Photo Happy Hour

Marketing Ideas

July 09, 2020 Michael Mowbray, Carl Caylor, Dan Frievalt Season 1 Episode 16
Photo Happy Hour
Marketing Ideas
Show Notes Transcript

What marketing lessons can we learn from other businesses and industries? This episode is packed full of wisdomous ideas as we chat about what we can learn from a variety of sources such as McDonalds, spring break bars, luxury automobiles, Mexican beach vendors, fine dining restaurants, and of course, cavemen. Dan struggles early with the word "correlation". Michael and Dan both talk about how to look and sound busy when you really aren't. Carl talks about how to feather a crayon when the restaurant only gives you one. This week's random pop culture references include: The Buggles, Alta Vista, Beta tapes, and MySpace. And along the way someone's stomach growls quite loudly (Michael left it in the edit for fun....see if you can find it and win a prize!).

Informative and entertaining, grab your favorite beverage and press "play".  And don't forget to subscribe!

Your Hosts:
Michael Mowbray, M. Photog., Cr., owns Beautiful Portraits by Michael in DeForest (Madison) Wisconsin and also owns MoLight. Learn more at:
www.beautifulportraits.com
www.gomolight.com

Dan Frievalt, M.Photog., M. Artist, Cr., owns Frievalt Photography in DePere (Green Bay) Wisconsin and also runs Seniors Unlocked. Learn more at
www.frievaltphotography.com
store.seniorsunlocked.com

Carl Caylor, M. Photog., Cr., ASP-Fellow, Kodak Alaris Mentor, owns Photo Images by Carl in Iron Mountain, Michigan and also runs Carl's Coaching Corner.  Learn more at:
www.photoimagesbycarl.net
www.ccphotocoach.com

MoLight offers more than 20 different MoLight -brand softboxes and modifiers.

Michael Mowbray :

Recorded live from the Metallica roadie tour bus. It's the photo happy hour podcast. Hey, and welcome everybody. I'm your photo happy hour. bartender Michael Mowbray and I've got a bottle of Mad Dog 2020 that I'm passing around in a paper bag, so take a swig and pass it on down. What are you drinking? Dan.

Dan Frievalt :

Well, you know if if Mad Dog all warned us, you know years ago that 2020 is gonna be something so that's appropriate, but yeah, I'm sticking with the Mojitos. I did mix it up a little bit. I got even more summery. Was that strawbery in there. raspberry. Mojito Yeah. slap the mint. Oh, yeah, I slapped the mint. I didn't slap the raspberries. Oh, that would be messy.

Michael Mowbray :

You're gonna come and slap my mint cuz it's like four feet tall right now. I gotta make some mohito soon

Dan Frievalt :

Yes, you gotta you gotta get the machete out harvest that sucker.

Carl Caylor :

I was telling Dan I was at the farmers market this weekend and

Unknown Speaker :

I saw it was pretty sparse actually. Welcome to COVID right but somebody had a planter there with it I saw mint I thought, Oh, cool. a mint plant. I got it, but it says it's a chocolate mint. Chocolate mint? Yeah, so I Andes, candies. Well that's what that's where they grow them. It could be yes.

Unknown Speaker :

rectangular leaves. It's not the leaves. It's the it's in the roots. You gotta yankem like potatoes. Yeah, taters, taters. But apparently according to Dan, our trusty professional bartender, chocolate mint is not the note we use for Mojitos, right? Correct. I believe that's used for

Dan Frievalt :

dessert entrees. So you want a they actually make a mohito. Mint. There's a spearmint which can work too and that I believe is a little thinner and lighter, but the mohito mint leave is

Michael Mowbray :

is pretty thick and rustic. Because that's what we planted. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So

Carl Caylor :

you know, we have a whole bunch of wintergreen growing around here. I wonder if wintergreen would work for mohito you can really

Michael Mowbray :

try it. If it sucks. You just drink it anyway. Who cares? Like everything else.

Unknown Speaker :

But I think I'm just gonna just drink it. I actually have wine today. Yeah, you too. First time in podcast history. Yeah, it's all Hunter from

Carl Caylor :

the rockin wool.

Unknown Speaker :

winery right down by you Michael right down outside Poynette there. Oh, that's right. I'm drinking a Cabernet Franc from Lodi low

Michael Mowbray :

California not Lodi, Wisconsin. Okay. Really close to that, which is kind of weird. Yeah. So every week we've got a, we've got a topic.

Unknown Speaker :

And this week we're talking about what guys we're talking about what kind of industries? What kind of businesses? Can we borrow marketing ideas from that maybe are parallel to our business or, you know, things. were basically where can we steal stuff from Darn, right. Exactly. And you know, these big corporations invest millions and millions of dollars on research on their target market staff, like tests, marketing, like focus groups, so they're doing all the heavy lifting for us. So yeah, well, let's just borrow some of those techniques. And, you know, they, they put all that effort and time and money into it. So there's got to be something there. So let's, let's borrow it. You know who the biggest real estate company in America is?

Carl Caylor :

McDonald's

Dan Frievalt :

here. Yes, absolutely correct.

Michael Mowbray :

This McDonald's they put so much in terms of property owned and, and they're always looking and they spend tons and tons of money trying to cite new places. And you know what Burger King strategy is? way from McDonald's place and then they'll buy a spot next door.

Dan Frievalt :

Yeah, absolutely brilliant.

Carl Caylor :

Right? Yeah.

Dan Frievalt :

But don't spend all the money. Right And if you've ever seen, I can't remember what the movie is, but it tells the McDonald's story how the guy should

Unknown Speaker :

know and I know the one alone Ray

Michael Mowbray :

Kroc, which was your right founder? founders.

Dan Frievalt :

Yeah, Ray Kroc, how he basically stole the Yeah, that McDonald's in but when he was getting into it, the McDonald's brothers didn't want to sell so another person in the entrepreneur or something told him to invest in the real estate, the real estate's where the money is at and so that's where You know, kind of goes along exactly what you said Michael is he Ray Kroc was buying all the real estate and then sell it to that McDonald's guru. And then he pulled the rug out basically from underneath them and bought everything but yeah, good movie. Yeah, well, interesting story, I should say.

