marketing

The Death of Customer Relationships

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Most larger companies outsource their customer service to the Internet. Got a question or problem? Use the online user forum, online help pages, online chat or search the company web site and hope you find something. The customer is pretty much forced to self-serve, self-diagnose and self-fix their problem.

This reliance on the Internet allows companies to cut costs. But outsourcing to the lowest bidder, in this case the Internet, pushes customers away. It kills personal interaction and eliminates customer relationships.

No customer relationship => no customer loyalty => no business.

Customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer loyalty is priceless.

– Jeffrey Gitomer

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Original photography for social media

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Recently I produced a number of photos for a sporting goods retailer to use on its social media channels. The company doesn’t do too much hard selling on social media. Instead it offers fitness tips and tries to motivate people to exercise more.

This retail chain uses a lot of original photography and video to get its message across. And that message is that the retailer cares about its customers’ fitness and well being.

Some companies make the mistake of using social media for advertising. But for long-term gain, you should be showing customers that there’s more to you than just selling product.

Help your customers use and enjoy your products. Cheer on your customers. Otherwise you’re just another store.

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Placebo Photos

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Most companies want to use custom photography because they know the importance of being authentic. But instead of following through, they’ll use cheap stock pictures since they think these photos are just as good.

We like to believe in our decisions. We want to think that we make smart choices. So we always try to justify the decisions we make. If you use cheap photos for your company’s marketing, you might think:

“At least we have pictures on our web site!”

“Other companies use cheap stock pictures so they must work.”

“We saved a ton of money by using cheap stock pictures, so we made a good choice.”

A cheap stock picture is just a placebo. A sugar pill. It’s a substitute for the real thing. Placebo photos only provide a psychological benefit to you. They do absolutely nothing for your customers.
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Pushing and pulling

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If finding new customers was easy, a lot of ad agencies, marketing companies and public relations agencies would be out of business.

For corporate photographers, there’s only one true way to get customers and it’s simple: be trustworthy.

Of course, people won’t trust a business they’ve never seen or heard about. So you must be visible before you can build trust.

To be visible to your potential customers, you can either push yourself in front of them or you can try to pull them to you.

“Push marketing” means you send information to your potential customers. For example, you might send postcards, newsletters or portfolio pieces to photo editors and creative directors. This is a targeted approach since you choose who gets your marketing. Other types of push marketing such as newspaper, magazine and website ads can be less targeted.
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Ninety-nine percent chance

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There’s a ninety-nine percent chance that the next potential customer who phones will ask, “How much?”

So how are you going to respond? Just hem and haw? Mumble something like, “It depends”?

Ideally a price should not be given over the phone. It’s always better to use e-mail. When you give a price over the phone, the customer will remember only the price and nothing else you said.

A customer asks “how much” usually because they don’t know what else to ask. While price may be important to them, the true reason they call is that they’re trying to figure out if you’re the right photographer for them. Do you understand their needs? Can you do the work properly? Do they feel reassured by you?

When that inevitable question is asked, you have to be ready without missing a beat. The way to do this is to have a prepared script or checklist which includes a number of questions for the customer, for example:
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Creating memorable photos for marketing

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Researchers at MIT recently published a study and online demo about trying to understand and predict image memorability. The study used 60,000 images and a few thousand participants.

A goal of this research was “[u]nderstanding why certain things are memorable…” so that it might someday be possible to create better images thereby “allowing people to consume information more efficiently.” (If you’re a photographer, please stop laughing at this.)

Researchers found that the most memorable pictures usually included – wait for it – faces or other human body parts. The least memorable pictures were those of generic scenes, especially landscapes and other types of nature. The researchers called their results a “trend.” Most photographers know that this “trend” has been around for almost 180 years.
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Optimism Bias

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Almost everyone exhibits some degree of “optimism bias.” This means we tend to underestimate the time, cost and effort needed to complete a certain task and we overestimate our chances of success.

 

Optimism is great, it helps us move forward. But optimism doesn’t wait for all the facts to come in. So sometimes you need to be aware of possible optimism bias.
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