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Lesson Info

Designing a Children's Program

so let's talk about the children's program and we're gonna talk about designing a children's program our goal is to take you from valleys and babies which was zero through the first year now we want to talk about what comes after that so first thing we have to address is who is our target market we already know that our target market is typically a female between the ages of twenty eight and forty five uh she is probably a stand home mom or a working mom she is probably either providing an income or has a support system that provides the type of income that would put her in the category of our client the right client I understand that in order for you to be successful you do have to know your who your client is in our studio we call her judy and on the forum on sandwich university we always tell you have to make your duty because judy for us way actually used judy jetson because she it's like cutting my model of the perfect client she's got it all together so the idea is to create a ju...

dy for your client base because all of us come from different communities different looks and different styles and different different levels of income so my duty is going to be very different than your duty and by the way my duty is not necessarily somebody that lives in my neighborhood it's not about me it's about the type of client that you want not who you are so that's one of the hardest things I think for students to overcome is that fear of well I drive ah you know uh thirteen year old station wagon and my kids are in public schools but yet you want to relate to this private student remember this isn't that you're not marketing to yourself you're not you're representing yourself but your marketing to the client that you wanted to be no I'm not saying there's anything wrong with a thirty year old station wagon and there's lots of clients out there that I think you know maybe don't have the budget to spend thousands but there would be some of the best clients you'd ever have in the world so I'm again not I'm not being prejudiced and I'm not saying that you have to pick a certain clint you just have to know what market you're in because if time is your value here and you know you have to make a thousand dollars per hour to be successful well then you have to find the duty that's within that that category who could spend that kind of money so who is jude ing while we want to know where she lives where she shops what she buys where does she spend her free time what she does for charity where she goes to church where her social service circles take her what's her idea of the best vacation I mean the list goes on and on we created a very comprehensive list but we have to map her out we have to design her and then we have to start piecing it out two things like where to sooty shop well wherever she shops you should be there not spending money necessarily but having your displays up where does judy go to school or her children go to school where does judy spend her time doing charitable projects because obviously those of the places you want to make donations and created presence there so once you understand who she is then you can actually start targeting her by being in the same locations it doesn't mean you have to be here I think it's something that we always say fake it till you make it you know look like you wanna look look look you want to be and you'll get there so carry yourself where well I was eighteen years old and I was walking in the charity conventions you know when I thought I was terrified but I tried to dress nice I tried to look nice I tried to be articulate and I tried to fit in and you know it didn't take very many years before I got the kind of confidence that made me that gave me the ability to stand next to my work and proudly draw people in and get them to talk about what I was doing instead of being the original wallflower that just short then didn't want to communicate with people I realized that those communications equaled studio growth so for us once we understand who judy is we have to understand that process of building that continuation of that baby plan so we have created the graduate program I mentioned earlier that eighteen months through five years to us is that next level of working with our clients and keeping them coming to my studio now more than ever it's critical when I first started my baby program the babies would turn one and I was kind of like a bi I hope you come back and most of them came back there was nowhere else to go we had a very unique style that was very very strong in our community now they're probably fifty photographers in a ten mile square radius that could probably compete with my level of skill that I have or provide a lower price or provide all those darn digital files so they have a better you know a better return the client feels like they have a better return so I've got a lot of competition so I can't just count on I hope you come back I want to lock people into a a package or a concept that would basically if they're pre investing they wouldn't they wouldn't want to lose their money they would I wouldn't say forced but they would definitely commit to coming back in order to start this process it's best to start with your current clients your baby plan clients are a gold mine they love you they know you they emotionally have connected to you so they're the best the best place to go we showed you last time our baby plan and how the comprehensive feel and the you know the idea behind it we explain atonality and color and choices and we covered all of that so let's talk about moving forward how do we turn how do we convert those that marketing into the next resource we believe in soft marketing which is again it goes back to that organic marketing where instead of at the time the baby turns one getting in our client's face and saying okay now you gotta sign up for the children's program it's this much money it's going to give you this this and this and this it's a great deal you don't want to miss it you could only sign up today or you lose out I mean that to me is hard marketing that is like in your face by me at our one year session when the baby comes in for their first birthday this one's a little bit older but it kind of shows the whole package what we did is instead of in your face marketing we actually created this cute little t shirt on this time it was expression so his expressions university graduate so they were our baby plan graduate we had boy and girl versions so at the one year mark we gave a gift it was happy birthday thank you so much we love being with you is so much fun you know we appreciate you in addition to that there was a gift certificate for fifty dollars off our follow up program and there was a letter that was very comprehensive that explained the next ages and stages is because a parent trust you in the first year they trust you that six months is when the baby's going to sit up you have to photograph that one years when they're going to walk you have to photograph that what happens next so in this program indepth explains that at eighteen months they're going to be moving their mobile they're going to be so busy and it's going to be hard but we're going to capture these amazing expressions and this is where their personalities start too be generated and and to years they might be more quiet and thoughtful and more clingy but this is what we're going to do and then of course three and ford I'll take up to five and the fifth year really explains that this is that transition this is where they go from being a baby to a child or a toddler to a child and this is one of the most priceless times and a five year they're gonna lose their teeth their faces they're going to thin out and you just can't miss that moment so we emotionally tell them that if you miss these things you're really bad parent you but we don't say it in a bad way we stayed in an emotional way that how sad if you missed that and that's really really important so we just give a gift we don't say join our club now we just give it and we give him a big hug and we say thank you we said we'd do a mention a soft mention which we say just