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Lesson Info

What is Collateral?

So you know what is the word? Collateral. It sounds like a fancy word, really. But it's just marketing materials that make your baby plans stand out from your other studio product offerings. And we'll help make your baby plan enticing to the client. That's really? All it iss okay. The key with collateral is trying not to do too much. Keep it simple, stupid. You know that role kiss k I keep it simple. Stupid. Keep it simple. Stupid, like stupid, simple, less is more. Just give the basics of the information you need to give. Make it beautiful enough if you make it beautiful. That's what's going to help entice your client to take a look at it. If it's too wordy, they won't even bother looking. Okay, why do you think newspapers put big headlines across the front? Because the few large words make you want to read a mme it. Imagine if newspapers did not have headlines. If they just had the copy, you'd be like no pictures or any high value that I worry. This is just too much to read. Why do y...

ou think news stories on the news are so short? Thirty seconds at the most, because that's about how long the human brain can really tune into something and and take new information in so it's really important to be strategic and how you graphically designed stuff so that you're jumping the most important information is jumping out the client so that they are then enticed to read newspaper headline writers are trained to write headlines one sentence five words or less to make the most impact about what the story is about and to get the most attention I mean there are entire college courses on writing headlines it's that important so being able to do that neurons to do is is really is really critical so ask yourself what important topics are what the important topics are that you need to communicate okay and what kind of emotional message you want to send to your mother's okay marketing to new mothers is an art and it is something that companies around the world spend billions of dollars trying to dio and some of them do it extremely effectively okay let's put it this little sis is six for you us moms control the purse strings at home to the tune of two point one trillion dollars per year that is roughly the equivalent to the gross domestic product of italy which is the seventh largest economy in the world that is how much mothers in this country in the us let alone the rest of the world control the money at home isn't that amazing women control the buying decisions almost exclusively in in the household I mean they really d'oh when it comes to any decision that has to do with family or their children they control what money is spent how it's spent isn't that amazing? I was shocked when I saw that statistic it just blew blew my mind okay and that's from forbes gen x mom's so that's my generation okay and then the millennials are behind us between the ages of twenty six and forty one okay they don't want to conquer the world is perhaps there there baby boomer parents did okay what they want is a balance between work family and play. Okay, we were talking about this last night at dinner and products and services that make like simpler tend to resonate with them. So your marketing materials the simpler and easier are they are to read and the message that they communicate being simple is more likely to resonate with this generation of mothers okay and look at that age group twenty twenty six to forty one baby bearing age okay, this is our target market. These women want simple, easy, quick and effective marketing and products that make it easy on them. What does that mean for you as a business customer service simple product line you is the artist helping them not showing too many images not overwhelming your client providing incredible customer service that allows them to just show up and you take care of everything else simple easy effective do the work for me is what she wants and that means everything so if you want to really bring in the mental state of this type of computer consumer to your business you need teo create everything in your studio simply neatly and tight so sure there's no do you see what I'm saying? I know I'm speaking in generalities but don't show sixty seventy images show twenty five to thirty five don't make it too overwhelming simple neat easy product lines I have eleven products in my studio baby plan products there's four major products maybe five okay keep it simple stupid don't overwhelm her if you give her too many choices you think it's a good thing because you're offering all this variety she looks at and goes oh forget it I'm not dealing with that walk away too hard I'll go to someone else who does it simpler ok now is that the on ly decision she's based is that the only factor that she's basing her decision on to hire you or not? Of course not but it's a it's affects things and in order to be competitive with your other fellow photographers the more little nails you can put in the coffin the better right so keep that in mind when you market to new mother's okay emotion is critical and mom's talk right? Those of you who are mothers out there we all chat with other moms okay, we refer like crazy. We if you're in a mom's group, boy, little hens in the henhouse, we just talked about all kinds of things we love you go on to have a mommy forum in my town and there's a so they all ask questions of each other, and so many times I'm in, I've got in there and someone's wanted a photographer and they start recommending everybody to each other all you got to go with someone. So she is so expensive, and sometimes the message I'm saying they're not my clients, they want cheap, okay, so they're not my client, but every once in a while there's