Best ways to advertise new photography business
photodad1
Registered Users Posts: 566 Major grins
I am starting a new photography business and want to get some ideas of the best and effective ways to advertise my new photography business?
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I'm trying to promote baby & maternity photos, so I'm attending baby/midwife/birth expos... if I was selling car photography, I'd probably try to attend some car related events.....
* Educate yourself in the world of business marketing and advertising. The more you know the better.
* Appropriate a solid budget for marketing. Remember some businesses spend 50% or more of their revenue on it during a growth period.
* Learn the science of marketing analytics.
* Understand your target market via market research, etc.
* Find a method that works best for your specific situation and then keep doing it.
* Don't neglect the other aspects of your business like sales, etc.
That is the best way. People make careers out of it. In the US alone it is worth about 350 billion dollars annually. You might find wikipedia an interesting starting place.
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What is your "new photography business"? Are you selling equipment? Are you shooting portraits? Are you documenting weddings? Capturing evidence photos for the police? Selling prints of things you've come across?
Are you serious about your "new photography business"?
See post # 3.
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You mean a piece of paper under my wiper blade that I grab, cursing, crumple up and toss in the garbage, and then see floating around the parking lot on my way out?
Since I simply offer something rare, people go for that. I offer a way for my viewers to "Explore More of America" through photography, interactive panoramas, HD recorded videos, Live Truckcam, etc...and run the entire website from my Big Rig!
The ways I get my logo/website name out there are:
my magnetic door signs on my truck.
trucking/trade magazines have ran articles on my website.
I put business cards out EVERYWHERE.
I don't just sell my photography, I actually make my customers feel included.....I call them my "Road Crew". (making people feel like part of/included in something is a major factor)
I hand out chrome laser engraved pens. (600 last year)
I offer coupons regularly, and run contests on my blog with photos/calendars/tshirts as prizes which then gets them to buying more items.
Because of the uniqueness of my website I have been on radio interviews, and even on MSN's homepage and PC World magazine.
I run my own Google adwords campaign.
None of the points above are meant to blow my own horn (seriously). BUT...the point I am trying to make is GET YOUR NAME out there any way possible. Start with putting a link to your website on your email signature. Show up at events that cater to your field and wear tshirts/jackets advertising your business. Leave cards. Heck, I even have stickers with my website name that run down the leg of my tripod when I am taking photos!
EVERY way you can get your name out there, do it. Just make sure when your viewers come to your website, they find things they like, and make them feel welcome and want to stick around to see what you offer!
Hope this helps. This is what has worked in MY case.....
Explore More of America via BigRig from
my dash mounted Live Truckcam.
When I first started out, I actually talked to schools about doing their prom photos 6 months in advance of the event. I offered lower prices than what they were paying. I also offered the school a percentage back of all sales.
I hung around rodeo practices and took photos, then went back the next week and showed/sold them orders right from there.
Once folks saw I could do a good job, was ontime, and at a price they could afford, etc, they told their friends. It is hard work. But you get out of it what you put into it. Prove and show folks you ARE better than the competition! Business and contacts won't find YOU. YOU need to get out and find it yourself:) Go after what you really want.
Explore More of America via BigRig from
my dash mounted Live Truckcam.
For the OP, understand that this advise is infallible and holds the key to your success.
There is no under estimating the importance of the above. If you have any doubts about it, seriously, give up now because business is NOT for you.
Secondly, If you are going to refer a site, refer one where the images are of professional and marketing value. Your site now contains a lot of pictures which have no marketing or advertising value and perhaps the opposite.
I would also strongly suggest you specialize rather than shotgun market. Pick say 3 areas and concentrate on them . Your best bet is to be the guy people instantly think of and associate with whatever style of photography you do. Trying to be everything to everyone is a dead end proposition. It also spreads yourself too thin.
Look at markets where you can see the target. For instance with horse shows you can look them up and contact the organizers and to a point control your own market penetration rather than with portraits where you can't see the target and have to get them to come to you.
That said. I'd give the idea of horse shows away and look at other things.
T&I is good and ticks a lot of boxes in the viability checklist. I try to cover markets where I don't have to advertise these days, rather that I can see and approach the market and tailor my promotions to them very specifically.
I think it is a mistake to say i'm going to do this that and the other work without having done you market research. No good saying I'm going to do weddings for instance when there are 10 well established shooters in the area and at least half of them do a specific style that is virtually the same as your own. OTOH, if you pay your due diligence and discover that there is no one doing commercial/ advertising work for small businesses in the area and there is a need for it, then you would be foolish to ignore that and try and play in an already over saturated market.
