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Rangefinder Magazine
October 2003

Sam’s Scouts by Terry Deglau
Niche Marketing and the Wall of Fame

We are told often about the value of satisfied customers, and how they tell at least seven of their friends. This is the least expensive form of advertising and undoubtedly the most successful.

Sam Pelaia of Studio Baden has, for 40 years, been satisfying customers with creative, innovative and unusual imagery in packaging that lets his customers know they are special.

This attention to detail follows his photographs from expensive portraits to dance schools and sports. This customer satisfaction and loyalty brought one mother of two boys in sports to ask Sam if he would be willing to photograph her two boys individually and with each son’s scout troup in uniform as a favor for a good customer. As a favor for a good customer? How about, as a great business opportunity for a studio looking for new, different and creative ideas to expand the bottom line?

It’s exciting when a customer drives a great idea. You have to sit back and say, “I wish I thought of that.” In my mind it’s what you can do with the idea that sets you apart from just photographing these two boys, or just their scout troop.

IDEA:
Meet with the Conclave of County Boy Scout Troops
First, offer to do the photography at a county Scout Jamboree (giving you more groups on the same day.) Secondly, offer ideas on how you would photograph the scouts uniquely and quickly. Third, offer to add all the items that make your pictures different.
• Use Memory Mates.
• Imprint the troop’s name, the occasion and the year.
• Add the American flag, and scout flag to the group picture.
• How quickly can you deliver?
• Make glossies for the newspaper.
• Provide an individual complementary sitting for Eagle Scouts.

The Wall of Fame
Provide 4x5 individual portraits in mounts and/or one 8x10 group of the troop donated to the church or town meeting hall.

Can this be a fund raising opportunity for den mothers or troops? Can you get the adults selling for you? Studio Baden is working with Boy Scouts, but remember make the best of the opportunity. The opportunity may be Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts or some other group.

For Studio Baden this client’s request has grown into photographing over 2000 scouts during the months of March, April and May, 2003.

When you set out to grow your business or look for new niche markets, planning is imperative. Write down the business prospect, develop a plan that includes numbers that will give the studio a realistic view of the financial opportunity. Let me demonstrate the financial opportunity, and remember this is only a demonstration of the planning process:
1) Size of group
a) cub scouts in 15 groups
2) Your best sales guess (improves every additional bit of information)
a) 60% will spend $20. This will give you $2700
3) It takes 30 minutes to photograph a group and 30 minutes to prepare the film or digital for the lab and assemble the finished photographs for the scouts.
a) 15 groups equals 15 hours
4) The $20 package has lab and packaging costs of $6.25
5) Gross profit for a new niche market is $125 per hour or $1875 for the assignment.

The four levers to change these numbers are:
1) Larger Scout Program
2) Higher percentage of sales
3) More expensive packages
4) Less cost per package

The importance of planning gives you the confidence and background to look at niche markets knowing that you will be profitable. Sam Pelaia, at Studio Baden proved that a niche market opportunity gave him another satisfied client to his customer base.

Sam Pelaia is a member of the TAP professional Advisory Council, which is working with photographers to grow the financial bottom line of their businesses with innovative marketing and packaging ideas. TAP’s distributor network provides professional portrait and wedding photographers a variety of packaging and presentation materials such as folders, folios, mounts and albums (many also offer framing and matting supplies and services). To locate a TAP Professional Photo Packaging distributor, visit www.tapusa.com or call (800) 827-5679.

Terry Deglau is the former manager of trade relations for portrait photographers at Eastman Kodak Company and a long-time portrait photographer. He currently owns his own business, Terry Deglau and Associates in Pittsburgh, PA. He can be reached at: terry@terrydeglau.com/.