someone who comes in there and recommends us and goes, oh, yeah, it's expensive, but it's and she is the best, you know, I'm saying so that's the message that I I when I see that I'm like, okay, good, I'm doing I'm doing something right because that's the message I want my clients to say about our work, but moms do talk, so you need to talk to mom's okay, makes sense you need to get in with mom's, find out what their desires are, helped them out, communicate with them and appeal to their emotions. This is where some of the best advertisers in the world have excelled they appeal to what it takes to be a mom, okay, they appealed to the pride she has in her family and in her husband, her, how her spouse, the lessons she teaches to her children and has learned along the way, okay, the sacrifices she is making to be a mother, the hopes and dreams she has for her children and the humor in parenting. These air, all emotions that just tug at the heartstrings, whether it's funny, positive, giggly, sad or touching advertisers who target mothers well, appeal on these types of concepts. Ok, good customer service, of course, will affirm your marketing message is simple. Clean marketing messages, materials and promotions appeal. Get behind a cause. Moms want to know you are helping their kids. Okay? It's and and companies who market two moms tend to do this. They get behind a cost. So I'm going to show you a couple examples. I can't actually show the videos, but in the freebies I'm showing links here and in the freebies I've just told my producer cathy I sent a pdf so that you guys can download the the's web these youtube lynx and watch them yourselves. I really highly recommend that you do that, I love good advertising. Especially advertising that appeals to me as a mom, I get all I mean, I've seen these ads like five times each, and I was tearing up with kenna and the makeup of its tio what it means to be oh, for me, you know, just just automatically draws you out, and some of you will know some of these ads like you'll, you'll you'll remember them, some of them are older, this one here is from asia and it's, proctor and gamble's up pampers commercial, okay, and it's basically about these mothers who take their child into the doctor for the first year checkup, and they're talking about how insecure they feel that they don't feel like a good mother, that they worry all the time their child is has gotten sick and they didn't know what to do like just these struggles of being a mother. And then in the background, the husband voices the husband's voices come in and say she's, so amazing! I can't believe I don't appreciate her more and what she does, she always puts our child first, and they they hear him talk. You hear him talking about that as he's hanging portrait it's on the doctor's offices wall of her with their child, and she doesn't know that's happening so she's in the doctor's office watching all this are assuming she's in the doctor's office he's hanging the portrait and then she's holding the baby walking down the hallway and sees the portrait and these husbands are celebrating their wives first birthday as a mother meaning once your child turns one it also means on mama's one and that message just tugs at the heartstrings and it also to me what was important is that it relayed how critical portraiture is and photographs are too bringing home the message that as a mother you have new special meaning to the earth to the world you have a new reason to exist on the planet and that is my wife that is what I do for a living and what the message I communicate so this one touched me greatly the next one is the proctor and gamble olympics mother day tv ad do you remember this one? They do it almost every olympics on this one was the hardest job in the world and it's basically children all over the world waking up and going through their life training to become olympians and the mother in the behind the scenes doing the laundry making the beds, cooking meals, washing clothes carding them around back and forth is a taxi service everyday things that we as moms do every day and then the victory at the end with the olympic win in the olympics success and it's like the hardest job in the world the best job in the world thank you mom's procter and gamble thanked mothers for producing these amazing young people who were winning awards and inspiring the world to be better and that to me was just that tugs at the heartstrings of yeah what I'm teaching and what I'm teaching my children and the pride I have in my family and what I'm sacrificing to make sure that they have a better life than me that is a huge marketing message and it's a beautiful one they also have one out procter and gamble this one made me cry too I have just started becoming friends with ross eaten if you guys know who roz eaton is ashton eaton is her son a national is the gold medalist in the of the track and field events in the last summer olympics and he's from bend so I met her a few weeks ago just a lovely lovely person and so one of her comments and a press release in a press conference eyes what helped procter and gamble start the movement of these ads and I couldn't say exactly in her words but they were talking about what it was like to raise ashton and she goes when ashen was five he was just a little boy you know she's like what she meant was he's just my boy he's just like you guys he's just like your boy and that comment triggered procter and gamble to be like yeah that's the marketing message that we want to send that she's just doing her job and that's what produced this amazing child and what procter and gamble is basically saying us a mother can do that too if you buy our products e mean using I'm saying so it's it's an incredible emotional response that tugs deeply at your