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Lesson Info

Aggressive Marketing

every senior that I photographed this year went up on my digital billboard. And so I'm pretty sure that your if home Louisiana's got digital billboards. I'm pretty sure that your town has digital billboards. No, Unbelievable. It's coming. It's coming of telling you. If home is God, you're going to get it soon. But digital billboards are a bit pricey, but the but the bottom line is pretty incredible, because I want you to think about what happens when Mom and Mama, that's my Southern moment. That's my grandmother. Excuse me and the Popov's grandfathers and and the Nunes and Ninis and all the rest of them find out that their baby is up on the billboard with their name and all that good stuff. What What do you think? What do you think they're doing? I want everybody go see? What is that what we call that again? With the mouth we generating word of mouth advertising. That's what we're doing. All park prices in my area. It's 1000 a month. 1000 water would be a lot if you sign a 12 month con...

tract, so it's 12, year. It's a little bit more if you signed a six month contracts a little more. You find a three month contract. I just realized that there are sometimes that they will have as part of a fundraiser. They will put up digital one month of digital billboard advertising as a fundraiser. Like, you know, someone has a little a child because he's sick or something. And I just noticed that just recently that that the companies will do that. So you want to try it out? You might want to get a little sneaky on eBay and look around and maybe find one of those. And you could only buy one month for a very discounted price. Yeah, helping out a charity and you get one month of digital billboard and see if it works. I was completely shocked. Angle. I completely shocked. And how much talk it generated. I mean, I everywhere. I don't have you. Like I saw you Bill Barker. Who knew you were so good, Does it? Me? Yeah. Go ahead, Pablo. What you got? You just so you rent one billboard. No, no, no. Let me just tell you the company that I There are the one billboard companies out there and there are much less okay, and the ones that I have found, there's all sorts of ways of buying it. You could be like you can come up every eighth slide or you can come up every 12 slides and come up every 15th slide, and the less you come up the last it costs, you can buy it for. Like I said for one month, that's gonna cost more than if you signed a six month contract. That's the single board, cos Then there are the companies that have five or six boards in town. Okay? And that was the one I went with because what happens is for this week you're on this billboard. And then for the next week you're on that billboard. And then for the next week, you're on that billboard and you moved all around town. And so that's how it worked in Homa. And so that was the company I went with so that it allowed me to move around. Follow. So anyway, so I know I got the specs from him and every, like I said, every senior I did, I would send them and Oh, by the way, this is another thing that they allow is I would send them. Let's say I photographed six seniors this week. I sent them six billboards and they would put me in the rotation. So it was every seventh slide. So it's seven. Slide. Picture of Kim came up seven slides later. Picture Leroy came up seven slides later, Picture Pablo came up. Okay, so what I'm getting at and so they would have It was like it was like people would sit there. I can't people sitting on the side of the road, for God's sake. I was like, That is unbelievable. Another interesting thing that cracked up I got I got commercial business because of the billboard I had had companies call me up and say, Hey, I saw your billboard. Could you take a picture of our office? One was the guy wanted hey was hiring and he didn't want to just put, you know, help wanted up there. He wanted a picture to go with it. So I got that. There was a thing for the golf course that they wanted me to design, and so I designed it. And so it was all kinds of other business. That was a result of what happened with those digital billboards, and it created just the coolest word of mouth. It was a way about it in the past, around business cards. So I just think about it. It's again. It's that juggle. Are you willing to spend $12,000 a year for this? I don't know. Did it generate at least $12, with a business for me? Absolutely. Was it worth it? Yes. What? I do it again? I don't know. I'm still debating that because it's like How many times can you do it that it becomes successful? Do you need to do something different now? Those are the constant jungles of this great world that we live in. Which one do I do? Kirk? I don't know. It's like you have to sort of poke your chest out and say, This is it. Let's go do this Makes sense. All right, so another one was selling packages, okay. And just seriously, I would like the polls show hands. Do you sell packages? How many cell packages packages for 3 45? OK, on the Internet world, there's no reason for them to say I do. I do I do? Okay, but seriously, I I've done various classes and things like that several times. And when I asked for a show of hands, the bulk of the room raises their hand When I say how many cell packages. Okay, well, isn't part of the persuasion of advertising being unique? That's part of the persuasion in it. I mean, why would someone say go to this restaurant as opposed to that restaurant? Well, why would someone buy this type of clothing versus that type of closing and all those other things that we do that advertising influences us on? Why would