Margins

i called it quits yesterday. on the yelp advertising plan. yeah i know, i wove tales of longevity and opportunities to set up a steady stream of new clientele. i talked about how booking clients through this platform would bring in more than just new revenues, but also reviews on a platform that is heavily trafficked with people seeking photographers.

but here’s the thing. most of the people that contacted me never ended up booking. i offered them competitive rates and packages, and yet most of the time i could tell that they had just copied and pasted their message to me and several other photographers. there is no telling how serious any of them were. i even had one potential customer send me the same message three times without realizing it. and he never ended up booking.

to be honest it wasn’t the result i was looking for. one particular issue i ran in to more than once was that people didn’t read my posting and see that i am unavailable on weekdays. given that i have a full-time job and a marriage to maintain, i wasn’t able to help them. yelp doesn’t have a filtration system that forces people to input the time they’re trying to schedule, so there was no control for this. in that aspect, i learned that yelp is not the ideal platform for me, and likely won’t be for a significant amount of time. in the interim, i can build my presence on that site by requesting that my customers publish their reviews there instead of on the other platforms i frequent. i know yelp says you’re not supposed to ask for reviews but that is stupid. we should always ask for reviews, and every business does it. yelp even asked me for a review about how i felt about the sales call for yelp ads. so i think i am within my rights to ignore that ridiculous ask.

now lets talk money. this is probably the number one reason i decided to cancel early and not just ride out the month. between november 28 and yesterday, december 18, yelp ads cost me $268. in that time, i booked and completed one last-minute job and was paid $160, and secured another booking for april with a ticket price of $225 and a potential opportunity to sell prints. additionally i have another potential client who may book something at the end of the month that will earn me $175, along with another $175 for my dude stock henry who would be rolling video for that session. another potential booking that has yet to confirm is in mid-february with a $225 ticket price.

if these clients book, and i am at this point assuming that they will not because that is generally the safer assumption, then my total revenues for the month from yelp bookings will be $785, and after factoring in the cost of the ads to date, i will have netted $517.

honestly, that is not that bad. and if i could guarantee that every month would be that good, i would consider continuing with the ads. but because i already have bookings in february and april, i now have conflicts in those months that will stand in the way of potential bookings that could come my way as a result of my ads, so the effectiveness of those future ad dollars is reduced. additionally, given that i will be gone for 10 days in april and up to six weeks in june, july and august, exposing myself to customers over the coming months who will have a decent chance of requesting bookings during those time periods is not worthwhile.

so that’s that. experiment over. it was a good run, and i’m glad i did it, but it’s definitely not designed for a part-time photographer with a full plate.