Sending the Bird-Dogs to the Pound

I've told you folks about my strategy to use high school kids as my "bird-dogs" to drum up senior portrait business. Well, I've decided to deep-six that plan. The kids and their parents are just dragging their feet way too much. Lots of gung-ho enthusiasm for the plan initially, but little to no follow-through.

I just notified my soccer star's mom that our business relationship is now null and void. I'll draw up a new compensation plan to allow me to continue to use the girl's photos for promotional purposes.

Instead of the guerilla marketing campaign with select students spreading the word, I'm going to see how much it'll cost to run a small ad in each school's student newspaper. An ad will reach more potential customers and will give me an additional $25 per customer (the bird-dog fee I would have otherwise paid to get the customer).

Chalk it up to another lesson learned: NEVER make your photography business dependent on the work-ethic or attention span of a model.

Most school papers I've done run around $10 per inch for your ad (mostly B/W but some have color). But each school has there own plan/rate and dates they print, So you need to call each school. Another thing you may want to do is put an ad in the yearbook this year for next year. Also put in a ad in the last school news paper of the year. They take them home and some get their senior shots done in the summer before. When you place the last ad you can place the first ad for the next year as well. That way your all ready set for the next year.

Thanks much Stari! I'll definitely start applying that advice this week.

Good luck Orcabob I hope this plan is more prosperous for you

Thanks, Droppey. Yeah, I think this will result in more business and a better profit margin.

Interesting avatar image you have there, Drop. Say, didn't I see you in a Mad Max movie?

It's always frustrating relying on others that aren't there to gain themselves I hope this new avenue is more successful for you OrcaBob

Oh dear that's Droppey as Mr T from the A-Team

I pity the fool

Hey Bob, I forgot to say you need to check with the school right away. Because you need to check when their dead line to get in their yearbook for the senior portraits because some may be all ready over.

I forgot to say you need to check with the school right away. Because you need to check when their dead line to get in their yearbook for the senior portraits because some may be all ready over.

Thanks for the heads-up, Stari. I was planning on calling a couple of the schools later this morning. If I don't get in the yearbooks, I'll just put ads in the student papers on a regular basis next year.

Orca,
Sorry to hear that your bird dogs won't hunt....sorry I could not resist. How about the local "free ciculation community news papers".

Good Luck!

OrcaBob wrote:

Chalk it up to another lesson learned: NEVER make your photography business dependent on the work-ethic or attention span of a model.

I've known several photographers that used the bird-dog approach, with very mixed results.

When I was an assistant, my photography buddy/mentor used to express how unreliable the general public can be. For a time, I took this with a grain of salt thinking he was maybe a bit over cynical. But, in time, I've found that most(if not all) of what he said was pretty much on the money. It seems your experience here qualifies this.

When my daughter graduated, I (unintentionally) hooked four senior jobs after she took some of her proof shots to school. I thought "cool" and would certainly use this tool, but didn't persue senior photography. The kids and moms can advertise, but they're easily distracted.

Thanks for posting this Bob, we probably have all learned something from this.

JZ said:

How about the local "free ciculation community news papers".

A fantastic suggestion for general portrait work, but I think the student newspapers will be most efficient at penetrating the student market right now.

I'll definitely look into advertising portrait work in the "Little Nickel" type of papers. Thanks!

Floppy said:

I've known several photographers that used the bird-dog approach, with very mixed results.

When I was an assistant, my photography buddy/mentor used to express how unreliable the general public can be. For a time, I took this with a grain of salt thinking he was maybe a bit over cynical. But, in time, I've found that most(if not all) of what he said was pretty much on the money. It seems your experience here qualifies this.

The only other such experience I'd heard of was from an articiple in Professional Photographer magazine, in which the author had nothing but ideal results. Either the guy was lucky or he cherry-picked his data to fit his article's conclusion.

I've been dismayed by the lack of initiative even in the most diligent of these kids I chose. I had picked out team leaders, hard workers, alpha-kids. And with the incentive to earn additional $$$, I figured this would be a slam-dunk operation. Oh, well, live and learn.

