Hey, how’s it going? I’m Andy Jones from 50mmframework.com and this is episode 53 of the Photography Q&A podcast.
In this episode, I’m going to give you a rundown on what was my money maker back when I was shooting sports. It took a few hours searching through hard drives looking for my original pricing structure, and I eventually found it. Just remember you can do this for any sport. So I’m going to take you through …
How to sell custom calendars to sports teams.
Now my daughter used to figure skate, and figure skating clubs generally struggle to raise money. In fact, you could say that about all kid's sports clubs associations.
Anyway, I was taking photos for the club's events, and I was shown a flyer from a company that offered to put together calendars for the club free of charge. The club had to provide the photos, and the company would sell advertising. Each child would receive 3 calendars.
That would be a good deal, apart from having to hire a photographer and not raising any money for the club. By paying for the photographer (me) they would be out of pocket, and the company would take the money from the ad sales. So I said I would figure something out, and I did.
The Calendars
I came up with a plan that made me a profit, and the club got two ways to raise money.
The calendar was the type that folds in the middle, and when you hang it, it opens to be 11”x17”. Each month on the calendar had a collage of 8-10 kids skating. The space between the collage and the calendar had 8 advertising spaces, plus 2 more spaces in the bottom corners. That's 10 advertising spaces per month, 120 spaces over the 12 months.
For each club, I did two 2 hour evening photoshoots in October or early November. I needed to get the calendars designed and printed in time for Christmas.
Each child had 3 action shots plus group shots. It depended on how many members the club had.
I also had the different ages and levels do group shots wearing Santa hats for the December page. The photoshoots were included in my pricing.
A local print shop gave me the best deal, I think it was $2.50 per calendar for a batch of 150. The more I ordered the cheaper they were.
I charged $10.75 a calendar for a batch of 150. Now, these are 2007 prices, and I didn’t get any orders for 150. The smallest order I got in 4 years was for 300 calendars.
I was thinking a child had parents, and two sets of grandparents, so they would order three calendars. But that wasn’t the case, if the club had 100 members they would order 400-500 calendars. Apparently, they were great Christmas presents.
How the club made money
The club made money by selling the calendars to the members, and by selling the advertising spaces.
The flyer I sent out showed them how they could use the calendars to raise money.
The example I gave was for 300 calendars. If they sold the calendars for $15 each and sold all 120 ad spaces at $40 each, they could raise $6450 for their club.
Just remember these are 2007 prices and in Canadian dollars. You and the clubs could make a lot more today.
Figure skating clubs enroll members in September and the season starts in October. Well, here in Canada they do. They took payment for the calendars during enrollment. Which made it easier on the club and I knew they had money to pay my bill.
So I did two 2-hour photoshoots and approximately 4 hours making the collages and scanning business cards to use as ads. That’s 8 hours total, and for 300 calendars I made $2,850. For 500 calendars I made $4,500 which took me exactly the same amount of time as 300.
Would this work with other sports?
Yes, absolutely, I have done them for soccer and softball leagues.
I’ve thought about doing them for small towns and villages around my area. The only difference is I would take photos of the town or village, and sell the advertising spaces myself. Then get 500 to 1000 printed and put them in the local stores. If you make enough from the ad sales you could give them away for free.
Anyway, that's a different approach to selling your work you can consider.
I don’t have any news or a photographer you can check out this week, I’ve been really busy.
I am still taking a photo a day, today’s image was #128. People are asking me why take a photo every day? and I really can’t come up with a good answer, apart from saying my photography has improved.
Check them out if you are interested, I post them on Instagram - 50mmframework
Ok, that’s enough waffling for this episode, I’ll be back next week. Bye.