heartstrings um this one here growing up too fast by google now if you've seen this this is basically on ad about a man who writes letters to his emails to his child from the day she was born until he and and then the end of the summer don't want to ruin the end for you so but it's one it's just there's no words it's just music and him typing and what you see him writing on the computer and it just like the very end when you see the last email and the love dad at the end you just like oh my gosh as a mother I mean there's not even a mother in the ad and as a mother you're just two pieces on the floor because you like realised how much you love your spouse and what he's doing for you okay and then finally this one is really fun this is humor okay? This is a united kingdom ad for fiat believe it or not for an automobile and it's, a mom singing a rap song about motherhood and let me tell you, it will make you die of laughter. It is so funny the words and her, you know, her kids around her and she's like wrapping out and, you know, sitting in front of this fiat and talking about her nursing bra being full metal jacket, you know, all this stuff, and she was hilarious. So I strongly encourage you to go on youtube and find some of these ads that really tug it a mother's core values and then ask yourself what core values I want to target when I create my collateral and when I want a launch, promote my baby plan to that segment of the market that I'm trying to hit, okay and that's kind of fun, I love with videos or some they just I could be on youtube all they long look at this stuff because it just it just thrills me to figure out how can I get into a mother's brain? How can I, like, inspire her? Move her, make her life better with what I'm doing? Because technically, my service and products solves a problem for her, doesn't it what's that problem, do you think that problem is? No problem in the loosest sense of the word yeah that her baby is growing up and she might forget about it yeah so you're going to capture those woman so that they'll live on forever exactly and it's cheesy and cliche but it really is true that's why it's called shade because you don't keep the memory unless you make it right I mean you can't keep it unless you actually record it and that's the power that imagery photography gives to all of us and an amazing feat of the nineteenth and twentieth century that we have now latched onto to solve that problem okay so now you have this problem you're about to solve but ask yourself what emotions and what core valleys you khun tune into to show a mother that your product and service will solve that problem does that make sense and I know this is making your brain go away but it also you want to do it from the place of your core value you know like to me the baby's first portrait the baby mommy's first year one really tugged at me hard because it comes from my y as well and what fascinating is that the video quality is not that great like you look at the actuals okay? Yeah it's just it's just some video you everything one of you could shoot that produce it and put it out and put it on your website like no problem at all it wasn't that fancy lighting and hollywood production values it was nothing like that it's it could've been shot with an iphone with subtitles beneath it I mean that's really all it wa wasn't cannot don't you agree that it was just kind of it was just a mundane production values but it had the messages sent don't you think? Well I do but I think I feel like like you said, people don't care about the quality anymore they don't own you it's just something we struggle with I mean, depending on what it is yeah, but for something like like this yeah, exactly fascinating. I love talking about stuff okay, so let's get into collateral. Okay, so what does that mean? You need to provide general information right? Session information. This is just a client education stuff, right? Products offered your pricing the ages and stages okay, session preparation need to prepare your client for what's to come and then of course, you really need to outline your policies and ordering info and if you want to, you can cover the incentives to okay, so these air general just topics that you may need teo teo communicate and educate your client's in some kind of collateral whether that be digital or printed collateral okay, anything else you can think of that you might need to to tell your plane about I know I'm kind of trying to exhaust listed as much about him, but I always love ideas from the people. Yeah. Guidance, sorry. Guidance. Guidance in guidance. On what? Keeping them guidance. Because I think a lot of the times, you know, passing that message that you can guide them towards the purchase and yeah, I think that would make him really yes. Yeah. That's a great idea. That could be something to do. I think the key, the thing that there would be to just keep the wording us down, you know, try not to use too many words so they can read it and consume it. Um, but and then you kind of need to side. Okay? How do I want a package all this stuff together? And do I want to put one thing on multiple? You know, one thing. I'm ultimately pages multiple things on one page, that kind of thing, other pieces of collateral you might need our justin overall information brochure that's kind of something inexpensive that you khun hand out to folks who might show some interest. Okay, um, communication and reminder cards. If you want to do snail mail, you probably want to get it later, like when I showed you yesterday a little a little communication card. A postcard that says it's that time don't forget your sessions coming you know that kind of thing you could do that all the a text message an email too if you so desire okay, but think about this