Pictures Worth 1000 Words
As reptile or aquatic breeders, you may not need to wear suits and ties to work every day, but if you want to be taken seriously in your chosen business, you need to consider how you present yourself and your product to the world. Whether you want to support yourself and your family exclusively on your breeding business, or you just want a small hobby that supports itself with a few sales each year, your success will depend largely on how your customers perceive you.
Professionalism Matters
Fortunately, with today’s modern technology, it doesn’t take a ton of expensive equipment and skill to take good pictures. But it does take some preparation and practice. Most smart-phone cameras take very decent pictures and there are plenty of great point-and-shoot cameras on the market that don’t cost a lot of money.
Set up a clean, uncluttered backdrop for your pictures. Shine some light on it. Take pictures.
It really is that easy to get clean, professional looking images that show off your animals in the best way. There may be more challenges for aquatic folks trying to capture pictures of fish or corals under the water, but it is well worth the effort to learn some tricks from others that manage it and then practice until you’ve gotten the hang of it.
When a buyer sees bad pictures, they may draw conclusions about you that you don’t want them to. Poorly lit, unfocused images give the impression of careless laziness. And if you can’t be bothered to take decent pictures, then how does your buyer know you will be responsive, careful, and prudent when it comes to handling their sale and packing up the animal properly for shipment? Professional pictures build confidence in your buyers!
Professionally Precise Promotion
Clear, well-lit photos in an advertisement let the buyer know exactly what they are getting. They show off the color, pattern, and health of the animal.
Your words need to be just as clear and concise. Check your spelling. Check your punctuation. Make sure you include all the information necessary for your potential customers to make an informed choice, without a wall of unnecessary text that they must wade through.
Give your customers a way to contact you directly. And for the love of all that’s good, give them a name! You’re not some giant, faceless corporation. More often than not, if a small “breeding business” is hiding behind a business name and an anonymous email, without any other identifying information or means of contact, it looks as if they are trying to hide something.
Lay out your advertisements in a way that makes them easy to read. Don’t jam all your information into one giant run-on sentence or a lengthy paragraph with no breaks. Give your customers a chance to quickly scan for the information they are looking for. Once you’ve found a good layout that works for you, keep it consistent for all your future advertisements. Your ads will become familiar and comfortable, which can go a long way toward building confidence in your customers.
First impressions matter when you’re trying to catch new customers. Try to look at your advertisements from your customer’s point of view. If you take the time to think things through, prepare, and practice, you may see a large return on your investment in the form of increased inquiries on your ads and an increase in completed sales by those expressing interest.
Your success = our success at ShipYourReptiles and ShipYourAquatics!
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303-730-2125
info@ShipYourReptiles.com
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