Luxury Landscape Photography
How creating a remarkable customer experience leads to unprecedented growth.
Personal Message Hi John Doe! By equipping our clients with perception, knowledge, and strategy, we enable them to move forward with clarity and confidence.
Our greatest ability is helping clients achieve a higher level of happiness from their business while creating an exceptional experience for their customers that fuels growth. We understand artists and we understand businessmen. We are both; and bringing the two together is our passion and art form. Our combined 16 years of experience, continuing education, and mentorship has allowed us to stay true to perfecting our craft of helping others. We love what we do and we want our energy to transfer to those we serve. We help people build their legacies. We hope you find this analysis entertaining, educational, and inspiring.
-Brandon and Calvin Mann
“Who is
Artist Joe?� -the customer
“I was bored‌ shopping, slightly tired, and in need of a break. I looked over and saw vibrant colors from the corner of my eye. I took a minute to investigate and the
curiosity caused me to peek inside a photography store.� – the customer Get into The Mind of The Buyer Ask yourself how your customer heard or saw the name Artist Joe and put yourself in the position of the customer through their journey of finding you. There can be numerous different customer journeys that need to be discovered in order to understand where and how you can meet your next customer. Keep this in mind as your read through the rest of the plan.
Anticipate the Moment “Who is Artist Joe?” - This is the first question every potential buyer asks as they journey to educate themselves on who you are. Anticipating the moment, the potential customer will ask this question, is critical to understanding how to find and capture customers. Anticipating these moments are to be done in a very calculated and strategic way.
Current Customers are your Baseline Current customers will function as your baseline for understanding where and how to meet the next buyers. The last section in this document called “Collecting Information and Repeat Customer Journey” details how to gain customer insight that will be vital to success. This needs to be done by collecting as much information from your customer as possible in order to formulate a successful game plan moving forward.
“I received a beautiful mailer of the artist’s work. I filled out the back and sent it in to receive a brochure of the artist’s work. The
package delivered was delightful. – the customer Market, Respectively Marketing is a form of art that should be implemented as a science. It’s necessary to know what is working, and what isn’t working in order to adapt and make changes to get the desired results. This process isn’t done blindly, its done with the knowledge of our customers buying behaviors, demographics, and a firm understanding their psychographics. The art is in the images, sales copies, headlines, psychology, and offerings. The science is in the effectiveness of analyzing data. Both play a major role in effective marketing implementation.
Acquire New Customers, Paid Paid advertising has the benefit of getting potential buyers to your website while collecting data of the audience who is engaging with your paid advertisement. Consistently re-testing with low budgets will improve effectiveness, help shape engaging messages, and ultimately evaluating what is working in order to double down on it. Executing paid marketing strategies with the proper messaging. audience, and offering is a way to start generating revenue quickly. Experts level knowledge of the right paid advertising channels can short cut and maximize revenue potential.
Google AdWords Google AdWords is a very effective form of paid advertising because it funnels in what we call “Direct Traffic�, aka individuals directly searching for your work or work just like yours. The quality of the traffic is high because they are taking the action and seeking a result. Keyword planning tools provide data to discover the most effective keywords relevant to particular searches. These tools will also give ideas of the size of the audience searching and cost. Keyword strategies, such as long tail keywords, will be applicable here. The individual brainstorming keyword strategies will need to be creative by thinking outside the box of basic competitor keywords while considering costs.
Targeting other artists and their most popular pieces keywords will turn excellent results because of the associations to your work.
Facebook Ads Facebook Ads is considered the new Google AdWords of its era. Facebook has 3 types of ad goals. Awareness, Engagement, and Action. Building custom audiences to ensure you’re targeting fans that care about your work. Utilize Facebook tools such as graph and audience insights to see what keywords are returning what results. This data will be useful in creating a buyer persona/profile.
Installing a Facebook pixel will be mandatory for tracking the actions on your website and building a list of visitors to set up your remarketing below.
Remarketing Remarketing Ads is a strategy used for the old rule of thumb that states Customers need to see your brand at least 3 times before buying (this number has arguably risen hugely because of digital media). Remarketing will run ads to those who’ve clicked on previous ads. Stay in front of
potential customers and keep your name top-of-mind. Remarketing is highly effective.
Mailer Campaign Mailers can be highly targeted to very specific zip codes. Think of zip codes in areas where art culture is more prevalent (think San Francisco and Los Angeles). Acquiring a list of addresses specific to the target market is critical and first step to a successful campaign. Creative mailing ideas are essential to high returns. Mailers that feel tangible as if the photographs already exist in their hands give customers the perception of what it’s like to own. Generate leads with a low friction to discover and become aware of your work.