by the way if you like the baby program we have a follow program it's a great price here you go and we said about the door most of our clients will either sign up on the spot because they know about it or they'll call because of this follow up they'll call and book that session now the second follow up is when remember we just finished the first year birthday session when they come in to order those images are sales associates are also trained to offer the baby there is a second reminder let's say by the way are you going to sign up for the follow a program the graduate program because you do get a special break if you book it today because you're at your one your session so it's just a third reminder to the client that like you know what you should just do it now you're going to forget let's get you signed up now the client pays a set fee and now they're a part of that next five years what that means to us is that means that we're gonna have them locked in they're not going to go to another studio but I've already paid you to come to you and so that's where that follows gonna come they're going to become very loyal to you now I know we're gonna go to break relatively soon how soon is soon now later now okay just whenever you'd like let me see I'll go through this a little more sides and then we'll go ahead and call it so the question is how do we get those names how do we get those that list obviously there are ways like your newsletter you can purchase lists which we've done in the past used to be very successful less successful now but my company still does it but remember we're bigger and so we can do that displays all the things we talked about those foundations will always work but I think for the average small studio newsletters communication uh direct contact is going to be one of the best ways to go this is the baby diploma this is the follow up so you saw the baby the first version this is the follow up and you can see where it covers the graduate is the eighteen month old the independent the little dreamer the explorer a new beginning which is that five years so this is that emotional connection and these air all of the pieces the pricing the mailing and this is our follow up so we have a cohesive look that kind of draws that client in and gets them to want to continue that experience I think we'll end here because I want I want to go into marketing after this but this is to me the follow up is key because we want to make sure that those clients connect to what we're doing and really the biggest part is it is a loss leader we talked a lot about loss leaders last time but I want to make sure that you understand that there is a low price point because that's going to be the syriza question is how much does she charge and and how does it work in our studio we have two types of sessions we have a masters and associate I photographed the masters and helen and other photographers do the associate sessions they're two different prices they are a low price point thie associate session I believe this one ninety nine and includes all five of those sessions and the masters is to ninety niner three ninety nine and that includes this it only inclusive five sessions but it includes working with me the session times there about an hour so a lot of you're doing the math saying okay you're trudging one ninety nine but they're getting five sessions there getting a really great discount but keep in mind the idea is we're getting them to commit because we know they're going to invest nobody is going to come at eighteen months two at three and four and not buy anything the idea is if they sign up for this program at the end of the five years they get something and you guys can determine what that's going to be in our case they get a nice little folio with one image from each of those siri's in the associate version in the master version they get a beautiful frame that has eighteen months two three four and five it's all framed it's all produced and that's included in the price so for two ninety nine three ninety nine they're getting five sessions and afraid so again it's a loss leader there's a there's a loss to us but we know that in eighteen months they're going to buy and two and three and four and five they're going to invest in our portraiture nobody's gonna wait for five years to get a picture of their children so tow us it's an investment in keeping those those consistent clint so I think if there any questions on how that works we can either ask them now getting a few or do you want to wait on that yeah let's ask a couple questions go home we go to break yeah it's a little bit of a delay till we get the questions no no it's okay because you guys have questions I mean I think you guys get the basic concept of the hardest thing for people to understand is how much does it cost and what do they get out of it so just keep in mind that it's a little press and you could change your price you could definitely make it higher or lower um the higher you make it the more you're refining your clients and eliminating certain ones it's me I'd rather go low and then wow them with the session and get them to invest on that side of it uh I have a question from sam cox who was from loveland colorado and he asked when sales from a session or maybe several sessions don't meet your goals do you do a post mortem to figure out what you could have done differently you know I think what we find especially in a program like this is if we have somebody that that signs up for it and their sales averages air low consistently through typically that client it's they love your work and can afford you and so to me it's never an effective poor marketing because we find a rage like we have certain clients that spend couple thousand every time they come in and certain that we'll spend one hundred you know three hundred or five hundred so I think we do research on what works and what doesn't but a program like this is so consistent over the years that to us it's a client issue I have a lot of clients who honestly can't afford us but they sacrifice they may not spend as much as other people but their children are so important in those images are so important that even if they're spending five hundred dollars to them might be everything they have but to me I'm grateful for that five hundred because I know how hard it was for them to get to that does that make sense I'm grateful that they care about my work enough to do that so if I do have a such a program that is not working well absolutely I'll go through and try to tear it apart and rebuild it but something like this the baby program in the following program they've they've been my bread and butter for years so I stick with him so a couple of practical questions before we go toe break from brain innes are you using your past client photos to display them in the office is that you talk like you talked about earlier and do you compensate those clients or not great question as I mentioned before my goal is to have new energy in there so if I were doing a doctor's office I would want to do to do a model search within the doctor's office and use their clients that's your very best resource but if for some reason you can't do that then and I have to use like that uh doctor's office I showed you yes we do contact the clients we always ask their permission even though we technically have a moderately signed on everything we do I still is a courtesy asked their permission I wouldn't want to walk in a doctor's office and find my child up there if I didn't know it was gonna be there so we do ask their permission and we do give them some compensation we will typically offer them a two hundred dollars give it to make it we'll explain that we're having a display go up and that it's a permanent display and we'd love to give them if they're okay with us using their image would like to give them like a gift certificate for two hundred dollars something like that so I think it's and remember when you do that you're still creating new energy because you're taking a client that had maybe hasn't seen you for a while and you're giving them two hundred dollars and all the sudden there like oh I got to get back in my kids need a portrait so you're still creating energy there