Michael Mowbray :

It makes the fly flies by surprise, a little less delicious. And the flies I guess to Well, yeah. Never. Never lift the bun.

Dan Frievalt :

You know, it's interesting fact. I have never eaten a Big Mac in my life. Okay, I thought I was kind of like, I thought that was weird. Yeah, never. I've never had a Big Mac

Carl Caylor :

but the fries I like the fries. Oh, yeah.

Dan Frievalt :

fries are phenomenal. Yes, exactly.

Carl Caylor :

So speaking of stealing stuff from other people that are you know, chicken butt and marketing and everything else. I know. We went to when we're at imaging USA in Atlanta. We went to the Coca Cola museum there, and which was pretty cool, by the way, but what great marketing ideas from them because it's not about the coat necessarily, it's not about even the taste a lot. But it was showing how the lifestyle, you know, the friends having fun with each other, while they're using their product, you know, while they're drinking it. And I think that's something good to learn, too. We've hit on many times throughout our podcast, that it's the experience. It's the adventure that we give to our clients or guests that is ultimately, you know, an important part of this. But that's something I'm learning is still trying to pick up on watching the Coca Cola, lead and something to consider in the scheme of your marketing. One of the best TV spots ever made.

Michael Mowbray :

Which one was me, Joe green. That was up there. Oh, I'd like to teach the world sing a song. Yeah. Yeah. From the 70s man. That's speckle around, I mean, they read it even.

Dan Frievalt :

Yeah, and you know, kind of like the McDonald's thing. And you know, I was talking with Matt my mastermind group the other week about like standing out and being different and looking what everyone is doing in your area and doing the opposite. And if you look at how, you know, all the things they were doing, and then Pepsi came along and said, All right, instead of trying to be like Coke, we're gonna be the opposite. It's like the drink of a new generation and you know, watching like the cola wars, I think on Discovery or history channel or something that's really interesting how Pepsi did everything the opposite to really gather the youth and be this new hip and getting different spokes people that you know, Michael Jackson and all that and you know, how, how even coke then how they change their formula then to try and compete with the sweeter tastes a Pepsi because in the blind taste test Pepsi would win in flavor. But coke always won in sales because of their branding and their marketing. So coke started to lose some market share with Pepsi so they change their formula and of course the coke. You know how that happened that down everyone hated the recipe. Oh, yeah. Which, which actually backfire. But then because they had scarcity, then are they kind of like, oh, what do we do they relaunched it and it like actually shot up. So he used a fatal mistake actually, and recovered in May did well, what's not everyone can do but

Michael Mowbray :

yeah, and that's, that's more overt marketing that people can see. But one of the other things one of the other aspects of this too, is the channel marketing. And, you know, we're getting really deep on that. But why coke still has dominating sales is because they're really really tightly tied tightly to a lot of the franchises. So you drive through the drive thru There is a big battle on all the subways and McDonald's and everything else. Have you ever seen Pepsi at McDonald's? McDonald's and coke are tied so tightly together? Yeah. And then Pepsi is, you know, whenever a new franchise comes up, they're always trying to undercut pricing on coke. That's why if you go to a lot of new restaurants or new chains, what do they have? Next? Pepsi products? Yeah. So that's another way. I mean, it's an aspect of marketing that we don't talk about. I don't know how that correlates to what we do, but there might be

Carl Caylor :

easier. It's like your co op. And it's like when Dan talks about working with one of the clothing stores in the area, you know, I mean, it's the same kind of thing. We come up with people that are similar and somebody gave me this idea and I don't remember it's on our podcast or just in talking to people in town, but with this whole COVID thing, shut down. All their hairstyles, the stylists are shut down, too. And so when we were finally able to open it didn't matter. I mean, we could open the same time that the hairstylist that just went to Michigan but it meant nothing because the hair stylists are so backed up with no waiting list that you know no one wants to get their photograph taken until they can have their hair done. And so somebody said well you know you should get together with one of your friends as a stylist and say hey, do my people first and then work back and forth and give them discounts to go to that stylist from here on if that's if you end up choosing this person this stylist as your go to person will give you this percent off and they'll get do the same thing in their haircuts I thought Co Op. It's a brilliant idea. I mean,

Michael Mowbray :

cornered the market on those, you know, limited supply items. Sure. Yeah. But that has nothing tangibly to do with your your core business. But it you know, as a side that says, Yeah, we access Sam's Williams, you know, all of a sudden I'm doing a ton of headshots. Because people can get their hair cut again, you know, just all just started to pop up in the last two weeks.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, no,

Carl Caylor :

definitely. So it's amazing how many things tie together right Right.

Dan Frievalt :

Well yeah and other other I guess ideas and businesses that not so much businesses but this isn't necessarily taking a huge corporation but since this is the photo happy hour now photo Hippo and we're talking drinks and and bartending and stuff. I want to bring a kind of a cooler color. coloration courage. I can't say, Oh, my gosh,

Michael Mowbray :

you did you start early. I

Unknown Speaker :

must have said words again. I'm making

Dan Frievalt :

up words. Regarding ration

Michael Mowbray :

correlation, is that what

Dan Frievalt :

that's what I'm trying to say correlates

Carl Caylor :

