Alternative Marketing & Branding for High School Seniors with David Beckham
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Alternative Marketing and Branding for High School Senior Photography – David Beckham
Branding: The marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product or business from other products or businesses in the same market.
Branding requires investing in someone to help you create and design a logo and then tie that logo into all of your packaging and marketing, with perfect colors and text fonts, ribbons and bows and fun little things that identify you. Is silver blue glitter and AvantGard BK BT text how you really want people to identify you? Yes, you should have some consistency in all of those things, but let’s examine what is most important. We’re going to look at big-picture branding and how to use it in marketing to seniors and their parents.
First, you need to decide how you want others to identify you. Think about that for a minute. What is it for you? Fun experience? Beautiful art? Traditional and timeless? Or is it “I don’t know yet. It changes all the time”? Once you decide what it is, you need to make a plan to ensure you achieve and complete your brand.
Recently I stopped branding my social media posts of my senior models with my watermark. I soon received many text messages and comments like, “I knew that was your work before I saw who posted it.” Ah, success. For me, the most important aspect of my brand is top-quality photography with natural, clean edits. It’s posing that flatters the subject with fashionable, cutting-edge style. I want people to say, “Beautiful” and, “That has to be Beckham” when they see my photos on Instagram or Twitter. There are some other things I want them to say about me, too—that he is involved in the community, genuine in character and his work is the best.
Quality Photography – Because you are reading this and attending events like ShutterFest 2017, you are already on the right path to improving and defining your art. I teach and speak nearly 10 times a year, but I also attend classes to improve my craft. The second you think you are good enough, slap yourself and seek someone better than you for help. Quality photography is an ongoing process.
Fashionable, Cutting-Edge Style – A couple of years ago, I stopped at a magazine rack because I’d seen an article about the new homecoming fashions. (I opened it and glanced around me to see another man my age with a College Football Preview and another guy with a hunting magazine.) You need to stay on top of it. If you are thinking about doing flower crowns and parachute skirts, you have already missed the chance to be cutting edge. I use my senior models all the time to get new ideas. Follow local and national fashion photographers, and see where they are going. Better yet, get on Instagram and see which photographers your senior models are following, liking and commenting on. You will be surprised and may be inspired.
Natural, Clean Edits – My goal with editing has been that the photo in the camera is so close to what I want the finished image to look like that I can pay a high school photography student to do my edits. I strive for the five-minute edit. That means a complete understanding of lighting and my equipment. It also means attention to the details of the pose and surroundings so that I never have to fix it in Photoshop.
Unique Locations – My top four locations this past year were wildflowers, waterfall, country and urban. Find places. Get permission. Be unique.
Beautiful – You can bring out the beautiful in everyone by understanding body language and posing, by knowing your clients and by knowing what outfits work best on different body types.
Be Involved, Be Genuine – My senior model program gives back. I talk about that later in this article. You need to be yourself with young people. They can see through fake faster than our new president claims he can.
Be the Best – I started competing in contests like SSG Hot 100 and PPA print competitions a couple of years ago. There is no better way to get better than by putting yourself out there, even if it means getting torn down. In the process, you build yourself back up again. You can’t count on your friends and parents of the seniors you photograph for unbiased, growth-promoting feedback. It can be a punch in the stomach when you see work that is better than yours and hear why yours isn’t that good. But realizing the flaws and correcting them will make you a better shooter. Hearing your peers say that you have created something extraordinary is the ultimate compliment. There will be nothing more rewarding for your senior models than to be published in a national magazine or to win a national contest. The buzz that comes back to you on social media is immeasurable.
Marketing: A form of communication between you and your customers with the goal of selling your product or service to them.
Now, how do you market this brand you’ve created? Google is still the number-one way to be discovered. That means getting to the front page of Google is still the ultimate goal. There are many elements that go into the formula to make that happen. The largest is getting people to your site. So, simply put, every item of marketing needs to get people to your website to increase your chances of being on the first page. The old Rod Stewart and the Faces song “Every Picture Tells a Story” is my mantra (EPTAS). I let my work do most of the talking on social media.
Website – There are many easy-to-use webhosting services that can make your website look professional. For me, it’s Squarespace. When you go to my website, www.davidbeckhamphotography.com, you see photos. When you click on a photo, it takes you to even more photos—EPTAS. No slideshows, no music, just what I believe is my best recent work, in an easy-to-navigate format. The site gets updated often since active sites get more attention in search engines.
