PixelatedImage Blog

Self-Promotion for Photographers Series, 6

GETTING THE GIGS…AGAIN

Almost anyone can get the gig once with a little savvy marketing. A shiny display ad or some mailers with lofty promises and you’re in, baby! But getting the gig again and gaining repeat clients takes more than savvy marketing. Furthermore, it takes more money to get a new client than it does to get repeat work with existing clients. The math is easy – putting some effort in securing repeat clients is important.

MAKE THEM LOVE YOU
There was a great line Ridley Scott’s GLADIATOR; Maximus’ mentor turned to him and said, “make them love you.”  Go and do likewise. But maybe leave off with the gore and gratuitous slaying.

I can’t over-emphasize the relational element in your marketing.  Plenty of photographers out there have a rep for being divas, and some of them get hired despite that because they’re brilliant. But be brilliant AND likeable and you’re a step ahead of the diva.

GIVE THEM MORE THAN THEY EXPECT
This one is easy – find out what their expectations are, then exceed them. Go beyond the call of duty and just see if your clients don’t keep coming back to you.

First – give them a better product that they expect. This means always working on your craft and sharpening your skills.

Second – Serve them. Make their needs your absolute priority.
Return calls and email immediately, ask questions that make them aware that their needs are your first priority. Provide great catering – even if that’s just bringing a cooler of cold bottled water and some fruit to a location portrait shoot. Provide free wireless in your studio.

Whatever perks you can think of – make it happen. How fast can you get proofs to your client? Do it. In the first few weddings I shot, back in film days, I had the ceremony proofs developed and in a small album for the couple to see during the reception – they absolutely loved it and were astonished I would do that for them.

Third – Suck it up if you fail to meet their expectations. We all have bad days. We all make mistakes and have sessions where we can’t seem to focus straight yet alone compose an inspiring image. Be honest with clients and if your work is substandard apologize and ask for a chance to reshoot it or make ammends. I’m constantly amazed by corporations that blow it and mask their mistakes in lawyers, press conferences full of double speak, and smoke screens. Just apologize and make it right. The next article is about harnessing word of mouth – and that’s a two-edged sword because if clients talk about you when they’re happy, just wait to see how fast your name will travel when they’re not.

FOLLOW UP & CLIENT CARE
If it takes more work to get a client than it does to keep a client, it makes sense to put some intentional effort into showing some love to your existing and former clients.

Send thank you cards after the shoot, holiday cards in December, and occasional updates or gift-certificates. Have an open house once a year and wine & dine your clients from the past year or two. Do whatever it takes to stay in touch. I know some of these suggestions are too expensive for the little guy – so scale it down. But do SOMETHING. It doesn’t take much to let your clients know that you appreciate them and would love to work with them in the future.

BOTTOM LINE
Love your clients. Woo them. Serve them. Make them love you. If you spend three hours working on a direct mail campaign next week, spend a couple lovin’ on your current and former clients.

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Tomorrow, Getting The Gigs, Part 3 – The Return of Getting The Gigs. Gigs is Back and He’s Mad as Heck! Sorry, got distracted. Tomorrow we’re talking about Word of Mouth.

Remember: The  Self-Promotion series is winding down. The last in the series will be an FAQ and grab-bag of reader stuff.

If you’ve got questions, suggestions, a story about self-promotion, or you want to show the world your website – leave a comment. Know a photographer with a site that brilliantly promotes themselves – let us know.

In a couple days the Self-Promotion series is winding down. I’d like to give this chance for readers to submit questions for a final Self-Promotion FAQ installment in the series.

If you’ve got questions, suggestions, a story about self-promotion, or you want to show the world your website – leave a comment. Know a photographer with a site that brilliantly promotes themselves? Let us know.

Let’s finish off on a bang. I know there are hundreds and hundreds of you reading this series, this is your time to take off your cloak of invisibility.

Check out SHINEBOX PRINT (link HERE) for something a little different. I’ve just stumbled across it so I can’t speak for the quality or service, but the idea is great.

Self-Promotion for Photographers Series, 5

GETTING THE GIGS

Once you have the foundations laid for your marketing efforts you’ve really only just started. In a perfect world you’d put your website up, your potential market would feel a tremor in The Force, and your phone would ring. But then you’d also have an evil empire to deal with, so you can’t win either way. It’s time to talk to your market.