Is that

Dan Frievalt :

correct? Yeah. So So word of the day, folks core word of the day. is so bars and a specifically Spring Break bars so I had a friend who owned a bar down in Daytona Beach and when I was around 20 to 23 years old we went down there and the marketing I'll never forget it because the marketing i thought was quite genius. And what they did at this bar was to of course market during the day pass out flyers on the beach had a plane going by like hey, you know $20 all you can drink at this bar. So we we get to the bar in because my buddy owner we there's a huge lineup front and the lions growing and growing. So we walk in, we walk we get right in, you know, because he owns it. We get inside, places empty. Why is there all these people outside? He's like, Oh, we purposely only allow a few people in because you can't see inside. So they're creating scarcity. It's like, hey, this must be the hoppin place they were handing stuff About, we saw the flyers like boom, boom plus is 20 bucks so you can drink and you know, having a bunch of college kids in there way too early, it's gonna drink you out of business. But the line kept growing and growing and growing. He had a little bit of people and a little bit of people in and then you know a couple hours before close I can't remember how it worked but they would start to gradually add more people in to keep the line you know, just that the right amount and to have the sales that just the right amount so it works beautifully, like the scarcity and I do something similar in my my senior software I really advertise I only photograph 40 seniors a year. And that scarcity really like people like always call Do you still have place to sell spots like that scarcity helps fill my calendar, you know, so what I shoot more than 40 Yes. You know, I'm not going to turn anyone away but it also helps me to really create scarcity and limit now do I Way over 40 No, I don't. And the whole point to is kind of like, only 40 seniors in the summer so it doesn't mean all year long, like most of my sessions are in the summer. But really, I want to get 40 people in the summer and that scarcity does does really help and I really sell it. I say, you know, I only forgot 40 seniors year so I'm going to create, you know, have unique time with you only photograph one senior day, so I'm not rushing you in and out. I just put on my Instagram story yesterday like, well, the storm was coming in. It's like, well, I get this question all the time. What if it rains? What if it's bad, no worries. We're gonna reschedule I have time allotted, because I only photograph one a day where I can get you back in the following week. I have certain sessions saved for that instance as well. Even though I booked a month or two in advance, I have leeway in there to get you back in and that's the beauty of only photographing 40 seniors a year is I want to make it unique. I want to make it an experience. Something that's perfect. So, you know that's one thing I've kind of taken from the spring break days is scarcity.

Carl Caylor :

You learned in college

Dan Frievalt :

I even college and drinking and you can say that that spring break trick spring break. Trip trip was a man Do you think it would have helped my tolerance better? you could

Michael Mowbray :

you could you could write it off now. So this was expensive.

Dan Frievalt :

Yes, I should go back every year. There you go. A little bit old for that. Bar. No, no, dad. I don't think so. But the other cool thing is we went down. We caught the end of Bike Week in the beginning of spring break. And I'll tell you what. Bike Week was crazy. But Spring Break was ridiculous. Like, and what I mean by that is, it was fun. It was crazy. But everyone was under control because as the older crowd in the Spring Breakers came in, and yeah, the Yeah, Florida just got trashed. Like, it was ridiculous, like, out of control. So, you know, they give people like bikers maybe a hard time but they were much more respectful to the area than than the junk and college kids were.

Michael Mowbray :

Yeah, I would probably take a bunch of bikers over a bunch of college students any day for something like oh, yeah, absolutely. spend more money to.

Carl Caylor :

Exactly quite frankly. I mean, let's think about this. If you can afford a Harley, right? Yes, you got more money than a college can I guarantee you

Michael Mowbray :

will take taking back into the thing you're talking about down the hole. You kind of get this whole implied scarcity going on. I had that happen last week from somebody called me. I was a too late to get in. I'm looking at my schedule. And I was like, I'm seeing tumbleweeds blowing through email because we just reopened and what's what's my reply to that? Huh? Okay, well, well, let me look Yeah, I got I got something I can do with the week of the 17th. I could squeeze you in on Tuesday at, you know, 430 would that work out for you? I could have done any day, the week of the 17th any day, but don't let people know how slow you are. If you're slow. You know, it's not about, quote unquote, laying. It's about maybe just kind of plussing things up a little bit and just know how you carry yourself off off on things like that same kind of thing. Somebody calls up and ask, Hey, I really would like you to photograph photograph this kind of thing. Is that something you can do? You've never done before in your life. Right? Absolutely. I can do that. And then what you do, you scheduled a couple of weeks out if you can, and you'll learn how to do it in those two weeks. That's how I ended up doing a lot of stuff that I've done on my own. Back when I ran my own ad agency. I had a big flash video project ready to do an interactive back in the days when we did interactive CDs? How to do big flash video project, I had no idea how to code in Flash. I learned it in a week into a $10,000 project after that, so yeah, that was nice.

Dan Frievalt :

Yeah, and I, I always tend to book my appointments kind of back to back for two reasons. One, like you mentioned, like, let's say they're gonna run over a little bit, well, another. The next appointment comes in, oh, he's good. Someone Yeah, he's, he's busy. He's, you know, and for two, it helps me stay in control of my time because sometimes or my time is valuable. And sometimes I talk too much. Sometimes, the clients you can't get them out because they want to keep talking. So it helps my schedule, move along, or if I'm working on something, and then I have to stop and then do an appointment, then start something up again. And then a few hours later, another appointment like that start and stop isn't always good with keeping productive. So you know, all those things combined really help with workflow and manage my schedule and, you know, I do clothing consultations, so I was always doing the clothing consultations right before my next session because again, they're kind of coming in and out and in shows that we're, you know, we're busy. Yeah, I know one person that was at a convention years ago, they said that they would when you had like a paper calendar, and people would come in and they would like, have all this stuff written all this kind of like fake stuff written in flipping through I don't know, here you know, and and oh, yeah, I can get you in here. And they said it was all just things written that weren't really appointments. It's just like, busy.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, we better grocery. Yeah, I'm

Carl Caylor :

gonna clean toilets at 1205.

Dan Frievalt :

Speaking of which, I really am regretting getting a 2020 calendar this year like you're a planner. I got

Carl Caylor :

stuck in like okay, we just wasted like four months on

Michael Mowbray :

you guys you guys still use paper calendars? Really I have a whole billboard

Carl Caylor :

here so I could see the year all in front of me oh

Dan Frievalt :

yeah I have a dry erase one where I can I put things in that my schedule for sessions it's more my seniors unlock thing I have everything kind of throughout the year so I can glance up and and see that kind of stuff.

