Senior Portrait Market

[Raspberry Rain]

Hello, I am new to this site, but thought I would ask a few specific questions for those of you that do a lot of senior portrait work. I am a professional photographer in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and am really wanting to tap into the senior portrait market. So, there in lies my first question:
1. How did you advertise specifically to seniors? I know the general answers, website, blog, facebook, but is there anything that you did specific to seniors to get their attention?

2. When do you begin marketing to them? Am I too late this year? I was curious if you sent postcards or something, if there was a good time to do this?

Thanks so much for your help!
Nicole
www.raspberryrainimages.com

[MWerner]

I'm also trying to break into the senior scene. This is what I'm doing:

Find a couple of cute juniors or seniors, maybe one girl and one boy. Do their pictures for free, and use them to market your brand for you. Friend them on Facebook and tag them in the pictures you took of them. Ask them to invite all of their friends to be a fan of your page. Maybe offer some sort of referral program.

[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

[Raspberry Rain]

Thanks so much for the suggestions! I have tried doing a similar referral program with the 10.00 print credit per person who books with us that was referred by the person, however I have asked four young ladies and have had no takers.

[BrianthePhotographer]

I'm just starting out in my area. There are severa other photographers in the area and I think this is a great idea to help me get my name/business name out there. I took my daughter's senior pictures and she said she had a lot of great comments on them. I'm going to give this a try for the next school year. I'll let you know how it works.

[Jim Bryant]

Since I'm primary a sports shooter, when I go to games, meets and matches, I hand out a flyer to the parents that offer my services. I also hand some out to the teams head coach so that they can pass out to the players.

[mandyatm]

So after you do their free session, how long do you have to wait to let them order pics? Since you are giving them discounts on referrals, how do you know ahead of time how much to give? And what if they get their free session and then don't promote for you? These are great ideas, I would like to know more details!

[shphoto32]

Seems like recruiting a few cute models and letting them recruit for you is a pretty common way of doing it. I'm considering trying out this method as well.

[sarahgirl777]

I just put an ad in the local High School Yearbook. So far I have been just word of mouth and people coming across my website when searching online. I'm hoping the yearbook ad will help get my name out to next years seniors though.

[halmooney]

The referral method seems to work, but slow to get going -
In my area, the big studio has the "official" school picture deal, but after the kids see those, they are usually looking for someone to do more creative, personal shots.
I try to connect with a few kids at each school in my area, through church, etc. I give away a few free sittings (3 or 4) with a package of 4x6 proof prints and a link to the website - VERY Important!
In their package are a dozen cards for a discount sitting, $10.00 off a $35.00 basic sitting. I think that for seniors, its important to keep the session fee low - it's expensive to have a senior! Many of these kids have to pay for these "extras" themselves.
Any kid who brings me a discount card, and books a sitting, earns their referring friend a free 8x10. A couple of bucks material in exchange for another sitting is a great deal for me.
So, if the first few refer enough people, they can earn all their own pics for free. And of course, every new kid who comes in gets the same deal. Network marketing in action.
Let them use the shots on their Facebook page, just require them to give credit to you. If they are excited about their pictures, they will be happy tell everybody who did them.