that be the case? Well, ultimately, we're trying to be unique, right? Well, why would you do what everybody else does now? We're gonna get mawr in depth about this this afternoon. I'm just let you know when we talk about selling packages versus minimum orders and strictly selling everything individually, and I'm gonna show you exactly how I do it, and I'll show you my prices and everything. But that is to me a major deal. Selling packages are gonna absolutely produce normal results. Okay. And I'm probably gonna say it several times. You're gonna if your biggest packages $500. Do not expect any more than that. Do not because we humans are pretty pretty basic. We like bugs flying into the light. We say show up for creative life. Look what happens. All these people show up, okay? We basically are told what to do and we do it. That's that's sort of the way it works. I just told you all now this is the one most people pick and boop, y'all went right into it. So that's how we as humans work. So when you have packages, that's what happens. Here's my $500 package. Oh, that's what I want. But if you sort of leave that open, then if you take the sealing off of it, what happens is the potential for higher sales is there. You break that mental barrier that we humans just love. We like to have a dollar a limit of this is it. I'm not spending any more than this. That makes sense. So that's why minimum waters and again we're gonna talk about this as we go. So when I did normal marketing, I had a $500 average, which for many like I said, Maybe incredible. You may be like and the problem is a problem. It's awesome. Okay? And I had it for many, many, many, many years. But when I did aggressive amount marketing my average shot up to $2000. So I'm assuming I don't even have to ask you, rather $2000 average versus 500 Shore. Anything to generate more sales, because again, I'm not trying to repeat myself, But it's all about the prophet. That's what it's all about. Okay, so what has worked for me, the most powerful of all the things I've ever done that created the biggest bang for the book. It was word of mouth that was the one. And so that's when I do advertising everything that I do. I try to do it in such a way as to generate this word of mouth. So I mentioned earlier that we're gonna talk about this Facebook thing that I did. What was the question? Let me say you said, um, showing. And no, it was one of these things getting most successful. That was one of them, and social media was another one. But the point which he was asking Monica. He was asking about, you know, things that have worked. And how do I get him in the door? And you was You asked me the same thing where dough I go. Well, this was gonna kind of can very, very much so handle a lot of these things. Here's what I did. I noticed that on Facebook that people will post the picture that they shot just general, not photographers. Just general. Nobody anybody, and all of their buddies and all their friends will come around and say, Oh, so beautiful. It's so gorgeous. Yo, Sha Bay. A far I got you. And it just kills me cause I look at the picture and I go, Yeah, is horrible. Now, have you ever noticed that? Never caught another photographer? Apparently photographers all over the place, you know, and we see it. We go. Did you notice that her arm was cut off? And did you notice that the lighting across her nose had a big streak? Did you notice that it made her look fat? Because the way she was turned towards the camera. Is this really a good picture? Come on. Oh, jerk! Jerk. You're a jerk. I can't believe you would say God, You're so stupid now. Is that good? I mean, are you gonna be? Are people like lining up? Oh, my God. So technical. He's knows so much about photography. I'm lining up to go ahead. My baby pictures taken over there? No. So I thought to myself, man, that's just That's the wrong angle. How can we get around this? So I put I put on my Facebook page models wanted models wanted. If you would like to be one of my models, send me a picture of yourself so I can see what you look like and send me a picture of some picture on the internet, a model or something that you find that you would like to look like. Something that you would want to do. Okay. And so they sent me a picture. Most of the pictures they sent me was this picture, like, here. This way. You have my cell phone with me, but you know you know this picture, that picture right there, that was most of that was what most of the people sent me. Was it good? No. Was it lit right now? Was it grainy? Oh, yeah. So was it bad photography? Yes. Then they come into the studio, and so is to manage my time properly. They would all get this email. The email would basically say this. Listen, super hurry. Super big time power because I got another senior portrait. I mean, I got another session right behind you. So please be on time. And, you know, we're probably looking to do just a few head shots made 34 head shots That's all gonna have time for. So we're gonna be doing, like, a ton of outfits or anything like that, but bring a bunch of stuff if you want. I'm OK with that, but Ah, come on in and let's take some awesome pictures of you. So all this was done via email. Communication. Haven't opening on Thursday at two o'clock. Yeah, I'm an Kirk Sobule might stick a man Thursday to my charging them and charge them for this. No. So they come in. We do flit early three or four headshots, one like I mean, just radical. As radical as I could make it. It's all of my curveball claim photography page. I mean, I hope That's okay for me to say in the Internet world. But, I mean, you go look at him right now, and so I would take the picture. Then what I