Connections between CMP and Godin's Purple Cow

My individual client is Clark Marten Photography, a premier photo studio, located in Columbus, Montana (www.clarkmarten.com). The CMP studio is dedicated to bold and artistic prints. They focus on the relationship with their clients before, during, and after the shoots. They passionately push themselves to do better and to be more creative in their art form.

Seth Godin’s Purple Cow and Harris Interactive’s research led me to a these insights…

Innovating Luxury
A challenge and opportunity for my client is innovating luxury. In Godin’s Purple Cow book, he talks about innovating within the niche. My client has done this already and so the challenge and opportunity is to go beyond to make sure that ‘ideaviruses’ are spread again and again by ‘sneezers’ and to be sure that CMP keeps innovating within the niche. They need to be sure to always try to extend the lifespan of their current services as well. Godin makes the point that there is no shortage of remarkable ideas. With the technology-advanced and stellar artistic ability housed in CMP, innovating luxury should not be a problem. A component of this will be making sure that CMP puts remarkable marketing into their product and services that are worth noticing, especially leveraging economic-friendly social media.

Creative Work Environments
One of the biggest take-away’s from Godin’s book is making sure to create a working environment where there is a good chance of inventing another Purple Cow in time to replace the first one when its benefits start to wane. It is evident that a creative, innovative, and supportive work culture is present at CMP. They strive to better professional and artistically, however, with a small workforce (four full-time) along with the demand, this may be one of the things that gets pushed aside. I would recommend, as with any company or organization, that a specific allotted time be dedicated to brainstorming individually and as a team. For CMP, this may seem daunting and maybe even off-putting because the culture is so tremendous, but really carving the time and structure into this exercise would be beneficial in many ways. CMP could make sure to do this monthly and gradually allow for weekly times or try a hybrid model with individual brainstorms weekly and report-outs and group brainstorms (sometimes involving other experts in innovation or marketing) once a month.

Incentivizing the Trip
The research by Harris Interactive on the influences of customer choice showed that, “87% of women ages 18-34 said gas prices and distance influence their decision…” This is an important statistic to note for my client. CMP’s ‘Studio in the Country,’ yields great rewards, but it also admittedly hinders some from driving to the location for a photo shoot. CMP provides a remarkable service and product, so incentivizing this drive is one key factor in drumming up more ‘out-of-area’ business (a current weakness). Instead of using promotions for discounts on the photos, it may be more advantageous to give away gas cards, a free night in a local bed and breakfast for their first visit, or discounts to other retailers (many that live in the east of the state will shop in the area CMP targets). Social media has the ability and reach to attract these potential clients and can keep the engagement with CMP going before and after the session.