Michael Mowbray :

Totally like a marketing calendar. So yes, a marketing calendar. Yeah. Which that's a good tip for people if you're not doing it, you know, plan out your year ahead of time. Now it would have changed this year, obviously but a typical year you know, you're doing your headshot promo in January and you're doing your you know stuff and Easter stops. Food Wars stuff, you know, for Valentine's, if you're doing that kind of stuff or, you know, get all the

Carl Caylor :

marketing for seniors or you know, all that kind of stuff,

Dan Frievalt :

you know, right, because as you, you know, if you start to market, you have to mark like anything you're booking now is the work you put in a few months ago. Mm hmm. And so, is all of a sudden, it's like, oh, no, I need some seniors or my numbers are lower than it used to be. Might be a little bit too late, you know, to get that ball rolling. So that's why I also would do my senior model programming stuff they had to get photographed in June, because that's part of the the imagery goes out.

Carl Caylor :

And

Dan Frievalt :

I you know, I wasn't really able to do that this year, because I usually get my models in like April. So I had to pivot on some things. But there

Carl Caylor :

it is vivid.

Dan Frievalt :

The word of the year pivot. Well, there's a lot of words of the year but

Carl Caylor :

yeah, Are we already kind of just discussing this at the beginning before we started recording, but we're kind of a luxury item in the scheme of things. I mean, you know, we were told that were non essential. Another word of the year. But, in fact, I think I had to put that in my hashtags on my website is of essential. Because you know, but you know, we are a luxury item. And so it's a need more than a want sometimes when it comes to budgets. And so I was looking at luxury cars just for fun not to buy one, although it'd be kind of cool. But I thought their marketing or their copy on their ads might be something that we can learn from. So I was looking at Porsche ads and on their website now, there's a whole bunch of things. I mean, just go on their website, just scroll down and look at the different cars different things that they have to offer and how they word their copyist. Interesting, but one little takeaway was enjoy the perfect blend of elegance and practicality. So they're giving us a need and a want on the same phrase, which I think is brilliant. You need to find a way of interacting that into what we do here. But

Michael Mowbray :

that I thought that was something really cool to draw off of as well. Oh, absolutely. I mean, that goes way back even way back when I was an advertiser how we would, you know, we'd studied some of the greats like David Ogilvy. I don't know if you guys have heard of David Ogilvy but one of the greatest admin or the you know, if you watched Mad Men, from you know, that was all set in the 60s and in such that was the time of David Ogilvy. And he wrote the classic line for Rolls Royce that in the copy is set at 60 miles an hour, the loudest sound in the Rolls Royce silver Phantom is the clock, like a loo but I mean, it's, you know, it ties into the luxury and that ties into the quality and How soundproof they are. And so there's a lot of those kind of details that similar kind of details that we put into our craft and how we craft our portraits and in our products and things like that, that, you know, I think if we put that kind of craftsmanship into our marketing, and our copy that we write for ourselves, that helps us apart. True.

Dan Frievalt :

Yeah, absolutely. And another tip I want to throw out there is just imagery in general, if you're not sure what the trends are, or what looks are hot or popular, look at imagery and look at stores that sell clothing that is directly marketed to teens, so like buckle free people, you know, American Eagle, things like that. Whenever I go shopping, I'm always looking at the displays. A lot of people don't even notice them, but they have a huge problem or share, you know, all over or even look online. And, you know, take a look at their websites and the way that design is in the way the imagery is. And that's what all these seniors, at least for me, Sr wise, that's what they're looking at. And so, when they see an image, or if I do an image create image that is similar to that, subconsciously, in their mind, they're like, I like that they may not know why, you know, same thing with album covers when they used to be a lot of album art, you know, you could look at, you know, album art and draw inspiration from that. You can, you know, you can still do some of that now, online movie posters, and if you Yeah, if you're doing composites and stuff, too, you know, just Yeah, all that stuff. I mean, you can still get some album art if you look online, but it's not as much so so go into these, these websites where they're selling, you know, or even on Instagram, the things that are trending, you know, the whole neon light sunglass thing, you know, I did that shot like that a couple years ago at at sink and like everyone loved it and in doing there not that I didn't have a line the lights in, in Green Bay or they were all like bar signs, which is really good to take a senior to so I kind of created the same look that I could do in the studio and have the complete complete control over it. And all the seniors flipped over it. Because they were seeing it trending everywhere on Instagram. They knew right away, like it surprised me I thought I don't know if they're gonna get it but they, they flipped over it. So yeah, draw inspiration from from those things that are the hot, trendy thing. You know, in I know we talk a lot about trendy and not trendy, like yeah, you can create timeless portraits but also you do trendy stuff like I always feel like I have two clients as a senior, the parent and the senior, you know, trying to please both of them and I pray Scene caters to both of them because the seat their parents want portraits and printable things and the seniors want digital stuff. So I have it set up purposely that each one has to buy something that helps increase my sale.

Michael Mowbray :

We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be back in just a little bit. The photo happy hour is brought to you in part by MoLight and Golden Eagle USA. Golden Eagle provides the best value and color critical LED lighting tools for photographers and videographers alike. Check out the wide array of LED options at the MoLight webstore@www.molight.com. MoLight is proud to be the exclusive us distributor of Golden Eagle LEDs. And we're back so we were just kind of chatting offline here about you know, maybe some different marketing channels you guys have could check out because we're all you know, we're all doing social media we're all doing, you know something on our website and trying to get people there. But what other things are you doing? And obviously, maybe not so obviously one of the hottest trends that has hit in the last couple years and is growing bigger and bigger and bigger. Is video incorporating video. Yeah, we're we're portrait photographers, and we're still photographers. Video is kind of where it's at least for marketing, for sure. And then so many photographers or photography studios are adding mark or adding video as part of the product mix too. So where are you guys at with video? What do you think about video?

Dan Frievalt :

Video killed the radio star? I mean, that's right.

Michael Mowbray :

That's right. I mean, what Seriously?

Dan Frievalt :

Was that the first video played on MTV is that it was

Michael Mowbray :

verify the buggles that's it Yes, one hit wonders the buggles one hit drink

Dan Frievalt :

drink to that.

