Mini Sessions are a buyers market - and photographers created it. Could we turn the trend?
Image by:@priscilladupreez
What are buyer’s and seller’s markets?
These are terms most often used in real estate. They define a relationship between the amount of a product and the demand of a product and how price is affected depending on which is the prominent one.
If there is more demand than availability the advantage is to the one who has the product to sell - the seller’s market. We might know this phenomenon at the holidays where the coveted toy of the season has been bought up and you were late to the game. You are searching high and low for remaining stock and the toys remaining go way up in price because they are scarce.
If there is more availability of a product than demand for it, then it becomes the buyer’s market. The buyers have so much choice that the price is driven down by sellers trying to sell their products. You can see this when there are a lot of for sale signs in your neighbourhood and they’ve lingered there a long time.
Buyer’s and seller’s markets are created by many factors including the amount of products made available, the perception of those products, the marketing of them, the economy etc. It’s a big conversation, but the end result is that we tend to seesaw between them. Real estate may be hot right now, but a year from now sales cool when the economy shifts or the banks alter their interest rates.
The Dawn of the Mini
Some pioneering photographer created a mini as a promotion to sample their photography services at a lower price before investing fully. The price was lower, but not necessarily a great value. Similar to retail pricing where the cost of an item is higher when you buy just one, but you obtain savings when you buy more. When minis started, the photographer knocked out some costlier elements. They limited location/ set, they scheduled the sessions back to back and they offered less time and less imagery than a standard session. This created savings that could be passed on to the customer. But while people were saving some money, it was of better value to take the bigger package because the higher price meant removing the mini limitations - providing choice of location, custom date and time, more time and more imagery. Paying less due to limitations was what the client sacrificed to get the deal. But the key point is that minis were priced to make money. The strategy behind offering them was to covert and/or upgrade clients to custom sessions or make sufficient money if they didn’t.
When photographers caught wind of the mini trend, the market was flooded as it seemed a great way to drum up business. This flood caused there to be more photographers offering than clients buying. To compete, photographers started removing the original limitations for a competitive edge in booking. Essentially offering standard sessions with all the flexibility at the mini price. The limitations are what created the savings. Result? Other than a select few who still run the mini model properly, there is little to no profit in the mins.
Minis are firmly a buyer’s market and photographers offering the mini with little limitation at little price keep us perpetually in that market condition with no end in sight. But the buyer’s market is not good for us because the advantage is to the customer and not to us. And as small business owners, we do not want to be in a buyer’s market, ever. We always want to be in a seller’s market, because if we cannot sell our products at an appropriate price to live and pay our bills, we will go out of business.
Why Minis changed
Minis changed because newer photographers felt that the low price would be an easy way to find clients. But because of being a buyer’s market — many sessions on offer — photographers had to start competing for the mini business. So the limitations that made them profitable started to disappear. Photographers now offer minis at any time, any place, any setup. They lower price, up the time, up the number of images. All that was in place to make a profit has been eroded and only a select few still are capable of generating a profit from the mini strategy.
Photographers think low price will move sessions and decide to offer minis, but then run into the problem of the buyer’s market — trying to book them in an oversaturated market where everyone else can use the same elements of upping time, files and lowering price. By the virtue of adding themselves to that saturated market, they are contributing and perpetuating the conditions that make it difficult for them to succeed! Ironic, isn’t it? The buyer’s market gets stronger with every photographer who decides to start off their business by offering minis at low price. Then, the photographers feel defeated because there are so many minis and can’t compete and then start lowering price some more. They create their own problem. Why? Because markets are responding to the conditions that are prevailing.
Cost is presented as the most important factor in pretty much all mini advertising. People see the price presented front and centre, and will compare your price against other prices they see. Right after price, most mini advertising presents the session time and number of files included, again encouraging the consumer to comparison-shop them against others. Typically the advertising stops there, and there is no tug on emotion which is often the actual buying trigger. With that element missing people only have the logistic information to compare and will go with the one that is most beneficial to them.
The buyer’s market effect on photographers offering mini sessions
Feelings of pressure to make a better deal to compete, until a mini no longer looks like a mini but a standard session. Anytime, anyplace, any set, low money, high number of images to produce. The minis start to cannibalize the regular sessions.
Burnout from the hamster wheel of high needs and high deliverables for low cost
Feelings of defeat that comes with low revenue
Perpetuates the continuation of disadvantageous market conditions to work in
Creates difficulty in breaking free of the model because people have associated the work with cheap sessions and balk at increases
Turning the trend on offering mini sessions
Turning markets isn’t easy because they are influenced by so many variables, but the easiest way is to use our own personal power. Just like we vote with our dollars and with every scan of an item in the retail world, we vote against poor working conditions that minis often create, by removing ourselves from that model. Do you really want to work for extremely low dollars and expend a high amount of energy, effort and time doing so? We would never accept a high performance-requiring job for a minimum wage salary. But a good chunk of photographers are working for LESS than minimum wage when trying to start their businesses by offering minis. Foot in the door, but that door isn’t leading anywhere good. Better to keep that door closed and seek another!
Know that the model is broken and disadvantageous to photographers. If you’re a new photographer trying to break into the industry, know that the mini model is NOT set up for you to succeed, but to struggle.
Marketing is the magic key that unlocks a better way. You don’t have to do minis to enter the world of photography or ever in your career. Or, you can educate yourself in marketing and find new and innovative ways to put a profitable spin on a new model of mini. But mostly, you can simply learn the art and skill of filling your calendar by building a clientele at prices that are healthy and appropriate, creating the foundations for a sustaining and thriving photography business. Wasn’t that the dream all along?
Start here, with some products that will cut your time into the market and accelerate your journey to success.
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