We are so excited that you can join us! We are just starting our new series on giving your client the best experience possible from the moment they first see your work on your website to even months and years after their wedding. Word of mouth is THE BEST way to get those ideal clients that you will love just as much as they will love you and giving the best client experience possible helps to ensure you take your clients from just ordinary to Raving fans! So follow as we go over things like your website, email correspondence, client gifts and more!
Part 1 – You Had me at Hello (Your Website)
Part 2 – Sweet Talking Winning the First impression with Your Emails!
Part 3 – Wine & Dinning – Winning Your Client During the Consultation!
Part 4 – Giving Immediate Value – Growing your business exponentially with Client Gifts!
Why the Client experience/gifts can grow your business exponentially!
YAYYYY! Seriously, this is so exciting, you have booked that client so whats next in your experience? This is where a lot of people shut it down. Now that you have booked that client this is just the beginning in turning them into Raving fans and your greatest evangelists.
We have never invested any of our advertising dollars into anything other than our clients!
Now, I say that, but we have once invested $5 into Instagram promotions but that isn’t a drop in the bucket compared to what we have invited into our clients. Think about it this way:
You could invest a lot of money into your business and advertising to gain clients. For example;
You can take $1000, invest it into advertising and hopefully gain 5-10 clients.
or
You can take that same $1000 and invest 100 extra dollars into your current clients. Now, instead of having 5-10 come in from advertising, you have each of those clients going out and raving about you. It creates an exponential growth ladder effect, check it out below!
Look at that growth! I couldn’t even fit 10 clients on there, but imagine how many other people that are spreading the name of your brand and company, rather than hoping to be found on a website. On top of that, these types of advertisements come with trust and credibility. This can’t be gained over a website. It really is a no brainer.
So now lets talk about the Gifts!
Lets talk about Gifts Baby!
Now that you have booked your client, sometimes people feel like they can stop and shut it down. “Oh, I’ve already got that wedding booked and in the bag, on to the next one! This is a BAD idea! This comparable to the difference between Chick-fil-a to McDonalds. McDonalds just wants you to come in and get your Big Mac and get out of there, they don’t care about having employees in the car line to make sure you have an efficient experience and they dang sure don’t make sure their employees know that it is their pleasure to serve you! It makes a huge difference!
If we are honest, I firmly believe that;
A persons greatest desire is the desire to be and feel valued.
What greater value can you give your clients than to know that you are thankful and appreciate their trust in you. And we believe that you can show that in a bunch of different ways but its good to invest that back into them. When thinking about Client gifts, there are a couple of different times to give them and a couple of different gifts to give. Also, your gift budget should be about 3% of the cost of the collection that they purchased!
New Client Gifts
New client gifts are another way to say thank you and to instantly create another point of contact that blows away your client. Client gifts should be one of two things:
- Informative
- Now that your client has booked you, keep them excited about you! Make them excited to work with you and looking forward to every time they get to be in front of your camera! They just made a huge investment and you have to make them feel like it was the right decision, don’t get them time to think otherwise! This is also something that they will permanently have and people can see it laying around your clients house! One of the best ways we have found to do this is send an information pamphlet or a magazine. Here are a couple of places you can use!
- DESIGN AGLOW – This is great place with all typed of Welcome Packets!
- Katelyn James – Her Bridal guide magazine is a great investment. It brings a lot of credibility, looks really good but is a lot of work upfront. Also, they are about $15-$20 a piece to print!
- Now that your client has booked you, keep them excited about you! Make them excited to work with you and looking forward to every time they get to be in front of your camera! They just made a huge investment and you have to make them feel like it was the right decision, don’t get them time to think otherwise! This is also something that they will permanently have and people can see it laying around your clients house! One of the best ways we have found to do this is send an information pamphlet or a magazine. Here are a couple of places you can use!
- Simple
- This is a great way to add little things here in there that are small gifts but have an immediate impact! This can be anything like chocolate, your favorite candle, cute notepads. You need something that gets them immediately gets them excited to use or show it! This doesn’t have to be expensive or extravagant, just something small to let them know you are thinking about them!
Pre-Wedding Gifts
A lot of times you don’t have any other interactions other than emails with your clients from their engagement session to their wedding. This is a great chance for you to get something else in their hand that they can’t help but get really excited and show you off with! We give something that is INCREDIBLY awesome, but you will have to chat with us about that! Here are some things to consider when thinking about gifts like this!
- Stick with your brand!
- This gift should be something that is very close to your brand. If your brand is more personal, you can think of something like a date night kit, like Melissa Jill does for her clients! They Love it! If your brand is more elegant, maybe you can gather things from your favorite boutique shop or store! A lot of times, you can buy things by the bundle and ship them all off together!
- Send something they can show off!
- Because our brand is a “luxury brand”, the box we send has a Kate Spade box in it among other things. This is something that they definitely want to show off. When friends come over to their house and ask where they got it from, can you imagine their friends response when they say “Our photographer got it for us!” Now, that friend wants to hire us because they want some Kate Spade! Get something for your clients they they can leave out, its permanent and they can show it off!
Wedding & Post Wedding Gifts!
Very few people make it this far when it comes to client gifts! A lot of times people don’t get this far is because its either a lot more work or their clients have already paid in full so you don’t think about getting them something else. It sounds weird but I know it happens when me, so I’m sure I’m not the only one!
- At Wedding Gifts!
- These don’t have to be anything crazy! They can be something small and easy surprises that your clients aren’t expecting!
- Snapchat GeoFilters – This is a small and easy thing that they don’t expect but they would go crazy about!
- Silver Frame Pictures – This was made famous by Justin & Mary Marantz and its something awesome they do to immediately give their clients a picture from their wedding!
- Same day Wedding Slideshow – This is always a great thing that you can surprise your clients with, we tell them about it in their collection but surprising them makes an incredible impression!
- All of these take a lot of extra work but the sweat equity that you put into it is well worth it!
- These don’t have to be anything crazy! They can be something small and easy surprises that your clients aren’t expecting!
- Post Wedding Gifts
- This could be the week after their wedding, 6 months, a year or holiday gifts. Post wedding gifts are always really good to keep your clients singing your praises and feeling really valued by you! Some people send prints, canvases or gift cards! There are all kinds of things to do to make sure your clients fall more in love with you. These small investments are the things that will grow your business exponentially!
Conclusion!
Client gifts are the types of things that you think about, your want to make sure its worth it and its a gamble to know if it actually adds value to your business and brings you clients. We strongly believe that although they may cost a lot of money up front, they pay themselves back exponentially! If you want to create raving fans for your business, you need to make people feel valued and appreciated as clients. The more you can make your clients feel like no-one else has what they have, the more your clients feel like they WANT to brag about you! In the current age we are in, people love any excuse to brag about why they have something better than someone else. No give your clients something to brag about!
Please, like always, don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any questions by emailing us! Also set sign up for our mailing list to stay updated and get weekly reports of whats going on!
