David Malek of 11Photographers – Photo Shoots & Co.

David Malek is one of the founders of 11Photographers, the internet network for photo shoots. 11Photographers works with different photographers and stylists in different cities in Germany. We talked to David about the vision and the special features of 11Photographers.

11Photographers – The concept of the photo studio chain

FIV: 11Photographers is an interesting project. David, why don’t you tell us more about it? What is the concept of 11Photographers? What is special / the added value for the customer?

Very intensive care of the customer, starting with the purchase process, through the personal conversation before the photo shoot, to the individual and familiar care during the photo shoot experience.

We already try to be as specific as possible in our product range to each individual customer request. We sometimes have 44 different products that we offer. Tendency increasing!

Additionally, we offer a unique appointment booking service tailor-made for our customers. Our booking portal has the advantage that every customer can book their desired appointment for any location online 24 hours/ 7 days a week. We do not use any third party online appointment booking solutions, but have developed and programmed this tool in-house. Our customers are informed about every step of the online purchase process up to the appointment booking via email.

On site, the customer is personally and individually attended to by three employees. Thus, each customer individually receives exactly the performance / images that he wants.

Our highest goal is customer satisfaction. Because only someone who is highly satisfied with a service will communicate their experience to friends and acquaintances.

Our make up artists also work for renowned TV productions, beauty shows, etc. among others. This level of professionalism benefits every customer who buys a photo shoot experience from us.

The added value for the customer is not only beautiful pictures, but rather the experience factor. During the photo shoot, the customer is always the focus of our attention.

FIV: David, you are one of the founders of 11Photographers, what are your exact responsibilities?

I am responsible for sales and controlling. Specifically, to analyze which sales channel is best suited for our products and to bring the brand 11Photographers further forward. To target these channels through efficient planning in order to reach our specific target group.

We are currently in talks with larger, strong companies in the field of offline cooperation.

David is responsible for booking the teams, studio collaborations and internal communication with our clients. Furthermore, he takes over the tasks in the area of web, design and online marketing.

Together we both take care of the marketing and the expansion of the 11Photographers brand. The mixture is great.

11Photographers: The idea came from experience

FIV: How did you come up with the idea for this project in the first place? What kind of vision did you have?

This is relatively easy to explain. When we went to a photo studio to have beautiful family or job application pictures taken, we were often more than just annoyed afterwards. The quality, the care or especially the execution have left more than a little to be desired. Even baby pictures were a disaster to say the least. It is our passion to capture this beautiful time in pictures combined with an experience character. We do not want to generalize this experience, the gap between the different providers is too wide. And that’s exactly why we want to offer a service without quality discrepancy, no matter if in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich or Cologne. A startup was born out of this experience.

FIV: 11Photographers is an interesting name, how did you come up with it?

11Photographers is a nationwide community of professionals in the industry, spread over 11 cities throughout Germany. We do not see ourselves as a chain of photo studios. It was important to us that our understanding of cooperation is also reflected in the brand name. Because every SINGLE person in the team makes 11Photographers. In short, it has to be round, like our logo.

FIV: How do you stand out from the competition (SLS, MSC, Studioline, etc. )? Are there any differences?

We don’t want to be identified or lumped in with these companies in the first place.

You won’t find our photo shoots on Groupon, DailyDeal and other voucher portals or coupon operators. With us you will find neither struggle, nor moon prices. We are of the opinion that healthy companies do not need that. We have complete price transparency, fairly calculated for us as a company, for our employees and our customers.

As long as we are managing directors, we will not offer our service on Groupon or similar discount platforms. Our products stand for quality with an experiential character and family flair. We are in the fortunate situation that we do not have to rely on mass processing of customers. Our philosophy is a fair price-performance ratio, which is causally related to customers, employees and the final product.

When the customer feels in good hands with us and enjoys the experience character at the shooting and also experiences a great team (photographer, make-up artist, attendant) in “action”, only then unforgettably beautiful photos are created. And to be honest, we are very proud of them.

Only those who focus on the customer in this day and age and pay fair wages to their employees can be successful in the market in the long term. When I think of our competitors who advertise on Groupon and sell photo shoots for 5-10€ gross and of which about half has to be ceded to Groupon in the form of fees, every customer who buys such an offer should think about what is left at the end of the day for the photographer or the make-up artist. We stand in contrast to others for: “Quality just has its price and is also compensated accordingly to our employees in the form of fair wages”.

Additionally, we are a very family friendly company and offer our clients the opportunity to bring their own children, grandchildren or godchildren up to the age of 12 to the photo shoot for FREE with every photo shoot experience at no additional charge.

FIV: Thank you for the interview!

More information about 11Photographers:

www.11photographers.com