How you contact your market, and how you convince them that you are the one they want, is a little like asking “how do I order the veal when I travel to a new country?” – it depends on the country. Knowing your market is the first place to begin. With any luck your advertising efforts won’t bereave the world of baby cows, either.

MARKET RESEARCH
So you’ve settled on a market. Let’s assume for this discussion that you want to shoot food. The first question is, “who is buying food photography?” You know WHAT market you want to work in – now find out WHO your market is. And there ain’t nothing like some basic research to get a mailing list started.

Here’s a starting point. Make a list of the top 100 clients you want to work for. These might be corporations if you’re a commercial photographer, it might be magazines if you’re a travel shooter, or edibles photographer. Picking 100 forces you to dig deep and fine-tune your Google skills, it’s also a manageable number for your first forays into direct marketing.

Now find out who it is within that organization that buys media resources or hires photographers. It might be a VP of Communication, it might be an Art Director or Senior Editor. Who it is and what title they go by are key pieces of information usually acquired by a phone call or two. I put all this information into a spreadsheet that I can keep updating, and editing, and from which I can make mailing labels. It also allows me to keep track of responses, notes and the results of phone calls.

Now make the introduction.

MAKING CONTACT
There’s a fine balance between keeping your name in front of someone and being a pain in the ass. Aim for the first, it will get you more work. A simple way to do this would be a postcard or classy mailer that is followed up with a phone call. Or a series of postcards mailed once every month and a half or so. Once you’re known to them a quarterly mailing is probably good. Any less and you become shuffled to the back of the pile in their mind.

At some point you need to call them. Most people hate cold calls and I truly believe that’s because they feel they have to “sell themselves”. You don’t; you just have to introduce yourself.

I make it simple when I call. I call, I ask if they got my mailers, I ask if I’m sending them to the right person (you never know, even the best market research doesn’t tell you everything), and then I tell them the truth, that I just wanted to make contact personally, and make a connection. I leave them with that, let them know I’d love to hear from them if there’s a chance to serve them, and I ask them if I may continue sending them occasional promo pieces. And then I thank them and let them go. Being Canadian I am a bit “soft-sell” in my approach. I believe the best client relationships are just that – relational.

DIRECT MAIL
I once sat down with a top advertising executive for breakfast. He said if he had a dollar to spend on advertising, he’d invest it in direct mail. If he had two dollars, he’d invest it in direct mail. If he had three dollars, he’d invest two of it in direct mail and think carefully about spending the third on something else like a print ad or professional directory. It’s been solid advice.

Dollar for dollar, direct mail is the most targeted marketing you can do. If you decide to go with direct mail remember it’s only as strong as the combination of the elements involved: a great mailer, a targeted and reliable mailing list, and the comitment to see it through. This is a long-term strategy you’re working on. If you want gigs tomorrow, direct mail isn’t for you. If you want to establish yourself in a market and build long-term relationships with prospective clients, it’s excellent.

With that in mind, here are a couple places that do excellent work on postcards: www.Vistaprints.com, www.ModernPostcard.com, www.Clubcard.ca

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Stay tuned – tomorrow’s article is part 2 of Getting the Gig – Getting the Gig…AGAIN.

LUMEN DEI PHOTO TOUR & WORKSHOP, KASHMIR, INDIA

A two-week photography tour and workshop like no other. Two weeks shooting in Old Delhi and Kashmir. A four day trek into the Himalaya to photograph the nomadic Gujjar people. Living on a houseboat on Lake Dal. Daily teaching from Matt Brandon and David duChemin. A tour sponsored by leaders in the photographic world – and that means some free stuff too. This is a tight group – only six to eight participants, so spots will go quickly. Dates are September 15-27 (not inclusive of travel to Delhi).

More information on the website: LUMEN-DEI.COM

A small gallery of images from the 2007 Tour can be found HERE

Self-Promotion for Photographers Series, 4

MARKETING MATERIALS

Aside from your website, there are going to be a number of pieces of collateral marketing materials you will want to use. Among them business cards, mailers, portfolios, letterheads, etc. Here’s some thoughts.

