Need ideas for booking clients!!

[cherie6c]

Hi.

If you have some ideas or reference materials that you use to learn different techniques to convert inquiries into booked sessions - please send them my way!

I receive several phone and email inquiries, but I book less than 1/3 of those inquiries. Most of my business comes from repeat business and word of mouth referrals. I am trying to grow.

Thanks!

Cherie
www.cheriejphotography.com

 

[tirediron]

Advertise! A 1/3 contact to booking ratio seems pretty good to me. Take out a 1/4 or 1/8 page in the local paper. Pricey, but it takes money to make money. See what 30 seconds on a local radio station is worth. Even print ads on your local cable channel can be effective and not too horribly pricey.

 

[seandenniel]

• Be efficient with your time.
  • The more people who re-book when leaving, the less time you have to spend booking them later in the week or month.
  • This frees up your business day to attend to new clients who will be booking via phone, text or e-mail (depending on your scheduling allowances).
• Encourage the client to establish a habit of regular appointments.
• Fill your day with people who are genuinely interested in the work you provide.
• Decrease no-shows.
• Which, subsequently, allows for you to see more clients who may be in need of your services in a given week.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Where did you copy and paste that from, Sean?

 

[cherie6c]

Thanks for the feedback. I may try to advertise in a local paper, but I was thinking that I must be doing something wrong if I can't convert more inquires into book sessions. Then again I must remember that a lot of people choose photographers by price shopping.

 

[Big Mike]

This may or may not be an issue for you...but some of the most common advice that you'll hear from successful photographers, is to raise your prices.

Firstly, as you point out, a lot of people choose a photographer by price shopping. So you are likely to get a good number of calls/e-mails that are simply inquiring about price. They may not even be crazy about your photographic skills & style...they just want someone cheap. Is that the type of client that you want to cater to?
However, if you raise your prices, you will get probably get fewer calls from people who just want to check your prices or to see if they could get a deal etc. This would probably mean less calls, but the ones that you do get, are probably more likely to book you because their reason for calling in the first place, was they they liked your stuff and/or they have heard some good word of mouth.

So by raising your prices, you are targeting a higher segment of the market. There may be few customers up there, but they are likely 'better' customers because they aren't afraid to pay for something if they like it, and they probably won't be as uptight about prices as the lower end of the market.

And of course, if you charge more for what you do, you can make money doing the same amount of work....or make the same amount of money while doing less work.

Now, you will still have to hone your sales skills to be able to 'close the deal', and you may have to change your marketing, in order to better target the market segment that you want...but these are some of the business skills that can keep you in business.
I'd guess that most photography businesses fail, not because of poor photography skills, but because of poor business skills.