What really shocked me was a discussion among pro photographers on Model Mayhem, regarding flaky models. A surprising number of very good and experienced photographers reported an 80-90% flakeout/no-show rate among their scheduled models... even on PAID shoots.

I've been lucky in that respect, though I've been running into more and more flakes. However, I've been able to weed them out a bit by backing out if the model comes across as a flake in the email communication stage. If I have to repeat the same crucial question in three consecutive exchanges, she's out; I don't have time to play Twenty Questions. If she can't respond to an email within 24 hours, caution light. If she can't respond in three days, she's out. If I catch her in a lie, she's out. (One model flaked, then two days after the shoot said her email had been out for over a week. Except that she had emailed me the day before the shoot. Double-whammy on that girl.) If the model says, "I have to see what my boyfriend thinks," she's out; she should be able to think for herself or at least already be on the same page as the BF.

With experience, it's getting easier to tell the girls for whom modeling's just a fantasy. Some are detectable in the first few sentences of thier first email. Others, however, appear to be the real thing... right up until the point that you're standing there with your camera in hand and the lights all hooked up and the set's empty.

I had thought about this same approach Bob but when I surveyed 15-20 parents I found that they had never seen the paper. (My daughter worked on the paper and I never saw a copy!)

So I decided that my audience, the parents, would never see the ad.

Most parents I talked to found their senior photographer by word of mouth or in the yellow pages.

Just my two cents worth.

I had thought about this same approach Bob but when I surveyed 15-20 parents I found that they had never seen the paper. (My daughter worked on the paper and I never saw a copy!)

So I decided that my audience, the parents, would never see the ad.

Definitely food for thought.

Except there's probably not a reason in most issues for parents to see the paper. But when there's a deal on senior portraits, that's something the kids might want the parents to see.

I believe that the parents aren't the only customers. They may ultimately control the purse-strings, but I think the kids can be a driving force. If the ad grabs the kid (and portrait photos of the gorgeous soccer girls will be pretty compelling; I'm looking to do an ad with graphics), the kids will steer the parents.

Too late in the year for a Yellow Pages ad. And my word-of-mouth mouths turned out to be catatonic.

I'm in an uphill fight here. The schools all require their students to get their yearbook pics done at contracted photographers and most of these photographer use the opportunity to corner the senior portrait market. But I've heard so many parents unhappy with product or pricing. I don't have many affordable options at this point, but ads in student newspapers seems to be the most effective available option.

Do the soccer leagues that you cover have newsletters or some form of communication to the parents? That would be a place to start.

This is how I reach my marching band parents is thru the band booster organization.

Do the soccer leagues that you cover have newsletters or some form of communication to the parents? That would be a place to start.

The off-season soccer league I've shot is pretty loosely structured, from what I can tell. Some of the teams have websites, some don't. No idea about the league itself. But there's VERY little structured communication going on between team and parents.

I didn't even bother postprocessing the last game's photos, much less get them up on my web storefront. I passed out business cards at one game and not a single sale in consecutive games. So eff 'em.

OrcaBob wrote:

Do the soccer leagues that you cover have newsletters or some form of communication to the parents? That would be a place to start.

No idea about the league itself. But there's VERY little structured communication going on between team and parents.

As is the case with the schools my kids go to. In fact, with my kid's swim team, the parents tend to associate more with each other maintaining their own web of commo. If you make friends with a few parents, you're pretty much in the club.

If you make friends with a few parents, you're pretty much in the club.

I have, and I'm not. It's a weird bunch of parents. It may be because this offseason team consists of kids from many different high schools. The parents aren't real tight.


Whoops! A complication to the change of marketing plans. I decided to place an ad in the student paper, but it turns out their paper doesn't use advertising. Probably because it's a well-funded private school.

This evening at the gym I checked with a student from a nearby public high school and their paper DOES include commercial advertising. So there are possibilities.

