"Digital Camera Cash"

Hi Don, If your photographers want to work for peanuts then your plan may work if they are only looking to earn an extra $100 or so for a full days work.

There was a website back in 2004 that had hundreds of photographers doing this. I tested it and only made a few bucks and within 2 years they went out of business.

I have been in this niche for years and often earn $10,000+ per weekend by organizing portrait shoots and selling people images that I paid someone else $18 - $25 per hour to take for me.

Now a couple of years ago I got lazy and started researching and studying what all of the photo marketing gurus were preaching and selling. Every week continuing to today I purchase everything that can help me make more with a camera. Purchased several thousand dollars worth of courses every year but seldom is there anything new.

None of them except for one markets like I do. I guess when you discover something that works you tend to want to keep the secret to yourself for fear that your competitors will use it against you. You already know what that is from speaking to you in the past.

Now one of the products I purchased was a $300 course that simply showed you a website that the "Photo Guru" claimed was making him a boatload of $$$.

It involved Facebook Ads to find clients and a two part website.... Part one is designed to get the booking for a portrait session and part 2 was uploading the photos to a sales page where people could go to view and order photos.

The thing that got me thinking that it would work is because of the countdown timer in part two of the website. At the end of each 30 minute portrait session the photographer hands the customer a card telling them to check their email at a specific time and date to view their images and that the images would only be made available to purchase for 24 hours and when the countdown timer runs out... all unsold images are automatically deleted.

It sounded like it would work in theory so I decided to put it to the test. I was a little peeved that the Photo Guru's $300 course only got me what I'm about to show you below.

He basically said... here's my site, I run targeted Facebook ads in my area but said he could not offer any help with building a site because he hired someone else to build it for him and that I needed to hire a coder to build one if I didn't have the skills to do it myself.

So I did.... Part one of my site is: Little Models Club Modeling Offer

Here's what part 2 looks like....



Part 2 is a private page that the site generates for each customer. You upload an animoto video clip of their portraits along with the photo's watermarked and protected from downloading/printing along with 3 options to choose from.

Option #1 was priced at $495
Option #2 was priced at $350
Option #3 was priced at $195








When I tell people they must come back to me to view their portraits 9 out of 10 will choose my $895.00 package that consists of (20) small paper prints, (1) 16X20” poster size canvas print and a CD of Digital Negatives and the Animoto Video. It only costs me $20 to print a 16X20”canvas and a few cents each for the paper prints.

Now last year I did a test on 40 people photographed in a hotel conference room. 20 on Saturday and 20 on Sunday. The Saturday people were given a return date and time to view their images and video online. Total sales on these 20 came to a little under $500. The people photographed on Sunday were given a return date and time to view their images in person. Total sales from this group was $16,934.00

I’m not the only one to experience these sales averages. I cloned the LMC website for 3 of my "Portrait Party Photographers" team members and they experienced similar results.

I believe there is a click bank product that teaches how to do what you’re thinking of doing but why waste your time selling a few photos for $12 each?

I know I could easily clone my LMC site, make a list of photographers from one Zip Code area and start calling them, hire an outsourcer from the Philippines who can speak English with an American accent to call the photographers. Show the photographers the Photo Guru’s site and tell them to save the $300 because I can have them set up with a fully functional site of their own within 24 hours for just $295 and use scarcity to motivate them by telling them that only one of these sites will be sold in their area. If they want it buy now because there are several dozen more photographers in their town I will be calling until someone takes it.

I couldn’t feel good about myself doing that to people or doing what the Guru I purchased the idea from was doing to others even if it included the site in the price. If it doesn’t work in the field for me I can’t and won’t recommend it to others.

But I knew that had to be a way to improve the results so I recently redesigned the site and tweak it up a bit with a few twists and turns and now that I feel comfortable that the concept will be profitable enough for people to use I’ll be offering it to my members. At the $29 price tag for members there isn’t enough there for me to offer an affiliate commission for sending traffic to my site…. But soon I’ll be doing a 2nd version of my program that includes the site for $495.00 and will be able to pay out affiliate commissions.



Cheers,
Steve

I had one guy send me an email saying he was doing what I explained in my opening comments.

He had a website set up where the photos he took were uploaded and "catalogued" by Date.

He'd take 100 photos a day....hand out 100 cards that told how to go up to the website "Date" and login with a Code to see their photos. He offered 4x6's for $12....8x10's for $16 and duplicates at a discount.

He "averaged" 30 orders a day (out of the 100 shots) for an "average" order of $20. So...averaging $600 GROSS a day was WELL WORTH his time and effort.

Don Alm