Not shooting on spec.

[DDCSD]

I shoot youth sports and I'm finally to the point where I feel I can advertise my services and shy away from shooting on spec. I currently contact tourney organizers and shoot entire tourneys, as many games as I can, post the photos to my exposuremanager site and sell from there. Sales have been pretty fair, but it tends to be a very long weekend and a lot of frames get wasted.

I would like to start transitioning into more pre-sales and eventually shooting for teams, individuals, booster clubs, leagues, etc...

For my next basketball tourney, I'm going to attempt to sell game CD's. I'm thinking of charging $100-150 for an entire game CD. Please keep in mind that this is a 3 day tourney, and every team plays 5 games minimum. I figure that if sell 10 CD's this way, I've made as much money with a lot less work as I would for a normal weekend of online print sales.

Any thoughts?


I am also trying to figure out what to charge and what to offer for individual sales, for tourneys and regular season high school sports. I really have no idea what to do for this.


Just looking for some ideas and starting points. I know that its different in every area, but it is nice to have a reference point.

[wyofizz]

Derek,
We're probably in a similar market area. I'm interested in how your idea
works out.
With the low income from spec. work it's hard to believe people would pay up front for action shots for anything other than very special events.
I hope I'm very wrong. :)

Dave

[DDCSD]

I've found that I'll make half or more of my haul for a weekend off of the parents that order $100 plus in prints of their child. I've had people buy $200-300 in prints and many that will buy a 5x7 of every single shot I have of their child.

I'd just like to figure out who those people are before hand, that way I can take more shots of their child, and less of the ones that aren't going to be buying. :):)

[wyofizz]

I'm experiencing the same thing. It seems that about 90% could care less about the action shots but the 10% are very passionate and vocal if you don't have x number of shots of their kids. Only focusing on the real market will benefit all of us.
Dave

[gromeo]

I work with a company that does on site sales, we shoot the game and try to get all the kids, we also sign parents up before the game, a deposit of $20 and we will focus more on that kid along with shooting the game. The problem comes when you have multiple kids to focus on in one game. But this seems to get the parents back to view the images.

[wyofizz]

gromeo,
Is the $20 deposit used to discount their order?
Dave

[gromeo]

gromeo,
Is the $20 deposit used to discount their order?
Dave

It goes towards their order or the package they choose, there are times that we do not get any good action shots of their child or the parent is just not happy with what we capture then money is refunded.

[DDCSD]

I think my biggest problem is that I need to find someone that can sell for for me while I'm shooting.

[asysin2leads]

I am in the same boat. I am looking at sending out information to local tourneys about shooting them. The ones I've been to have had very little photography coverage and they charge a king's ransom for the prints. I know that I have the ability to offer a better product and cheaper. I'm not interested in under-cutting the competition, I just know I can do it cheaper and better. I don't think the consumer is getting their money's worth.

A friend of mine and I already have viewing stations laid out via a Linux server w/ laptop viewing stations. I will post all pics to ExpMan and will have mobile broadband to handle the internet. I like being able to create a separate folders on the MkIIn. That way I can label them by team names.

One of the thing I have found is that parents dead set on the action shots either. They're more interested in a sportrait of their kid. The action shots are nice to get, but they like to have their kid singled out.

I'm subscribing to this thread to see how it plays out.

[MJPhotos24]

I've seen this trend before while working in music where the concentration went from CD's to mp3's, and it seems to be happening in photography where we're going from prints to digital files. I only offer digital downloads through one site I shoot for as a test as they are not on my ExpMan site, yet. Prints are ordered more than digital, but it's picking up. I think many are expanding out into this type of shooting since it's guaranteed money over spec. I know sales around here after games is horrid, always has been for every tog I've ever talked to so don't do it much unless invited.

Questions you want to ask is...

1) Packages - are you going to have different packages. Say one player on a team, an entire team, personal usage vs. team usage on promo gear, etc.

2) Editing - there's one guy around here that shoots 1,500-2,000 images a game, throws them on a CD for $50 with no culling or nothing. Makes it pretty annoying for parents to have to sift through all the garbage and then find/edit there own stuff. You going to do editing and give them a file big enough for x-size prints or a free for all they do all the work.

3) Transfer of rights - personal usage rights vs handing them all over.

4) Prints to or just digital, mixed plan or one or the other.

[DDCSD]

Kevin, I'm in the same boat. The only people that do any action stuff around here charge $20 for a 5x7 for shots that I quite frankly would be embarrassed to put on my site and offer for sale. I know we need to cover our costs, but I can't believe that they're selling much at that price, even for super high quality photos.

Mike-

1-That's what I'm contemplating. I just don't know where to go with what to offer. I think I'll give the team CD's a try this weekend, see if anything happens with them.

2-As for editing, I'm selective in my shooting and I would personally go through the images, delete the obvious bad ones and straighten and do color correcting. I do this for everything I put on my website. I can't believe when I see 500 shots or more per game on people's websites, with multiple 5-8 shot bursts.

I figure 150-200 quality shots for a game is where I would be (for basketball).

3-Written personal usage/print waiver with a notice that I own the copyright. Not sure that this is a big deal, other than maybe parents giving the photos to newspapers (we've got a lot of small town newspapers around here that like to run photos that parents turn in).

4-I'm thinking of offering maybe an 8x10 of each player, or maybe a memory mate to go along with the CD so that they can see what the images look like when printed by a quality lab and then offer 50% off prints ordered through me. Maybe offer a poster package, where they get a 16x20 poster of each player plus the CD.


People keep asking about buying a CD, and I keep resisting, but it may be time to flow with the times on this.

