Time to Get of my A$$, Marketing!!!!

[lobofw]

Count me in on this thread to.

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Who are you?-- What do you want? Why are you here? Where are you going?


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How about if I just answer #2-4, those seem easier. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

[shannon_fontaine]

Don,

IMO the first and probably most important thing you can do is change the name of your company. You've said yourself, you live in a small town with a mostly conservative population, if you shoot glamour, great, but market youself as a photographer, period.

You'll make a living shooting headshots, kids, portraits, events, that sort of thing. Glamour will help but I think at this point you know you're not going to make a living with it in your market.

"Fantasies Image' conjures up a pretty specific type of shooting, great if that's all you WANT to do but you'll NEED to do more than that to make real money shooting so why limit your potential client base with your name?

I'm sure lots of guys will give you lots of specific marketing strategies in this thread. I'm not the greatest or the best knwon photographer in the world but I am busy as HELL and lucky enough to make my full time living with a camera in my hand. I would be more than happy to tell you or anyone else in the world what's worked for me over the last two years of non-stop business building but, seriously, first I would change the name of your business to Don Clark Photography and start marketing the one thing you have that no other shooter in your area has which is YOU.

Photography is a pretty intimate and personal thing, people who find a shooter they can trust and whose work really is a step up from all the GWC's in the world will pay that shooter for his work and will send other people to pay him and the that would be my half nickel's worth, good luck whatever you decide to do.

Shannon

[gregkdavis]

You don't have to answer each question specifically, it's just something
to consider including in your mission statement. And yes, on an individual
level you should sit down and answer the question--- it's harder than you
think, and the answer is rarely pleasant to begin with----

[JonScott]

Vanity can be, and often is, more powerful than budgetary constraints.

So Wichita is mostly conservative.

So what?

As said above, people are people, and people are vain.

Find out where the highest concentration of the most vain people are, and take those rich Republicans' money.


Rule number two (this one isn't one of mine, someone else coined the phrase):

Is it for show, or is it for dough?

Are you in the position to be able to say to a potential client, "I only shoot glam/boud/intimate" (in other words, "I'm not interested in your money because I'm not interested in shooting senior portraits")? If you are, GREAT, if not...Well...Are you a photographer, or are you a glamour photographer?

[JasonNJ]

You must not store bud light in warm light place

MUST store bud light in cold DARK place

Don't poor bud light in cup on a side

Poor bud light in cup so that it can fill the air!

...these are questions you know the answer to, congrats on getting off the ass, you know we are always here to help and more help come spring which should take care of your 2/3 conservative issue


JasonNJ

[wickedwillie50131]

I read somewhere on the lies of marketing is "If my company only gets one percent of a market we can make money." As a venture capitalist you always have to aspire for more. First it is 1 percent of the market and strive for more. Business statistics often will tell you in the text books that companies spend 80 percent of their revenues attracting new clients, and 20 percent in marketing keeping their clients who do 80 percent of business with them.

Ideas would be, bands- I know you belong to Myspace. Bands large and small, some good, some really bad all have a need for promotional images. These images are often used for their CDS, online webpages, posters at local events etc. Go to some of the venues that do these events and see if you are allowed to shoot. Get some business cards, and hand out to the bands. Place ads, or bulletins on Myspace. Valentines Day is less then a month away and email girls on Myspace for pictures saying that you are shooting glamour images that they could use for boyfriends as gifts, possibly start modeling, or to boost their ego. You never know and you have to be ok and ready for rejection. Tough skin is a must when you are the man in charge. I know you have it in you.

You dont have to necasarily hate what you do to make a living at what you do. I mostly shoot on the side shooting bands, horses, livestock and my really big project is a haunted house. I dont feel comfortable at weddings, plus I dont have enough equipment. The right tools for the right job. Dont make false promises is also big. Dont tell someone they will have the images on cd when you never know, your computer could die, you could have a delay getting the info from the flash card due to writing error, the power could be knocked out of Kansas for a week due to storm or any other unforseen circumstance. Know your tools, be confidant in yourself. If you have any doubts in any equipment that you have, get rid of it or modify it and get something that you are confidant in. Confidence is 80 percent of marketing and sales. Clients can smell you literally when you have hesitation. For instance you sweat. Bad image, but how many times do you see a car salesman who is not confidant, chances are next time they are not there again you go back in.