The last few weeks I have been busy setting up a new business name and tax numbers for a new enterprise in a market I stumbled upon by chance late last year. It's something I never would have envisaged myself doing or even thought of in all the time I have been a shooter but ATM I can't find fault in saying it should be the most profitable thing I have ever done.
I have discovered there are a couple of competitors in the market. The first job I have lined up is re-shooting for a client one of those competitors covered recently and mucked around badly.
If I seriously don't make $10K from this job, I'll have done something very wrong. It should be 2-3 weeks work and with that first job done, the potential work from referrals alone will keep me busy the rest of the year.
Like I said, I have never even considered this market before but as a professional shooter, I'm guided by following the money, not my personal preferences or what I want to do. Been there, done that, no money in it so I'll save it for the weekends and do something else through the week that allows me a much better income and the ability to play tiddly winks at whatever I want on weekends.
The best part is, my advertising and promotional material will consist of a sandwich board with posters to put on site before I arrive, some flier handouts, business cards and a promotional pack to send to the venues I want to cover.
You need to realise that advertising should be the last thing not the first in promoting a business. Firstly you have to know what you are aiming at, who the market is, where it is, what they want and how you are going to provide it. Your business model should dictate how you advertise.
Don't fall for sucker advertising like ad's in journals telephone directories etc. Getting your name out there is useless unless your getting your name in front of the right people. Ads in the local paper for instance are read by retiree's and factory workers in their lunch break over a lot of other people you may want to get in contact with.
Advertising on vehicles useless for photographers. There are better more cost effective things to do. Also the people I have known that did it always had problems with their cars getting broken into. One guy I know had his done on 2 consecutive weekends. Never had the car broken into before or after he got rid of the signs.
When you get a basic grasp of advertising, marketing and sales you will understand better what to do.
I'd be investing time reading up online and at your local library before you invested a cent of your money. It's not how much you spend, it's how effectively you spend it.
Book knowledge and research is important and nice, but in the end, your passion for what you do (whatever you do), and your desire to work harder than anybody else and do a better job is what matters most I think. You can spend $100K for degrees and schooling, and yet, still not come out on top when it comes to success.
I mentioned what I do simply because it works for me, and in my situation. What works for one person/situation may or may not work for another. Listen, learn, adapt, and blaze your own path. I am not out to impress anybody, nor make a quick buck. But, in my case, it has made the effort very well worth it to me.
Explore More of America via BigRig from
my dash mounted Live Truckcam.
Best of luck with your business.
If you're dead set on it - you need to get involved with the organizations, not advertise just to parents.
Best of luck to you. You're going to need it
If you want to shoot something primarily based on enjoyment of doing it, then that's got a good chance of being all you'll get out of it. That being the case and the basis of the decision, then income is as secondary as the priority it was given in the first place.
I choose the markets I go into based on profitability and ability to reach that market first and foremost. They may not be what I would like to do given the choice of anything I wanted but they do make me a living that's getting better all the time.
There are things I took on in the past which I enjoyed doing and were highly profitable but reaching the clients is very difficult and expensive.
I have traded an amount of the enjoyment factor for the ease and no cost of reaching my present clients and making even more money than with the other market.
One needs to decide their priorities. Making a living, doing what they want to do and enjoying themselves or whatever it is. If you can find something that ticks all the boxes, great, if not, then set your priorities and be content to live with the whatever other factors come with that preference.
I still don't see what you're worrying about marketing for. Looks like you're a guy who shows up with a camera at an event, manages to get a few good shots of the event, and then hopes people show up to buy a print from the website?
Do you hand out cards with the site at the event?
Or are you actually looking to book clients?
Can I ask you how long you ran your ad with facebook? Everything I've read says to run ads, in any form, for at least three months?
I love the ad targeting - for example, for wedding photography, we can target only people within a certain area who are engaged, or whatever we are trying to target.
We have a shortstack app http://www.shortstack.com/ that we direct our ads to (i.e. when they click on the ad it dumps them into this app: https://www.facebook.com/jasonscottphoto/app_197602066931325 )
I also frequently "promote" posts that I think will interest friends of fans or just our fans. Our number of "likes" has grown like crazy recently and we've booked a lot of jobs w/people who have found us on facebook.
Jason Scott Photography | Blog | FB | Twitter | Google+ | Tumblr | Instagram | YouTube
Pretty Blunt but none the less relevant comment.
On that comment I had a look at the OP's site.
The first thing that strikes me is a lot of the pics aren't really what people are going to buy anyhow.
In the sports shots, i see a lot of good action stuff. I also see lots of pics of the managers and crowd and other things. What I ask myself when shooting things is " Would someone be prepared to pull money ( or a cc) out of their pocket to own this picture?"
