One of the most useful and unique features FlashFrame offers is near unlimited customization in email marketing for events. This often-overlooked feature is one of the most important factors in driving revenue to our photographers but is often overlooked since it falls outside of the traditional skill set of many of our users.
We’ve released a previous blog post explaining how to utilize our email marketing tools to create customized email templates and drip campaigns to effectively reach your audience and drive optimal sales. Today we’re going to learn how to leverage the value of cost free integrated email marketing and you exited to begin to utilizing our software to drive sales. We will review a short case study on the incremental value of email marketing and explore ways to increase revenue from your events.
The number of photos sold at paid events can vary greatly, and different photographers and event management companies use a variety of measures to determine success at an event. We’ve seen:
• Capture Rate – Participants Purchasing Photo/Total Participants
• Revenue per Participant – Total Photo Revenue/Number of Participants
• Profit per Participant – Total Photo Profit/ Number of Participants
• Holistic Sale Rate – Total Photos Sold/Total Participants
There are benefits and drawbacks to any of the above measure, but at FlashFrame we tend to focus on Holistic Sale Rate which we simply refer to as Sale Rate. This allows us to compare events agnostic of price as well as compare events where a small subset of participants purchase many photos on par with events where a larger majority of participants purchase a minimal number of photos. Lastly this measure gives us a very interesting comparison to events that distribute free photos and allows us to examine the effectiveness of marketing in both events.
Across the board we’ve seen some common dynamics at events. While photos sold and revenue vary drastically event to event, our average paid event can expect a Sales Rate of 2-10%. This means that if there are 100 people in the event you can typically expect to sell anywhere from 2 to 10 photos. There are certainly extenuating factors that play a part in sales rate including the prestige of the event, the distance of the race, the weather, the quality/variety/volume of photos and of course the marketing behind the event. If an event offers “Free” photo downloads you can typically see very incredibly high Sales Rates ranging anywhere from 25% to greater than 100%, meaning there are more downloaded photos than participants at the event.
Of course there are some events you can’t control for. As race distance increases, more participants are typically willing to purchase a photo, which goes hand in hand with prestige. For example, a destination marathon is going to have a higher sale rate than your local 5K, and often triathlons, which attract a different audience segment, will drive higher sales numbers. These events are what typically refer to as more prestigious.
Weather also plays a role. Photos of participants on a dark, dreary afternoon in the rain are going to sell at a lower rate than sunny, blue sky background photos. While it’s hard to account for these difference, we have an event that we’d like to focus on for this case study. For the past two year, FlashFrame has partnered with the One City Marathon in Newport News, Virginia to provide photography to participants through photographers who used our site as contractors to sell photos. Obviously, we know this was the same event with similar prestige, but it also had similar weather and used many of the same photographers in 2017 and 2018, making it the perfect opportunity for a case study in email marketing.
In 2017, before FlashFrame had perfected our email marketing tools we simply sent an email to all participants with a link to the album online. We followed up a week or so later with another similar email.
In 2018 after beefing up our marketing tools we changed our strategy entirely. Each email we sent was customized for the recipient, including a direct link to their individual photos and included a thumbnail image of one of their photos in the email body. We also shied away from plain text, developing catchy HTML templates that were visually pleasing and easy to navigate. These are features that are all available for free in FlashFrame’s email customization tool.
So how did our new emails perform?
The other major takeaway is the improved performance with each email sent. You can clearly see on days 2,10, and 18 following the race, the emails that we sent were significantly more effective. With just an upgrade to targeted drip campaign marketing and improved templates we were able to double our sales rate at this event. On a similar participant scale this would have doubled our revenue for the event with a simple change in how we shared the images.
So how can photographers and photography companies take advantage of marketing to it’s full potential? There are a few key steps.
So back to the One City Marathon case study. By utilizing these marketing tools we were able to nearly double our Sales Rate and drive a greater volume of sales from an event with declining attendance.
We understand that most of our users would label themselves as photographers but to truly become driving forces in the increasingly competitive race photography space you need to innovate. FlashFrame is pleased to give you the tools to market your work above and beyond both your competitors and your baseline. If you’d ever like to discuss options or how to increase sales at your event feel free to contact us through our support page at https://www.flashframe.io/help/#marketing and we’ll be happy to set up a consultation time with you. Good luck and keep up the amazing photos.
<3 Nate