It would be nice if a magic bullet existed for marketing your photography or video business. On the other hand, maybe you have found something that is working well for you. But keep in mind that what is working today may not work tomorrow: I definitely wouldn’t rely on one single resource for long term, sustainable growth.

One resource for photographers and videographers is www.thumbtack.com. It is a hit or miss platform. It can be very frustrating. Yes, it will generate leads. No, I don’t think you can make a sustainable full time living off of it. This is just one example of numerous marketing resources.

Marketing can be challenging because it typically requires numerous avenues to make it work. It’s often a combination of networking, advertising and more. Some of the things cost money and at minimum marketing will take your time. For example, blogging and social media are both free (to a point), but both will take up your time to keep them active. In my experience, neither of them provide instant revenue. If you need sales to happen as soon as possible, you’ll likely have to pursue other forms of marketing like business networking which still may not be an immediate fix because people often need to know you, like you and trust you in order to either do business with you and/or refer you.

Repeat business and referral business are two of the best forms of business. However, it’s a catch 22 because you have to have business to get both repeat business and referral business. As soon you start getting clients, you need to figure out ways to gain their repeat business and their referral business without overselling your services.

I know a photographer in the Atlanta area that does well in the residential real estate photography business and one key reason is that he gets consistent repeat business from those he works with. Although I have no desire to do residential real estate photography, I can see how this area of photography could lead to consistent repeat business and referrals because most Realtors know other Realtors.

Do You Have A Marketing Plan?

I haven’t said anything so far in this post about having a marketing plan, but as you likely know, those who fail to plan – plan to fail. Yeah, Yeah, I’m sure you get it. But you really should write down how you plan to market your business.

If you are on a tight budget or virtually no budget, you’ll have to come up with your marketing plan on your own, but you may find colleagues or other business contacts to help guide you along the way. It’s great to create strategic connections.

Here are 5 low cost ways to market your business:

1) Social Media: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc.
2) Blogging: Write, Write, Write! Once or Twice a week is not rocket science.
3) Business Networking: Can’t Join A $500 Paid Group? Find the low cost or free ones.
4) Online Lead Generation: Thumbtack, Wedding Wire, GigSalad, etc.
5) Current Connections: Buy someone a coffee and find how you can each help the other.

Now, what are you going to do next?

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We’ve all likely pondered at some point which came first: The Chicken Or The Egg? That lead me to thinking about which comes first: Marketing Or Selling?

It’s true that they go hand in hand and cross over because one could argue that marketing is also selling. However, I am referring to selling as “Closing The Sale” and one cannot close if there are no leads coming in. The sales funnel must keep flowing with leads because no one will close 100% of the leads that are generated for their photography business.

Marketing…

Marketing is something that has to be a part of your photography DNA. Good marketing is not the same as hard selling. Good marketing does not turn people away like hard selling will likely do. To me, marketing is anything you do in your photography business to get the word out about your business like advertising, social media, blogging, business networking, etc. But getting the word out does not mean that you have to say CALL ME NOW every time you post something online. Yes, a CALL TO ACTION is important, but you don’t have to do that with 100% of your marketing efforts. You can gain interest without over selling what you do.

This blog post doesn’t have a call to action for you to do business with me. That’s not the purpose of this post. But the post is part of my business marketing efforts of providing content that will add value after reading it.

Closing The Sale…

It’s game on once the lead becomes a prospect which means the lead has made contact or asked for someone to contact them through a referral source, company representative, etc. Game on doesn’t mean to brow beat someone into doing business. It simply means that it’s time to go to the next level of the process and “Close The Sale” provided it’s a good fit for both parties.

Remember, telling is not selling. Asking questions is a better alternative: What can I help you with? Do you have any questions for me? How does that sound to you? Does that fit your budget? Would you like me to put something in writing? Are you ready to schedule? What is your timeline on this project? Etc. Etc. Etc.

Getting Sales Help…

Grant Cardone is a little over the top for me; however, there are some good things to gain from his books, audio books, videos, etc. If you have never heard of Grant Cardone, look him up on Amazon. You can also find Grant Cardone on YouTube and he has Grant Cardone Sales University.

