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5 Top Tips for Marketing Your Photography Business Successfully

11 Sep

The post 5 Top Tips for Marketing Your Photography Business Successfully appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darina Kopcok.

Marketing is something that often falls by the wayside for photographers. We push it aside when we’re busy, only to find the clients aren’t there when things slow down.

The best marketing efforts are those that are organic and purposeful. There is no quick fix. Promoting your work is not as simple as “build a website and they will come.” It takes consistency and effort to keep your name out there, no matter how long you’ve been in the business.

Here are my five top tips for marketing your photography business the right way. top-tips-for-marketing-your-photography-business-the-right-way

1. Curate your online portfolio

As a professional photographer, you need an attractive, well-curated website to highlight your work.

Your website will brand you as either a professional or an amateur. It will serve as the first impression of you and your work. You need to pay attention to every detail, from the template you choose, to how your images flow together to create a cohesive narrative of who you are as an artist.

Put only your best work in your online portfolio, but try to approach your images as a potential photo buyer might. It’s easy to get emotionally attached to certain photographs, but sometimes your favorites are not the ones that are going to resonate with your target market. Create galleries that organize your photos into a grouping that make sense. Pay attention to the colors, shapes, and lighting that flow well together. Create an experience for the viewer as they move through your body of work.

If you feel you can’t see the forest for the trees when it comes curating your work, hire a photo consultant who can give you an unbiased and expert opinion.

Starting an online portfolio from scratch? You might want to choose a web builder made for photographers, such as Photoshelter or Format, as they also offer various tools to help sell and distribute images.

Squarespace is popular with a lot of photographers because of their beautiful, minimalist and modern templates. Wix is also another site that has improved in leaps and bounds in the last couple of years. It is highly customizable and unlike some of the other options, offers tons of different templates to choose from.

5 Top Tips for Marketing Your Photography Business Successfully

2. Print your work

The demand for digital imagery is huge, however, print is not dead.

If you’re a commercial photographer, having a print portfolio is essential for meeting with clients. Showing up at an agency meeting with an iPad to show your work will make you look like an amateur.

In the commercial and advertising world, agencies want to see how your images hold up in print because any flaws become much more obvious. It’s important for them to see how your work translates into print before they hire you.

Creating a top-notch portfolio can be very expensive, but there are several sites like Artifact Uprising and Blurb where you can have good quality photo books printed at a reasonable price.

top-tips-for-marketing-your-photography-business-the-right-way

If you’re looking for commercial work and want to work with ad agencies, design firms, or magazines, you’ll also need to send out printed promos to your target market three or four times a year.

It’s said that it takes an average of seven contacts with someone before they buy from you, so this tactic may not pay off immediately. However, never underestimate the silent watchers.

If you work on the retail level, such as in wedding photography or portraiture, it’s still useful to have printed work to show prospective clients. People love to see something tangible, something they can hold in their hands that will help them experience your work in a more direct way. The photographers who make a lot of money in these niches print out their photographs to show to clients in-person, which drives sales exponentially.

5 Top Tips for Marketing Your Photography Business Successfully

3. Create a quarterly email campaign

Do you have a ‘subscribe to email list’ on your website? If not, you should. Nothing converts like email. An engaged list is far more important than any form of social media. The changing algorithms and whims of companies like Instagram and Facebook can leave your business incredibly vulnerable if you depend on them.

By sending out a regular newsletter or a PDF mailer to your past clients and other relevant business contacts, you appear busy and relevant. Fresh content helps you connect to your audience.

Research whom you want to work with, and regularly make contact with them. Keep track of these contacts via a spreadsheet or CRM (customer relationship management), so you know who has received your previous mailing.

Hire a designer that can create a template for you. This will allow you to swap out pictures every time you do a new campaign with new work. Include your logo on the front and a short bio inside, along with your contact information. Alternately you can create a promo “newspaper” or magazine through a company like Blurb or Newspaper Club.

Your email promo should look as professional as possible. The email campaigns should go out to your target clients every quarter to keep you top of mind when they’re looking for a photographer.

Even if you send out printed promotions, you should also send out email campaigns.

Printed promotions are expensive, which means you can only send them out to a select group of people – your most ideal clients. But with email, you can send out a promotion such as a PDF mailer to hundreds or prospective clients.

5 Top Tips for Marketing Your Photography Business Successfully

4. Use social media strategically

Everyone is complaining about their love/hate relationship with social media, but if you’re using it for business, it’s non-negotiable. The keys to success are your perspective and using social media the right way.

It’s best to pick one or two social media channels and concentrate on bringing up your visibility there. Start by asking yourself what you want to achieve?

Do you want to:

Drive traffic to your site?
Connect with agencies and brands?
Connect with potential brides or portrait clients?

Put aside time every day to post and engage with your target market by leaving thoughtful comments.

Know that the path from a “like” to any “purchase” is a really big leap. Social media should be part of a wider strategy of creating visibility and engaging with a community. It’s great to follow other photographers and support one another, but most of them won’t be your potential clients. Avoid the big time suck of social media and focus on the people that are likely to hire you.

5. Write a WordPress blog

I’m always going on about writing a blog. I think most photographers should have a blog.

One reason is that if you have a WordPress blog connected to your site, you can get a massive boost to your SEO. Updating the blog regularly will get you a higher ranking in search results.

Writing a blog will also help you connect with your audience and build trust. Your clients will feel like they have come to know you.

If writing is not your strong suit, you don’t need to write a lot. In fact, your posts should have lots of images instead. You can share about a family or personal branding session. You can share shots and a short narrative about the latest wedding you shot or write about how you recommend clients dress for their personal branding session.

However you decide to approach it, make sure that your content adds value for the people reading it.

5 Top Tips for Marketing Your Photography Business Successfully

To sum up

Marketing gets a bad rap. As an artist, you may feel like a used car salesman when you’re trying to sell your services. However, think of marketing as a way of putting yourself in front of people and letting them know you’re there.

The most successful photographers are those that demonstrate that they can add value and solve a specific problem.

By taking a more curated, thoughtful approach to promoting yourself, you’ll be able to build a business that stays strong in the face of trends and stands out amongst your competitors.

Do you have any other Tips for Marketing Your Photography Business? Share with us in the comments!

The post 5 Top Tips for Marketing Your Photography Business Successfully appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darina Kopcok.