Carl Caylor :

Like, abstract kind of news, they're

Michael Mowbray :

probably all in their 70s now to

Dan Frievalt :

see a pop culture reference of the thing of the day

Carl Caylor :

information, all kinds of information on kinds

Dan Frievalt :

of uses knowledge. Yes, yeah. But no video yeah, video is huge. And you even look at social media Instagram, Facebook, they are with their Facebook Live and Instagram TV like all they control the logarithm. So you'll notice that they are pushing video more. And the reason why I think they are pushing video more is because they're trying to pull people off of YouTube. YouTube is the number two search engine search engine in the in the world, Google and then youtube so that people don't realize that might want to fact check that I don't know for sure. No, I

Michael Mowbray :

do believe that is true. I think it's more than being here. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker :

And so around.

Michael Mowbray :

I don't know if anybody's still using Alta Vista.

Dan Frievalt :

Yeah, I still have my MySpace page booked in Alta Vista.

Carl Caylor :

I still got beta tape. So

Michael Mowbray :

I looked up my MySpace page, like about a year ago. It's still there. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's still exist. Well, it did a year ago. Somebody was talking about, like, you know, just for grins and giggles I look it up. Oh, my God, it's still there.

Carl Caylor :

I don't even know how and how do you remember how to look it up? Tell the truth. I have no

Michael Mowbray :

idea what? My space.com

Carl Caylor :

my old email address it doesn't isn't valid anymore. Sure. Sure.

Michael Mowbray :

Why? Yeah, I think you're right, Dan. I think that's a huge part of it. The other part of it is with photos, people can scroll by them with video with something moving, it gets people to stop and it gets them to engage longer. You know, that's good for the medium. It's good for Facebook, it's good for Instagram, whatever, because people are spending more time there and becoming more tied to that particular social media, but it's also better for you and Somebody who's using video because it gets somebody to spend more time and interact with your content, then the photo look at the photo and either they're like it or they don't like it. Okay, I'm gonna put a heart on it move on. Or Oh, there's three photos here. swipe, swipe, swipe. Oh, that one's a color. That one's a different filter. That one's the black and white. Which one do I like? Okay, maybe spend a little bit more time. Put the video there and it's 15 seconds. 30 seconds. They spend time. That's one of the reasons why I think Tick Tock is taken off too, because it's just, you know, someone's mindless entertainment, but it's motion and that that actually ties into the psychology test on this and research on this ties into our inner caveman. Seriously, it ties into our because inner caveman. Our ancestors sat around the fire with the flickering flames and we're transfixed by watching that for hours and hours and hours. We still do that we talk about that's what I'd be Yeah, we still do that. And banning TV is also our high tech replacement and videos our high tech replacement for watching watching this flickering flames. Oh, cool.

Dan Frievalt :

Yeah, so I just brought that up last weekend because we were camping and some friends were there with their, like seven and nine year old girls and we're sitting around the fire and they're like, what's the Wi Fi password? We gotta watch our iPads. I'm like, right there. Look at that fire right there. There's there's the iPad in my day. So it's funny you bring that up but yeah, I mean video video is huge. You brought Tick Tock up, which I'm glad you did, because a lot of people are jumping on a tic tac bandwagon and I'm okay with that. But this I want to warn everyone out there. It's easy to jump from platform to platform the platform and always chasing chasing chasing. The problem is I should say the problem but if you do that I don't have a problem but your as a business owner You have a lot of irons in the fire. And if you only going to do a little bit on Instagram a little bit on Tic Tac a little bit here a little bit there and not do any of it. Good well or consistent. Yeah. Then don't like if you're going to go in on Tic Tac go all in on Tick tock, you know, but if you're going to try and jump for platform platform platform, you know, or if you built this huge following already on Instagram, why are you gonna jump to tik tok? Just because like the teens are on there, you know? And I'm all for like, following where the teens are, but don't be such a quick. Don't be so quick to jump there and lose what you know, or don't know. throw the baby out

Michael Mowbray :

with the bathwater. There you go. Oh, is that there you go. Yeah,

Dan Frievalt :

it's a high tech reference reference.

Michael Mowbray :

So a lot of wisdom in that because I see people do that all the time. I see them do that with their marketing. They'll jump from one to one to another to another to another and not do any of them. Well. I see them do that with their with trying to find a style They'll try this type of photography, right this type and they'll try this styles. Find something that you something that you know fits you and just do it. Well, for me Snapchat, don't get it. I mean, I get it. I know what it is. I don't get it though, for me. So I'm not. I don't do Snapchat. I've got I've got my name reserved and snapchat in case something should ever change. Great. Tick Tock. No. Instagram. Yeah, Facebook. Yeah. Twitter. No, I'm not a Twitter person. I've got my Hootsuite set up to take my Facebook or Instagram posts and put them out on Twitter. I don't I can't think of the last time I actually wrote a tweet. Actually, no one I do remember last time I wrote a tweet. You guys remember this? I do. It wasn't a reference, right? No, no, it was actually when I was having problems with the the PPP loan. Oh, yeah. And I wasn't getting a response. So I called them out the cab Which I think is where I did my PPP loan through and, and I called them out on Twitter because I wasn't getting any response to email or phone calls. And like in 30 minutes.

Unknown Speaker :

Hey saw

Michael Mowbray :

that dog can I help you all we had a wit by by about an hour after I tweeted everything was solved. So that's what Twitter is to me. It's customer service its customer it's my customer complaint department.

Carl Caylor :

Interesting.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah,

Unknown Speaker :

yeah.

Dan Frievalt :

Wow. In video coming back the video like every year for like the last Gosh, let's say five years is probably longer than that. I'm like, I'm gonna incorporate more video I'm gonna record a video. I buy video cameras, I buy GoPros I different software. Yeah. And then I start out strong and it fizzles, you know and even this year, I'm like I'm gonna hire a video intern or just hire someone to shoot video along with me. I put it out there a few times at one person. Had a lead on it and then they kind of fell through. But I've been doing video with Animoto, which is not exactly what I want, but it it's quick and it's easy and it gets done. You know, you can put short little video clips in there. We do Instagram stories where there's video and boomerang. So it's, it satisfies that need of that interaction and that instant gratification as well that seniors like so, you know, I guess what I'm saying with that is, as much as I want it more polished, Don is better than none. Well, yeah, just do something. If it's just on your phone, or if it's whatever kids are used to consuming things that isn't highly polished in another great book to read as like marketing the Gen Z. So that book is great because it talks about the short attention span and how you know it, the more polished it is, look More like an ad so that you know they've been hit. seniors have been hit with so many ads over and over and over again, more than we have in our lifetime at our age. And so they just are quick to tune that out. So we have the benefit of photographers to do video to do imagery and to show show show. Behind the scenes, the experience the imagery, we don't have to say save $20 or save $200 that doesn't do anything to book a session for seniors but showing imagery imagery imagery, guess what? Even if you don't put a website down, they're gonna find it. They're smart enough to figure that all out and finding it within seconds. So

Carl Caylor :

scary. Michael, who was it that we judge within Texas last year with Chris's group at West Texas that was telling us about how she does the video Leslie something or I can't remember her Shelly Shelly something.