Public Relations “PR” builds credibly and awareness when authoritative entities write about yours. Excellent PR firms or professionals have access to publications or contributors to publications. A great PR article is interesting, unique and will connect with the right customer base. Additionally, there are always free PR opportunities if you know where to look for them.
Acquire New Customers, Organically “Referral Traffic” acquiring customers without paying for advertisement. Building traffic sources that don’t cost you time and money is essential to exponential growth.
Contribute to Communities Contribute work, ideas, advice, and anything of value to your customer base’s communities. Use the exponential power of others community bases. Guest blogging, Quora replies, Facebook Groups, LinkedIn Groups are examples of places to contribute tactfully with the customers interests in mind.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Websites need detailed strategies to get a top 3 search rank listing. If any service or individual who promises immediate results and first page rankings be very leery.
Blog Content Consistent fresh blog content helps your rankings with search engines. Designing content with SEO in mind by focusing on word count, keywords, and structure. Best performing content is between 1500 – 2000 words. This activity should be considered outsourced (to the right individuals) as it can be time consuming if you have no desire in writing.
Cross Link Building Google rankings are prioritized using cross link building. This is an essential part to googles algorithm. All articles created should consider linking to outside articles or sources within the content. Additionally, link signals and anchor text will help further rankings per google algorithm.
“I went to his website. I wanted a visual and emotional experience” – the customer
The Digital Store Front Websites are digital store fronts designed to give your customers an experience. Asking yourself how you would want your customers to feel if they were to walk into your store? How can you communicate that visual and emotional experience through your digital store? This will help guide the experience the customer should feel. Translate feeling to your digital
store front and you’ll touch the customer visually and emotionally.
Build Immediate Trust Create consistency to build trust Trust is gained from consistency. If there is an inconsistency with the message and pricing claiming “luxury” but the site does not represent that, you buyers will subconsciously feel an emotion of distrust. Buyers need TRUST to purchase.
Logo Create a simple, clean, and modern logo. This speaks to high end buyers and gives a perception that you understand their market. I would suggest incorporating your signature into the logo, this is a very personalized touch and suggests to your buyers that you are the brand.
Fonts Find two to three font styles that are scientifically paired to work together. Make those fonts communicate luxury.
Easy Usability and Quick Navigation Users want to navigate quickly without having to click back arrows. We want users to know where they’re at in the site and to quickly navigate around to different information and images. Users have a low attention span and any unnecessary navigation creates a high bounce rate (users leaving your site).
Menu Dropdown and Side Navigation Side navigation or bread crumb will be useful for quickly navigate between all photos without clicking back. A sub menu on the main navigation bar can quickly help with this too.
Call to Action Buttons Create buttons that are visually appealing and draw you in to take action. A consistent bright color and size can enhance a user being drawn to it. Thoughtfulness will need to go color selection of Call to Action buttons.
“Subconsciously my mind looked for ways to value the work. “ - the customer
Provide a Frame of Reference in The Store Front Users immediately gauge consciously or subconsciously how “valuable” your work is upon visiting your website. Neuroscience suggests that the human brain is determining its willingness to buy non-consciously before consciously making a decision. The conscious part of the brain depends on the subconscious data its collected to build logical arguments. Without price or any prior knowledge of who Artist Joe is, their minds are left open to interpretation. Customers will gauge the value of something
based on how it is presented in their “stores” (your website). If you knew nothing about the Mercedes Benz and Honda brand, which store front would you say is luxury and which one value? Providing a frame of reference is critical to helping customers gauge the value of your work and is done through every visual piece on your website.
Framing will influence their perception of value.
Feed the Imagination Give your potential customers the perception that putting your photography in their homes can create a sense of “penthouse living” or “mansion quality pieces” in their home. This perception is invaluable to the creating a strong emotion and sense of imagination.
Main Page Image Slider A beautiful image slider that has images of your work being hung from walls of penthouses, mansions, luxury offices, hotels, restaurants...etc is an excellent way to articulate the perception of luxury. This can be done with simple editing techniques.
Badging (aka important icons) Potentials buyers desire to see icons such as Lumachrome icons, Framing quality icons, Award icons...etc. These icons are indicators of the quality of work you will deliver and will build a strong level of trust.
Show print sizes in relation to an object Show visitors the size of your products. Buying friction is caused from “guessing” how the size of the image will look. Leaving out this minor detail creates an additional hassle of measuring on the wall or using their imagination to visualize the size the may be interested in.