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How Marketing And Finance Could Derail Your Photography Business

06 Sep

It’s is not often that we find people going into businesses that have been widely regarded as sole entrepreneurship. Recently in the photography business, firms can take up to fifty employees in a single office with each photographer doing their thing. However, the journey to be like the top photography companies who have fifty or more employees as an example, Continue Reading

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Tips for Photographing Artwork for Marketing Purposes

29 Jul

You have come a long way as a photographer and people are constantly telling you, “Your photos look great! You should start to sell some!”. As you are excited at the prospect, take their advice, and begin to post photos of printed products on your social media or perhaps you even develop a website.

However, you notice something. When you take an image of your images the color is off, there is a reflection of the lights in the room, and you are generally unhappy with how it looks. Not only that, but you realize your print products do not look that desirable to purchase based on the photo you took.

The reality is taking photos of your print products or artwork (paintings for example) for marketing can be difficult. But for a few dollars and a little bit of work you can increase the marketability (and hopefully sales) of your hard-earned images (and photograph other artist’s work for them too).

Tips for Photographing Artwork for Marketing Purposes - photo of an owl in a rustic wood frame

I create a lot of my own artwork from my images and depend on quality images of my artwork to help market them.

I hope you will learn a few key things while reviewing this article.

You will learn how to make an inexpensive lightbox, how to change lighting direction and source, and how to set up a camera for shooting photos of your photos. With those skills in your arsenal, I hope you will begin to market your own work!

Tips for Photographing Artwork for Marketing Purposes - photo in a frame on a small stand

Pre-matted prints are a common way to sell your work. But in my opinion are difficult to photograph because of the gloss from the cover and reflections is causes. A properly lit lightbox can help you create marketable images of your artwork.

Make a Lightbox for Less Than $ 20

The first thing you will need to do is create (or buy) a lightbox. A lightbox is a simply a structure that provides a neutral background for making images.

This is beneficial because it helps your camera control the color of your image and as well as removing distracting background elements. The construction of the lightbox will allow you to creatively light your artwork and ensure it is evenly lit as well.

Let’s look at how you can build a lightbox for under $ 20. I like this design because it comes apart for easy storage or transportation.

DIY Do It Yourself lightbox - Tips for Photographing Artwork for Marketing Purposes

In the steps below I will show you how to build this simple lightbox.

What you will need:

5 sheets of 3/32” foam core board. These can be any dimension and should be large enough to fit your artwork into once the box is completed.
A utility blade
And a yard (meter) stick.

Steps to make the lightbox

Use the meter stick to measure in 2 inches from the edge of the foam-core board and then draw a line from the top that is half the length of the board.

Now measure in from the same edge 2 3/32” inches and draw another line paralleling the first. You should now have two lines that are 3/32” apart that span half the board

Using the utility blade, cut out the 3/32” space down half the board.

Tips for Photographing Artwork for Marketing Purposes - diy lightbox cutout

Repeat on the other side of the board so that you have parallel cuts in the board (see below).

Tips for Photographing Artwork for Marketing Purposes

Put that board aside and repeat on two more of the boards. Once you are done should have 3 boards with 3/32” grooves cut into them.

Assemble the walls of the lightbox by sliding the grooves of the boards into each other.

Tips for Photographing Artwork for Marketing Purposes

Place one, uncut board underneath the walls for a bottom and place the other on top. You now have a lightbox!

Display in the Lightbox

You will now use your newly built lightbox for displaying, lighting, and photographing artwork. You will want an easel-style stand that fits the feel of your artwork. If you have any extra foam-core board laying around, consider using that to build a neutral easel that will not detract from your artwork.

Tips for Photographing Artwork for Marketing Purposes - DIY lightbox in use

Once completed with an easel, your lightbox will help you create beautiful images of your artwork such as this metal print of the Aurora Borealis.

Lighting

Getting the lighting in the box set correctly is the most important thing you can do. Correctly lighting your image will remove reflections from the artwork, evenly light it, and ensure the color of the light allows your camera to capture the white-balance of the image correctly.

You may consider backlighting, lighting angle, and lighting intensity to help address these things. For each of these things, you should adjust and modify accordingly until you are happy with the shot.

Tips for Photographing Artwork for Marketing Purposes

I use this light panel to light my products, but a cell phone or other light source will suffice, too!

Lighting Angle

Lighting angle is the most important thing you can do to create a quality shot. Try lighting your artwork from the top and the side and see what you like better.

If your artwork is tilted backward in an easel, lighting it from the top and then shooting the image straight on with your camera will remove the reflection of the light in your final image. Lighting from the top and the sides simultaneously will evenly distribute the light over your print to accurately portray your product.

Tips for Photographing Artwork for Marketing Purposes - canvas print on a stand

This image of a canvas print is lit from the top.

In this image, it was lit from the bottom.

This image of a canvas print was lit from the side and creates the best finished product to my eye.

Back Lighting

Backlighting the image is another way to evenly distribute light. To backlight, place a lighting source behind your artwork so that it cannot be seen by the camera. Reflect the light off the roof of the lightbox or the side of it to light your image. A properly used backlight will give your image the appearance of floating in mid-air.

This image of a metal print was lit from behind with a cell phone and from the top with a light panel.

Lighting Intensity

You will need to control the lighting intensity inside the lightbox. There are several ways to do this.

First, be sure to take advantage of those white walls by bouncing light off them. Second, you may want to cover your light source with something to soften the light. This could be a tissue over the light of a cell phone, or a professional cover on a light panel.

As you progress with your skills you may consider purchasing a professional lighting source that allows you to adjust the intensity of the light.

I needed to reduce the intensity of the light and adjust my camera’s exposure compensation settings to keep this image from blowing out.

I changed my lighting intensity to get the proper exposure on this metal print.

Camera Settings and Setup

The next thing you need to do is get your camera set up. I like to use a 50mm lens because it is sharp to the corners and will not distort the final image. If you have a tripod, it is best to use it and set it up in front of your artwork.

Try starting your camera in aperture priority mode, your aperture at a couple of stops past wide open (e.g, if you have a f/2.8 lens stop it down to f/5.6), the white balance on auto and your ISO at 200.

You can alter these settings, but use I like to use a shallow depth of field to emphasize the surface of your artwork. Since a picture is two dimensional you will not have to worry about it being out of focus!

With your camera on a tripod, step down the aperture and shoot at a low ISO to reduce noise in the final image. A slow shutter speed should not be an issue with the camera on a tripod.

Practice Makes Perfect

Each of the things discussed in this article is just a starting point. Be sure to experiment with lighting angles, light sources, intensity, and camera settings to get the most stunning image of your product possible.

Remember, “pixels are cheap”, so make lots of them as you go out marketing your art!

