I have to admit I have failed my clients on many MANY occasions. I have not been the photographer they have needed me to be. And I am betting that whatever business you are in many of you fall into this category as well.
Many creatives are one horse shows, meaning that we do it ALL. We run the business, we meet with clients, we create a product, and sell that product or service. But once the sale is made we don’t do anything after that aside from sending a ‘THANK YOU’ for your business note. What if we actually told clients what to do with our products and how to use them. I photograph a lot of headshot and branded photography and my clients get a lot of information from me but then they never put that to use. I am guessing that’s because they have a lot of work to do.
Here’s an example of that I tell clients:
- I am going to take 3 images of you with some negative space, since this is a headshot session you may want to consider using one of these images for a web-header, or as part of your branding process. You can add in some contact information like website, email, phone etc in this space so when clients see it all of your relevent info is right there, they don’t have to search for it.
- Second, I explain that these images will be sent via a cloud service so they can access them at any and ALL TIMES. How often have we as small business owner had free time while at a kid’s soccer practice? (I know I have at least a 2 hour break during Saturday Karate class). Yes its great and fabulous to use those fancy custom USB drives with our business name, and I do offer them, but what good are they when my client forgets it and can’t access his or her photos?
- Lastly we add all of your information to the images BEFORE sending them to you. If you have selected this option when you booked your session your images will be delivered complete with contact information added.
Below is an example of J and her headshot without the branding and with. Cast your vote.
I would love to hear your thoughts. I also have a membership based custom stock site, Philly Custom Stock. We are always looking for photographers who want to contribute and clients who want non-stock looking stock images as well as CUSTOM Stock images. www.phillycustomstock.com