If you are in the Raleigh, NC area, you can look into hiring a sales coach like Elyse Archer below. I simply took a snipet from her website. You can click the image below to visit her website. Although I took the photo of Elyse below, this link to her website is not an affiliate link for me to generate revenue off of.

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Step 2: Follow The Flow Of The Diagram:

Exposure – Marketing, Advertising, Social Media, Blogging & More

Engagement – Respond to website comments and inquiries, online reviews, social media comments, likes and shares

Influence – If people get to know you, begin to like & start to trust you, you will have influence. Once you are able to influence people, you may change their opinions or behaviors.

Impact – A positive brand image will take some time to create; however, thanks to the Internet, it is easier to create a brand image now online than it was 30 years ago using offline efforts. Reviews, Social Media activity and blogging are three simple areas that a small business owner, like a photographer, can have an impact by creating a positive brand image.

Advocate – This is the ultimate stage of achievement for any business. Once customers become a brand ambassador by not only using your services but recommending and talking about your services, you’ll likely see a continued increase in revenue.

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There is a sales mentality that sales people should always be closing. Some people agree with that while others think it’s over the top. However, I think you should always be marketing. That doesn’t mean that you are always screaming about your services, but it does mean that you have to keep things constantly moving forward and thinking of ways to get in front of prospects.

Whatever your marketing plan is, you should make sure that it creates numerous inquiries on a regular basis because it’s hard to build even a very small business off of 1 or 2 calls a week. Do you know how many inquiries you currently get every week? Is it enough? Probably not! I could always use more.

My personal goal is to do the best that I can in closing new inquiries while at the same time not sacrificing my quality standards or my pricing. It’s important for me to keep the inquiries coming in by any reasonable marketing means that I can use. FYI, it’s not all FREE either. I’m willing to spend money to get and maintain the inquiries coming it. No! I do not have an unlimited marketing budget, but I see spending money on my business as a necessity of maintaining my business.

How do you define insane marketing?

I can tell you that insane marketing is not sitting around saying woe is me, poor me, I wish the phone would magically ring and blah, blah, blah.

Insane marketing is doing any productive action that gets your business in front of your audience as often as possible and never, ever stopping your efforts. Insane marketing is far beyond, “I tried Adwords and it didn’t work.” Insane marketing is doing whatever it takes to keep your business moving in the right direction without going under in the process. Insane marketing is taking calculated risks meaning “If I do X then Y could happen, but it’s still a risk.”

If you are not willing to embrace insane marketing and take some calculated risks that have no guarantee, please stop being self employed and start looking for a job. Ouch! That seems cold to actually type that, but for me personally, I have worked EXTREMELY hard to stay busy and have have taken numerous risks to keep it all going. Nothing worth having is easy.

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The nature of a small business owner is to wear many hats. As a photographer, you are likely also your own marketing department. Here are just a few things you will likely need to incorporate in your photography business: Business Networking, Blogging, Social Media, Website Strategy, Paid Search Marketing and much more. Each piece can lead to new business, but each piece takes time and sometimes money. You’ll have to DO IT and not just TRY IT! I’d suggest a 90 day, full force, committed minimum to multiple strategies and not just relying on one thing.

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Peter Hurley in Manhattan consistently gets $1,200 for a headshot. That’s more than he could command in a small town in Eastern North Carolina. However, I’m sure that there are others in New York that charge far less. Peter has determined that his headshot services are worth $1,200 minimum. The nice thing for him is that there is a market willing to pay his asking price.

Locally, I had a veteran professional photographer and cinematographer tell me back in 2013 that he had done the math and figured out that he could not go on location for less than $2,500 per day or he was losing money. That may not be the case for every photographer in the local area. However, this particular photographer is a veteran of the industry and had figured out what his minimum day rate needed to be. Do you know what your minimum day rate is based on actually crunching the numbers and not just randomly picking a number out because it sounds good?

A friend of mine knows a photographer that works full time, has some nice camera gear and only charges $60 for a family photo session. Even part-time and having another job, the $60 rate will not yield enough revenue anytime soon to buy new gear. Her mentality is that her target market can only afford $60. It’s up to her, but I think she might be better off donating her services to the less fortunate and targeting families that can afford to pay more.