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4 Marketing Mistakes – How NOT to Promote Your Photography Business

01 Apr

You can market your photography business in hundreds of different ways — some incredible effective, and some a total waste of your time. Here are four marketing mistakes or wrong ways to promote your photography business and what you should be doing instead.

How To Market Your Photography Business1

Mistake #1 – You’re Too “Professional”

By no means does this mean you should act or present yourself unprofessionally in your photography business — but often we hide behind a front of professionalism. If being a professional means a headshot on your website holding your camera (or no headshot at all) and a story about how you love love, and love photographing weddings, it’s unremarkable. Every other photographer does and believes those things.

Through trying to be perceived as a professional, you’ve becoming boring! Yes, you need to conduct your business professionally – but add some zest to your brand. What makes you unique as a human, and therefore, a photographer?

What 5-10 things could you talk about all day? Which things make you excited? What 5-10 things do you dislike? What are 5-10 ways you could describe your personality and your images?

4 Marketing Mistakes - How NOT to Promote Your Photography Business

Brainstorm the list of you! Get clear on your interests, personality, photography style, brand, and voice and consistently communicate this uniqueness to your clients.

It’s simple to do a brand audit of your website, blog, and social media accounts. Within 30 seconds, would a new client know what makes you different? What facts will they remember? This is the key to non-boring, but still professional marketing.

4 Marketing Mistakes - How NOT to Promote Your Photography Business

Mistake #2 – You’re Advertising Without Intention

In the name of honesty, I have never paid to advertise my photography business. But I’m not against advertising in magazines, wedding shows, or placing Facebook ads. However, advertising without intention is a big marketing mistake many photographers make.

Before you pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for an ad, ask yourself this question, “Is my ideal client hanging out here?”

4 Marketing Mistakes - How NOT to Promote Your Photography Business

If you’re not clear on who your ideal client is, that will be the first step! Think back to some of your favorite clients and scribble a list of describing words about their personalities, wedding day, and photos. After you’ve reviewed at least 10 of your past couples, circle any common themes that occur.

4 Marketing Mistakes - How NOT to Promote Your Photography Business

Testimonials are a gold mine for sketching out your ideal client. If you don’t have one already, start a document with feedback from your clients and look for themes. What are clients most excited about after working with you? A few more details to include in your client profile include their age, location, career, income bracket, and hobbies.

Once you get clear on who your ideal client is, then you can filter every advertising opportunity through your client profile. Would your ideal client be looking for a wedding photographer in that magazine, at the bridal show, through Facebook ads? If so, wonderful but if not, perhaps your marketing efforts and dollars are best spent elsewhere.

4 Marketing Mistakes - How NOT to Promote Your Photography Business

Mistake #3 – You’re EVERYWHERE on Social Media

You have a limited amount of time to market your photography business, and you have to make your moments count. Before you get involved on Google Plus, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram, etc. – pause.

Is your ideal client finding their wedding photographer on that platform? If you’re not sure — a good place to start would be surveying your past clients and asking “Where did you find me?”

4 Marketing Mistakes - How NOT to Promote Your Photography Business

Chances are that a few social media platforms (2-3 maximum) are bringing in most of your inquiries. The other platforms are a waste of your time. For photographers, I have found Instagram and Facebook to be front-runners, perhaps with Pinterest as a third. But you’ll have to investigate the stats for your business.

Once you’ve narrowed down the platforms you want to pursue, let go of the ones that aren’t working! On your chosen platforms, engage consistently with a mix of personal and business posts – sharing your face regularly, sharing work you love and calling prospective clients to action.

4 Marketing Mistakes - How NOT to Promote Your Photography Business

Mistake #4 – You’re Sending Cold Emails

One of the best ways to market your photography business is building a strong network within your own industry. By this, I mean connecting with other photographers as well as wedding vendors and venues. However, sending cold impersonal emails is the wrong way to market your business.

If you want to send emails that not only get read but receive a reply back, make sure you do your research. Before you send an email, follow their accounts on social media, leave comments on their blog — so do that at least a week in advance of emailing. When you email, keep it short and to the point. Genuinely compliment their work. Share who you are, what you want and how you can help that person achieve their business goals.

4 Marketing Mistakes - How NOT to Promote Your Photography Business

Practically, this may mean helping a vendor by providing free headshots of their staff, photos of their storefront, or offering to help them improve their website or blog one afternoon. Most industry leaders want to help, they were new once as well – but not at a disadvantage to their own time.

If you want to connect with a fellow photographer, asking them for coffee for “tips” is a terrible way to get an email response. Instead, focus on relationship building, helping them in their business, sending a gift in the mail and asking to take them out to their favorite lunch spot. I guarantee your “cold emailing” success rate will increase if you follow these tips

Conclusion

What other mistakes have you make marketing your photography business, or seen others make? Please share your ideas in the comments below.

All the best to you as you work to market your photography business!

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Digital Promoting and On-line Marketing and advertising

26 Mar

Digital advertising and marketing, the advertising of products or brand names by using a number of forms of digital media, differs from regular advertising mainly because it uses channels and strategies that allow a company to analyze marketing and advertising campaigns and understand what exactly is functioning and what just isn’t – commonly in authentic time geofencing marketing.

Computerized advertisers display such things as what on earth is currently being observed, how commonly and for to what extent, promotions transformations, what content material is effective and will not do the job, etc. When the world wide web is, maybe, the station most intently related with superior marketing, many others include distant material informing, versatile texting, portable apps, podcasts, digital bulletins, computerized Television and radio channels, and so forth.

Actually, persons make investments twice just as much vitality on the internet as they accustomed to twelve years prior. And holding in your mind that we say it a fantastic deal, just how individuals store and buy genuinely has modified, which suggests disconnected marketing is just not as powerful because it accustomed to be.

Advertising and marketing has dependably been tied in with associating with all your gathering of folks while in the proper location and with the opportune time. Today, that suggests that you have to satisfy them where these are as of now investing power: in the world-wide-web.

Electronic Advertising and marketing will also be outlined as, “any form of marketing and advertising that exists online”.

The utilization in the Net and also other innovative media and innovation to aid ‘present working day advertising’ has offered ascend into a stupefying scope of marks and language created by the 2 scholastics and specialists. It’s been identified as electronic marketing and advertising, Web advertising, e-marketing and web advertising and marketing and these possibility terms have differed via time.

In mild of the present verbal confrontation with regards to the utilization in the expression ‘computerized promoting’, we figured it’s useful to bind precisely what superior suggests by means of a definition. Do definitions come up with a big difference? We determine they are doing, given that specifically within an affiliation or involving a company and its customers we require clearness that can help the targets and workouts that assist Digital Transformation.

The which means of electronic marketing and advertising is usually formulated to explain that, advanced advertising incorporates overseeing diverse varieties of on the net organization nearness and existences, one example is, business websites, transportable programs and web-based social networking group web pages. This can be along with on the net interchanges approaches including any semblance of world wide web searcher selling; web-based social networking showcasing, world wide web dependent publicizing, e-mail advertising and association programs of action with distinctive websites. These units are used to aid the places of getting new shoppers and providing administrations to existing purchasers that assistance develop the shopper romantic relationship as a result of E-CRM and showcasing robotization. In almost any scenario, for computerized showcasing to be fruitful, there is as however a need for combination of these procedures with customary media, for example, print, Tv set and write-up workplace based mail to be a big element of multichannel advertising correspondences.

The element of electronic levels in supporting coordinated multichannel showcasing is really a significant phase some portion of advanced promoting, however is often disregarded. From various perspectives, this features that it is so imperative to independent storehouses amongst ‘digital’ and ‘traditional’ selling divisions. On the internet channels can also be found out the best way to enable the whole getting course of action from pre-deal to deal to post-deal and even more improvement of client connections.

Why electronic promoting is essential

Electronic media is pervasive towards the point that shoppers strategy knowledge each time and where ever they need to have it. Gone will be the days if the messages folks got about your things or administrations originated from you and comprised of just what you desired them to learn. Electronic media is really a on a regular basis developing wellspring of diversion, news, shopping and social conversation, and shoppers are at this time offered not simply to what your group states with reference for your image, nevertheless what the media, companions, family members, friends, and the like., are stating also. Moreover, they can likely have confidence in them than you. Individuals will need brands they could have confidence in, businesses that know them, correspondences which can be personalized and pertinent, and offers custom-made for their necessities and inclinations.

The 5Ds of electronic advertising and marketing

To comprehend the importance of digital promoting on the eventual fate of promotion in almost any business enterprise, it truly is helpful to contemplate what group of onlookers connections we’ve to grasp and oversee. Electronic advertising and marketing now is about several a larger quantity of kinds of group link than web page or e mail… It includes overseeing and saddling these ‘5Ds of Digital’ which were characterized while in the prologue to the most up-to-date refresh to my Electronic Marketing: Tactic, Organizing and Implementation e-book. The 5Ds for which we’ve to survey customer reception of when and how our business can arrange their utilization are:

1. Electronic equipment – our audiences interact with organizations employing smartphones, tablets, desktop computers, TVs and gaming products

2. Digital platforms – most interactions on these units are by means of a browser or apps within the important platforms or services, that’s Facebook (and Instagram), Google (and YouTube), Twitter and LinkedIn

3. Digital media – distinctive compensated, owned and acquired communications channels for achieving and fascinating audiences which include marketing, e mail and messaging, look for engines and social networking sites

4. Electronic details – the perception businesses collect regarding their viewers profiles as well as their interactions with firms, which now demands being safeguarded by regulation for most countries

5. Digital know-how – the internet marketing know-how or martech stack that businesses use to build interactive activities from web sites and mobile apps to in-store kiosks and e-mail campaigns

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Core concepts of marketing pdf

10 Sep

See also: History of marketing, based risk factor behavior core concepts of marketing pdf. Johnson’s “Patent Depending” series of inventions range from social commentary to plain ol’ bizarre; the main focal point in marketing is customer needs. It is being viewed as an approach to design more effective, business leaders in collaboration with Achieve have […]
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The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

31 Aug

No photographer wants to get into the photography business with the aim of becoming a marketing expert. But the reality is that if you don’t focus on the marketing and business end of photography, your business will not be able to survive long enough to do the fun stuff. It stinks, but this is the truth.

The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

Luckily, the learning curve at the beginning is the toughest part, and as you get used to the business side, everything will come much more naturally to you. Eventually, you might even learn to enjoy it, or at least appreciate the work, after you see how powerful it can be in getting you where you want to go.

So here are 10 of the most important strategies you can start right away to make sure your photography business succeeds.

1. Use Your Personal Network

The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

Nobody wants to be that annoying marketer that always pushes their business on their friends and acquaintances. However, this fear can push photographers way too far in the opposite direction, never working with the people that have grown to trust them the most. Your personal network is your strongest asset and even more so at the beginning of your photography business. These are the people who will give you your first jobs and introduce you to your first clients.

Photography is unique in that no matter what genre you are involved in, people in your network will most likely need your services at some point, whether it’s wedding or event photography, business portraiture, family portraiture, or print selling. So let your network know what you do and how you can help them.

Create a mailing list and send out an announcement to your network. Show your best work, talk about your photography business, and make sure to explain how you can help people. How can your business benefit them? They will not know unless you tell them. In addition, make sure to ask for referrals.

2. Take Advantage of Local Marketing

The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

Whenever you say the word marketing these days, for some reason everyone immediately starts talking about social media. That is funny, because as important as social media is, it should be one of the last steps to think about for any marketing plan.

Your first step should be working within your local community. Similar to the last point, these are people who know you. You are just down the street from them. There are businesses of all types in your community that can probably use your work, so create a plan for how to get in front of them.

Make a good impression

Keep in mind that you only get one first impression, so be smart about how you reach out. First and foremost, figure out how you can benefit them. If you are going to reach out to someone, you need to know how their business or life will be better with your services and explain how you can help. Always be kind and courteous with their time, and if possible see if you can get an introduction before contacting someone cold. Does anyone in your personal network know the person you want to contact? That’s always a great first step, but if not, just reach out yourself.

The more you are seen, the more people in your community will notice you and start to think about working with you. Whether it’s local events, business events, fundraisers, you name it, you should make the point to be there, particularly at first. This is the way to create new relationships and to spread your reach.

Similarly, reach out to the other photographers in your area. Many photographers will assist others when they need help and vice versus, and this will help strengthen everyone as a whole. It can be easy for photographers to feel competitive with each other but avoid this. The ones that work together and refer each other will do much better in the long-run than the ones who try to do it all on their own.

3. Create a Mailing List

The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

Use a mailing list provider such as MailChimp or Aweber to keep up with your clients, personal network, and fans. Email lists have the highest engagement of any form of marketing, and it is the way for you to stay on people’s minds.

Ask people if you can add them to your list, and always have them opt into the subscription. Put signup forms or popups on your website that encourage people to join. Consider giving away something to encourage them to do so, such as free computer wallpapers of your photography.

When sending out emails, create content that your list will enjoy. Do not sell too often with it. The more benefit and interest that you provide for the people on your list, the more they will enjoy it and the more they will like you. Then when you sell, they will be primed to purchase your services or product. When it’s time to sell, sell.

