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Rangefinder Magazine
March 2003

Promotion Materials That Really Work by Maria Piscopo
The Key Is Planning, Good Design and Production

Stan Sholik (www.stansholik.com) specializes in macro and close-up photography and is based in Santa Ana, California.

Promotional materials are generated from many sources. It is unlikely you can have too many promo pieces, but you can easily have the problem of unrelated promotion pieces.

Leftover direct mail or ad reprints are not your first, best choice. You need promotion pieces designed for their intended use as sales correspondence. There are two types, primary and secondary promo pieces.

Primary Promo Pieces
These are your visual and most important promotional materials. They can be inexpensively and nicely done, the key is planning, good design and production, not just spending money. They will be used most often for sending ahead to get an appointment or for leaving behind after showing a portfolio. In Figures A1 and A2, Al Satterwhite, Satterwhite Productions, Inc. (www.alsatterwhite.com) and Ira Gostin, of Gostin Photography (www.gostinphoto.com) use a classic and timeless design and image selection criteria for their primary promo piece. This layout works for four reasons:
• It is sized for clients to keep on file (8 1/2 x11 inches)
• Shows multiple images (five to eight)
• The images represent visual uniformity
• Includes simple text statements such as “Action-Sports-Adventure” and “We Photograph the West, Every Day” to support the strong visual statement.

Figure A1	Figure A2

For their sales correspondence in Figures B1 and B2, Michele Miller and Dimitri Spathis of Spathis & Miller Photography (www.spathismiller.com), use a series of color single-image cards. The front of each card makes a strong sales statement with consistent design and image selection and the back gives their prospective clients four different options to contact the photography team: web site, address, phone and fax. Give clients multiple choices to contact you. Make it easy for them to hire you!

Especially for the wedding and portrait client, David Rigg, of Simply The Finest, (www.SimplytheFinest.com) reminds us, “Attracting the retail/consumer client means your sales promotional material is part of the entire marketing strategy. You must carefully plan and execute the sequence of imagery that the prospective client will be exposed to, in order to be sure that your marketing message is clear and presented in a logical order. Less is more! Don’t blow your entire body of work on a brochure, or web site. Leave them wanting more, that is the key to creating the desire that will sustain the enthusiasm required to complete the sale. If you have worked professionally for a limited time, more than likely, your body of really great images will be limited, so use them wisely. You cannot have the same images on the walls of your gallery, that you have in the brochure or on the web, or you may give the impression that you have not been in the image making business very long, which cuts right to the core issue of credibility. Make sure the sales promotion process works for you and not against you.”

Figure B1	Figure B2

Secondary Promo Pieces
These information promotional materials are added to the basic visual materials above for your sales correspondence. The design objective is to give the client more information about you and your photography services. Some of these secondary materials include a capabilities brochure for your business, text-only promos and client printed materials.

Capabilities Brochures. A capabilities piece needs to be flexible to work for each of your studio’s different sales messages. Each version should include all the basics (your background, client testimonials, client list, professional memberships, equipment available, facilities inventory, map to your studio). The most flexible format for a capabilities brochure is a presentation folder (customized with a logo on the front cover) with image and text inserts printed in advance or printed as needed, depending on the client. This format is easily customized for individual clients and is especially important in today’s competitive marketplace where you need a variety of sales messages, each going to a different client base,to build a successful business.

For example, you can use different text inserts for such dissimilar messages such as “food photography” and “people photography.” This is a good design because it is adaptable for any situation. Note: this is not a direct-mail piece but it works very well as an “offer” to make in your direct- mail campaign. In your food client direct mail, the text would read, “Call for our food photography capabilities brochure.” In addition, a capabilities brochure can be included with cost proposals to add power and impact and help you “package” your price to get the job.

FigureC1

Text Only. Information promotion materials are great supplements to the visual materials. For example, you can design and print a map to your studio or a page of client success stories or testimonials. Background information on you and your studio is important. Who you are as a person can help a client decide to hire you. These pieces can be used for both the consumer (wedding/portrait) client as well as the commercial photography clients.

Ira Gostin uses two pages (figure C1) of text that describe his sales message, client success stories, testimonials, client list and photographic capabilities.

FigureD1

Client Projects
Your client’s published work with your photography also creates an opportunity for promotion. One of the most common uses of client published projects is the “back printing” of the client’s piece. For example, a client uses your photos and their own text on the front side of the piece, leaving the back of the printed piece blank. You simply send the promos back through a printer to add your own promotional text on the backside. In Figure D, Julie Diebolt Price of JDP Photography (www.jdpphotography.com) uses a client project in another way for her promotion. Julie creates this valuable promo piece of her published work with a “cut and paste” to layout the entire article using her photos on an 8 1/2-x11 ink jet print. She gets the credential of the magazine name and her photo on the cover as well as showing her photos that illustrate the published article.

Michael Furman (www.michaelfurman.com) specializes in car photography both in studio and on location.

By using a combination of primary (visual) and secondary (information) promotion material, you can plan and deliver consistent and successful promo pieces to your prospective clients to get the work. Remember, this will not happen by accident. You will need careful planning for your design, production and printing needs. Working with a professional graphic designer is highly recommended. Even if they create the concept and design and let you do your own production, it is well worth working with a professional. After all, that is what you tell your clients!

Based on Maria Piscopo’s book The Photographer’s Guide To Marketing & Self-Promotion, 3rd Edition. Published by Allworth Press. An art/photo rep since 1978, Piscopo teaches classes in the Los Angeles area as well as workshops for professionals and can be reached for questions at http://www.MPiscopo.com.