With an automated drip email sequence, it’s possible to nurture your lead from Awareness to Interest to Desire. Help them get to know you, like you, and trust you, and share with them how your photography will improve their lives. At this point, they should have no choice but to Desire you above all the competition!
It's a tough world for the artist looking to stand out. When it comes to uniqueness, it's hard to think of something that hasn't been done to some extent or the other. It really, truly seems like everything already has. I'd like to preface the bulk of my article and say that no, I don't believe everything has been done before. I'm sure there are lots of ideas that have never come to fruition. What are they?
We can all become the photographer we desire to be, but knowing what we don't know is the first step toward that dream. Take some time, and figure out your primary areas of weakness. Then, get honest feedback from peers, judges, or those you admire, and make a plan. Keep an eye out for that knowledge you didn't know you needed.
This has been my battle cry since my early days on Creative Live. Innovate or die—sounds sexy, but what does it really mean? Before we dive in, I need you to do some soul-searching here. Are you the type of person who just bitches about everything? Do your friends see you as a positive person? Or would they describe you as a bit of a pessimist? I know this is going to be tough for you to be honest about, but it’s crucial to your success—not only in business, but in life.
A sales funnel is simply a conceptual representation of the path that people take from “lead” to “client.” