Advertising Ideas, Please Give your Honest Opinions.

98olds

Hi, As some of you already know I am just starting out in doing photography as a side job.

I advertise on my website, and with business cards, but I am thinking about printing up flyers to advertise my photography.

I'm thinking about using an 8.5"x11" flyer with my information on it and stuff and then using a mail merge and send it out to a bunch of people.

Have any of you found this successful?
Any suggestions on this idea?


My second Idea was to take a 4x6 photo and create postcard type advertisements, such as people do their christmas cards, with photos on them, and my information. Then mailing those out.

Has anyone done this before?
and Does anyone have any suggestions at all?

I am open to any suggestions, or ideas you have to advertise my photography.

Thanks in advance to anyone that responds to this post.

divamum

^^^^ That's general good marketing advice! Your database and voucher ideas are particularly interesting and effective, IMO - I love that the vouchers generate contacts as well as forging relationships between local businesses. I love the community approach.

OP, Glort is right that you should probably do a bit of boning up on basic marketing at this point. Hit the library, but marketing/advertising basics are usually:

- figure out what your "unique selling point" is
- figure out what market(s) will likely be interested in that USP
- target that market with your advertising
- use successful contacts and contracts to generate word of mouth referrals and future business

The first two in the list are ALWAYS the most important, IMO. Figure out what you do best, and then approach the people who will likely be interested in that skill/aspect of what you offer.

And Glort's success with his database is a prime example of how effective market research pays off!!!

zoomer

Glort gave you good info.
I tried the flyers when I was first getting going, waste of time effort and money.
Find your target audience and find a way to get to them directly.

fredjclaus

Now it all depends on the type of work you want to do, but I love the voucher idea. That would also work as prizes. If you ever know of a place that is looking for items to be sold in a silent auction, your vouchers would be great. Donating to local non-profit fundraisers is great community relations publicity for you, and it helps the non-profit.

jandrewnelson

Glort wrote:

One scheme I came up with that was a real winner was Discount vouchers I gave to Hairdressers and Beauty Salons.
Basically they sold a discount voucher for a sitting at my studio. Whatever they sold the voucher for, they kept the money. The vouchers were valued at $130 which was my sitting fee and if they sold them for $30, that was $30 @100% profit they made for no effort or outlay.

I may be dumber than a rock, but other than selling prints from the shoot, how did YOU make money? And how has this been working for you since May when you originally posted?

Snowgirl

fredjclaus wrote:

Now it all depends on the type of work you want to do, but I love the voucher idea. That would also work as prizes. If you ever know of a place that is looking for items to be sold in a silent auction, your vouchers would be great. Donating to local non-profit fundraisers is great community relations publicity for you, and it helps the non-profit.

That's what I do. I have a nice gift certificate that I designed that I "donate" to certain groups like the horse shows where I am the primary shooter, trade shows I attend etc. to be used as prizes or door prizes or as part of a fund raiser. It definitely gets my name out there and to a target market that I want to reach - and it costs me nothing until it's redeemed, at which point I know I'll make money on additional print orders.

BizShotz

I'm soaking all this up, guys - thank you all. I'm sure I'm not the only one, either.

For me, I have my target market, and frankly it's every small business within 200 miles of me. However, I'm a little dense as to target this market directly (and to do so in guerrilla fashion). Unlike some markets, I'm not sure there's a place(real or virtual) that the general population of small business owners in a three state area frequent, other than perhaps the local Office Max stores!?
I've got a fairly solid plan for other revenue generators( fairs, festivals, local business decor, and retailers) but I want to try and zero on on the smaller mom-n-pop type businesses that may have inferior images on their webpages or in their ads( they are numerous around here, and the images people are using are so horrible that even I could improve upon them! haha).

Anyone have an idea of where/how to target every business owner in town and beyond, outside of local festivals or other events where varied business owner's may gather to sell their own products or services?


Thanks, all.

PS -
John Harrington's book Best Business Practices for Photographers is worth every penny and then some, and at the same time, slightly terrifying. I knew it wouldn't be easy, but I think it's more complicated than I thought it would be to get this thing up and running.