Case Study: Momento Images
Momento Images Senior Photo Strategy: Rep Cards Fuel Sales
The Company
Based in the burgeoning suburbs south of Minneapolis, Momento Images focuses mainly on families and children and high school seniors, with an occasional wedding assignment. After working for other studios for seven years, owner and founder Jen Hillenga opened the studio in 2004 with business partner Kate Thram. The photographer – and occasional graphic designer – leases a 2,200 square foot studio in Savage and has a business partner and two part-time employees. "We do a little bit of everything," she says.
The Challenge
Minneapolis and St. Paul are not short on photographers. In fact, it has one of the nation’s largest pool of shooters due to its large advertising and marketing community, a sizable number of Fortune 500 companies and the generally high income. Few high schools in the region select one photographer to manage senior photos, making an aggressive marketing campaign for that business an absolute necessity. Families in the area have fairly high incomes so when they hire a photographer they will look for one with skills and a cutting edge product line.
Competition is tough, especially for a newcomer like Jen. Still, ingenuity, good photographic skills and marketing savvy can go a long way toward establishing a flourishing photographic business. Jen possesses those traits in abundance and leverages many WHCC Press Printed Products to attract new and returning customers. She has even helped develop some innovative designs the company has added to its product line.
The Market Approach
Upselling customers on new concepts and employing hand-picked high school juniors to represent her business to their classmates have been two features Momento Images deployed to raise sales, awareness and grow product lines. For Jen three WHCC products stand out: Press Printed Greeting Cards and Printed Products, Press Printed Books and Fine Art Gallery Wraps.
Jen uses Press Printed products, in particular, to market to high school seniors. Last year she restructured her "Rep" program which offers selected high school juniors a number of tantalizing offers in return for promoting Momento Images to their friends. The process begins in the first quarter of the year, when she takes the photographs and matches those images with WHCC products the students can distribute their junior and senior years to friends and family.
Participating juniors receive, for their salesmanship, the following freebies: a Rep session, a slide show of that session on a CD; a slide show of all the Rep sessions featuring all the juniors in the program; and 150 Rep cards. When they come back their senior year, they get more free enticements -- a senior session and a CD slide show of that session.
And that’s not all. When friends become Momento clients the Reps receive $5 and a free 5x7 photograph. Those friends who come in with the Rep card get half off their sessions and 24 free wallet-sized photographs. The Reps also get together at a party hosted by Momento with invitations done by WHCC.
"I give them $800 worth of products to our name into their school," she says. "The Rep cards are very unique, very customized to our clients. We’re focused on putting out something that’s cooler than students and families have seen before and WHCC is really good at helping us do that. Its products have helped us get into schools."
The other WHCC product that scores big with Momento is the Christmas card offerings and Gallery Wraps. "Christmas cards are a huge part of our word-of-mouth advertising that drives business to our studio," she says. "The Gallery Wraps have been important, too, especially since clients will buy several of them instead of just one, framed photograph. They like the contemporary design of the wraps."
Results
The strategy has worked to bring in more clients. This year each rep recruited anywhere from 10 to 15 friends to have their photographs taken at Momento Images. Jen says the number of seniors went from 60 in 2006 to more than 150 in 2007, the first full year of the program. Once in the studio, she can upsell clients on bound albums of their shoots presented on high quality photographic paper and gallery wrapped images.
Though she has no firm numbers on Christmas card sales generated by clients, she calls the cards "a huge and important part of our business." For clients who come in for a photo shoot the Christmas card seems almost a given, with 60 percent ordering them in addition to a family portrait, she says. Since Jen designs each family’s Christmas card – and then sells them as templates to other photographers – more than a few recipients of the cards call the following fall to have a similar treatment done for their holiday greetings.
"We have people spending as much as $1,200 on Christmas cards," she says. "Those cards offer a chance at pre-qualified clients – if you get a card you probably have the resources and desire for a Christmas card or a family sitting. We make sure that with every client image that goes out we have our logo and contact information on it, and that has helped drive business."
Meanwhile, the gallery wraps are selling exceptionally well because of their clean, interesting look. Momento has been offering clients a new concept by creating a wall collage out of five to nine gallery wrapped photographs. The collage is designed to appear on the wall and highlight the different family photos Jen has taken. "The gallery wraps by WHCC are really selling well, much better than traditional framed photographs," she says. "Usually a client will only buy one framed photograph. When presented with gallery wraps, they’ll buy several."
The WHCC Difference
Jen likes the new products WHCC develops that she calls "cutting edge" in the industry. The Press Printed cards have helped her market business and satisfy customer needs for Christmas, family and senior cards. The Gallery Wraps sell themselves by appealing to families once they come by the studio to watch a senior sitting or have a family photograph.
Beyond great products, however, is WHCC’s devotion to customers. "It’s easy to establish a great working relationship with the company," says Jen. "The customer service is exceptional – if there is a problem it will get fixed on the spot with no questions asked. And when there are cutting edge products available WHCC is always the first one to have them available."
At a Glance
Business name: Momento Images
Website: http://www.momentoimages.com/
Location: Savage, Minn.
Focus: High school seniors, family portraits, weddings
Strategy: Increase sales through using high school reps to drive business in other areas such as family portraits, Christmas cards, etc. WHCC Products Used: Press Printed Rep Cards, Press Printed Greeting Cards, Business Cards, Press Printed Books, Gallery Wraps