Make Them Rock.
When you hand someone your business card the first thing they say should not be “thank you.” It should be “Wow, great card!” or “Hey, this is cool.” Business cards traditionally do one thing – they give information. If you leave it at that you’re missing a chance to also leave an impact. Have them professionally designed, keep them focused, don’t cheap out on the card stock or the printing. Put your best foot forward.

Make Them Targeted.
Remember all that stuff in the FIRST ARTICLE about figuring out who you are, who your market is, and how to bridge the two? This is part of it. Choose a great picture that is relevant to the market you are dealing with. Create a great positioning statement – make them care. Write clean, focused, tightly edited copy.

The postcard series I created recently (above) was targeted to my primary market and the one I care most deeply about. I used some of my favourite images – photographs that reflect the benefits I bring to my market. I also used a benefit oriented statement, my logo, and a back filled with relevant, tightly written copy asking them to look at my website and consider me for assignment work.

Make Them Creative, Consistent, Congruent, and then Commit to using them for a while.
See THE FOUR PILLARS

Make Them Different
Who says your portfolio needs to be a conventional one? Who says that the mailers you send out to key clients have to be normal? You’re a creative professional, and I just know at some point you’ve broken the rule of thirds. So don’t be hemmed in by the “It’s Always Been Done This Way” police.

When I travel I get into conversations about what I do and why. Being over the Atlantic on a midnight flight to Delhi it’s not so easy to whip out a laptop and internet connection, but a 7inch self-published book of my images? I recently created one called Nomad (below) that I keep in my camera bag. Now I’m ready to show my work at a moment’s notice. The cost? $20 through BLURB.COM

Why not create some nice picture books once a year to send to clients as a thank you, or to prospective clients as a show of your work? Food Photographer? Why not create a cookbook showcasing your work? Visit a paper shop and look at their offerings – they often stock great books that would make great portfolio covers or inspire you in a different direction.

Why not make a portfolio on DVD and create a great cover that doubles as a mailer to send to prospects?

Do It Right The First Time.
Seriously. It’s worth the money. Hire a designer if design’s not your thing. Talk to your printer about your options and go with the better looking stocks and processes. I can’t stress this enough – this is a visual business and if you can’t make your stuff look hot then your prospective clients have no reason to believe you’ll make their stuff look hot.

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If this series is helpful to you, I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment. If this series has sparked some ideas and you’re not sure where to turn to realize them, I’d love to talk to you about custom design work. I’m a photographer and I understand the marketing needs of photographers, I’m also a closet designer who’s been doing custom design work for a decade – feel free to send me an email (info at pixelatedimage dot com).

An excellent article to supplement the marketing series I’m doing right now: FREELANCE SWITCH, TOP 5 POWERHOUSE MARKETING SECRETS

Self-Promotion for Photographers Series, 3

YOUR WEBSITE

Having a website has become the primary marketing strategy of photographers. With the easy availability of on-line photo-galleries, html and flash templates, and export-to-web functionallity of Photoshop and Lightroom, more photographers than ever are getting their images online in a site they can call their own. The advantage of this is obvious and how we’d now live without it, I have no idea. It also comes with a hazard – the proliferation of poorly designed and ill-conceived web efforts.

Here are a couple things to consider as you build or rebuild your website to better reflect who you are to the market(s) you hope to work within. Keeping in mind The Four Pillars, consider these:

1. Best Foot Forward.
If you want a professional website and not merely a showcase of all the great cat pictures you’ve taken, then you need to edit your selections tightly. Showing your potential clients fewer images – your very best stuff related to the market you’re wanting to work in – will give each of those images more impact. Don’t show them the B-roll stuff.

In addition to choosing the best images, you should be showing them in the best way possible. Flickr is not the place for an online portfolio. That’s not to say Flickr has no use, but it’s simply not a professional place to show your images. Spend the money on a great piece of gallery software that you can update easily. There are many options. Right now I prefer FLUID GALLERIES. But even some of the third-party galleries available now for Lightroom are pretty amazing. Here’s an EXAMPLE. Whatever you do, do it well.

