Selling college sports pictures

I sell action shots of college athletes to their parents on a web site: http://rodcannon.com

Business is nothing to write home about. I try new things every year to change that. Nothing works so far.

I thought I'd run my latest idea by you all to see what you think and if anyone else has tried it.

What I've been doing to date is uploading one picture per game to Facebook and tagging a player or two. The caption tells everyone where to go to see the rest of the game pictures (my site), where they can also buy prints. The tag brings the message to all the teammates.

Why not expand that? I thought. Why not upload low res versions of every picture from each game to Facebook, tag a few players and put my "If you want to buy prints... go here" message in the caption.

What do you think? Would it help more or hurt more? Have any of you tried it?

And before you tell me... I know it's the parents I have to ultimately reach, and I'm currently distributing business cards at games and saving email addresses when people order so I can alert them when I take more pictures of their kids. I also work alone, so please don't suggest anything that requires a partner.

That's exactly what I do for youth sports. Upload low res files to FB and watermark them with info on how to order prints. If you're only shooting on spec and hoping for sales, it's a pretty disappointing business model in my experience. For the most part, I've also found that the younger the kids are, the more likely a parent will buy something. By the time they are 14 or 15, the parents become a little more reluctant to buy.....I don't know if this would carry on to college.

jra wrote in post #13604950
That's exactly what I do for youth sports. Upload low res files to FB and watermark them with info on how to order prints. If you're only shooting on spec and hoping for sales, it's a pretty disappointing business model in my experience. For the most part, I've also found that the younger the kids are, the more likely a parent will buy something. By the time they are 14 or 15, the parents become a little more reluctant to buy.....I don't know if this would carry on to college.

I agree with the whole college aspect... College kids are generally unemployed or part timers. This means little money left for luxury like photos of themselves. I would assume they would prefer to purchase the digital version of the shots to be used on their facebook accounts.

In my experience, most of the kids at the college I shoot a lot for are just happy to have the stuff on FB so friends and family can see it, and they're not really interested in buying prints. JRA is right too, by the time they're a little older, the parents don't care as much about buying prints. I'm friends with a few of the players on FB and I just post low-res stuff and tag them in it and they're happy as a clam about it. I'm not really interested in making any money off them, it wouldn't be much anyway and I'm already shooting the game, so it's not like I'm shooting on spec, hoping for a payday.

The parents of these kids are photo'ed out probably by now. Starting at age 7-8, they've seen the tournament photography and likely have a shot of everything litlle Jimmy could have done on the field/court by now. If you want the parents to buy something, you're going to have to offer them something that they don't have.

Create a custom poster and post it to Facebook. It has to be good, not a collage of 4 pics that look like 4 squares with a name under it but something that had some effort put into it. You'll need good photoshop skills for this.

How about their own Fathead? Easily done if you can extract and create the cut lines the printer will need.

You can print on anything thse days: Pillow cases, sheets. metal, celing tiles, flags, etc.. Offer something unique. How about a photobook? Custom slideshow on DVD? Something that could be a gift to grandparents, etc...?

Shooting on spec is iffy. It worked 10 years ago but I have to think it's dying off rapidly. Offer something unique and you might find a source of photography revenue.