4. Create a Personal Project

The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

This image is part of a personal project I’ve been working on involving talking to and making portraits of people in my community.

Personal projects will not bring new clients to you right away, and they will take away time from building your business and making a living. This is the tougher side of doing projects, but they are immensely important for the long term growth of your business and for growing your voice as a photographer. A project can be done slowly over a long period of time, so you can build it into your weekly schedule.

Think of an idea that will resonate with both you and your community. This is a way of keeping your passion for photography alive. It will also help to set you apart from the other photographers in your community. It will show people that you are an interesting person. They will be more interested in working with you, even if the paid work you do is a completely different genre. It will be a way for you to gain press coverage and something for you to talk about to engage people. All in all, a personal project will make marketing yourself so much easier, and it will feel much more natural.

5. Respond Quickly

There is no point in building your photography business or marketing your work if you are not going to respond quickly to inquiries. Respond quickly at every step of the process throughout a job as well. Responding quickly does not have to mean within the hour, although sometimes that can help when getting a new inquiry. It can mean responding within 12 hours or a day, as long as you are consistent and prompt.

Fortunately for you, a lot of photographers are terrible at this, so this will quickly set you apart. It will show people that you are a responsible person, and it will make them more comfortable working with you.

6. Build Your Connections (Both Local and Online)

The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

Building your network is a lifetime process. As you go further and further in your career, you will begin to create connections with people who can do more and more for you (and who are tougher to get in contact with).

Whichever point in your career you are at, and whatever level your skill level as a photographer, start at that point and build connections there. Then over time, work your way up the ladder. Be patient, be smart, and don’t try to push too hard at first, particularly with people who don’t know you. First impressions are impossible to get back. Grow your network carefully and consistently.

7. Keep Your Existing Clients Coming Back

It can help to create a client management system. You can start off with an excel document at first and eventually grow to a more robust system, such as Sprout Studio. Keep in contact with your best clients, and even consider sending them holiday cards or a small gift to stay on their minds. A small gesture can go a long way, and it is much easier to get an existing client to come back than it is to reach a new one.

8. Makes Sure Your Website Sells

The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

Think about your website as your number one selling tool. Whatever your primary service is, your site should be developed for the specific purpose of leading people to hire you for that service or for purchasing one of your products.

Study the basics of copywriting, create specific sales pages for your offerings, and even consider creating sales funnels that lead people to an end goal. These can be very powerful ways of priming people to want to work with you.

9. Take Advantage of SEO

SEO, or ranking highly in search engines, is a long term strategy that takes some studying to understand how to do (beyond what we will be able to cover completely here). My belief is that you should always focus on local networking first, as that has the ability to get you very quick gains, whereas an SEO campaign can take years to truly get you where you want to be.

But that being said, SEO should not be ignored, because most people will use Google to find the right photographer for them. Always remember, the goal of Google is to serve up the most relevant websites for the query topic. If you want to rank for a specific term, make sure to create the best possible page that will answer that query. Without this, an SEO strategy will not work.

The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

Listen to Google

Google runs on links, so you need to figure out how to get other related websites to link to yours. It’s interesting because while it may seem annoying to gain these links, Google is actually forcing you to do things you should be doing in the first place.

Network with websites that you would like to be featured on, and figure out how you can provide that site with some value before you contact them. You will get nowhere if you just ask for something, but if you contact them willing to help them out, it will help immensely. As you grow with your abilities and your marketing, your opportunities for getting covered will grow as well. Internet marketing gets much easier over time.

This is another area where a personal project can help grow your business. People want to share interesting topics, so even if you are not generating income from the project directly, you can use the project to get covered on websites and to make people more aware of you, which will ultimately help improve SEO and grow your network and mailing list.

10. Create a Daily Plan

The 10 Most Important Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Photography Business

All of this is way too much to do in a feverish month of working. Similarly, your marketing skills will grow gradually, so take your time and be strategic about how you work through your marketing plan. You do not want to spend a whole month contacting everyone you can only to burn out soon after.

Set aside a daily block of time to build your business. Contact a few people every day or every few days. Use the feedback from those to tweak your next pitch. Over time, you will figure out what works and what does not work. A small amount of work each day will eventually snowball into much bigger things.

Conclusion

The main theme throughout this article is that you need to put yourself out there. The work will not just come to you. Create an organized plan, stick to it, and go for it. Be both careful and relentless. That is what is needed.

It may seem like there is a huge wall in front of you that is impossible to cross. But if you chip away at it a little bit each day, within a few years you will find that you have opened up many paths through it.

For even more business help – join the Focus Summit 2017 Online Business and Marketing Conference for Photographers on Sept 26-28th 2017. We will cover marketing, business development, law, SEO, branding, blogging, and much more. Use the code “DPS” for a $ 50 discount.

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How to Create a Successful Local Marketing Strategy for your Photography Business

26 Aug

The internet has taken over most aspects of our daily lives. We can talk to the world at a moments notice, promote our services instantly, and sell anything we want day or night. However, in the quest to grow as many followers and fans as we can, it can become easy to forget about one of the most important opportunities that exist for your photography business. There is so much potential right outside your front door.

Think local

No photography business can afford to forget about their local community – so you need to create a complete marketing plan that addresses both the internet and your own local community.

Photography Business Marketing

You don’t need to reach an audience around the globe to receive a job from your neighbor down the street. How many people cross your path in a given day? How many of them know what you do or could potentially use your services? How many of them might be interested in what you have to offer?

Through local marketing, you want to create a daily strategy for your local connections to grow consistently.

Photography Business Marketing

Be informative not intrusive

You do not have to be overly intrusive about it. You do not have to sell to your friends, colleagues, or acquaintances directly. Have you ever had a friend that you haven’t seen in years suddenly contact you out of the blue asking to talk or to get together? Then you speak to them and realize that they have just gotten a job as a financial planner (or some other such thing) and are trying to sign you up as a client.

This is not what I mean by local marketing, but you do have to be effective at making people aware of what you do, whenever the situation presents itself. You want to intrigue people. When people ask what you do, help them understand your photography business. You are in a creative field, so make it sound as exciting as possible.

Photography Business Marketing

Just let people know what you do

If there is a crossover that might help the person, mention it. For instance, what type of photographer are you? What are the specific services that you provide? Depending on who the person is, tailor what you say to them or their situation.

Send out an official announcement letting everyone know about your photography business. Briefly, explain what your services are and how you might provide potential customers with assistance. When done correctly, this will not be intrusive but informative. People will congratulate you and celebrate your endeavor.

