Lessons

Lesson Info

Packaging

now packaging. That's another form of unconventional marketing that a lot of people really missed the boat on with their packaging. You want to make sure that your packaging matches your brand, You want to make sure that matches your quality because you can have a great quality product and you send it out in a duffel bag and it looks like garbage again. Like I said yesterday, it doesn't feel right. Don't send it out like this in the box that it came in. You know, it feels better. Don't do that. How many of you people shouldn't say you people? That doesn't sound right. How many of my wonderful friends are here on this panel? Would ever sign any of your prints with a pin like before it went out. You know, just say OK, you sign him? Uh, I used not to do that. I was like, Man, I can't bring myself to mark on their picture. They would be mad at that. What famous artist do you ever know? That really didn't sign his sign his work? Because he wanted his name on it. So everything that is above ...

and eight by 10 anything in my studio. If it's bigger than eight by 10 it's getting my signature on it. Signature is golden. You're gonna be in someone's house or someone's gonna be in your friend's house and they're going to see that. And they're gonna say, Wait a minute. I recognize that signature. I've seen that before somewhere. So the more you get it out there, the better off you are. Let it be a standard. Don't ask people, you know. Do you mind if I sign your picture? It's your picture. It's a standard of what you do. Show what you want to sell, have everything that you ever show anybody that's bigger in 11 14. Have your signature on it. Make sure that your signature is on it. If they come into your studio and you have blank portrait's up with no signature and all of a sudden you signed their picture. They're going to like Well, wait a minute. What did you do that you didn't do it? Any other ones at the lead by the example that you want people to be the pens that I use a very, very, very good pins for writing own pictures, and I used these right here. These deco color. I think they're made by Marv E M A R V Y. Marty and I use the extra find Deco caller. Oh, pink paint marker. I do him either in silver or gold. If I have something, has brown tones or, you know, whatever. I use the gold, something that looks better. And silver obviously used a silver. A black and white portrait would not sound with the gold because it makes it really stand out. So don't be afraid to sign your images. It's your work. You worked hard on it. Put your name on it. It's going to go as a form of unconventional marketing that you never really intended to bring your business. But your signature will become noticeable for sure. Now a lot of people struggle with packaging, and I even thought a while back of opening a packaging company. I say, You know what? Photographers were very limited on what we can use and where we can go because no one makes anything specific to photographers, and I still have yet to really find much of anything that was very affordable specifically for photographers. So what I've had to do it. I've done a lot. A lot of work for you. So you don't have to go out and search the country Sound like I have. And I'm gonna give you some things here that are gonna work for you. For your packaging show. Exactly how we package everything. How we make it really, really simple. And we do it on a very, very small budget. First thing that we use for images anything less than 11 by 14. So eight by 10 and under, they go in clear bags, and their website is very, very difficult to remember. But if you can remember clicker bags, they still make myself laugh. It's not anything very, very fancy, but it just protects the print, and it looks good from there. We take those and we put those into tissue paper. We get tissue paper that matches our brand. That kind of looks like my studio. Right. And Nashville wraps. That's where we by that. And let me say this suit. I don't get anything from these companies. These companies don't even know who I am. I'm just showing you where I get it from. And you know, I don't I'm not afraid toe toe. Tell someone where to go Because they don't give me anything I'm not going to share with. You mean it took me years to find people that would do that would provide this stuff that I wanted to use. So that's what I used. I used tissue paper. We wrapped the prince up in a tissue paper and then we have a box, a plain black box. We don't go for anything like super super frilly there. You know, I may do that, but it costs me too much money. And I feel like packaging. You can do it on a budget. Still get your point across without spending $15 per box That goes out and meet. For me, it's just not in my budget. I don't want to do it. And we get those from Wildcat Wholesale and they have various different sizes of boxes. Eight by 10 11 16 20 go all over the place. And then what we do to trick it out make it look a little bit better is sometimes these companies will offer screen printing checked into that. It was like three hours and 50 cents a box. I was like, Okay, got you. I'll call you right back. No, I'm not gonna pay that to get a box for imprint. But I could get a sticker company and I could get a sticker made for next to nothing and achieve the same look, but on a much smaller budget. And I get all these stickers printed at this website right here. Wait for it. There is a sticker giant dot com official certified Blair Phillips Wall Decor. It's porters. An original creation designed blah, blah, blah bonded the Gator board, but professional attire. Photographic artisans. I want to make this portrait feel like it's an art piece. So there again, I put a little sticker from that same company. We get another sticker made and it goes on the back of every wall portrait that goes out. And when we woke him up front and we show it to