Rebranding opinions

speedracer04

Traditionally I have been an automotive photographer and it is still what I love however I want to expand into other markets. The problem that I have been having is my sites name Speed-Photos does not translate well for things like wedding photography or even products. On top of that people that like speed-photos (either website,facebook, etc) are primarily there to see cars.

While I would hate to have two sites and possibly split the audience I think that it would be best for the future. Has anyone done this here? Does it confuse people?

My thought is to make (lastname) Photography but keep it as more of a blog/portfolio. Then for larger hostings and print sales direct people back to gallerys hosted on my smugmug site (speed-photos). I really don't want to change the name of my smugmug site because then I feel like I will lose lots of links. I would hope that people would get it was all me, most likly I would just updated the header on Speed-Photos to include my name in case I am putting to much faith in peoples deductive reasoning.

For people that have done this I would assume you have two sets of cards? One for general and one for specialized.

Thanks for any advice, sorry for the long post.

Glort

Not sure if I am correctly comprehending your questions but I'll reply on what I think you are asking.

I have several sites that relate to the work I am promoting there.
Firstly some of my work may be conflicting with another such as kids and glamour. Never had a problem with that but in this day and age of small minded petty people that have nothing better to do than cause trouble, I don't take the risk. In any case, I don't think it's good business because as a parent myself I'd not want to see the 2 types of work together.

Secondly, the work I do I think would look stupid on the same site. What has industrial got to do with weddings or glamour for instance? If there is one thing that makes me laugh it's shooters that supposedly specialise in 10 things from landscapes to weddings to race cars to aerial to real estate ad all the other weird and wonderful combinations people have.

Most importantly, I think it is hugely more favourable business wise to be the XXX guy who ONLY does XXX type of work rather than all the other run of the mill stuff that everyone else does.
I set myself up as the Corporate gold day Photographer a while back and =id well from that because I appeared to be THE Corporate Golf event guy that did that and only did that and did it better than anyone else. All the others shooting babies and weddings and whatever looked not as professional. You went to my site and ALL you saw was corporate golf photography. Everything talked about corporate golf photography etc. Nothing about my glam work which was all about glam and nothing else.

You say you would hate to have 2 sites, I had 4 and wouldn't want to have any less with stuff bundled together. When you talk about splitting your work, I don't really see the worry. Are car photo fans really going to want to see wedding pics? Sure some might be going to get married at some point so a link somewhere should be all you need to take them to your wedding site. By the same token, if your wedding site is done right, it should pull those people to it when they do put in wedding photography.

There is no confusion with the multiple sites, they are all self supporting as it were and I have had loads of clients over the years from one market ring me from the other and not even realise it was me they were calling till we spoke. When that happens and they realise who you are, the pre built rapport pretty much ensures the gig.

I'd not be worried about loosing any one not finding he sites, I'd be more concerned with getting everyone to them.

As for Business cards, yes, I have multiple of them as well. One for each of my main businesses and a general one. I have a pic of the subject matter of that market and that brings me in a lot of work as well. I get calls for business cards I passed out years ago and don't even chase that work any more but people see the card and the pic and they call.

The general card is a generic Vistaprint card with the obligatory camera pic on it. If someone asks me about shooting a kids birthday party or other highly undesirable job, I give them one of those and it still looks like i'm a specialist!

My advise is to break your sites and all other promotion up into the specific markets you want to address. You can call the biz and effective name for that market and tailor all the advertising and promotion to maximising your return to that market.
Sure it's a little more work and effort but if you are not flat out every day you could not be spending your working hours on anything more productive or beneficial. Much of the content you can write generically and add in the specific market terms and images. when you get time you can fine tune them to the specific market a bit more.

You can buy cheap hosting that will support multiple sites and web names are like $10 a year or less so cost is not even a question.

speedracer04

Thank you! It is great to hear your point of view and experiences, it makes a lot of since when you lay it out that way. I have been thinking about it more since I first posted also and decided that it would be best to start another site and your experiences have confirmed that. Like you said people may have some crossover but the majority will not along with the fact that at least for now they will have different audiences. For automobiles I really want to continue to get editorial work while portraits etc will be more parent/individual based.