If you are trying to grow your family portrait or corporate business, the people you know will be a huge help. How many of your friends work for businesses or have families? I am assuming most of them. Why would these friends want to seek out a stranger to provide these services when they could work with someone they know? You can be that person.

Photography Business Marketing

Build relationships with other businesses

How many businesses do you frequent on a daily basis? From restaurants to law firms to local shops, there is a wealth of opportunity right under your nose. It is simple but can seem so daunting at the same time. Smile, talk to that business owner you have seen for years and tell them about your services and how they might benefit from them. Bring a brochure of your work.

For businesses that you do not have a prior relationship with, try to locate the person in the company who would be in charge of hiring out the type of work that you want to do. It can be much less effective to just walk in the door blind with the aim of speaking to the first person you see. Your prospective chances will improve significantly if you can make a pointed and direct contact with an influential person within a business.

Exhibit your work

Seek out gathering spaces, such as a coffee shop, a bar, or an event space to hold a show. This is good for their business as it provides art on their walls and a reason for people to enter their establishment. For you, it provides a fun space to show your work. If you live in a smaller community, where a lot of people who know you will come across the work, then this can be a great strategy. If you can draw people to the space to help show and sell your work, then that is a good thing. Many gallerists hold pop-up galleries in addition to their permanent spaces for just this purpose. Consider doing similar pop-up events of your work.

If you live in a smaller community, where a lot of people who know you will come across the work, then this can be a great strategy. If you can draw people to the space to help show and sell your work, that is a good thing. Many gallerists hold pop-up galleries in addition to their permanent spaces for just this purpose. Consider doing similar pop-up events of your work.

Photography Business Marketing

Make sure it’s on your terms

However, there are some pitfalls to this strategy. Providing your work to a business for an open-ended period of time at no cost doesn’t necessarily mean that your work will sell or that it will help you get noticed. I see artwork covering the walls of coffee shops all over New York, and most of it never moves. This is just giving the establishment free art with little or no benefit to you.

You need to select the correct establishment and have a way to draw people there with the specific purpose of seeing your art and hopefully purchasing it. Without that, this strategy can be as much of a drain on your time and resources as it can be a success. If these benefits are not there for you, the establishment should pay you for your work (or pay a rental fee) since you are providing a service to them. You are giving them an ambiance and improving the experience for their customers.

Photograph students at a local school

Another thing you could consider is contacting an acting or music teacher at a local school and offering to photograph the student’s headshots. If you do well, it will help build your portfolio and both the students and the teachers alike will tell others of your services. Hang an advertisement in a local business, do work for a local website, sell your work at a local fair; there are many creative ways to integrate what you do into your community.

Photography Business Marketing

There is an infamous and successful example of this type of strategy employed by a guitar teacher named Dan Smith in New York City. Beginning in the 1990s, Dan hung small ads in doorways and vestibules in businesses all over Manhattan. You could not walk into a diner or coffee shop without seeing one, and these ads persist today. He has built a business out of this single marketing strategy, and it lead him to be so ubiquitous that even The New York Times ran a profile of him.

The repetition is what worked for him, and it was not annoying; it was almost humorous and became a defining characteristic of growing up in the city. This is an example of the 80/20 rule, where 80 percent of your income can come from 20 percent of your marketing. Dan found a strategy that worked and pushed it to the extreme. It only worked because of the extreme measures that he took in plastering so much of the city with his ads. Other music teachers pasted their ads around the city, but none did it like Dan.

Conclusion

By working on a variety of local marketing strategies, these endeavors will combine to create an overall awareness of your business in the community. Some of the individual pieces might seem small, and all of this may seem tedious at first, but all together they can be very powerful.

The post How to Create a Successful Local Marketing Strategy for your Photography Business by James Maher appeared first on Digital Photography School.

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Marketing isn’t a dirty word (but camera companies are not your friends)

06 Aug

Marketing departments work to develop products that people will want. They aren’t always trying to make the best product for you, though.

Camera companies are not your friend but they’re also not trying to trample on your dreams. It seems like an obvious statement, but a misunderstanding of how markets and marketing work sometimes leads to exactly this sort of misconception. A look at the role marketing plays can help explain why ‘your’ brand sometimes makes decisions you hate.

Making a profit is not the same as profiteering

Brand loyalty sometimes prompts people to forget that every significant camera company is a large, profit-driven corporation. The fact that they make tools for a very personal, expressive, creative purpose and are often staffed by people who really care about photography (even in the marketing departments), shouldn’t obscure the fact that they’re trying to make money. But that isn’t the same thing as profiteering: it’s in their interest to make products that you want. And it’s the marketer’s role to work out what that product would be.

Marketing isn’t the enemy

Product development isn’t about virtuous engineers who create lovely things and evil marketing people who take them away. It’s usually a back-and-forth to create models that suit a specific audience without overwhelming them with tools and features they don’t necessarily want or producing cameras they can’t afford.

It’s true that, without the input from marketers, engineers can produce Formula One race cars. However, most people find a Ford Focus, Honda Civic or BMW 3 Series much more affordable and considerably more convenient for collecting the weekly shop. Still, if you wait long enough, some of that Formula One know-how may well make an appearance in your family hatchback.

It’s a process called market segmentation: identifying large enough groups of people with similar enough needs and disposable income, then making models specifically for them. If you get it right, you end up with a range of cameras that appeals to a broad range of people and makes it obvious to each buyer which model is best for them. Most of us aren’t racing drivers, after all.

It might not be for you

The upshot of this is that not every model is aimed at you. You may have read my car analogy and found yourself thinking ‘I’d never drive a Ford Focus.’ But, whether that’s a matter of taste or because it doesn’t suit your needs, this doesn’t mean the Focus isn’t a good product.

It is common to assume that your needs are universal or, at least, typical. However, just because you find a feature to be indispensable doesn’t mean that everybody else does. It follows then, that a company may not be wrong to remove it. So before you find yourself stating “no xxxx, no sale,” it’s worth thinking whether the product in question is aimed at you and whether it might be a good fit for other people. It could be that the sale to you was never expected.

Just because you find a feature to be indispensable doesn’t mean that everybody else does

For instance, there are a lot of people who are very vocal about the absolute necessity of viewfinders, but if you look back to the days when people actually bought compact cameras, you’ll notice that the majority of them didn’t have one. Most manufacturers would offer one or two models simply to capture the refusenik dollar, but the vast majority of users bought the cheaper model without one and did the same when replacement time came around.