him, we say, Hey, you know what it's been Stand this officially certified by barefoot photography and it's building. My brand is building recognition. The other photographers in the area are not going to go through the effort. They're not going to spend 34 cents on a sticker That's just way too much. You've got to be out of your mind. But I'm okay with doing that Because like I said, when you're sitting down the first review of your year and you're trying to figure out where to go with your pricing, you have to figure all this stuff in your pricing. So if you have your eight by 10 your figure eight by 10 calls, You're like, Well, maybe about 10 doesn't cost me much. I can sell it for $10 I'm still doing pretty good. You have to take into account everything, and that's where a lot of us kind of mess up. You have a quick question ready? Yeah, I do something like that. But what I do is I put a reorder number on it, okay? For family members, I said, Hey, I like the picture. Yeah, they could call me, said Alex Way, don't dig through. Figure out. You know what? That is a great idea. So I might go back to do this and somehow in corporate, and I could even see you doing it, like on the bottom right hand side of the screen. But do it in a fund that looks mawr commercialized. You know, I mean, or maybe matches your brand. I would say, make it even stand down and look like a serial number or something. That's a really good idea. I'm gonna have to remind me of that work like that. Here creativelive were not only learning with their online audience, but you guys are teaching me things. This is great. Any other tips You guys have feel free to keep them coming. I like that, Randy. But yeah, that's great, cause I've had clients calling this saying, you know, I like to reorder, You know, another one and you have to flip it over. You have. There's a sequence. Numbers have to make sure they giving you the right sequence of numbers. And it's a great idea. Great idea Range. As a matter of fact, if you don't mind, I'm gonna hit the restroom. And since you got such good information, I will let you come up and just finish yourself for you. I'm kidding. Ready? Randy, just turn. Gray was like like, wow. Okay. So again, don't be afraid to spend a little bit of money. And again, how many times did I say yesterday, it's not about seeing how much money you can spend. Don't be a spendthrift. That is what I love about this This, uh, this city that we're in everyone in this city seems very organic and their spend conscious instead of like where I live, where everyone is a spendthrift. That's why here there's probably more. Well, I don't know, but out on the street, people riding their bikes, they're saving money. They're saving time. I love that. When I get done from here, I'm gonna walk back over to the to the grocery store with this organic grocery store and just sit and watch people like they bring their own bags in which is so foreign to me where I live, where I am. It's like, Yes, sir, Could you just put one item in each bag, These plastic bags? I don't have a whole bunch of them because I'm gonna use him for something else at home. It's ridiculous. Ridiculous. Um, yesterday we talked about this one is, well, the wall decor where we hang that on again. Unconventional marketing. It's in all this authenticity label. It's gonna add value, and it also confirms that it is artwork, so it makes it turns it into an art piece. I'm not just selling a picture or a photograph or an image. I'm telling my clients I'm creating you a a wall art piece to go on your wall and talkto talked about and say, You know, I wanna outfit your home with artwork. Use different terminology to raise your sales to raise your solidify, your pricing packaging. We talked about that to give them everything. It's a print care card that justified feeling, and it is it instills pride in your product. If you don't have a tremendous amount of pride in your work, it's probably gonna show. Probably gonna show right? So you want to instill that pride in your product because if you show a great deal of care in it and obviously they will is well, now people ask all the time. What do you do with a framed piece that comes in? I don't want to buy a big Oh, a great big box for a frame piece. I don't want to do that. It's gonna cost me, like, $15. I don't want that cause then all the customer is gonna do is they're gonna go home. They're gonna just throw in the garbage. That's more waste in our land. Feel So you're doing a couple of things here. You're saving money and you're being green. You know, you're saving our land feel, and I'm not trying to get all organic on you here, But I'm just saying I have Children. You have Children. We gotta think about our future. So that's one way. If you ever have that client that argues with you about Well, um, later asked a lot of men on that. Why is that not in a box? I'm gonna need this in a box. You can explain it that way. And if your client argues with you over that, if you say well, listen here, playful photography. We're doing our part to reduce our carbon footprint. I have Children. You have Children. I'm just doing my part, just as I'm sure that you do at home. If they argue with you over that and let him argue, if they do, they're they're more on. But I love it now. I thought about this, too. We said, You know what a lot of people they'd probably like to have something like that that they could put on their, you know, on their own artwork. So in true Blair Phillips photography fashion, we have made that available for you guys go to go to our work shows. Page Playful is workshops dot com. We have the template available there free of charge, and you go to H and age and it's a five by seven designer card, and we just make it into a tag so clear. Phillips workshops dot com. You can get a free template there, free of charge, absolutely free. And then inside of those packages, why don't you leave him or to think about Think about your bag at when you check out at a boutique. They're gonna throw in that. Hey, we've got a sale that's going to start next Monday. They throw that little flyer down in there when you get home. Maybe you read it. Maybe you don't. But for that client that pulls it out and says, Wait a minute, save 40% for every $ you span. Well, then, that's a reason to go spend $100 right? So if you don't put it in there, if you don't show it, they don't know that it's gonna happen now, Does that mean that every person you put something in their order is going to read it and know that something else is available? No, But don't punish the people that will buy. Don't punish them. So you throw it in there, and that's exactly what we do. We put exclusive gift items in there just in case they don't remember that it was their upcoming sprechen. Uh, specials or specials depends on where you're from product post sales. So after their sale, we want to let them know again. Hey, don't forget about us. These air still available the ones you didn't buy. And that's another card. We've got this all pre designed. So all you have to do is just drag and drop your images in there and you can change the verb. Egx can change the colors. You can change whatever you want to, and we're going to give you one of these templates. Is whales already made for you? Go to our workshops Page. You can download it absolutely free. When you go there, throw through all the pages. It may be on the third page. The fourth page, The fifth page? I'm not really sure. So when we're talking about framing pictures, what did they go out in? Well, most people don't drive a pickup truck and gonna throw the print in the back of a pickup truck with hay bales. Unless you live in my area. I'm kidding. Um, so again, this is how you package them. They come to me with this type of packaging. So instead of tearing all that all and then repackaging it, you know, I'm just going to give it just like this. I keep the frame corners on it, call it a day. A tire print care card on it. And what do you do now? What do you have? And what I do to protect that is my client. Now, this is a really good point right here that I want to make my client pics of their images. I have them sign off on everything. Okay? We bring all their images up, we take them all out of the packaging, lay them all out. I tell my client. Look, I mean, inspector all these images and we're gonna check them off together off of my call sheet. You got number 48 5 by seven. Okay, here did. Eight by 10. Let my 14. You got a 28. 24. About 30. And that. And when you say to see this all satisfactory, got a form here once. You just signed. And this basically just says, you know, that I delivered your order satisfactory. Nothing was wrong. And, you know, it lets me know that me and my staff have done a nice job for you. And they're like, OK, they read through. And it says once you leave the studio, if you realize something is not right, or your prints are damaged or whatever, Blair Phillips is no longer responsible. Does that mean if a client calls and says, Layer, I just spilled coffee all over my wall portrait and I'm going to do? My husband is gonna kill me. Does that mean I'm gonna say, Well, honey, I'm sorry you signed off on it. Too bad. No, I'm gonna say, Listen, Mary, don't worry about it at all. I'm gonna take great care of you. But every once in a while you have that little trivial thing where someone says, Well, Blair. She calls him back. Blair. I thought on that 16. 20 that we were gonna make that black and white. No. Here on the order form that you signed off on your way. Went over it twice. We went over it in the order session and when you picked it up and it says here in my notes and matter of fact, what I'll do is I'll scan a copy of an email it to you. Just so you have it, cause I don't want you to think that, you know, that we made a big mistake here. I don't know what what exactly happened, but let me shoot that to you, right quick. Take a good look at it and, you know, let me know where to go from there. They've signed off on it, playing his day. Now, In that case, I'm probably not going to say Well, you know. Okay, I'll get you another one because I'm going through the proper channels, going through the proper channels to make sure that that's not gonna happen. Now what do you do if they do not have a frame? Oh, another thing. I carry it out to the car for them. Any wall portrait I carried out of the car, they open their car. I make sure everything is where it needs to be. I turn it face down and I let it ride. Now, when I leave it, I say. All right, Now listen. This baby's yours. Now, be careful, okay? Be careful because it's yours. And then I walk away and normally I give him a hug. Pat him on the rump, and off we go. I don't do that last part. That would be a little much. What do you do if What if they don't buy a frame, you know? Well, what do you do with a client that doesn't buy a frame? Well, our lab, when they send us our images, they are wrapped in an awesome like foam pad type stuff. And we, of course, you know, we untaes pit. We don't ripping into shreds. We untaes a pit. They're very clever And how they do it because they want you to reuse it as well. We on tape that we open it up and we lay it out. We inspect the print, we sign it, let it dry, put it back in that package and that came in. It's not very pretty, but that's how we give it back. And we say it's already protected. It came from Missouri this way so I could give it to you. It can go 20 miles, right? Exactly Glad you all agree with me. All right, let's talk a little bit about, um, client gifting. That's another form of unconventional marketing, and it's something that doesn't have to cost you a lot of money. It doesn't have to cost a lot of money, and it will boost your image when I say boost your image, meaning that your clients will start to put you up only even more of a pedestal than they already do. So you want to give gifts that are within a budget. That doesn't mean that I have to go to go to a coffee shop and buy a $25 gift card and sent to them. I can do something that cost me $2 it could have way more effect than a $25 gift card. Could all right, show you what I do here? I showed you the product yesterday. I'm going to show you what I do with it today. We take a simple thank you note. Simple. Thank you, Card. All right, now, yesterday, I didn't tell you this, But today we also have another free template. So if you want to download this exact card right here, so you don't have to design one. You can have your very own personal. Thank you knows now what we do with these is and I think I've got my slide in here for just a minute. Let me keep going forward, and I'll show you what we do with them. Also part of client gifting the's T shirts. What's really hot in my area is camouflage. I don't get it, but it's camouflaged. So we have camouflage shares with bright orange on, um, the kids, they wear those things everywhere. But the trick is nothing against these types of shirts. They're great, but the Hanes beefy tees, those are great shirts, great shirt. But for my application, I choose to go a little bit of a different route. It's a little more expensive, but I go to a clothing store and I'll find him on their own sale. Normally, coals or someone like now finding their own sale. And I'll get those burnout T shirts really, really cheap. I take him to the screen printer, and when I get imprinted, just say if the whole shirt cost me $6 I sell it for $6. I lose money on it. You have to account in my time. But I would much rather have these shirts all out everywhere. There's a local restaurant that we go to. I went in and gave every one of the ladies in there one of my shirts, and I said, Listen, how about on Thursdays, everybody where their shirt like cool, I don't have to find anything to wear. So you're going on a Thursday and all the ladies and they're wearing and it says you should be shot Playfulness, photography. So it's a conversation piece conversation piece. It did cost me money, but think about how many people are seeing that. Think about it. Beware of imitators. People love, love, love these shirts. Now what I do with these thank you cards. I think this next one is a video. I think we're in a cute is a video. I think it's a video I made a short little video before I left. Just to show you exactly how this is gonna work. Client gifting is the best unconventional marketing anything up? So let's check this out. Yes, every portrait we receive from a change color lab, there is basically a call sheet of artwork that follows that image from basically the conception of the lab all the way through to a final product. And then they take that call sheet and they tape it to the front of our order. So it basically just follows it all the way to my doorstep. And instead of just taking that call sheet off and just thrown it away, we decided, Hey, why can't we use this in a way that's more positive than throwing away its a free product to us? And why don't we figure out a way to gift that back to the client? Just take your subject. Put it inside the little charm here that you've already pre cut and fill it with Marge podge and let it dry for basically three hours, and once it dries, it will be clear. You can see straight through it. Put a charm owner and you've got a virtually free gift that will keep on giving easy enough. Now, these little things that we buy, we buy these blank charms from the craft store. It's just a blank charm that you can glue things in. You can do whatever you want to with. And we with that call sheet, I cut out the image of the little face, drop it right down in here. And then this is a finished product. Now, is this the most high end product in the world? Probably not. But is your client gonna be like, Oh, my gosh, I cannot believe that you made this for me and sent it to me without me even asking for it. So something thinking about when I'm when a new mom gets this in the mail, I don't think she's gonna tell all her friends about that. I don't think she's gonna sport that thing for a few days at least. But she is definitely gonna call you and just tell you how much he appreciates it. This right here calculating everything that I've got in it is less than $3. I could buy these things by the dozen by dozen of these I get him in there 40% off, and I want to get a dozen of them for 2 99 or 3 99 or something. That's ridiculous. Pennies on the dollar but little things that you can do like that make a wealth of difference. Think about an intern. That's a great job for an intern to do from a school. Great job for her to do custom packaged gum. All right, little things you can do that don't cost a lot of money. Unconventional marketing. Throw those out to your clients like Hey, man, your breath is rank here before you leave. Grab one of these as a joke, though. As a joke. Kids, toys. When kids come in before they leave, I will go grab these toys, put him on the floor, get down in the floor with them and roll around and play with them. Let him pick one out and I play with him. People love to see interacting with their kids. They love to see you gifting with your kids. You can buy all this stuff super cheap, the dogs or or you trying again. Oriental trading dot com. These things air like five cents. Probably. I let kids grab through a form of they want him seasonal gifts we take. We take bags like paper bags and we time together up top, and we shred em all up and we put another bag inside of it, a little stick coming out of it. Fill it full of candy corn. Just another form of hey, client gifting. Take one of these home with you. And again, that is the job of an intern. Not solely, but we want to teach them what you have to do to maintain the business.