Prepping for a FB Promotion

[Niresangwa]

So with spring (hopefully, he says, living in Wisco) quickly approaching, I want to try and build my FB fan base quickly before I start pushing advertising for the 2010 season.

I've found FB to be very effective since I launched, and want to continue down this path.

I have been flirting with FB advertising and while it has been somewhat effective, it's also expensive. That said, I wanted to come up with an idea to swell those numbers.

I notice a great many photographers promoting on FB, and as incentive for adding fans, they offer discounted or free photography sessions as a prize. For me, this doesn't do much, and haven't heard that it's that effective from tog friends who have tried it. Seeing their further appeals pushing their campaigns end up sounding a bit desperate. Obviously I don't want to go down that route.

So, that said, is it as i believe it to be the 'prize' that isn't appealing, or is it the overall approach that is lacking?

My idea is to use a more tangible prize for the 'competition/promotion' such as Best Buy gift certificates for example. Any feedback on how much more appealing that would be vs the "$1000 worth of photography for free!" prize?

Is anyone else using or planning a different approach?

Thanks in advance!

Steve

[stikywiket]

I too have struggled with how to do this. I haven't tried setting it up myself, but one of my very well known friends was doing a promotion where you enter for a chance to win a session with her worth $500 - so she's the prize for a two or three dollar PayPal entry. Occasionally she also auctions off her more famous works that way too. I am still surprised to hear how much she's struggling with as well-known as she is. It blows my mind.

As far as my own FB campaigning goes, I agree it is expensive but I went from no fans to nearly 1000 in three months without much effort, which is something. Booking is another problem altogether and I'm in a major city where the market is saturated. Basically I haven't used prize-like promos yet but rather just creative and targeted ads with eye-catching pictures. But as I said, it doesn't result in tons of additions to my schedule...

[Niresangwa]

Yeah, I'm not too bothered about turning the fans into bookings just yet, just want the exposure and networking options, which it has been great for.

I just feel that offering free sessions as a prize for a promotion is a bit hackneyed. Like I said, I've seen many photographer friends offer this and it doesn't seem to be a big draw. I was wondering what people's thoughts were on using a tangible prize for the most fan referrals.

I think I've decided on using Best Buy gift certificates, just have to figure out the mechanics of the delivery.

[hibou]

Personally if people are spreading the word of mouth about me I'd want it to be because they genuinely like my photos, not because I paid them 50 bucks. Or whatever.

[Free]

Originally Posted by Niresangwa

I just feel that offering free sessions as a prize for a promotion is a bit hackneyed. Like I said, I've seen many photographer friends offer this and it doesn't seem to be a big draw. I was wondering what people's thoughts were on using a tangible prize for the most fan referrals.

Offering a prize is a great way to drum up business. I'm sure it would work for photography just as well as it does for other business, as long as it's done for the right reason.

Firstly, to do it for "promotion" yeah, you're wasting your time, especially on something as viral and un-targeted as Facebook. However if you sit down and plan exactly who you're trying to target you can use the "prize" as an awesome marketing tool.

I'll use wedding photography as an example but you could replace it with anything...

You offer a prize of 1 free wedding shoot complete with one album, get that offer into all the bridal shops in your city, get it online, hell pay a few more and put it in the newspaper every fortnight or month for the 3 months you run the offer for. By the end of it, if you've promoted well you have a few hundred "entrants" names, phone numbers, emails and if you're real smart you even have the date of their wedding.

They are all excited and have looked at your AWESOME online gallery. They chat about you ('cause all brides have to tell everyone they know every little detail about the wedding planning). They tell their friends and they read your blog. But more importantly, they get familiar with your name and quality.

Then you pull a name out of a hat. Contact the winner and arrange the shoot. Send out a letter to all the losers letting them know they were not successful and a little story about the winning couple.

You've spent a grand total of one shoot and an album and a few hundred bucks for marketing & stamps, what's that? $3-$5K?

But what you have in return is a hundred or more qualified leads!

These are people that you KNOW require your service and they know your name! All for the same cost as the cheapest television add ran for a month!

If you can't make at least 5 sales from that hundred or more people, no offense, but you need to find a day job

I would expect (as long as your portfolio is the shit) you to sell a minimum of 10 weddings from one "prize"

Anyway, I probably banged on a bit there, but you get the point, don't market just to market, you wont get too many bookings just from having facebook friends, I'm sure you could target groups to try to get people local to you, but you need define what type of photography you are selling and exactly who you are selling selling it to before you try to get your name in front of anyone.

Cheers
Free

[GadgetRick]

Although prizes are always good, giving away a $100 BB gift cert will do nothing for you. Yes, might get you a few fans but, realistically, what percentage of the people joining will actually ever want/need a photographer? I think it's a great way if you want to inflate your number of followers but I don't see it doing all that much to increase your business--the reason you market to begin with.

Doing something to, "give away," your services is a much better option to build business. I do what's called new mover marketing. We target people who move into towns and mail them a guidebook with info about the town and we have local businesses pay us to be in the guidebook. In addition, these local businesses will give a compelling offer to get people in the door (e.g. a free pizza, $15 towards a dinner, a free oil change, etc.). This type of marketing is extremely effective for two reasons...1. We target people who (typically) don't have an established buying habit and 2. These people will come in because they are offered something with no strings attached.

Why did I mention this? Because the whole basis of new mover marketing is to get people to try your service then you have a much better chance of getting future business. I'm not saying a photographer should do something like new mover marketing (I don't think it would work very well for a photographer--been approached by a couple.) but I think the idea of doing something to allow them to try your service makes more sense than giving them a gift cert to somewhere which has absolutely nothing to do with you or your services. I'm not saying do stuff for free for everyone, just come up with other (unique) ideas of ways you can do this.

Just my $0.02 worth...