stuff and how you're going to communicate it and what kind of physical material it's going to be that you're going to use to do that um I have a welcome packet that I give a mean back I should probably pull that out again just go and hand me that bag all over here yeah, you got a warrant? Thanks. I provide a welcome packet that has thank you there I'll take that pricing gun too and, uh I provide a baby plan welcome packet that I showed you guys a little bit yesterday. I'll show it again for those of you who haven't seen it. Um the welcome packet is just a little kind of envelope mint brochure that has several pieces inside of it that communicate information so things like ages and stages uh ah, welcome card a little happy go lucky thing about family and the family session and you're to tip some preparing for their session popular products, etcetera, etcetera just to get them this kind of plants the seed of the annual product in their head you came so that's what's valuable about about having just a kind of a welcome kit but then we also have things like the prep guide for ages and stages which is inside that's. Why, I put it, blew there ordering appointment info. So when they leave the session, we give them the preparation info for their ordering appointment. So education about digital files, education on thinking about guidance. Like what? Carmen said guidance on how they want to see their image is five, ten years from now to get them really thinking about what to do with them. Boarding appointment information what's gonna happen just all kinds of client education that really it helps the client understand how the process is going to work. I I even think that mine is too wordy. Like, I have simplified this multiple times, but I'm kind of thinking I need to do it again, okay? And parrot down one more time. I don't know if I'm gonna have time to do it here with the clock was, like thirty four hours instead of twenty four. But, you know, you know what I'm saying? So the, uh, other items that we have are just packaging, you know, make it beautiful. Package it all up in a nice look with your, you know, your products, etcetera, make things look like a joy toe open, suiting your brand, so this is our marketing clatter like I just showed you, but this is kind of all spread out in a pretty picture on I have a promo card to help newborn clients see the value in continuing with us and doing baby plan on and, you know, make sure it's done with a color palette and look that's cohesive with what you already half okay, so you have certain marking materials already for your studio, and if you're just starting out, you don't. So you need to determine how you're going to help have the two types of marking materials co exist together, so just make sure you think about that and don't let your baby plan collateral be something so wildly different from your branding in your studio that it doesn't look like it's, even the same company. What did you have a question? Yeah, yourself is so beautiful. Giulia, do you have any way to help us like that? I'll put together? Is there a way for us? Is there a template? Is their overlay? What do you use? How do you are? We're going to go into that later good that's a good call I'm actually going toe to tell you a couple different ways, okay? There are tons of companies out there that provide templates and stuff that you can then modify, okay, um I'm going to teach you at the end of this boring we have time, we should how to do it on your own and photo shop okay? A simple collateral peace is what we're going to do it you don't have to make it complicated once you look at my stuff, you'll see how pretty simple it is put together it's not really complex ordeal to dio the other way is if you really want to get mine, you can you can go to our store and get it it's already made for you if you want an rbc baby plan, I do offer that two photographers businesswomen, heart, right? But anyway, you don't have to do that. I want to teach you how to do it on your own if you don't have the cash to spend or if you are tied on budget and and or and or you want to learn how to do it for me, I really like doing everything myself. Courtney and I were talking yesterday about competition prince and you know, she's having some folks helper with competition prince and stuff and I'm like courtney, you need to learn to do this on your own you need teo get those photoshopped skills and be doing because you're going to be so much more proud of yourself and more accomplished feeling if you do it on your own she's like you but she's wandering back and forth and I totally get it and you don't everybody's not me and I get that you know I I do get that and you have to do what's right for you and some people don't have any interest in learning certain things and that's okay I just I'm a control freak so I want to make sure that I'm able to do it all myself now will I outsource stuff of course but I want to make sure I know how to do it too so that I have complete knowledge of the process does that does that make sense so and this is a personal choice in a business stories you have to make for your business okay, so don't I think that just because someone else does it a certain way it means that you have tio I just really encourage you to go for that sense of personal accomplishment and on but you have to factor in time to you know if you got to get this launch to get her done it might be easier to just buy some templates and have it all done for you and bam you're finished okay? But if you want to learn how to do it we're going we're going toe do a few things today that are very simple and easy and can help you make stuff right away but it does take time and that's way that time to value thing. You know, time versus value. What's, what's, best for me.