I have never done HS sports but I'm pretty certain you are going to shoving the proverbial up hill to get a coach of a fan in a body stocking to buy a pic. That's of course if you have even made them aware that you are taking pics at that event and they know where to find your site.
That's not Advertising, that's more marketing and promotion which to me are different things.
I then see airshows on your site. I like planes so I enjoyed the pics, quite a bit, HOWEVER, in my conceited opinion, as nice as they are to look at, they suck in their potential to make you a $$.
I see a lot of pics of parachutists and close up of guys in trojans and other planes, the blue angels etc.
Now I can't see any of those people buying those pics, again, assuming that they even know you took them or where to find you on the net to see them.
As for anyone else buying them, I can't really see anyone that's that into planes not having a decent camera and taking their own. The chance of you getting something they love so much better than their own they are going to buy it, if you made any penetration into the crowd promotion wise so they know they even exist, is really another million to one shot.
IF you are hoping someone will come to your site and see something they like enough to buy, I reckon you'll need to do a national advertising campaign to get enough traffic for enough sales to buy a cheap steak dinner once a month.
Now, when it comes to your pics of North Carolina, You have something there.
It's a very Niche and competitive market however and is going to take a lot of work to get known in.
I have never been brave enough to play in that sandpit but I would suggest that it is something that you would want an extensive protfolio in to make anything like pocket money out of it.
Please understand I'm not dumping on your photography, but I am burying it as saleable images to make you an income... of any sort.
It goes back to my last comment, you have to pic the market based on profitability, not enjoyment.
There's nothing more I'd like than to go photograph Airshows myself but as we have about 2 of them a year on a good year in this country, I'd have to be the only person allowed within 10 miles of them with a camera in order to have a hope of making any of them pay for the weekend let alone the year.
I'd like to shoot Vintage engine shows and Rallys but there's nothing that happens there that anyone interested can't take with a $100 P&S camera.
Is there something you can do ( or find and copy) at say the highschool basketball events that no one else in your area is doing? Maybe it's shots for the fans with the team mascot that you can line up with the schools, maybe its something unique and different for the players and maybe there is nothing at all and you are wasting your time and should move onto something else all together?
If that's the case, then priotiorise your wants of money or enjoyment and follow that path accordingly.
Many years ago there was a local air show and I read in the local rag about a plane that was going to be on display in a hangar. There would be an extra admission price to see it which was going to charity.
I rang the owners of the plane and we did a deal whereby I did pics of the people in the plane and they got a percentage of the fees as an addition to their charitable efforts.
I hadn't been doing photography long and had a cheap camera , lens and Flash but I more than paid for them twice over that weekend. It was dead simple, anyone could have done it but I got in and did what no one else was.
I don't do any advertising ATM. All I do is on site and pre promotion to the clients. The rest is just a matter of pick the target, get on the phone, make an appointment and go crunch them. And in the last 14 months I have only missed getting the bookings at 2 places. That was earlier on in my endeavours in what I'm doing and kind of bugs me that I don't have a perfect record. I am pretty sure that If I went back and had a second bite I could get them but the thing is now they are way too small for what I want so it's a moot point anyway.
The thing is even though I have educated myself a lot in marketing and advertising, I don't enjoy doing it. Like everyone else, I want to take pics so I have put myself into some markets where I don't have to advertise, I can go to the clients direct.
Now obviously that's not practical for a majority of markets but the point is it's something I have prioritised in what I want to get out of the work I'm doing and I have put myself in the markets that allow that rather than prioritising the work I want to shoot.
Thanks Glort, I find myself all too often shooting sport, which doesn't pay unless our local sends me out on an assignment to shoot high school sports. The College sports that I shot have been for experience and to hopefully get picked up by a magazine and college publication. I'm finding that getting into shooting college for money is very hard. I love to shoot sports and that's my passion, however, at the end of the day it's very tough. The days of shooting children sports and posting on my website for parents to purchase prints are gone. I'm now tasked at finding/targeting the market in my area that pays. From my recent responses from friends, that are looking for family portraits or prom portraits. I hear that the money is in shooting weddings in our area. I'll need to revamp my website and gear it more towards a business and not a hobby.
Separate your home run shots from your experimental. If you want to share your experimental and for fun photos, go put them on a picassa or flickr page and tighten up your business site.
Couldn't find where in NC you were located from your site. Make it easy to find you. At least let 'em know you're in the Raleigh area.
$50/hr/session is awfully cheap given the time it takes to setup a new client, work with them, travel, follow up.