Michael Mowbray :

How's it in number,

Carl Caylor :

but she had it nailed down I mean, they were doing selling like you're hoping to do Dan you know fallen out of time and

Michael Mowbray :

I can't fault her name right now she's in Kentucky.

Carl Caylor :

I think so. Yeah. But she actually went further than just like behind the scenes stuff and had actual like interview questions for the for the kids and one of them. I remember one of them was something about what can you say to your mom and dad for what they did for you to get to this point or something like that? Yeah, yeah. And it was like, instant sale, you know, and that kid from their heart just poured out what you know how you're from themselves, what? off the cuff even. You know what it meant for mom and dad to do what they did for them throughout the years to get them through high school. I guarantee you Ah, Mom and Dad are gone. I don't care how much it is just by

Michael Mowbray :

video.

Carl Caylor :

I'll just put it on the credit card. I'll put it on to if I have to. Whatever. I guarantee you. They were bought That stuff cuz there was hitting the heartstrings it was hitting all the buttons all at once but I can't remember name it's

Michael Mowbray :

gotta give me a second with Suzanne Deaton.

Carl Caylor :

Oh there you go. There you go. Yep.

Michael Mowbray :

from Eastern Kentucky

Carl Caylor :

and but brilliant stuff that they were putting together and what a way to incorporate video in along with our stills and our experience and an added experience within it. It was pretty, pretty awesome thought process they had going on there.

Michael Mowbray :

Now I'm glad you brought that up because I actually just ordered the Sony's z v one. Have you guys seen that? They're like they're smaller. No, I wish but it's a small it's their new release. It's a small little camera that's really made for vloggers because you know unlike our Sony's the actual screen will flip out and you can see it and it's actually got the integrated what's it called a The the handle, you can put it on so it doesn't bounce around here. I mean, oh, they got gimbal gimbal Thank you, man. I'm having a hard time with words all day long podcast because I can't come up with anything today and integrated microphone and it'll still do HDMI out and all that kind of stuff. So I'm pretty small. So that's what I was planning to use for, for taking out on sessions and doing that kind of stuff and doing interviews like you're talking about Carl. And that was that's one of the big plans for this year.

Carl Caylor :

Okay, we're making a pact. We're gonna do a video

Michael Mowbray :

this year. Yes.

Unknown Speaker :

Last year

Carl Caylor :

before

Michael Mowbray :

I bought so many microphones, I probably have 20 different microphones. microphones good enough for those. We're gonna we'll get a new one. Don't use it.

Carl Caylor :

Anybody wants a microphone? Just call me Like,

Michael Mowbray :

cameras, microphones, everything else. So one of the biggest trends I was doing a little research on this guy's one of the biggest trends in marketing now is podcasts. Doing podcasts. Yeah. The average American spends 17 hours a week, either listening to podcasts, online radio shows, shows or audiobooks. Oh, sorry. Together. Yeah, I know exactly. There are 15 million more weekly podcast listeners this past year than the year before.

Carl Caylor :

So we're on the cusp of things. We're like astronauts, or like, we could be like, like Lewis and Clark. You know, we're like Explorer. Going

Michael Mowbray :

further back. We can be bold like that. No, we don't wanna be like, like Columbus guy cuz he was an asshole. They told up. Yeah, it was statues down.

Carl Caylor :

They're trying to turn all kinds of statues down though.

Michael Mowbray :

Did you see where there's There's actually a petition in Columbus, Ohio to rename the city flavortown. waiver town they want to get rid of the name Columbus and turn it into flavortown.

Carl Caylor :

But where did flavortown come from?

Michael Mowbray :

Goofy, airy IPA? Yeah, he's from Columbus, which

Dan Frievalt :

he's not from Columbus. He's from California.

Michael Mowbray :

They said he's from Columbus. That's why they're doing flavortown. He's born there. He probably lived in California and started off as restaurants out there, but he was born Alamos.

Dan Frievalt :

Yeah, there we go. Okay. Yeah. And then he had dark hair when he was in Columbus when he moved out to California as well.

Carl Caylor :

He did.

Dan Frievalt :

Exactly. Exactly. Well, speaking of restaurants, and marketing, you know, what kind of things you know, can we take from marketing from restaurants,

Carl Caylor :

Olive Garden, menus, like family menus.

Michael Mowbray :

I switch to that. A couple years ago, people ask me for my brochure, I don't have brochures, I have a menu in the venue does not leave the studio. And it's printed on it's basically a hardcover book. And very, very nice. It's thick pages and you turn you look at it and that says, that says you know, value it says there's a connotation of expensive and that's okay. I don't want anybody to look at anything I do and go well that was cheap.

Dan Frievalt :

Right? Exactly. And and so when you get when you go into a fancy restaurant, you have a nice menu. It's not a laminated thing that's got you know, the lunch still on it from the lunch special. You know the chili. They're sitting there. Like in

Michael Mowbray :

the coloring, you know, placemat.

Carl Caylor :

Yeah. Coloring thing. I like that.

Michael Mowbray :

I hated that one only give you one color. It's like what am I gonna do with green?

Carl Caylor :

Harder, softer, you feather it in your face. Hate it man shade. It.

