1 – Introduction
In recently received this question about my Fine Art Photography Marketing and Business Success Seminar “I don’t see a lot of materials about how to reach a broad audience in the seminar contents.”
Fact is, there is a lot of information on reaching your audience in the Fine Art Photography Marketing and Business Success Seminar. The teaching materials are designed to help you reach as broad of an audience as possible. For example, I have a lot of new information on how to use social media, how to build an email list, how to stay in touch with new and previous customers and more. Also keep in mind that if there is an aspect of marketing that is not addressed in the seminar, or not addressed in enough detail, you can ask questions during the seminar and I’ll give you detailed answers.
You can see the contents for the Fine Art Photography Marketing and Business Success Seminar at this link.
2 – Size does not always matter
However, and this is really the most important part of my answer, keep in mind that it is not the size of your audience that matters most but instead the quality of your audience that is most important. Social media is interesting in that respect because it provides fantastic examples to prove this point. Recently a photographer (I won’t give names for privacy reasons except that it is not me) had over 1 million views on one of his photographs posted on Google+ : a stunning panoramic photograph of Iceland. The same photographer had to cancel his Summer 2013 Iceland workshop because he did not get enough participants to reach the break even point financially. In other words not enough participants registered to make the workshop profitable . This says a lot about audience size and profitability. 1 million views on Google + but that person couldn’t fill 6 workshop seats …
The lesson here is that audience size is not the most important thing. This is why in the new Advanced Marketing DVD I focus on ways of creating a qualified audience, an audience that is fascinated by you and who is going to buy from you over and over again. This is the correct way to do it. None of my photos have 1 million views, but I have no problem filling out my workshops, regardless of where I go. As with many aspects of fine art, what matters most is quality, not quantity !
3 – The Advanced Marketing Mastery Workshop on DVD
To go back to the Fine Art Photography Marketing and Business Success Seminar, a lot of new and important information will be shared during the Seminar that I did not make available previously. In fact, that information did not exist until now because Natalie and I developed it after spending the past two years doing research for this Seminar. We visited many galleries and shows, talked to artists, gallery owners, show organizers and studied the fine art market as a whole. The result is the creation of a vast amount of new material which is now featured in the Fine Art Photography Marketing and Business Success Seminar. During our research we learned of several significant changes to the fine art market over the past 2 years. One of the most important is that selling fine art is even more challenging today than it was before we started our research.
I will talk about this issue in the Seminar and I will give you solutions. For example, for the first time I cover limited edition prints, explain why they have become important. I also show three different ways of editioning your photographs. Offering limited editions has become very important and the main issue is what is the best way to do it? Just putting a number on a print is not enough. This is not an effective way to convince customers to buy your work. So I go over efficient and lucrative ways of editioning prints, ways that will generate sales if done the way I recommend. This is a very important aspect of fine art marketing today, one that can make a huge difference between selling and not selling prints, as well as between selling prints for low prices and selling prints for high prices.
4 – Knowing how to handle objections is the key to closing more sales
Also, for the first time there will be a section on how to respond to objections. Customers have more objections today than they ever did because money is tighter than it’s ever been. That doesn’t mean they don’t want to buy. What it means is you must know how to answer their objections quickly and effectively. Most of my sales are made to people whose first answer is ‘No’. Yet, they do buy, just not immediately, only after I answer their objections.
I show you exactly how to do that by providing you first with an exhaustive list of every possible objection and second with the exact answers you need to give to close the sale. And if I forgot or overlooked some objections, just email me and I’ll post the objection and the correct answer in the updates area.
Knowing how to answer objections effectively has magical consequences. You will make sales you never thought possible and you will make these sales with answers so simple you’ll literally laugh all the way to the bank! I had a customer just the other day who told me ‘I simply don’t need this.’ I asked him a single question, listened to his answer, then gave him the answer required for his specific objection. When he hear my answer he turned around, looked at me and said: ‘In that case I’ll get it. Here’s my credit card.’ I’m still laughing at how effective this technique is and at how much money those who don’t know it are losing!
5 – Conclusion
You don’t needs a large audience when you know how to maximize sales to the audience you currently have. It’s a whole lot easier — and fun– that way. In fact one of the biggest mistakes most businesses make is trying to find new customers instead of selling more to their existing customers. Looking for new customers is expensive and difficult while selling to existing customers is cheap and easy. The only challenge is knowing how to do it. I teach you how to do this in the Fine Art Photography Marketing and Business Success Seminar
So, in closing, I recommend attending the 2017 Fine Art Photography Marketing and Business Success Seminar. I am very proud of it and I know it will help you make more sales and take you to the next step. The goal is to make you a winner and a profitable business owner.
About Alain Briot
I create fine art photographs, teach workshops and offer DVD tutorials on composition, image conversion, optimization, printing and marketing. I am the author of Mastering Landscape Photography, Mastering Photographic Composition, Creativity and Personal Style and Marketing Fine Art Photography. All 3 books are available as printed books on Amazon.com and as eBooks on my website.
You can find more information about my work, writings and tutorials as well as subscribe to my Free Monthly Newsletter on my website. To subscribe simply go to http://www.beautiful-landscape.com and click on the Subscribe link at the top of the page. You will receive 40 free essays in eBook format immediately after subscribing.
I welcome your comments on this essay as well as on my other essays. You can reach me directly by emailing me at alain@beautiful-landscape.com.
Alain Briot
http://www.beautiful-landscape.com
928-252-2466