was someone playing prank on me or it was the ice, but one of the "O" went missing. So instead of fotobymomo.com it said fotobyMOM.com