2. Impact vs. Information.
Keep your website a strong tension between providing information and impact. The design and the content should work together to create a seamless presentation that leaves the client with a strong impression of your work and the basic details they need to proceed with you. Too much information doesn’t get read and dilutes the strength of all of it. Not enough information and you’ll have missed a chance to tell your clients why you’re the right choice.

3. Be Intentional.
Your website should have a purpose. If you intend for your site to be a strong marketing tool, then you need to have a focus and stick with it. Narrow your market down, keep your message tailored to that market, and make your image selections based on that market. Every choice you make in regards to your site should be done in consideration of your market.

4. Be Web Savvy.
The more easily your website is found by search engines, the more traffic you get and the better chance that someone looking for you is going to find you. The question is, what are they looking for? If they know your name they’ll Google it and find you, great. But they already know your name, so this is hardly a victory over the intricacies of the web. What terms will your market type into Google when looking for a photographer? Let’s say it’s PET PHOTOGRAPHER IN AUSTIN TX. The more you get your name and website associated with those words online, the more the search engines will give you up on the first page. So for every bio you write for every forum you belong to, every article you write, every comment you leave on every blog you visit – consider leaving a signature line that reads: JOE POODLE: PET PHOTOGRAPHER, AUSTIN TX.

Be sure to put the same keywords into the copy of your website, along with others. Gone are the days when you can fool Google with white words on white background so no one but the web spiders see them. Keywords in the html/headers aren’t as helpful as they once were either. More and more you need to earn your googleability the old fashioned way – Write it into the copy. Get others to link to you using the same kind of words.  The more you do online – forums, writing articles, posting comments, writing blogs – the more your name will come up. A little effort goes a long way if it’s aimed in the right direction.

This isn’t rocket science, but it’s an effort to think this stuff out and be intentional about your marketing. Intentionallity is a resource fewer people are spending as they do their marketing.

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Coming Monday, Article 4 in the Self-Promotion series – Marketing Material. See you then. Have a great weekend.

Self-Promotion for Photographers Series, 2

THE FOUR PILLARS – CREATIVITY, CONGRUENCY, CONSISTENCY, COMMITMENT

Yesterday’s article covered the beginning of your identity and branding. Parallel to that thinking, consider the four following pillars of marketing for creatives.

CREATIVITY.
As a creative professional your marketing should be creative. Everything you do, every piece you send, is a reflection on you. If your marketing is creative it speaks very clearly to your own creativity.  Don’t mistake this for being clever or creativity for appearance’s sake, but approach your market creatively and in ways that reflect who you are. Most design magazines and some photo mags like PDN do anual self-promotion issues that showcase the best of the year’s self-promotional efforts in the industry, a read through one of these can be very inspirational. 

CONGRUENCY.
If your marketing is the communication of your identity and benefits to your marketplace then every initiative needs to be congruent with who you are, and the market to whom you are selling yourself.  In other words, your website must jive with who you are, and who you say you are to your potential clients. 

CONSISTENCY.
Similar to Congruency, which is matching your marketing to your identity, Consistency requires you match your marketing materials to each other.  Every piece, each initiative, should look like it came from the same place. This is a big part of  your branding mojo. Volvo is so consistent I recently saw an advert on TV and within the first 5 seconds identified it as a Volvo advert – simply by the font used. Consistency builds familiarity and confidence, it is a repetition of design conventions like fonts, colours, styles, that make you more memorable to the market. Large companies have a strict branding guide to make sure this happens. It outlines which logos can be used where, which versions of the logo are unacceptable, which fonts to use for headlines, which fonts to use for body copy, and so on. Deviation dilutes the branding effort and creates confusion.

COMMITMENT.
Stick it out. Marketing isn’t magic, it doesn’t happen overnight. Create a good plan, then stick it out for a year. Repetition and familiarity build confidence and top-of-mind awareness with your potential clients. Swtiching your logo every two months is a bad idea; it defeats the purpose of having a logo at all. Switching strategies mid-stream is equally damaging. If you start a mailing campaign of six mailings over a year, don’t scrap it when mailing number one goes out the door and the phone doesn’t start ringing. Clients usually need to see your stuff several times before you get the call. Come up with a well-thought-out marketing plan, then stick with it and give it a chance.