Dan Frievalt :

Yeah, you know, restaurants with the menus or like, you know, some of the high end steak places they, you know, I don't know how well this works for me, but it must work well what are they carved out? The Yes, the raw meat on plates, you know and it's wrapped and they're like, here's a TiVo and here's a tomahawk ribeye, you know, a lobster you know? Yeah so i mean but it's you know, it is displayed so when we have albums and people can see it and touch it and feel it there's there's more value there. There's different modalities that everyone associates to with no touch sent noise like all those things attract Different people have different attractions that like turn on their buying habits so trying to hidden all those elements which a restaurant does they have the you know, the cool the core, the fancy menu that of course, you know the smells everything yeah. Same thing with wine tasting, you know, going 79 we've done a lot of like trips to California and wine country, and oh, you eat this particular food with this wine and it brings out these flavors. And it's like, this is really and it's like, oh, yeah, this does taste better. And yeah,

Michael Mowbray :

yeah. wine pairing you like this Toad and you drink this tequila. And you know,

Dan Frievalt :

that's in Mexico.

Michael Mowbray :

That was a different trip. That was quite a trip. As a matter of fact,

Carl Caylor :

there's this whole thing of a northbound donkey actually.

Dan Frievalt :

I could go on and on with that. Speaking of Mexico, so another marketing, more marketing. So if you ever been to Mexico, and you sit on the beach, and it's, you know, vendors walk by and they're trying to sell different things and you just kind of, they walk by, they walk by and some of them whistle somewhere in that but I've always noticed Like often you see someone that stands out, right? There's hundreds of people walking by that beach. All of a sudden you see a guy with like, must have like 30 to 40 like cowboy hats on top of his head, you know? Yeah. And then he's got this like, it's like Spider Man little parasail things like a kite, in the wind coming off the ocean, you know, and he's got that and he's flipping it and he's walking and it's like, well, he like totally caught my attention. I'm like, I'm gonna buy from that guy, you know? And

Carl Caylor :

he's just like fishing man. You gotta

Dan Frievalt :

stay in front of rice right? peacocking

Michael Mowbray :

I was in New Orleans years ago and down I've never gotten around Jackson Square down there and they have people who will read your palm and do tarot cards and things like that. And I was down there on business. Hold on. Well, nevermind. They do all kinds of stuff there. Yeah, but so I wanted to get my palm read. And there was tons of them and they had like little tents and little boots and things like that. I'm like, you know I was with a colleague and she's like, well, what are you looking for? It's like, I gotta find the right one. So you walk in you look in the hand now, I found this guy who had to be about 400 pounds and he's wrapped and like all this different colored silks are like fuchsia and green in yellow and purples and then he had his big turban with all these jewels on as like that dude. I mean, he could have been from Columbus, Ohio, for all I know, but that's the dude that's going to read my palm. And you know what, the two main things he told me came true cold. The three main things that he told there are some wisdom to standing out. Even sometimes standing out for possibly even the wrong reason, because you'll stand out to draw some attention. Like to stand out for the right reason, obviously, but The guy with the funny cowboy hats.

Dan Frievalt :

Yeah, he stood out and I think we talked about this like the sardine can where I worked at before to how the wall would move and it was always packed in in the owner a sardine can got that idea from, there was a bar in Cabo called the elbow room. And it was just this little, tiny little bar. All it was was, I don't even know how to describe it, but it was a bar and there was enough room behind the bar for one bartender and the front of the bar. were two bar stools. And everybody is like this mob of people out there. Everybody wanted to be in this and it was all built up into the street because they wanted to be, you know, on those two barstools and it just like was a unique thing that that people want to be a part of. So try and do that in your business is trying to find ways to be unique and stand out. Because the competition's only getting like more intensified. So, you know, you know, with, with everything's out there, but there's so many different photographers, most people are going to go to the least expensive route, unless you can show why you're different, you know, and all these little elements help to justify your costs.

Michael Mowbray :

And you don't need to be everybody's photographer, you just need to be the photographer for the right part of the marketplace that's going to value your work, and pay you enough to make it worthwhile for you to be in business. You know, I realized I'm probably the photographer for less than 5% of the marketplace here. That's fine. That's all I need. You know, I've got a big enough market.

Dan Frievalt :

Right? Look at all the high schools and the amount of seniors, you know, are in there. So it's like, you can just get a small percentage of that are kind of going what Carl said, you know, luxury vehicles will Well, they purposely don't want to market to everyone. All right. Oh, you don't They don't want everyone to have their vehicle. They want the people who can afford it.

Michael Mowbray :

Storage tied into that I put on a polo, a polo Polo the other day, and I think it's shrunk. I'm not sure. But anyway, so my wife was saying it's like, wow, you know, an expensive shirt like that you think would fit better? And it's like, No, no, here's the deal. They don't want me wearing it. They don't want an old fat guy wearing this same kind of thing with like stuff from the buckle or any place like that. They don't want overweight old guys wearing it because it does not help their brand. So things tend to be very trim cut, you know, and are built or aren't carried in sizes for dudes like me, which makes me sad. So I just have to put on my MooMoo and be happy.

Carl Caylor :

And yeah,

Dan Frievalt :

so yeah, many, many years ago when Abercrombie and Fitch was the big thing, you know, when As much younger we went to the Mall of America, and then these huge AF stores and we're in there, like, buying stuff, and I had a buddy who was a football player, big, big dude. He's like, what the heck, nothing fits me in here. You know, it's like, this is an extra large he like breaks it up, you know, and I would be like, you know, wearing a large or extra large, you know, I'm like, Yeah, what the heck? We were like younger at that time. But yeah, we realized later that they want especially Abercrombie then with their advertising campaign, which was weird because their advertising campaign with people with no clothes on and yet they were selling clothes, right?

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah.

Dan Frievalt :

Yeah. Come to Africa and get this shirt. But you're all your models are shirtless.

Michael Mowbray :

He's holding on to the shirt.

