Proms, which used to be the golden goose of the Spring photo season, have now become a financial challenge for photographers in the digital age. Proms are still being held all over the country, and expensive tuxedoes and fancy dresses are still all the rage at these events; but pre-paid posed photographs have taken a serious hit.

Candid Color Systems has developed a new online report called the Event Sales Aging Repor. This new, beneficial business tool displays a sales cycle for specific events or market type over a defined period of time. This data can be compiled from any online event orders placed across multiple CCS software platforms and can be filtered in a variety of ways.

In the early days of Party Pics we preached with religious fervor that contact or projection proofs (made from film) should be displayed for no more than two weeks and preferably no more than ten days. Many customers left them out only one week. Orders were placed by writing the name of the purchaser, the size and quantity of prints desired right on the proof sheet. That was the only chance to order the pictures unless there happened to be an end of semester sales each semester at a higher print price.

Success stories in sports photography happen every week. In fact, anytime you can generate a great turnout of athletes, produce creative images you can print, manage to stay on schedule, and walk away with a pocketful of money—it’s a success!

Venues such as stadiums, arenas, convention centers, hotels, country clubs, zoos, museums and bars present a large pool of events and attendees to photograph and sell prints and images. Each venue will have events unique to its location, so the opportunities are varied. For example, at country clubs you will find golf tournaments, weddings, charity events, social functions and anniversary parties to name a few. Events at your local zoo might include holiday themed events such a Halloween party and seasonal concerts. An advantage to targeting business at a venue is that the fixed location allows a photographer to build a repo ire with venue staff and, ultimately, the photographer can get an exclusive contract for events occurring at the venue. Here are some examples of venue photography success stories.
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It seems like a no-brainer that acquiring a new customer can cost many times more than retaining and maximizing an existing job(some studies say up to 6 or 7 times more). However, our focus is often on finding and booking new business. While booking new jobs IS an integral part of any business strategy, we encourage everyone to pay close attention to the jobs they currently have by maximizing profit on the shoots they currently have booked.
Incremental sales on existing jobs can mean BIG profit. Earning these highly profitable dollars is important. You can increase sales by shooting more images, changing your product offering and through a myriad of other efforts. Our focus in this article is on the impact of marketing efforts on your events. In our example shown below a sales increase of 20%, using sometimes overlooked extended marketing efforts means an increase in total profit of a whopping 35%!
Let’s take a look at a graduation example for inspiration on instituting remarketing efforts.

As Graduations, Sports, Parties and Events ramp up this Spring, the typical focus is on how to get enough good photographers; How to train those photographers, how to field enough equipment, how to upload images to the lab quickly, how to get proofs I.d.’d and posted quickly, and how to get manual orders input and to the lab. All of these steps are certainly important and must be done early to insure good sales.

 How and where to book events         o Personnel Directors         o Managers         o Owners                   - Offer free photos for their publication needs  Pricing of Events          o Some companies pay for photographers to be at their functions  while others do not                  - For those that pay fees:                            • $60 – $100 per camera or $60 – $100 per [...]

It takes a lot of effort to book photography events. It takes a fair amount of effort to schedule, photograph, set-up an event in software, upload images, create email campaigns and make sure everything is working properly.

All of these steps require about the same amount of effort, whether you gross $200 from an event or $2000. However, the bottom line profit result is quite different. In the case of a $200 photo event, you have probably lost money or made a very small amount. In the case of the $2000 photo event you have made a profit of 50% or better.

There is also another component that discriminates against a photo event that grosses only $200. That is the “opportunity lost.” “Opportunity lost” is the time and resources expended on a low selling event that could have been better utilized on a high selling event.

This “business case” begins with the decision of what to book. Learn More…..