There seems to be one theme to questions regarding the Marketing Photography Online post from the other day.
“How do I get people to give me their email address at a football/baseball/basketball/any other sporting event game?”
Here’s a thought. Set up a display. An EZ-Up tent would be nice, but take a table. Set up some product samples. Show off your posters, your bordered prints. Trading cards and magazine covers. Lay out some highly customized products that the parents weren’t able to buy from their team day photographer (if you were their team day photographer I hope you sold them items like this) and generate some excitement for your product. Table top easels are available at your nearest Michael’s Craft stores and will hold a 12×18 with relative ease. A few well place strips of tape and you are largely wind resistant as well.
Have one or two people there that are truly as interested in what you are doing as you are. My best sales person has always been my wife Jennifer. She takes the time to talk with people and really get them interested in what we are doing. As a mother, she knows the value of her prints from our own children’s activities and she conveys that message very well. The most important customer to you is one that can be made to understand that what they are actually buying is a memory that will be priceless to them in just 5 or 10 years when that player moves on to college and other living arrangements. It is very easy to convey this message and to generate excitement for your product. When people are excited about what you are doing they not only buy, they tell their friends all about you.
Have a sheet at your table for people to leave you their email address for notices about new game postings or specials that they could take advantage of. Not everyone will sign up, but a good number will if you tell them what your need for this information is. For those that won’t give you their email address, have more cards of different sizes to hand out than you will ever need. I always take both business card size as well as 4×6 or 4×8 cards for people to take with them. The best idea I ever had (which came from my wife) was to tape a business card size website referral to a fun size pack of M&M’s. Plain chocolate. Kids were grabbing them like nobody’s business. What’s more, we had our runners work the fields to hand them out. We didn’t see such a massive hit from Internet sales for that event, but our on site print volume was about 4 times higher than normal. Parents came back to our booth with their kids and with that card. A much greater percentage of them looked and bought. The case of M&M’s was about $40 at Sam’s Club and if I ever again do a large on site event (which I will) I won’t hesitate to hand out the M&M’s again.
Be creative. Think of ways to present yourself that you don’t see other people doing when you are at these types of events. Rarely will you be able to get an exclusive deal to sell action pictures to a school or even a youth league. You can however make a bigger impression on the buying public than 3 or 4 others that are there shooting. In the end, ideas don’t work until you do. Try something.
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