Give your potential buyers a clear image to showcase the size of the art work in relation to an object such as a door, chair, couch...etc. This could influence buyers to pick a larger size.
Buyers value Social Validation The psychology of social validation is strong. Social validation builds trust by showing how many people have bought and love the product. Social Validation is another form of gauging how much demand your product has and by whom. This is a form of trust and a form of acceptance of public opinion.
Website Reviews Page - Repositioning Reviews provide strong social validation. Having this readily available to customers without search creates less friction. Instead of searching for reviews they will be presented to them without hassle. Reviews can be effectively communicated on slider images, under images, and in separate sections of the home page.
Show Social Media Follower Counts or Shares This ensures your fans that you are a desired artist and current with your work. Being current and increasing followers creates a consistency in value perception which builds trust. Website Plugins can be added to provide this data to customers in a very tactful way.
“The difference between these photographers isn’t their work, it’s their story. -the customer
Communicate Your Story A great story can communicate emotion, excitement, mystery, authority, prestige, and authenticity. Customers love having a persona behind the work and understanding what makes the work unique. Great artists have stories and legacies. Story telling expert can craft this up to help build an incredible persona and reputation unique in the market.
“I wanted to see the most expensive photograph. The one everyone wants!”– the customer
Generate Excitement and Exclusivity Your work can command more worth with exclusivity and excitement because of the Principal of Scarcity. Utilize psychology techniques to induce this. Everyone wants it but not everyone can get it.
New Photo Release Countdown Excite fans with anticipation of a countdown for a new image. This drives users to enter information and follow updates from the satisfaction they get of being first to know. Email and website notifications that a new image is coming and will be necessary for this particular activity.
Create Ultra-Exclusive Images Create a small subset of ultra-exclusive images by indicating an extremely high price, low inventory, or something of rarity. Perhaps the shot is incredibly hard to capture but a story needs to be communicated for this to indicate its rarity. The ultra-exclusive buyers need stories to tell behind the art work.
Creating landing pages is an added level of detail to showcase the importance of the work being presented.
Sign Images Customers want something to talk about and feel an intimacy that personalization can delivery which creates loyalty. It’s the large effort into the small details that customers rarely forget. Additionally, a number of the edition on the print.
Add Novelty Adding novel items gives a sense of uniqueness while focusing on using the novel item to market your work. An example of this is miniature booklet or coffee table book with your work showcased in the pages. Customers get the satisfaction of receiving a valuable product for free. Additional value is placed on the perception that this is world class work because typically only celebrity artists have their own books.
“If this is a product I want to identify with, I will Like the page on Facebook or give them my email to stay engaged. At some point, I want to purchase or learn more.”– the customer
Connect & Build Trust Articulate to your audience what makes Artist Joe, Artist Joe.
Stay Current. Keep Customers Aware Keeping current keeps you in front of customers.
Email Campaigns Email campaigns are used to keep your customers up to date. They have some of the highest conversion rates out of any marketing medium. Most campaign platforms provide tools to customize the experience based on engagement. These tools, if utilized correctly, can get customers or prospects the pertinent information to either bring awareness, engage, or call to action. Refrain from double-opt in systems like MailChimp. Customers do not want to be asked twice to subscribe because of the time it takes to do so.
Social Media Engaging your fan base well make them feel important and valued when you respond to their comments. It’s a form of exclusive access to the artist.
Establish Authority Just as important as your quality of your work is demonstrating that you are an expert in your craft. Authority building is a form of psychological marketing because it creates trust and assurance of knowledge. Authority also establishes social validation that Buyers want to know they are purchasing from the best and this perception is built by your transference of knowledge. Technical knowledge is not applicable for your art collectors but how you demonstrate your art through the set-up, the capture, the attention to detail, the moment and timing relevant to the shot is.
Blog Excellent way to feed your SEO while building content that establishes your authority through education.
Podcast Guest The important of guest podcasting isn’t necessarily the podcasts audience but the value comes when you can share your guest appearance with your audience and followers. This demonstrates that you are respected enough to be invited to a podcast and that you must be an expert to be on hosted on a show. Perception is everything.
YouTube (optional) YouTube can be one of the most lucrative ways to build engagement and a following. YouTube is also considered one of the biggest search engines next to google. Your video content may be more applicable to your workshops than it is to your art buyers. By creating educational and engaging videos for a particular audience (likely your workshop targeted individuals) will help bring more awareness to you as an artist and your work.
Facebook Group Creating a Facebook group is most relevant to your workshop customers. If you are a very engaging FB group owner and focus largely on an audience that lives the in the NW and provide them with educational content you will see a tremendous amount of growth in your workshops.