D7500: desirable or debacle

The D7500 is a great example of the challenge of market segmentation. By resuscitating its high-end Dx00 line, suddenly the D7200 successor has to fit between two models rather than sitting as the best APS-C camera Nikon offers. Cue cries of outrage from people who decide that the features omitted to squeeze it into the gap were absolutely essential. To them.

Nikon reintroducing its high-end Dx00 series, means the D7500 is targeted at a slightly different group of people compared with its predecessor.

Nikon will have done its market research and presumably it’s concluded that most D7x00 users don’t want, need or use a second card slot or lenses that need metering tabs. It may also have concluded that most users who still want these features will either also want/need the other additional features that the D500 offers and will, however grudgingly, pay the extra money to step up, or decide that they can, regretfully, live without them and buy a D7500 anyway. After all, companies don’t try to pitch their products at the price you want to pay, they set them at the amount you’re willing to pay.

Companies don’t try to pitch their products at the price you want to pay, they set them at the amount you’re willing to pay

The other way of looking at it, of course, is that the D7500 is a faster camera than the D7200, with a bigger buffer and 4K video capability as well as some AF upgrades. So there are likely to still be plenty of people who’d never buy a D500 but who will find the D7500 offers them an awful lot of camera at a price they’re willing to pay, just as the D7200 did before it.

This isn’t to say marketing departments and market are always right, though. Confuse the customer or play things too conservatively, and you risk your company’s whole future.

Getting the message across

A clear example of unclear messaging is Sony’s a6x00 series. With its a6000, a6300 and a6500, Sony makes three fairly different cameras for fairly different users, yet there are lots of people confused about which models ‘replaces’ which and how Sony can justify apparent price increases.

The problem seems to be that the physical similarities and the naming convention are enough to convince some people that they are successive, rather than complementary, sister models. Step back and look at the pricing and the differentiation of feature sets though. The a6000 is the mass-market, circa $ 700 model. For a bit more money you get a better viewfinder, 4K video and faster shooting in the a6300. Then, at an even higher price point, you get the in-body stabilization, touchscreen control and deeper buffer of the a6500.

The pattern isn’t so different from that of Nikon’s D5x00, D7x00 and Dx00 series, or Canon’s 77D, 80D, 7D Mark II lineup, yet it’s one that causes a lot more angst and uncertainty.

Canon, competition and complacency

Then there’s the behavior of Canon, which is often criticized for making ‘uncompetitive’ models. Don’t they get it?

There’s something to these charges, perhaps. Companies with less market share will try to cram extra features in or set more aggressive prices to catch the eye of customers who’d otherwise gravitate towards market leaders. There isn’t the same pressure on the market leader to do the same.

People may decry the Rebel series as being dull or underspecced, but they’re a good enough fit for their target audience that Canon still sells a bucket load of them, irrespective of whether another brand offers a better feature set or that a mirrorless camera might be more convenient. And for many of their users, they are very good cameras.

But there’s risk in such caution. Ignore your smaller competitors for too long and you risk discovering they’ve eaten your lunch. While I’d take Sony’s claims of being number 2 in ILCs with a fair amount of salt*, it’s fair to say that the company that brought you the Walkman and the Playstation is also making significant inroads into the high-end camera market.

I don’t believe the continued absence of 4K from most of Canon’s models is purely a question of market segmentation. Or of complacency.

It seems unlikely to me that Canon hasn’t noticed this, which is why I don’t believe the continued absence of 4K from most of its models is purely a question of market segmentation. Or of complacency. Yes, Canon wants videographers with a project budget to buy into its Cinema EOS system. But the absence of 4K across much of the company’s lineup and the heavily cropped, yet still rolling-shutter prone, implementation on the EOS 5D IV (a camera nominally targeted at video shooters) suggests the company is also facing technological challenges in providing it.

The EOS 5D Mark IV (now available with Log gamma) is Canon’s most video-centric DSLR and yet its 4K capture is somewhat limited by significant rolling shutter. It seems extremely unlikely that this has been done with an eye on Cinema EOS sales.

Similarly, I doubt that Canon intentionally held back the dynamic range (DR) on the EOS 6D II to push people to buy the EOS 5D IV. It’s much more likely that it was cheaper to iterate on an existing design or to spread the cost of an older, coarser production line over one last generation of sensors because they don’t think the end user will mind. Or, at least, not enough to stop them buying the camera.

It’s worth not making the mistake of thinking that one brand must to offer a feature just because its rivals do.

As we tried to stress in our write-up, DR is not the sole significant factor in image quality, and the addition of Dual Pixel AF will represent a major benefit to a lot of 6D II buyers. So it’s worth being careful not to fall into the ‘no xxxx, no sale’ trap or making the mistake of assuming that one brand must offer a feature or capability just because its rivals do. Maybe the vigorous defenders of Canon’s honor are correct. Maybe the 6D II will be good enough, given the camera’s price. The alternative is that more competitive rivals will step in and dislodge the Canon from its dominant position. Ultimately, the market will decide.

You can’t always get what you want…

It can be frustrating to watch a camera company create products that don’t quite fit your need, worse still to see another brand offer something that’s closer to what you want, especially if you have enough money tied up in lenses to preclude swapping system or when it means having to spend more money to get the feature you want.

However, let me make a suggestion. Think about the camera you owned five or ten years ago, what it could do and how much it cost. Now have a look at the one you currently own.

If you feel that your current camera is a better match for your needs and skills than the one it replaced, that’s thanks to, not in spite of, the efforts of the marketing department. And, with this thought in mind, why not wander outside and make use of that capability? Because that’s what the engineers and marketers were all working towards.

*I’m not questioning whether the claim is true, just querying its significance. Outselling Nikon in terms of value of sales over a very select period, immediately after a stretch of not being able to supply cameras, when you’ve released several high-value cameras much more recently isn’t quite the same is saying “Sony is #2 now.”

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10 of the Biggest Business and Marketing Mistakes Photographers Make

01 Dec

James ebook Creative Freelance Marketing is on sale now at 50% OFF over at Snapndeals (only until December 13th, 2016)

Photographers can be some of the best business people around or some of the worst. But realistically, if you’re building a photography business, you probably didn’t get into it because you enjoyed business and marketing. This is why some photographers struggle at being successful. They got into it for the passion, and then wake up one day to the reality that it is a business like any other.

The 10 Biggest Business and Marketing Mistakes That Photographers Make

Dancer Portrait

However, fear not. The business and marketing aspect of photography can actually be rewarding and interesting. It’s necessary to learn it to be able to succeed, but once you start to see it work, it becomes empowering. It’s a way to guarantee your success as a photographer so you can continue to do what you love.