Dan Frievalt :

He's hold on T shirt. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker :

But they wanted me to shirt. Yeah,

Dan Frievalt :

their brand was one thing again. And one thing Yeah, their brand was a show. And athletic, trim person and if you didn't fit that they make it for you. So, yeah, I know that story. Wow. Well,

Michael Mowbray :

I learned some of this from an old buddy of mine, john O'Donnell who started if you've ever heard of Johnny Oh, is a brand new California brand that's got like a polo guy, but it's a surfer guy. So it's a clothing brand that he started out there. And after he started up, I said, You know, I got a hold of him. He's like, Hey, man, you know, I think I need a shirt. He's like, I He's like, you know, what size are you wearing now? So yeah, like excellence? Like, I gotta be honest. I don't think I got anything to fit. Like what nice like, yeah, honestly, we're geared towards the same kind of thing. We're geared towards younger trimmer fit and that's everything we've got is really trim fit. So I love you mo but I don't think I have a shirt for you. Like some of

Unknown Speaker :

you Yes.

Carl Caylor :

Yes. How about one closer to our industry? Hasselblad cameras? Sure.

Michael Mowbray :

Remember those from our office that still around?

Carl Caylor :

Yeah around. But even back in the day when I was film and a lot of home I never got a brochure from hospital on. But my friend who's a dentist, he got a brochure mailing every month from us blood. And he actually bought a house a lot, you know, because it was a luxury item, but they targeted so it's something we really haven't really talked about too much about but target you know, finding your absolute target market and narrow it down to immense proportions but they were marketing to dentists and lawyers and doctors and people that quote unquote, had money discretionary income to spend on it. They're high quality luxury item over camera. They didn't care about professional photographers, they, if it's a small part of the market, and I know Kodak was part was that way too, I was part of the Kodak team and we sat in on business meetings twice a year was kind of interesting. But one of the things that the push towards the end of our our position there was that they were trying to go consumer, all consumer and they kind of shied away from the professional market. We're like, why are you telling us this? We're the professional market. And I said no offense guys, but you are way less than 1% of our, our, our marketing field I mean, as we just everything is consumer grade A there's bazillions more people buying consumer grade cameras than professional cameras. And like, okay, it makes sense. I mean, I get it, but luxury versus, you know, Want versus need? And then the other on the other end of it this the business, you know, who are you going to sell that to? Who has both the need and the want and the means that's the thing we need to have, we need to find the people that we can coerce them into the want. coerce them into the need. Mm hmm. And then we're only doing that for people that we know have the means to do it.

Michael Mowbray :

Speaking of dentists, so I think there's a good analogy here too, because I had some dental work done last week. And you know, the, the I think the analogy to us is sometimes especially for headshots, people come in because they have to, it's like they go to the dentist because they have to get a cleaning they don't want to have a headshot done. So what do you do? You have to make you know, we've talked about this multiple times, but you have to make it a great experience. I had to have a crown replaced last week because I had a crown crack. Not a lot of fun but the dentist I go to I can tell that not only does she very, very competent, but she cares. And she's always very communicative, too. So she's always saying what she's going to do next, in a very pleasant voice and very calm, soothing voice. So as bad as a dentist appointment can be especially we're going to have somebody prying around your mouth for two hours. They made it as I don't want to say pleasurable, they could but they made it as you know, calming and soothing as they possibly could in that situation. Whereas you could have gone to another dentist who is very clinical and very, you know, very just get this done, and had the same caliber of work done, but not leave feeling good about the experience.

Carl Caylor :

Sure. So sad manner. Absolutely.

Michael Mowbray :

So parting Shots,

Carl Caylor :

shots.

Dan Frievalt :

Well, I would say you don't just follow in your industry or industries that are similar to what you're doing. follow their marketing, follow their social media channels, look at the imagery, they're putting out the messaging they're putting out and see how you can make that kind of combined with what you're doing and do some of the same tactics

Carl Caylor :

and And on that note, just so confused. I'm not saying copy what they're doing, be inspired by what they're doing. Right? Don't use somebody else's slogan. No, you know, or directly other copy but it be inspired by it and use the same kind of ideas, I think is a better message to send everybody.

Michael Mowbray :

Absolutely. And that's going to tie into that for my parting shot is brand emulation, find the brands that you feel really emulate or very similar to the way you feel about your brand, and see what they're doing and the tone that they're using, and the colors they're using, and the imagery they're using. When I redesigned My logo back and want to say 2004 somewhere around there, I wanted to feel like a kind of like a high end makeup, kind of like you would go into Macy's and go to a makeup counter. This is the logo that you would see on some of the products you know, the colors I chose the font I chose and how I how I put it all together. That was a look I was looking for and also tied into how I was set up my selling for for portraits too because I was doing gift with purchase, which you know, any of the women out there listening if you go to like the Clinique bonus counter or the Clinique counter at Macy's, you know, you buy this cream, and this this lotion, you get this tote bag for free. I was doing a very similar thing with with my marketing and selling for portraits. You know, if you invest a certain amount or buy this product, you can get these other things for free. So it was it was kind of creating a correlation. There's your word damn to think They did things that they experienced in other parts of their life. So then they then they have a kind of like a deep rooted tie for for your brand back to all the things that they've experienced, that are similar, been good brand experiences for them too. So think of brand emulation. All right, so, um, those are parting shots. We always have a sponsor every week. Well, we didn't have one last week because I forgot, but this week's episode has been brought to you by Guess

Unknown Speaker :

who? Mad Dog 2020

Michael Mowbray :

mid 2020 it's the official drink of the year. We all know why. Yeah. So so we got a cheers to you guys.

Unknown Speaker :

Cheers. Last call.

Michael Mowbray :

You've been listening to the photo happy hour podcast. Be sure to hit that subscribe button to not miss a single action packed episode and join our photo happy hour Facebook group where we'll post links To the stuff we all talk about, you can find my mo light gear online@www.go mo light calm, that's geo mo Li gh t comm you can find the Facebook page under MoLight store and I also run the go doc slash help group on Facebook. You can find Dan SR unlocked website at www dot seniors unlocked.com that's seniors with an S at the N unlocked.com. And the Facebook group under seniors unlocked and you can find Carl's coaching corner@www.cc photo coach comm cc photo coach.com Till next time, cheers to you.

Gandalf :

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and give this fellowship the highest possible rating. do so with great haste. You Force