What is this, some sort of bizarre Stockholm Syndrome? Are photo dealers starting to think about backup in the same way their customers do? As in, “Oh, sure, I know it’s important . . . and I’ll get around to it one of these days.”
Well, maybe I exaggerate, but some pretty savvy dealers are finding it takes a lot of effort to sell the idea of backup to their customers, and in some cases the return may not be quite enticing enough to fuel that effort.
“It’s fundamentally a psychological issue,” says Mike Woodland at Dan’s Camera City in Allentown, Pennsylvania. “It’s like life insurance—everybody should have it, nobody wants to deal with it.” And so he finds that when it comes to his customers and their computers, they’re thinking, what are the chances? “Even though informed people know the hard drive is going to die at some point, it’s not an urgent issue with them. They’ll get to it one of these days, and in the meantime the photos keep coming and are added to the drive.”
And because of customers’ reluctance to realize there’s a problem, or their natural tendency to avoid dealing with the issue at all, Woodland, and other dealers I’ve spoken to, haven’t put backup anywhere near the priority list. Some are frankly not sure how well the idea of backup, let alone the hardware/software itself, will sell.
“There’s that mental barrier,” Woodland says. “People don’t understand their images are volatile.” That might be because there’s one other thing many people aren’t realizing: when it comes to preserving and protecting their photos, digital is decidedly different. “People are still used to the idea of pictures from the film days—their negatives were always there, their pictures were always somewhere, even if they can’t find them for a while. They haven’t mentally made the transition to digital.”
Woodland says that in his store they’ve backed off trying to convince people to make the mental transition. “It was a lot of effort for no return,” he says, “so it’s not something we really focus on or even spend any real amount of time on.”
“There’s that mental barrier. People don’t
understand their images are volatile. That
might be because there’s one other thing
they aren’t realizing: when it comes to
preserving and protecting their photos,
digital is decidedly different from film.”
At least that’s so in most of his day-to-day operations. The exceptions are the print station and the classroom. “In our classes we review what people should be doing to backup their photos. We point out a couple of simple ways to do it. And we’ve been more successful talking to people when they’re at the digital print stations.”
Approaching the subject with the assumption that people at the print station will have an interest in preserving their images, the store’s staffers introduce customers to a package solution to the backup problem: a binder designed to hold CDs or DVDs and index prints bundled with a CD/DVD marker and a coupon for 50 free index prints. “We’ve gotten an OK response to that,” Woodland says. “We include gold CDs so they can back up at home if they want to. Everything’s in one place for them.”
It’s a successful idea, but it could be even more successful. “We go through a couple of dozen a month,” Woodland says of the binders, “but we should be going through hundreds a month.” The problem is, even when the staff is tightly focused on selling the binder package, and the sales reach the hundred or so a month level, it’s still a thin return. “We’d be putting a lot of energy into it, and it’s not a big ticket. While you want to be a good guardian for people, you want to also keep the lights on.”
Other dealers have similar feelings, agreeing that it’s best to be an instructor who informs customers who’ve signed up for classes about the importance of backing up rather than being a hard-drive salesperson at the counter. Customers in classes have demonstrated an interest in photography beyond reading the camera manual, and that’s at the very least a starting point for the delivery of the backup message.
I also spoke with Ian Collins, president of Clickfree, a company that promotes its hardware/software as a quick, easy, reliable and high-capacity backup solution for the enthusiast market. Problem is, Collins agreed, that before your customers reach for a solution, they have to realize there’s a problem.
“I think it’s like selling insurance,” Collins says, echoing Mike Woodland, but then taking the idea in a different direction. “You sell someone an iPod, and he gets this beautiful, shiny little thing and he’s listening to music on the way home, and he loves that. You get a brand new camera or a new lens and what you’ve got is instant gratification. With backup, you’re not getting that. You might feel a little more comfortable knowing you’re totally safe and those irreplaceable photos are never going to disappear, but it’s not that instant gratification feeling, not the same kind of satisfaction.”
So what’s the answer?
Maybe it’s the long view: someday you’ll be a hero. You’ll have earned your customer’s loyalty and word-of-mouth praise when a drive crashes and all her images and videos are safe and sound thanks to the backup drive or hardware/software you convinced her was necessary.
“What we tell our dealers,” Ian Collins says, “is that there may be things out there like bags and [other accessories] that have a higher margin, but one day, when something goes wrong, the person who suggested backup and sold the customer a great backup product is going to have you to thank.”
Clickfree does everything it can to help retailers make the sale—point of purchase materials and demo videos for customers, training for salespeople—but ultimately it may all come down to their dealers believing in the value of long-range gratification.