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Feedback 3: Your competition

June 12th, 2009 in Opinion by


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More feedback on my email, Your next album company

It’s hard to compete … We’ve seen a massive influx of photographers from Eastern Europe charging very low prices and supplying reasonable products.

I understood the impact of this EU “migration” in British hotels and restaurants, but I honestly hadn’t thought about the impact on photographers (Jo and Kirsten will be shaking their heads!).

Even so I feel that this kind of competition is always with us … in one form or other.

The purpose of outstanding presentation is to add value to your photography. That’s why, whoever you use, your albums must help you stand out in the market.

If you can’t think of five reasons why people should choose you, there’s probably only one: you’re cheap. Said differently, differentiate or drop your prices.

But here’s the thing: if you agree with that sentiment, you’ve ruled out most suppliers in the market.

Two final thoughts… If you’re interested I posted a series of emails early this year on dealing with the recession and album-based marketing.

And as my last post demonstrated, QBY has exactly the same challenge.

Cheers, Ian

PS Comments invited!

 

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    • Feedback 2: Our competition

    June 11th, 2009 in Opinion by


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    More feedback on my email, Your next album supplier

    Changing to Queensberry is like changing my Ford Focus for a top range Audi … Not sure many people are going to cope with that.

    Depends what you mean by “many”. But certainly we never expect most people to choose Queensberry. Products that differentiate need to be aspirational (ie more people want them than can have them). That applies to your own “products” too, of course.

    In business, rather than ask how much something costs, it’s useful sometimes to ask how much it’s worth. And how it positions you in your market.

    There were 42 album companies at Focus this year … something must be going right for them all.

    Not necessarily. There used to be dozens of little oil companies, car companies and computer companies too. Right now the barriers to entry for digital book companies are very low. Things will get shaken out. And you didn’t even mention the very cheap press books you can buy from Apple and goodness knows where else.

    Many of the old UK companies make a very good living from supplying their legacy products.

    It didn’t pan out for Spicer Hallfield. My post was simply to suggest that you think twice before hitching your wagon to products or companies that may be in a long, slow decline.

    Cheers, Ian

    PS Comments invited!

     

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    June 10th, 2009 in Opinion by


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    Prompted by the unfortunate demise of Spicer Hallfield, which was once the UK’s foremost album manufacturer, I emailed our list in the UK yesterday. The gist of my message was that their ex customers should think twice before choosing a replacement supplier – especially if their gut reaction was to look for someone offering a similar product at a similar price.

    My email generated quite a lot of enquiries for Sonya’s team, plus some feedback that I thought I’d discuss over the next few days. But let me start with the tough one…

    Someone called my email an “unbelievable bit of ambulance chasing”.

    Hmm, I’d agree if we were offering discounts to ex Spicers customers, or matching their prices for six months.

    As it is, ALL we offered was something to think about, which I’m personally happy to stand by.

    You can read what I said here. (And when we first heard the rumours, I touched on some of the same points here.)

    Cheers, Ian

    More feedback tomorrow.

     

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    March 6th, 2009 in Marketing by


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    It used to be that people would ask me if I used film or digital, generally because they’d heard a horror story.

    I would show them an album and ask them firstly if they liked the quality of the images, and then what they thought it was shot with. Most guessed wrong and said “film”.

    Back then my using digital could have undermined my perceived value. But what if your choice of suppliers added perceived value to your service? What if you had brides asking about your suppliers? If a client sought you out because you used Queensberry would you be offended?

    If you don’t tell your clients why your album choice matters, why it is unique, why would they want to buy into it?

    I want to start a conversation about the things that make these albums outstanding.

    As stuff comes up I want to talk about it so that you can apply these thoughts as tools to make your album company choice matter to your clients, and support your business.

    Yes, I’m a Queensberry partisan, but not without reason.

    Best wishes, Johannes

     

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