Choose your marketing venues, media wisely. If most of your potential clients listen to a particular radio station, buy radio space. If you are wanting senior portraits, get your name passed around schools. If your images are better then your competition, which I am sure it is, and your prices are reasonable, word gets around- you become the next Tommy Hilfiger Jeans. Price yourself to make money. When I was in college I had the fortune to be able to work with some big money real estate people in Des Moines. I will call him Denny, in short stated that when I was selling commercial landscaping equipment, no matter what I was in it to make money is the bottom line. It wasnt to drive a bigger truck than the neighbor etc. Likewise you are not in it to have a bigger faster lens, or an excuse to hang around pretty girls all day. You have your supportive wife for that. You are now in it as an entrepreneur to make money in a capitalist environment. Good luck and God Speed.

[gregkdavis]

Unfortunately the readers, do not get the long version of my post,
(which is usually expanded upon over the phone).

DeAnn has sent me a mission statement which is simple, to the point, and
wrapped up in one sentence ( the best kind).

So the next subject is your COMPANY NAME. It should reflect the mission
statement and the four questions I also asked in about a word or three.

I'm not suggesting you change the one you have, just be sure to analyze
and make sure it reflects the previous exercise. This will be your identity
and hopefully your eventual trademark.

It must feel as natural as your personal name (ie: Don & DeAnn) and still
manage to reflect your personalities.

Before you rush off and print a thousand cards or whatever you're are wanting
to do, just take the time and go over the previous exercises and make absolutely
sure--- because the next steps will make changing your mind a bit difficult.

Right now--- this is the inexpensive part of business, everything else starts
costing exponentially so be careful. Every decision from here on will cost you
money or time or both.

Tomorrow's subject: The final foundation of your business-which now begins to drive your marketing.

After that, we will begin to build the structural skeleton of your business.
It's best to get this out of the way now, so you can spend the bulk of your
energy creating product.

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And now a word from my guest speaker: Jor-el!



My son, do not let eagerness and vanity drive your decision making.
While is it good to have these qualities, it is often fraught with peril.
Remember, there are no undo's in life, and the forces of nature
will pounce on bad choices.

Remember rule number:24 and 26 because it directly relates to rule number: 5.

It's a sneaky thing these rules, but they are there for a reason... you have
to go over your checklist contantly or else you will miss something.

I now defer back to Master Po...who will continue this when he gets back
from meditating tomorrow.

[moscato_images]

Read good books like Don Peterson's master studio book. I bought mine last week for $3.

I'm looking to buy a second house for a studio soon...so I know the feeling. (that means getting a seconed job which I applied for today...) I simply want to make it as a photographer. Oh, and my city only has 35,000! plus two long standing studios already in the town. It's hard to tell if another studio will saturate the market or not. I believe it depends on the approach and the service+quality that is given to each customer. I'm always curious to how many people on here have running studios or not...isn't there a thread where everyone comments on where they are in the photography businesS? If not, there should be one!!

-joshua

[stevenD]

first you must grab the CF card from the masters hand...

[cindavphoto]

My hubby and are in buisness together. We made one major mistake which is to late to change now so we just have to deal with it. (It's his fault by the way!! LOL)

We are both photographers. I do studio and portrait work and he does sports work. I started the buisness first and went with "Cinnamon's Photography" because I have an odd/memorable name. People in town new me and I wanted to make sure they were able to associate this buisness with me as a person when I first started. So then he decided to get into the buisness. He understandable didn't want to work under the name Cinnamon's Photography and at that time, I wasn't willing to give up my name. So after...I don't know...maybe 6 months I decided this was silly and tried to convince him that we should change both names and go with one name. Something like Davidson Photograhy (how boreing) or something eles. By then he didn't want to change his name. We argued about it for a while, but I let him win. So here we are almost four years later going by Cinnamon's Photography and Mike's Sports Photos. It's a pain in the ass!! Don't make that same mistake!! It's to late for us to change it now so we're just stuck.

PS-Today we've been married for 19 years!!