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If this series is helpful I’d love to hear from you. If you’re looking for marketing help and don’t know where to get it I have been coaching creatives in their marketing for years and would love to discuss your needs with you. Leave a comment or drop me an email (link at top left of page.)

This post begins a short series on some of the essential marketing stuff a photographer will want or need to begin bringing himself and his product/service to market.

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Self-Promotion for Photographers Series, 1

IDENTITY

I was tempted to call this first article: Selling Yourself without Selling Out. Before you begin to look at other marketing thoughts and practices, you must get a handle on who you are as a photographer, and (more importantly) who you will be to your market.

I’m assuming that you’ve by-passed or passed-through the stage wherein you tell everyone you shoot everything for any budget. If you haven’t; if you’re right now face to face with that monster, kick it in the shins and run the other way. I’m sure there are people out there who shoot anything that moves and multiple frames (in macro) of everything that doesn’t. But you do not want to be one of those people unless this is just a hobby for you. If you want to do this and be successful you MUST specialize or have the appearance of specializing. A friend of mine shoots both headshots and food – and is seen as an expert at both because he markets both specialties seperately.

Find what you love to shoot, find what you’re best at shooting. Hopefully they’re the same thing. This knowledge ought to begin to clarify for you who your market it. If you don’t like shooting it, if you’re not good at shooting it – don’t shoot it, don’t tell people you shoot it – focus on what you’re excellent at. Life is too short and competition is too fierce.

Now ask: What sets you apart from other photographers? This is not a competitive question, it’s a question of uniqueness. In marketing-speak you are looking to uncover your USP, or Unique Selling Proposition. What will you say about yourself? You might position yourself as the exclusive and expensive photographer, or the photographer for the masses, or the East Indian Wedding Guy or the Pet Photographer. You might go broad, as in – “I shoot commercial images” or you might be very narrow in your focus – “I shoot Siamese cats.” You might choose to position yourself as easy to work with, or having incredible scope of experience in a particular industry. Whatever it is you need to know who you will be selling to the market you’ve chosen.

Hand in hand with uncovering your USP, you must be able to express it to your chosen market in benefit-oriented terms. There are features and there are benefits.

A feature-oriented statement would be: “I have been photographing clowns for 10 years. In fact, I WAS a clown for ten years.”

A benefit-oriented statement is the “So What?”, to the feature-oriented statement.

In this case, the benefit-oriented statement might be: “I understand the needs of the clown market like no one else.”

Do they care you were a clown? No. Do they care you have have expert understanding? Yes. The moment you can identify the “so what?”, is the moment you can begin to talk to your market. Connect their needs with your services in the simplest language. Make a list of your features – and then ask SO WHAT? for each of them. Give the client a reason to care. Features are great, but benefits are what the client is after.

Once you know who you are and to whom you will be communicating, you need a logo that is designed to represent you to your chosen market. For some reason, many photographers overlook this. Of all people we should understand that the visual language is a vital form of communication. Skip the logo and you skip another chance to connect with your potential market. You also miss a chance to begin building top-of mind awareness because people remember a logo before they remember a name. And you miss a chance to begin instilling trust in your potential market.

It is very important that this process be allowed to take a little time and be done honestly. When we speak about these things it is not in terms of convincing your market that you are someone you aren’t or offering a service you can’t live up to. Anyone can lie to the market once and get the gig, but if you aren’t who you say you are, and fail to live up to promises, you won’t last long in the market. Figuring out your identity (who you are to the market) MUST precede working on your image (how you communicate your identity), and both must be honest reflections of who you are and what you’re selling.

Find out who you are, who your market is, and begin to build the bridge by communicating in benefit-oriented statements, strong positioning, and a great logo.

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This series is a short one and should not be considered an attempt at covering what is an incredibly big topic. Instead, I am hoping it scratches the surface, peaks your interest, and gets you moving towards stronger marketing. If you are looking for a great logo I would be please to talk to you about designing one for you, as I did recently for Matt Brandon, The Digital Trekker, and Johanna Kidd’s 19th Day Photography.

Recommended further reading on marketing a service-based business – What Clients Love, Harry Beckwith

You may also find the marketing articles at Freelance Switch extremely helpful – excellent articles and all of them free to read. Start with THIS ONE.