Promos lead ins

Well, after doing some 'market research' it looks like the only means photographers use to motivate prospective clients into buying NOW (or at least ASAP) is by means of discounts.

What happens when you can't discount your prices even more? Surely there's another way to motivate people to book than just price wars.

Thoughts?

"Now" is driven by scarcity. Discounts are scarcity of this price. But you can also use scarcity of availability (say a wedding photographer with weekends filling up fast).

I was thinking more like business headshots, and commercial imagery.

I've a networking event this Thursday, God willing, and I am preparing some marketing pieces. Just handing out your card and hoping they will some time remember you, it's not good enough.

I'm increasing my prices, so I was thinking of offering last year's prices for the next 4-5 weeks. But, since all these people I'm about to meet already benefit from a 10% discount from me for being fellow members of the local chamber of commerce, I really can't offer discounts on top of discounts (and nope, I refuse to inflate my prices so that I can then offer 'discounts').

Offering discounts to attract new customers is a bad idea because....
1. You attract people who are looking for cheap instead of those looking for quality.
2. People don't care that it is a limited time offer. You're the cheap photographer and when you put your price back up they will move on to the next person offering an intro discount.
3. Any word of mouth from these customers will be along the lines of "this guy is cheap" which just perpetuates the cheap customers.

Discounts should be used to reward repeat customers not attract new ones. The correct way to attract new customers is to build a marketing plan that communicates your quality and the benefits to the customer. Many companies find this difficult because they either don't understand their clients or their own business (so can't explain) or aren't actually any better/different than their competitors. Alternatively build a strong brand message. Look at Coke & Pepsi. People will try to tell you they are different but they aren't. They are the same product sold to different demographics using different marketing identities.

Dan Marchant wrote in post #17928873
Discounts should be used to reward repeat customers not attract new ones.

Example, instead of a 10% discount on every shoot, the first nine are full price and the tenth shoot is free.

Alveric wrote in post #17928451
I'm increasing my prices, so I was thinking of offering last year's prices for the next 4-5 weeks. But, since all these people I'm about to meet already benefit from a 10% discount from me for being fellow members of the local chamber of commerce, I really can't offer discounts on top of discounts (and nope, I refuse to inflate my prices so that I can then offer 'discounts').

This can be a selling point, but only really works on people that might already know your brand -not for people you're meeting for a first time.

"My annual rate increase takes effect July 1, put down your deposit now to lock in this year's rates!"

I haven't tried it since I don't have an established brand, but I've seen it work really well for a wedding photographer that I follow.

In the end that's what I ended up doing:

Ah well, we'll see what comes out of it.

Dan Marchant wrote in post #17928873
Discounts should be used to reward repeat customers not attract new ones.

I completely agree. When a business offers special discounts to new clients, they are, in fact, then charging their longtime, loyal customers more than they are charging newcomers. The fact that this is not fair is often noticed by the longtime loyal customers, who sometimes get bitter over it and walk away from such a business.

CASE IN POINT:
A small athletic club where I used to live had this problem. They thought that offering a "special discounted" monthly rate to new customers (for the first year) would help to bring in new people and raise membership. It did bring in a few new people, but there was a mass exodus, as well, as many of the long time members said, "WHAT?????! You are charging us $__ a month, and we've been loyal members here for many years, and now you are giving the same membership benefits to newcomers for $___ a month???? We're out of here!"

And they were out of there. The club lost far more members than they gained, and created quite a spirit of bitterness and anger within the region's athletic community. That was ten years ago. The club has since gone out of business. They had a healthy membership base before "discount gate", and were financially stable.

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i watched this a few weeks ago and found it to be a very good reminder about some great sales tactics. Can't really remember if he touches on your exact question, but most will get something out of it.

http://support.shootdo​tedit.com …o-In-Person-Sales-Webinar

here is a list of more of their free content: http://support.shootdo​tedit.com …423-ShootDotEdit-Webinars

nathancarter wrote in post #17929095
Example, instead of a 10% discount on every shoot, the first nine are full price and the tenth shoot is free.

I realize this is just an example, but generally techniques used to sell gas station coffee should not be used to market photography.