Video – Every year, I make a promo video. I hire an excellent video guy who guides me through its creation. My latest one was made to look like a music video with Jessie singing a cover of “Photograph” by Ed Sheeran. She sings. I do a voice-over that is a conversation with the potential client about all of the elements I am building into my brand. The video has lots of excellent drone footage, great locations, beautiful imagery and fashions, but the hook is in the last 60 seconds. That’s the part that makes Mom get teary eyed and realize I am the right person to capture her daughter’s senior portraits. The last thing you see is the images that we shot while creating the video—EPTAS. The video is the first panel you see on my website, and my YouTube channel links back to my webpage. Here is the direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8scRWldetE.
Direct Mail – Yes, direct mail. Would you spend $1 to make $4.31? Of course you would. How about $5,100 to make $22,000? That’s a tough call there. I have a 16-page 8.5×11-inch, full-color magazine that is packed full of photos—EPTAS. The mag, of course, has a link to my website, and I also dedicate a page of it to the video that’s released the same week. Not only does the mailer attract new clients, but it builds my brand as beautiful high-quality photography, cutting-edge fashion, natural, clean edits, unique locations and being the best. I ask every client how they found me. Fourteen of them listed my mailer as the only reason, and another 20-plus listed it as one of the reasons. I will gladly drop $5.1K to reach 4.7K potential clients to get that kind of return. I’m not ready to spend that on a web designer or someone else to create my brand.
Apps – I use MyPhotoApp. It has a call button and a link to my website right on it, and the apps are so easy to share. There are others, too, like Sticky Albums and ShootProof.
Social Media – Build a presence on all social media. Reach the parents on Facebook. Reach the youth on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Pinterest. There are so many things written about when and what to post; you don’t need this article for that. But for me, 95 percent of the time, I post my best work—EPTAS. Each social media profile has a link back to my website. And since Squarespace makes it so easy to update, I often add a page there with multiple photos of the shoot I just posted about on Instagram. Then I mention, “For more photos from this shoot, see my website! The link is in my bio.”
The Best Friend Shoot – I offer my senior models an opportunity to bring their best friends in for a session while they are still sophomores and juniors. This allows the friends to see how fun it is to be photographed at David Beckham Photography before they’ve chosen a photographer. I photograph them as a group and one-on-one with each friend. I take one photo of the friends individually and edit it the way I would if they were my client. The photo is watermarked and resized and I gift it to them. I make a separate page for “Sydney’s Best Friend Shoot” on my website. I post a photo on Instagram and tweet another, and tell them there are more photos on my page.
Sports and Groups – This is an excellent way to meet new clients. When I shoot sports posters, I follow my same guidelines of clean edits and not a lot of Photoshop magic. What I do differently is take some fun shots of the athletes with their teammates. I capture the shoot on Snap Story and send out one or two photos on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. In these posts, I direct them to my website for more great photos from the event. A couple of years ago, I started taking headshots for the musicals at two high schools. This has been huge. I print 8x12s at no charge. They offer me a full-page ad in their programs. I get to meet all of these great young people, and actually hand-pick the best of the best to be my senior models when they are still freshmen and sophomores. So, many of the actors become senior clients as well.
Senior Model Program – I wrote about my program in my last article. I use photos of my models for most of my social media posts since they get digitals as part of their package anyway. One of the big draws of my program is that we are very active with promotional shoots and social service projects. We raised over $10,000 last year to purchase food for the homeless. I took groups of models to shelters 13 times, and we purchased, prepared and served over 2,800 meals. We raised so much last year that we were also able to donate pots and pans and other equipment to soup kitchens. I don’t overpost about these activities. I want the people who donate to know we are using their money correctly, but more importantly, I want to show that giving back isn’t about accolades. You can read all about my program at www.davidbeckhamphotography.com/senior-models.
All of these marketing practices will help get you to the front page of Google without blogging or paying Google for an advertised spot.
Want more information on this article? Get access to video content and additional supporting images. Launch the March issue of the magazine by logging in or signing up for a free account by clicking here. Shutter Magazine is the industry’s leading professional photography magazine.