Determining what your photography services are worth includes factoring in what the market will bear. For example, the Raleigh market is not a hotspot for $1,200 headshots. However, there may be a handful that will pay that price point. On the other hand, the Raleigh market will bear a $2,500 per day photographer. And of course, if your pricing is rock bottom at $60 per family, there will always be people willing to pay low prices.

Whatever you do, don’t under value your services and put a black eye on the photography industry because of your super low prices. It’s OK to make a profit and a comfortable living doing photography. Decide that you are worth more than the lowest priced photographer in town, charge what the market will bear and actually make a good living doing what you love. If you do photography on the side, there is nothing wrong with pricing at a fair market value rather than “I’m a part-time photographer. I’ll shoot for $25 because I just love taking pictures.” Surely you want new gear and at $25 a pop, it will be difficult to buy new gear.

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If you want to make it as a photographer, don’t give up on your dream. If what you are doing is not working, you should try something new. I am not saying fly by the seat of your pants and hope something finally sticks if you just keep trying things out.

Create a plan, work the plan, put in a lot of hours, give it some time (weeks even months not days) and then re-evaluate what you are up to. FYI, just because the photographer around the corner is doing Google paid ads does not mean that you will have similar success. There are multiple variables in marketing. With photographers, it will come down to the appeal of your portfolio to the perspective client.

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Taking consistent everyday actions is critical to anything in life. Success in photography is no different. Therefore you must be taking action to make things happen. If you are taking action and things are not happening, it may be time to change what you are doing. Action for the sake of action is not the same as strategic actions.

All 3 of these photographers have been doing photography for a relatively short time (one for under a year consistently and the other two for about 3 years with 1 of those 2 going full time in January 2015) and 2 of the 3 are in their 50’s who once had other 10+ year careers in a completely non-related field. I said all that to set it up for you, so you wouldn’t assume things.

Not only do all 3 share the common trait of action, but they all 3 have done well in getting repeat work from clients once they do an initial project for the client. Now if you are a wedding photographer, you may not get immediate repeat business, but you could get referral business and in the future get growing family business from the bride and groom.

The key is to not sit back and look at others around you having the kind of photography success that you would like to have. The majority of the time those around you have not hit a string of luck (although it may seem that way), have not been blessed with talents you don’t have, have not had it all handed to them on a silver platter, they have simply taken consistent actions to move themselves forward in their business.

The right consistent actions have worked well for the 3 photographers that I know who seem to get a lot of repeat and expanded business from current clients. As for getting the client initially, they have come through many avenues which stems from action steps the photographers made happen.

Below are 6 things that I have mentioned in previous posts, but I’ll use it as a mini-refresher.  They are all ACTION items. Are you consistently taking these kinds of actions during your Monday-Friday workweek?

1) You should attend networking meetings. It doesn’t have to be BNI for $500 +/- a year which I am a fan of. It can be MEETUP Groups or in Raleigh, North Hills Networking or Triangle Lunch Talks.

2) Invite someone you know for a cup of coffee. It could be a past/recent client or someone you are connected with on social media. Tell them that you’d like to buy them a coffee and learn more about their business as well as share more about your business. Be strategic about who you meet with. Can you potentially help them and can they help you? If you are on a super tight budget, meet at McDonald’s which has $1 coffee. But you’d likely be better of meeting at Starbucks or Panera. You can get two regular coffees for under $5. Another great strategy is to schedule two meetings back to back if possible. Meet with one person at 8 a.m. and you’ll already be there when your 9 a.m. arrives.

3) Stay active on social media but don’t constantly sell, sell, sell. On Facebook, keep in mind that business pages get little activity at best if you don’t pay to be seen unless you have thousands of followers. You may find better success on your personal Facebook page. Share what you are up to, examples of your latest project, etc. without saying CALL ME I NEED YOUR BUSINESS. A good social strategy takes time because it’s about building relationships. I was fortunate in January to get 3 solid leads from Facebook within a few days of each other from people that I am connected with.

4) Ask your circle of influence/connections do they know someone who needs what you do?

5) Ask for introductions. If real estate is your target market, ask an agent if he or she can introduce you to other agents.