[HammerCope]

Do you realy think they will come back to you for prints if you sell them the CD? Thats why they want the CD. Anyone can go find a quality lab if they really want to. If got 5 labs within 15 min of my house.

[DDCSD]

Honestly, I doubt it. Just something I was thinking about. I'd make enough on the package/CD that I wouldn't care though.

[HammerCope]

Doubt what? How much are you charging? If its ok to ask.

[Sibil]

......... there's one guy around here that shoots 1,500-2,000 images a game, throws them on a CD for $50 with no culling or nothing. Makes it pretty annoying for parents to have to sift through all the garbage and then find/edit there own stuff.

A friend of mine told me about a similar setup at her son's hockey games. The photographer blasts throughout one game and sells all the unedited pictures on a CD for $50 after the game. He has two of his kids helping out. She told me parents buy the CDs like hot cakes.

In your example, I wonder how the photographer fits 1500-2000 images on one CD, if they are straight from the camera and unedited, unless we are talking about multiple CDs.

[DDCSD]

Doubt what? How much are you charging? If its ok to ask.

I doubt anyone would come back to me to buy prints from, just like you said. :lol: Just thinking out loud on that, sounded good in my head, not so good after typing it out.

I'll probably see how $125/game goes over this weekend. I don't think I'll bother with doing any packages with CDs and prints. Maybe for things other than tourneys. I'll still do my online print sales after the tourney though.

[athsmom]

Just remember when you sell that one game CD for $125.00 - that's likely the $$$ you are going to get from the game. No matter how much you preach copyright laws, the parent who purchased it is going to copy and distribute it to the rest of the team or slap the files on Shutterfly for everyone to buy prints!

We currently don't offer CD's but get asked for them so often we are considering it but to make it worth our while the cost will be more than $125.00.

[DDCSD]

Just remember when you sell that one game CD for $125.00 - that's likely the $$$ you are going to get from the game. No matter how much you preach copyright laws, the parent who purchased it is going to copy and distribute it to the rest of the team or slap the files on Shutterfly for everyone to buy prints!

We currently don't offer CD's but get asked for them so often we are considering it but to make it worth our while the cost will be more than $125.00.

I'm well aware that the CD would be copied and share. I didn't just fall off the turnip truck. :lol:

This is for a tourney where I'm already shooting, not if someone were to call me up to come shoot a game for them. I doubt I'd get many buyers at a tourney for much more than that. I figure I currently average about $50/game for print sales, so I'd be fine with $125. If I sell the CD's like crazy this time, I'll know that I can charge more next time.

[MadisonPhotography]

We too have experienced the ebb and flow of spec event sales and have gotten to the point of clearly defining what we need to be successful at an event:

We require the event organizers to put our logo and link to our website on both their own website and in their handouts/programs.

We ask to put up at least two brightly colored banners with a clear message of where our website is and how we can be contacted.

We require that the event organizer include our contact details in any email blasts they send to the participants.

Here are a couple examples of events where we are listed...

http://www.shelleygloverfoundation.com/
http://www.allcityswim.org/AllCity2009/SWSwim2009/index.html
http://www.capitolviewtriathlon.com/eventdetails.htm

It's pretty simple....if the event organizer doesn't want to do that we don't go..and we only target "championship events"....dual meets, regular season games and small tournaments are a waste of time for us....


We tried the pre-registration for a fee route and found that parents were very hesitant, even in knowing that they had purchased from us in the past, to pay in advance. What we did instead is offer a "discount coupon" for anyone that pre-registered at the event...we have a link on our site....

http://allcityswim.net

This gets to the old tried and true "getting something for nothing" and we only offer the discount to the first predetermined amount of registrants and only with orders over a specific amount....it seems to work for us..

Nick

[wyofizz]

Nick,
Is that the Exposure Manager voucher program?
Do they use their CC# to get the voucher when they pre-reg
or do you order them and then distribute and collect the money?

Dave

[MadisonPhotography]

I use a coupon...EM hits you for an additional fee of 10% with a voucher...I don't have any problem with that, they should, but coupons are just as effective for me and I get a little more personal contact with the client.

What I do is keep a list of all that "register" for an event with a clear cutoff date, both beginning and end. What I want to do is drive sales during the event and within a week after...I have found that anymore time than that and people are just too busy with other things...including me trying to keep track of it all.

I keep a simple spreadsheet and when the cutoff date arrives I sent out the coupon code to those that registered with clear and specific instructions on how to use them and by which date...it is inevitable that some will try to use after the date and I do get calls....I handle each one as I would want to be serviced...I offer them a coupon for their next order but politely explain that it isn't fair to waive the guidelines for all....that way I don't have to "keep track" of anything other than the first issue..

Believe me, we have tried printing at events and having a booth and having multiple Mac computers....the gain in sales from onsite sales has never netted out better than online sales..

Just a note.....I recently switched from SmugMug to EM pretty much due to the voucher/coupon thing. I like SmugMug, their custom capabilities and custom web designs....I just had one done, but EM was a better fit for our business model....a vert smart photographer talked with me at length about PPI and PPE..price per image and price per event...we can't afford to sell 4x6 prints at $2.00 each but do offer some good incentives for larger orders...

Nick

[wyofizz]

Nick,
Thanks for the info:)

Dave

[DDCSD]

Yep, thanks for the insight Nick.

I'm curious as to what you mean about EM charging 10% to use vouchers? They charge their normal 10% commission when your customer used the voucher, but they don't charge you anything to create the voucher.

They even allow you to enter a lower sale price for the voucher. You can sell a $25 voucher for $20, and they only charge you the 10% on the $20.

http://help.exposuremanager.com/kb/entry/174/

[MadisonPhotography]

Correct, that's what I meant to say...