Senior Portrait Market

[AnneWynne]

Some tips picked up from Sandy Puc' and others:

Get some "Senior Ambassadors" who are rising seniors (juniors this year) to whom you give a good package deal.

• Make sure you give them, as an unexpected thank you, a couple of sheets of wallet photos with your studio name on them.
• Give them some low resolution negatives for posting on facebook, etc., again with your studio name on them, maybe even your website address.
• Give them a stack of your referral card and tell them you will send them $20 for each referral that books and buys a session/package deal (teens respond really well to $$$, not so much for print credit.) (Make sure your session fees can cover the $20 referral fee...$35/session is not enough for this, imho).
• Start your Senior promotions in the spring so you can take advantage of the spring blooms, then follow it up throughout the year with special promotions such as Christmas photos, fall frollic, formals, and graduation photos for their invitations and thank you cards you can print for them.

Plan out your Senior promotions for the year...and start implementing it.
Good luck.

[halmooney]

I agree, Anne, $35.00 is not enough, if you wish to give a referral fee back to the "ambassador". And you're right, cash is a great incentive. I do charge more if the student wants extra clothing changes, outdoor scenes, shots with their car, animals (yuck), etc. But I do like your suggestions, and plan to implement at least some of them.

[lynweber]

Originally Posted by kaightie

i did a referal program i got one boy and one girl from each school in the area offered them a free sitting and 1/2 price prints...then did rep cards for them. for every person they reffered to me and brought in the card when they bought their full senior package i gave the person who reffered them a $10 print credit so could get all of their pictures for free if they referred enough people...it works great for me....hope this helps

I'm thinking of doing something similar what are the rep cards exactly as I have never offered them before and how many do you give them? When do you start the program? Thanks!