Then the kid told me that the school district contracts out the senior portrait market and a large well-established studio provides the service. Ouch. BUT... They reportedly do the senior portraits in a cattlecall operation. Mine are individualized and more flexible.

Keeping my fingers crossed and the call phone busy...

Just make sure you know the dead line is to get their portraits in the yearbook. You also want to hit all the schools in the area even if you have to go a few miles etc... Some schools may be done with senior portraits for this year. But every year I get some last min seniors.

I'm not talking about the yearbook pics, only the senior portrait packages. Two different animals, though the studio that gets the yearbook contract has the inside track on the senior portraits. Captive audience.

The only advantage I have is that I can offer more individuality than the assembly-line, cookiecutter senior portraits the studio offers.

Last year I had parents asking me to do senior portraits with as little as two weeks left to the school year. Even some kids who have already gotten their senior portrait package done by a studio still wants a follow-up session at the very end of the year. Those kids generally don't care if it's done by a different photographer and many like the idea.

Orca,
I was over on flickr and for giggles I typed in High School Portraits under groups and there is a bunch of groups. They range from starting off to creative ideas and etc.

Just thought I would mention it.

How about putting an advert in shops that the kids tend to go to? Not sure how feasable this is but if parents are going shopping with or without their kids then they will see your ad, and if in the ad is a photo of the style that you do then they can at least see what sort of service is on offer!

May not be much help but thought I'd suggest it

Another way other than school news paper is to contact the School districts this year to be put on the list for next year as one of the "approved" photographers (may need a background check). Some times they will let you put in an ad in the enrollment packets that go home with the kid on the first few days of school. Every school and every district are different so you have to talk to all of them even the ones that are 20 miles away, you could land a whole school.

Thanks, everyone, for the great ideas!

JZ: I hadn't thought about the social-networking sites. I just signed up with Model Mayhem, which has some eerie resemblances (e.g., reliance on "friendship" tags that can be pretty shallow) to Facebook and sites of that ilk. Once I get used to that, I'll consider setting up a presence on those other sites.

Droppey: Actually a very old and tried-and-true idea. Targeting the ads to stores the kids frequent is even better.

Stari: A good long-term strategy that comes with a caveat. From what I've been told so far, the county's school district doesn't approve a list of photographers, they simply contract with one. But I have plenty of verifications to gather and research to do on that. It appears that there's a healthy independent market out there. Plenty of parents and school admins to talk to...

What shocked me yesterday was talking to a student who turned out to be involved in student government and very aware of school processes. The photo studio that got the contract to do yearbook photos comes out to the schools at the beginning of the year and shoots in cattlecalls. But the studio staff also prints the yearbook pic on a barcoded plastic I.D. card required for each student. That takes some expensive software and hardware, not to mention a not-insignificant staff that can coordinate ID info with the schools and their security systems.

So when I'm approaching the schools and the school district I'm competing with The Big Dawgs. I've gotta figure out a way to get some business while "coming in under the radar," so to speak.

Thanks again, everyone. Will keep you posted as details develop.

that sucks about the high schools using corporate photography companies. I know here in most of the northern end the senior portraits are also the yearbooks portraits and seniors have the op to use a private or school sanctioned photographer. up here we have lifetouch that does 70% of the all the photos for schools. my ex wife worked for them in their processing plant and it truly was a cookie cutter deal. but a lot of the senior portraits are done privately as far as i know from redding to yuba city/marysville

Mark emailed me an interesting option regarding "bird-dog" marketing. In a nutshell, it's putting the bird-dog/student's best images on a business card with the photographer's info and maybe a blurb about senior portrait deals. Give the kid a few hundred and he/she gives them out to friends and acquaintences. The student gets pics to give to friends and any referrals are then easy to identify with which bird-dog... because her picture is on the referral card.

I had decided to bag the bird-dog method, but in light of my prime school not taking advertising (a well funded private school), birddogging may be my easiest option for some schools. Heck, I'd make back the investment on a birddog's business cards if she brings in only one customer. The rest would be gravy.

Birds?
Gravy?

Have a great Thanksgiving, to those who celebrate it.