This can also provide your workshop customers a forum to engage with you and invite other potential attendees.
“I value high priced items because it costs me the pain of parting with my money. If it didn’t, I could easily replace it.” – the customer
Convey Your Worth What is your worth and how do you quantify that? Why can some artists charge higher than others? A consistent trait we find with individuals that
earn more are their abilities to communicate and command their value.
Increase Revenue We want to find ways to increase how much a customer spends on every transaction. You mentioned you wanted your work more readily available to your customers but conversely, that is exactly what your customers don’t want. They want the novelty and exclusivity and will gladly pay for it. Below are items that should immediately be implemented to increase your average transaction value.
Price Increase on Images Customers want exclusivity so having work that is readily available in price limits the value to the customers. Increase your prices to increase the perceived value of your work. This will be done in congruence with the price framing section below.
Ultra-Exclusive Images Ultra-exclusive images can help bring price increases through sticker shock, meaning, it will help frame prices on your lower priced images by shocking them with a high price on something ultra-exclusive and then feeling like a lower priced image is now of great value. When the ultraexclusive images sell, it’s a huge win in profits.
Price Anchoring to Display Value Price anchoring (also known as perceptual contrast principle) should be used as a tool used to help give buyers a sense of tremendous value. Your website should include a purchase price chart so visitors can quickly determine the value they’re getting from what they’re paying relevant to size. The most attractive offer in this case could be the 40” x 60” prints and lower. This will mean putting a big premium on the larger prints 48 x 72 and up, to give that price anchoring effect. This gives the buyer a sense of real value and makes the purchase decision much easier because now they have the benchmark print as a frame of reference for price.
Price Increase on Workshop Emphasizing sold-out workshops and limited spacing creates a perception of high demand and urgency. Create better workshops by getting feedback on what would bring more value to your attendees and consider what you should implement based on the feedback. Workshops can turn incredible amounts of profit. The higher priced your images are the higher value will be put on your personal time, which is arguably more valuable than just one of your images. This creates demand and high demand creates higher paying customers.
Offer Packages Showcase the incredible experience from having multiple pieces together. Create packages that sell multiple images. Preferably a 3-photo package of the similar shots or categories of pictures and showcase how this might look to a perspective buyer. We want to push users into thinking of multiple pieces by giving them more ideas.
Charge for Framing Showcase frames with pictures. Framing needs to be less of an afterthought and more emphasized on the website as a common purchase. We are familiar with the margins on Roma framing and believe you should be profiting a good portion of the frame sale. The website is
an excellent place to implement a tool to allow users to see what different frames will look like on their images.
Cross Selling on Final Checkout The goal here is to get the average ticket sale up and generate more money for your business. All items will be completely relevant to their purchase. Buyers will not hesitate to add the extra services and products because you “the expert� in this industry have saved them time by curating the products and services for them. This shows you have put thought into every part of their purchase not just the sale of the photography. Add protection/cleaning kits, installation services and lighting packages. All the items I wish I did not have to take my valuable time out to research and locate. All products and services should be dropped shipped and referral based so you have no extra involvement or additional time requirements for this revenue generator.
Ensure the Sale Buyers will remember how they felt after their last point of contact with you.
Create an environment where customers feel assured about their purchase and maintain the excitement.
Friction Free Payment Gateway Create a friction free payment processing system to ensure the sale get completed and no delays. If there’s any delay it could cost you a sale. Remove PayPal from the checkout process. Its old, its clunky, it represents a cheap gateway and it creates a ton of friction in the checkout process. We’ll aim to replace with Stripe but will get console on best experience and pricing.
Post Checkout Experience/Page Follow up with a customer to make them feel secure about their purchase and educate them on what to expect.
Video A post purchase video is a minor detail that will add a ton of value to their sales experience with Artist Joe. Customers need to be informed of what to expect. Show this video immediately after checkout and send to email. A personal thank you from Artist Joe will provide confidence that they are investing into a piece that will bring them a lifetime of enjoyment and experience for them and their family. Include in the video a description of the shipping and receiving process with a timeline and expectation. Describe the process the print will go through all the way up to delivery. A 45-60 second video will be sufficient.
“Make me feel as if my purchase mattered.” – the customer
Post Sale Experience Creating a post-sale experience is an opportunity to create a loyal customer. A loyal customer can create exponential returns for your business from their own purchases and then from referral purchases. Create a post sales experience that will get your customers talking!