6) STICK WITH ME ON THIS ONE: If you have to, COLD CALL!!! It may not be the best strategy, but it’s action. This may be a last resort to try and make things happen. It can be very frustrating and should be strategic in nature. However, work really, really hard on 1 through 5 first unless you just love cold calling.

FYI, cold calling was how I got a lot of my business in the late 80’s. Times may have changed, but it wasn’t easy then either. But my calls were targeted to people that hired photographers to do what I did back then. Today, for example, calling real estate agents to ask if you can be added to their list of photographers is far more strategic than calling a dentist office to ask if they need headshots and a team shot for their website.

You have to think through it if you are going to cold call and make sure you target the right audience properly. Is it really a classic cold call to call a real estate office and say, “Hi, my name is _________ and I wanted to know if  I can get added to your list of photographers to contact for new listings?” That’s more strategic than, “Do you need a photographer for your listings?” If you have an agent you shoot for already, then you may want to leverage that by saying, “Hi, my name is _________. I photograph listings for _______ and I wanted to know if  I can get added to your list of photographers to contact for new listings?”

Notice that none of these are large financial expenses. At most, it’s likely the cost of two cups of coffee or maybe lunch if you attend a lunch networking meeting.

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1) I don’t have an Audible account. Sign up for a FREE 30 Day Trial. I just helped you overcome that objection.

2) I don’t have time to listen to a 5 hour and 18 minute audio program. You can listen to it at 1.5x the speed and still understand what Brian Tracy is saying which cuts it down to about 3 1/2 hours which I did on a Sunday. As for the time, are you ever in your automobile alone and can listen to an audio while driving? Are you ever sitting around at home wasting time watching useless TV? Would you be willing to get up 30 minutes early for 7 days in a row to listen to a program 30 minutes a day until you compete it?

3) I don’t have $30 to spend on an audio program. Well, it’s FREE with your 30 Day Free Trial. You get TWO credits when you sign up. One could be used for this program and another credit for something else. So what are you waiting for?

Two Things To Seriously Think About:

1) If you are a self employed photographer, you are a sales person. Bottom Line! End of Story! You have to sell, sell, sell. If you don’t like to sell, stop being self employed and get a job working for a paycheck.

2) Audible is $14.95 per month after the 30 day trial. It is part of Amazon. For that $14.95 per month, you will get ONE credit to use toward an audio book each month. FYI, I recommend choosing one that is more than $14.95 because the credit is good for other audio books like “The Psychology of Selling: The Art of Closing Sales By Brian Tracy” that will cost you $30 or more. If you want to buy audiobooks, there are plenty that are under $5. I’m hooked on Audible and plan to use it to get audio books that will help make a difference in my photography business. What will you do to help your photography business?

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This post is actually going to be a lot of questions with no answers in most cases.  So let’s dive in.

1) On a scale from 1 to 10 with 10 being the best, how is your photography marketing plan working for you so far in 2016?

2) Have you shot any personal projects in 2016?

3) Are you feeling frustrated and ready to give up already? If so, what are you going to do about it?

4) Have you completed any online training? YouTube? KelbyOne? Karl Taylor? CreativeLive? And More?

5) How are your online photography marketing efforts going? Blogging? Social Media? Paid Ads? Reviews? Lead Sites? SEO Efforts? Updating Your Portfolio? Updating Your Website? Email Marketing? And More?

6) How are your offline photography efforts going? Cold Calls? Networking? Mailers? Building Strategic Connections? Mentor Meetings?And More?

7) How is your offline training going? Attended A Workshop? Read A Book? Assisted Another Photographer? And More?

Now that you’ve answered the questions above and completed your mid-January checkup, what are you going to do to improve over the rest of January to make sure the next time you do a checkup that the answers are even better.

UNLESS YOU TAKE CONSISTENT ACTIONS TOWARD YOUR GOALS AND THE AREAS ABOVE – YOU WILL CONTINUE TO WALLOW IN YOUR OWN SELF PITY AND WANT TO THROW IN THE TOWEL. IT’S ONLY JANUARY 16TH. IT’S TOO EARLY TO GIVE UP!!!

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