Hospitality prints - just sold them.

[lonni]

I sent out some leaflets to hotels and motels before christmas and i just got an order for 100 prints, large ones, to go in rooms and check in areas for a set of 3 hotels owned by the same person. I offer a discount on printing from my stock landscapes, and have a deal with a local framer, i get them cheap for bulk buying.

Very excited. My name even gets to go on the print, and the owner said they would keep my business cards at reception and would think about supplying complimentary postcards in rooms. I would definately reccomend you guys look at it.

I am totally psyched, all that exposure, an dthe profit helps

Any one else go this route?

[mshockley]

Congrats on the great sale! Seems like you had a pretty decent idea )

[Old Cowgirl]

congratulations. Now did you send them just random shots of your work, or shots of the areas around their hotels?

[Biomech]

Sweet, and what a good idea! Doyou have any photos of your leaflets we can see?

[metric_photography]

Originally Posted by lonni

I sent out some leaflets to hotels and motels before christmas and i just got an order for 100 prints, large ones, to go in rooms and check in areas for a set of 3 hotels owned by the same person. I offer a discount on printing from my stock landscapes, and have a deal with a local framer, i get them cheap for bulk buying.

Very excited. My name even gets to go on the print, and the owner said they would keep my business cards at reception and would think about supplying complimentary postcards in rooms. I would definately reccomend you guys look at it.

I am totally psyched, all that exposure, an dthe profit helps

Any one else go this route?

Can I ask how much you are charging? It sounds like a great idea!

[AnonymousKiwi1]

Congrats, Lonni. Well done. I love to hear about people succeeding in their business.

[andyw]

Originally Posted by lonni

Any one else go this route?

Firstly congrats on the sale.

Yes, I have done similar for a few hotels in France.
Started out just chatting with the owner of a Chateau hotel who was interested in my camera gear.
I sent a few samples to him of shots of his hotel and that got me the in with a company which produces a guide of independent hotels in France who in turn now recommend me to the hotels.

It is a very lucrative little bit of business.

[Krusty79]

Congrats lonni. Thanks for sharing your idea. This sounds better than trying to get a cafe to display a print. I have the same question as Biomech - what does your leaflet look like?

[lonni]

It is a great idea, i was suprised i came up with it, its not original, people offer hospitalty prints but it is usually copies of famous artists. I have a huge stock of local landscapes that i figured i could use, plus if it takes off i can count travelling for my tax deductions!

I basically sent the same information packet to all hotels in the area it included: A bunch of promotional postcards with diffeent scenes, an A4 leaflet that i use for my services ( a basic who i am what i do), business card, DL card price list with url for hospitality catalogue, and i wrote each one a personalised letter - the bulk was the same but i individualised each one to show i had done some research on their hotel.

I had quite a few inquiries, and i took the time to visit 3 owners/managers and this one was a sale straight off, i did have to chat with him for an hour and endure his short jokes, and the other 2 are taking my info to a board of directors. (finger crossed)

I had all the stuff already and only had to have the price list printed, and the letter. I bought those envelopes with the stamp on them already, in A5 size so nothing got bent, plus it was cheaper than buying them sepperate.

The total profit is $5000, after i take out things like insurance framing, the print cost, shipping, electricity.

The profit was good on this sale beceause the higher the volume the cheaper the printing and frameing is. I can also justify delivering the prints my self, which i factored into the price.

I can say that out of the 100 letter i have sent to hotels i have had 425 unique visitors to my catalogue with each visitor seeing an average of 23 imges. So i am hoping for more.

I will say it is a lot of talking and sales work, and i am glad i knew enough to add an extra 15% to my costs, I knew there would be bargaining.

As for pricing once i figured out the base cost of each print, including all the little things, i added an extra 127%, 100% for profit, 11% gst, 16% bargaining room.

I will put up some images once i figure out how. I know i know, its the one thing i still havent gigured out how to do.

[lonni]

OK im an idiot, heres a link to some of the purchesed images on my personal flickr. Easy as.

Landscapes - a set on Flickr

I also forgot to mention that my price was a little more that other prints but my selling point was original works, not coppies, not artwork that people have seen 100's of timers before, print quality, and the fact that they showed local scenes.

Also keep in mind i am in country Australia. Art is pretty pictures of vases of flowers, the pussy tail pictures were avante garde, photos are suposed to be lit from the front. The sand dunes were also avante garde.

I had to choose images to suit my market, not what i would put on the wall.

This is not something you can just google, I had to go and pretend to be a manager looking for art to get the inside info and prices to compare. I also had to go looking at what the hotels in the areas had, look at the type of rooms, customers etc. But im good at that type of stuff.