Follow-Up and make them say “Wow!” A follow up call shows your customer that you are dedicated to their satisfaction and that Artist Joe does everything with a high level of attention to detail. Ask the customers how the art work is serving them and how the delivery process went. This is an opportunity to connect, learn, and build loyal customers.
Ask for “referrals” If you don’t ask, you don’t receive. Customers will be happy to help you and get satisfaction from helping. This is good business and they will respect it as such. Communicating authentic appreciation and customers will follow through.
Provide Literature with Order Give you customers instructions on lighting and handling of the art work. Provide instructions on cleaning. Provide a certificate of authenticity. Be better be different from other artists out there, offer more. Customers will remember how you made them feel and they will not forget the minor details.
“Ask me how my experience was and I will be happy to share.” – the customer
Collect Information and Repeat Respective Marketing Collecting customer data and then interpreting that info information will help us continually learn how to serve the customer and as importantly how to reach them. With this information, we can assess any trends, determine where to start spending money, and discover how we can connect with the customer in a way that makes them buy.
Website Data Collection Utilize opportunities to collect information about users that come to the site. Various tools can help accomplish this. We want to get as much data as possible to help targeting when marketing.
Google Analytics Know page counts, demographics, time on site, track trends...etc. of website visitors.
Lead Magnets Typically, a lead magnet is offering your customer something of value in exchange for their information. In this case its low barrier to entry typically an email address and name. Lead magnets will allow you to grow your user base and nurture the lead through the buying journey. Get information to sign up for newsletter, get photography tips...etc.
Heat Maps Collect data on where users are using their mice through the use of a heat map tool. Use the data gather from the heat map to learn where users are staying and where they are not and change the websites layout accordingly.
A/B Testing Tools A/B Testing tools allows you to test different versions of the website, the messaging, layouts, images, and content offers. Most importantly the tool provides data to gauge what message is working and what isn’t. These tools are crucial for fine tuning the website to maximize purchases.
Social Sharing Tools Lets add social sharing tools on images such as Pinterest, Facebook...etc. We can determine what’s being shared the most and by whom.
Gather Verbal Customer Insight We would need to contact several of your existing customers and learn as much as possible from before, during, and after purchase. Below are some questions and examples of the customer dialog. 1. How educated are Artist Joe customers on competitor Luxury Landscape Photographers? 2. What was the determining factor for buying Artist Joes Photography? 3. Is this an investment or hobby? 4. Where do they host their pieces and why? 5. How did they find out about Artist Joe and the process that got them there. 6. Professions. 7. How much do customers know about photography? 8. Improvements, Likes, Dislikes. 9. What could get referrals from customers. 10. How likely to repurchase and why. 11. How can their buying experience be improved.
Gather Researched Customer Insight Learn more about the lives of customers. We’ll look for similarities amongst them. Find what groups and activities they participate in.
Gather Business Data Gathering all the data you currently have available will be vital to deduce any trends and underlying patterns to understand what the customer is doing. Additionally, putting the necessary processes in place to track and record all data moving forward will be crucial for success. Data points to consider: Customer Acquisition Costs Customer Lifetime Value Demographics/Psychographics Customer Databases Revenue Trends (Year, Month, Days) Facebook/Google/Website Analytics
What’s Next?
Get Back to Work Purpose The
BIG Picture
is developing your business in such a way that allows you
to focus on the meaningful work of traveling around capturing magnificent shots and getting more time back with your family. Growth that can provide you the ability to put all the necessary processes and people in place to run the business while you focus on delivering the world’s best shots.
Tactfully Build a World Class Photographer Everything described above is to bring you to the next level in your journey which is a much bigger version of Artist Joe. As you establish your brand this will inevitably create more opportunities to go for large wealth building deals. Building a world class photographer means creating strategies for hotel volume deals, hospitality procurement and purchasing companies, exploring the independent gallery route, getting your work next to other big named artists, and focusing on a global market strategy which may include securing funding for all the aforementioned growth.
Prerequisites Hold the belief that, “My work is invaluable to my customers and provides a reoccurring return on their investment that money cannot quantify!” Demolish any doubt associated with increasing your price and tactfully designing a brand that may be out of your comfort zone.
Research and provide a list of all competitors and provide feedback of your competitive edge. This is what will be very important to develop so we can start to communicate this.
Call 20+ customers and listen. Ask them about their experience. Give them a personal taste of your love for the work and show them you care. Ask for referrals! (This is imperative. Don’t assume that if your work was good they will refer you. Ask them for it and tell them how much of an honor that means to you for them to do that.)
“Sometimes I arrive just when gods ready to have someone
click the shutter” – Ansel Adams