The following is a guest post by Brittany Hansen of Brushfire Photography located in San Tan Valley, AZ.

Beth Forester has lived in a small town with a population of about 3,000 people for 15 years, where she runs a boutique photo studio. Even in a struggling economy her studio has not only stayed afloat, but thrived. She’s done so through differentiating her products and services, targeting her market, and focusing on her clients. The following are a few notes from her WPPI 2011 Platform Lecture.

Her studio is boutique because they offer specialized products and services to make them different. Boutique is kind of catch phrase thrown around these days in the wedding photography industry. But to be truly boutique you need to be different in terms of client service and products offered, i.e. not just offering all of your files on CD.

Senior portraits is a one time event. They can not come back years later and do them again. Therefore, there is an immediacy to do them and a built-in timeline to when they will be in and when they need to be done. Parents will usually spend a lot on them because it is a special event. The sooner you get the photos done the better because then they are still in the moment and are more likely to spend more. Money doesn’t matter when you tap into emotion.

Do you want to spend money on a valuable product or something priceless? If you show a client a beautiful photo of their child as a product they maywant to buy it, but if that item becomes a priceless treasure for them of their child, then they will definitely buy it. Photographers need to think of their work and present their work as priceless treasures.

Beth then moved into the topic of Prints vs. Digital files. Here are some of her points:

-When you sell files they could print them with the wrong printer profiles.
-It’s your image that is at stake, and you want it to look good.
-By selling digital files you are missing out on selling lots of other products and items. Therefore your profit has a ceiling, because there is only so much they will spend on digital files, then they don’t buy other things.

Beth then went into effective ways to sell products. Here are some of her main points from this segment:

- Always give clients options with good, better, best in mind. The first option should be very basic. The second option should be a template or something nicer; however, it should be something that you can use for anyone. The third option should be custom and one-of-a-kind.

- Encourage clients to spend on the spot, and order prints and products by giving them a discount, then let them know if they order later it will cost more.

- For holiday sessions give options like greeting cards, custom greeting cards, ornaments, gift tags, magnets. When the client is involved in choosing it becomes boutique. Make your price list look nice, people will like looking at it if it looks professional and cheery.

- Use Facebook to send private messages to clients to inform them about upcoming deals.

- Figure what is fair for a session fee that raise it 20%. Find products to increase sales and make them custom. Example of products that increase sales: shower invitations, gift registry cards. Push products by giving the client a welcome packet, send newsletters.

My favorite part of her lecture was her top ten ways to increase sales.

10. Incremental incentives in packages. If you have items that are only available in larger packages they are more likely to upgrade. Also if savings are higher is larger packages, that is a great incentive.

9. Make bigger packages- people will pay for it- don’t sell yourself short.

8. Coupons- people will spend money to save money. If they do not use the coupon they feel like they have lost money. Make clients feel good about purchases. Higher spending= Higher saving

7. Incentives- Use exclusive products in higher packages. Such as a slideshow DVD is only available after spending $$$.

6. The art upgrade- standard, template, custom/art

5. Offer custom framing- they have to buy a frame anyway so why not from you.

4. If you offer odd sized prints, it is more likely they will order frames too.
Plus, standard size seems generic, if you say it is a custom size it seems special.

3. Offer new product lines- people get bored, so you need to offer new things. You can even create new sales from old sessions with new products. Create a buzz about the new things being offered to bring people in.

2. Sales + Events – Run a sale on a product in September for any session from that year. Such as christmas cards or purses.

1. Customization – Everyone is looking for something unique.

Beth gave so much useful information and it was all in this rapid fire form. I wrote more notes in her class than any other, and they are all these single line bits of info which is great. I think about what she said a lot now and have started to implement some of her ideas about products and marketing.

She told a story about how she was running an Christmas event for returning clients and when she sent out a email about it she didn’t receive any responses. Then she decided to send out the info using messaging in Facebook and she booked all the sessions in one day. I have started utilizing Facebook more and using my email less, and it has been great.

I do not agree completely about not selling digital files. If I were to tell all the people who called me, that I do not offer digital files, I would lose a lot of business. I think there are other ways to sell products and make extra money, while still offering digital files. Such as only offering the files after a client has spent so much on products or prints. This still puts a cap on what you will probably make per session, but at least you know they are getting professional quality prints, and your work is being represented how you want it.

More of Beth’s work can be found here