would do is I would make the thing that I want to post on Facebook was their picture that they sent me with a little thing, attacks underneath that said, before Kirk, vocal in photography. And then, of course, it was their picture that I did at my logo on it. And a little thing that asked the question. What concurred vocal and do for you. That is what I would post on Facebook. And it was absolutely And so I would post these three or four pictures in each one of the things I would have a little commentary about how how great the model did, which every one of them did. I was like shocked. I was completely shocked. I had overweight models. I had skinny, beautiful models. I mean, I had young people. I had older people. It was unbelievable. I did it all. Every one of them, every person who sent me an email except at the end. When I got crazy, I mean, it was like, unbelievable. Many people bombarding me what I wanted and I got completely booked up. Did this for about a month, three weeks a month and in the middle of every one of those little Post, I would say Now, if you are a high school senior graduating in 2014 and if you see these images and you think, Wow, I wonder what curve Oakland could do for me? Why not sign up to be one of my models in the month of October? Call the studio and learn what specials we've got for October when we do all our models. The one a carnival clean photography's models call now phone number. That is so smart. It was any Has it is on. How much did it cost me? Nothing. Not nothing. Not a penny, not one penny. Unbelievable. I mean, when you look at it in it to me, any time I crack 1000 views to me, that's that's awesome. From my area from my world. Almost every picture has 1000 people, you know. It's show yummy views. Some of them got 2000 and 1500 stuff like that, but almost every one of them broke $1000. Did you mark every one of the girl? Everyone of the people I photographed, I sent them files that would make Ah, pretty darn good. Five bus seven print, no logos. None of that just I sent him the prince. And when I would send them the prince, I would say, Now, here's the thing. I just appreciate what you did so much. And I thank you so much for what you did. If you click print on your computer, these pictures go look fantastic. But will they look better if I print them? Absolutely. Absolutely. So to encourage you to have me print them, here's my priceless link to my priceless and on your very first order take 50% off. Did everyone of them order? No, no. Every one of them did not order. But a lot of them did place an order and it generated some income. It didn't generate a lot of income. No, but here's the beautiful thing. Over 20 seniors have now booked me for October. Now, if you understand that I do. I don't work on Mondays. What you're gonna really say just do has got a problem I don't have any debt. Okay, let me just tell you all that right off the bat so I don't have to work nearly as hard as I used to. I do to seniors on Tuesday to seniors on Wednesday to seniors on Thursday. And if you begged me one senior on Friday, so the most I could do, it's seven a week. Okay, that's 14 seniors in a month. Okay, that's that's me working hard. 28 seniors. I have over 20 booked for October. So my October is almost booked up All because of this thing that I did, and it generated word of mouth advertising, and it cost me nothing. Nothing. I got some more of these stories. If you want to hear Monica, when you did this and you had them send in their pictures, did you have any other qualifying featured? I mean, you know, they had to be no school class president or anything like that. I think I got told you had one lady I had photographed her had to be 20 years ago. I did her family pictures 20 years ago. I don't know how old she Waas, but she was my age is what I'm getting at. I'm 51. So she was my age and and I did our pictures. I absolutely did it. She was not a high school senior, but do you think she knows high school seniors? Absolute. Everybody knows a high school senior. So that was the point. I don't care when he was young, old, big, little tall skin care. I was going to, but I wanted to show really people regular Joe blow people. I don't want to just have a bunch of models. Makes it so that was that Facebook model program that I wanted to tell you about. You know what? That lets me dio Let me scratch this off right here. Look, Budget number two. Can I scratch a budget? Sure. Can I scratch our social media to me? I can't, because that's what I'm doing. I mean, there's all sure you could do it on Twitter if you want and linked in. And all the rest of them out there. I mean, is a Brazilian of them. Which one works best for you? That's the one you do it with on again. I can't really answer that for you because, you know, here's the thing about Louisiana and you guys can confirm this man. Do we not get everything late in Louisiana? I mean, it's like it's like, whatever it is, it starts out here on the edges, like out here in Seattle and up down New York, and it starts gravitating to the middle and hits the middle. His job rams into Ohio on. Then it just dropped down into Louisiana. I mean, come on. Is that m C Hammer guy? Cool or what? Hey, is cool. I love his music anyway. It's just We get everything late and it's totally an advantage to me. It's totally an advantage because, like, right now, finally, Facebook is cool in my area and, you know, on, like, the pro form and stuff like that. People are talking about it and it's like Facebook. That's dead. Not where I'm from right now, which is fine. It might die next year. Great. But right now I'm gonna bride that way for as long as they let me ride it. And so it just depends on what it is for your area. So anyway, all right, so I'm moving on. Word of mouth. Like, for example. Another thing is the digital billboards that I already told you about. Do you think that creates word of mouth? Do you? Can you see Mom on the side? The road? You gotta come over to the side of Barrett area and do in a 3 to come see this picture. You gotta come see it. Can you see this happening? I can say I'm sitting on the side. No, Come right now. I don't care that you on the 12th hole. Come now. I can see this happening. And people say, I can tell you called people sitting on the side of the road looking at this stuff. So would that generate word of mouth advertising? Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, every senior I photograph every senior went on the digital billboard. That means good looking seniors went up there and not so good looking. Seniors went up there overweight seniors, boys, girls, all of them. And I think that's a plus. Every senior that I photographed goes on my website, every one of them. I make these an emotive videos for him and I posted to YouTube every senior. I do that for every senior every senior I photograph goes on the block, every senior gets posted to social media. Everyone of Does that benefit me? Yes. And my sort of giving it away a little bit. I am. But guess what. They turn around and give me money, and I'm okay with that. Does that make sense? Okay, because why again? It generates this word of mouth advertising. This bottle card is one of the things that I use that generates. This word of that helps promote this word of mouth advertising. So this is what that model card looks like. It is plastic, like a credit card. And on the front, it has the customers picture. You can see that on the screen right now in the Internet world. And but I have a few of them right here. In fact, ego. You, you, you, for you Right now we all have some. All right, so what? This card is plastic, and it has $50 on it. All right? And then it has their name. And underneath it, it says, expires 60 days from the date of your session. Okay? And if you flip it over on the backside, man looks really it looks real credit card, doesn't it? See? Like, did you notice and look at the bar code. Check that out. You know what? That is Not thing. OK? And notice the wording. I just looked at a credit card. Real credit cards have all kinds of crazy numbers and weirdo things. And and so I just duplicated all that stuff. I put my name, address, phone number, hours of operation, website, blah, blah, blah. Put all that on the back, and you can see it. And so anyway, with these little cards, what I do is I make eight. H and age makes 18 of them. Relatively inexpensive. They're not super super expensive. And what you do is you give this. This is one of the things that seniors that I photographed in the month of October get everyone. They don't know that getting this, but I give it to them now. What do you think they going to do with this? Because I explain to them that what you get what I'm giving you is the ability to give one of your friends $50. You can just give your body's 50 bucks. Of course, they get that they have to come to May and I treated just like cash. Someone walks in a card from me for me from I take 50 bucks right off the bat, right off their bill. Whether they want to use it as part of their minimum order. They want to buy whatever with it, take it right off the bottom. To me, it's just like a real life piece of cash. And I do that with every senior that a photograph in the month of October, they're gonna get one of these 18 of them. So if I have seniors, let's say I'm Max out 28. Scuse me seniors. Tony's out and I'll probably skip one Friday. Go play golf 27 26 28 seniors. And let's say they all get 18 of these. Do you see what those seniors are going to do for me for November? What do you think they're going to do for me for November? Absolutely. Those seniors are gonna now word of mouth and get my November seniors. Now I got to think of something else for the November seniors, but the very 1st it is entirely possible, and it has happened several times in the past that that it has throw me something, mister. Okay, It has happened several times in the fact past that the entire month of October, what happens in the month of October sets up my entire year, not just November or December. That has happened many times. So think about how powerful that is, the word of mouth and these little model cards can absolutely do that for you. Okay, so that is how that program works. Another thing I do in connection with that is I will also with sticky albums and an emotive tell you that I make everybody in an emotive slideshow, that slide show that we showed in segment one. That slide show is what an an emoto slideshow. Looks like I didn't upload that to YouTube. And then what happens with sticky albums? Sticky albums is a little app for your phone. I send that off every senior in the month of October. Now, do they get every picture? No, They just give a teaser, and I tell him up front. I'm just gonna seen you some teaser pictures, okay? I'm not sitting. You all of them just some Tasers. They get it in their phone. Of course. Can they buy the whole set of pictures? Yes, but I said I'm a few teasers. The video shows up. They can share that with all their friends, and they are then again, marketing farming. It's like being paid to market. Someone else is paying me for me. The market does that make sense. And, boy, I love that I like being paid to advertise, as opposed to having to pay for advertising. Makes sense. So that is the power to me of the whole word of mouth advertising. That is how powerful that could be.