But you can’t do that if you make too many mistakes. Here are the biggest mistakes that I see photographers make (and which I have also made myself).

Mistake #1 – Not charging enough

Business portrait photography

How much you charge is going to be the backbone of your entire business. You cannot let clients lowball you over and over again. By doing that you are lowering the perceived value of the work for the entire industry, and you are not even giving yourself a chance to succeed. By not charging enough, you will inevitably go out of business. Even if you feel desperate for a job, know that it will take up time that would be better spent on marketing yourself to get jobs that pay what you need to survive and thrive.

Many young photographers are afraid of losing jobs, but that’s a regular part of the business. You should not feel bad about it if the client cannot afford you. If they can’t afford you, then it was never a real job in the first place. How can you do good work or create a portfolio worthy piece if you’re not being paid enough to have your heart in it? In addition, these cheap jobs always end up to be the biggest headaches anyway. Every photographer has a story from when they were starting out about that client who just wouldn’t go away.

Commercial Photography

Even worse than a client lowballing you, are situations when you do not charge enough! Sometimes you will have no idea that a client has budgeted much more than you quoted them. A simple and fantastic question to ask to help you handle confusing pricing situations is, “What is your budget?” This question is sometimes not appropriate, but there are many ways to say it, such as telling them that you offer multiple levels of service based on the cost and asking what their budget is for the project. Or if they say they are tight on budget, you can offer to help them and simultaneously ask what they can pay. When introduced in the right way, this can get your client to lay all their cards on the table.

Mistake #2 – Not responding to inquiries quickly enough

Musician photography

Every ounce of business development and every second of time spend on the tedious aspects of building a business serves the specific purpose of getting someone to contact you with a job. Well then answer them! I get nervous if it takes me 24 hours to respond to an inquiry, and the clients usually come back thanking me for responding so quickly. If you answer your emails and calls efficiently, then you immediately put yourself ahead of the majority of photographers. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told that we were able to have a whole back and forth and book a job before a competitor even replied.

In addition, responding regularly and efficiently will add to their comfort in working with you. Showing that you are responsible enough to do this also shows them that you are probably responsible in all aspects of your business. It is a great way to set the tone for what working with you will be like and can be excellent for gaining referrals in the future.

Mistake #3 – Not having a focused business plan

Business Photography - The 10 Biggest Business and Marketing Mistakes That Photographers Make

Business or corporate photography

You need to know how you are going to make money. Having a focused plan with an income target, price per job needed to reach that target, and a strategy to reach clients will become the basis for your entire business. The more focused that plan is, the more focused you will be. Figure out the strategy with the most potential to help you make a living and start with that. Focus on that before you waist your time on anything else. You do not want to fragment yourself too early in the building process.

Mistake #4 – Not setting aside enough time for personal work

Fine art photography

Personal work is what you do to renew your passion for photography. Without that, it will be very difficult to succeed in the photography business. However, it is also the way that you get jobs and build your portfolio. It’s where you test out new strategies and ways of photographing, and it is a way to improve overall at your craft. If there is a type of job that you want to start booking, then build a portfolio of work that will help sell you as a photographer to those clients. They don’t have to know that this portfolio wasn’t made of paid jobs, and in many cases they will enjoy knowing how passionate you are in pursuing your personal work.

Mistake #5 – Not researching colleagues/competitors

As a business owner, you need to know what’s out there. Learning from your competition and even your friends is incredibly important. Go through their work and figure out what you like and what you dislike. Try to figure out the different ways that they market themselves and where their jobs come from. See how they use social media and where they get press from. Learn their pricing and test out their website.

All of this information is so important to helping you find your way. Take the best aspects of everyone you research, and put them together into your own plan. All of the information is out there for you to be successful, it’s just up to you to find it.

Family photography

Mistake #6 – Not having a plan for editing and delivering

One of the biggest problems that I see newer photographers have is that they take way too much time editing. They end up missing deadlines, wasting their time, and worrying too much. This is not a good situation for anybody and is one of the quickest ways to hold your entire business back. Learn to cull your images from a job quickly. Right away, knock 800 images into the top 200 or 150 as fast as possible and work from there. Organizing and attacking a job’s editing in an efficient matter will make your life so much better, and it will make your clients very happy.

Always tell a client that you will deliver a job to them a couple days after you plan to (under promise over deliver). That way you will look very good when you deliver the work early, and if you have some unfortunate setback or issue in your life, you will still have extra time to complete the job.

Mistake #7 – Not doing enough local networking

Writer Portrait Photography - The 10 Biggest Business and Marketing Mistakes That Photographers Make

Writer environment portrait

Friends, family, and colleagues are your first line of people who can help you gain work. The second line is your local area. Figure out the businesses and people in your community that might need your services, and figure about the best way to reach them. Find business meet-up groups, local meet-ups, and trade shows that occur in your community and become a part of them. And this tip doesn’t mean that you should only show up once and never again. Become a regular part of them. Spend more time socializing within your community and that will come back to you business-wise.

Mistake #8 – Not using a mailing list

Business portrait photography

Social networks come and go. They all change constantly and hold you at their whim. While they are necessary to be a part of, social networks are in it for themselves, not for you. Diversify your marketing and build up a mailing list of all your contacts, clients, and friends. This way there is nothing between you and reaching them with important news. Mailing lists have a significantly higher open and click-through rate than social networks, and won’t charge you (per email) to reach your list.

Mistake #9 – Trying to do too much all at once

Event photography

There are so many strategies to market yourself in photography. Every situation is unique, and every marketing plan should be different. It is important to learn as much as you can about marketing, but at the same time you need to prioritize. Five strategies done with a small amount of your attention on each will be much less effective than one strategy with all of your attention focused on it. Spend some time to figure out which strategies will have the most potential for your situation and rank them. Then start with the first one and over time move down the list.

Mistake #10 – Not putting yourself out there

Artist / Writer Portrait Photography

Nobody is going to give you an opportunity if you don’t ask. The biggest difference between the people who make it and the people who fail is that the ones who succeed will wake up tomorrow and take these steps. None of this is rocket science – it just takes dedication, organization, and follow-through.

Many people won’t give you an opportunity the first time you ask. Learn to take rejection because rejection isn’t that bad. It means you’re pushing yourself and it’s inevitable along the way. Keep a thick skin and pride yourself on trying. Marketing is a grind at first. The photographers who can dive right in despite every frightened feeling their brain gives them will be the most successful.

James ebook Creative Freelance Marketing is on sale now at 50% OFF over at Snapndeals (only until December 13th, 2016)

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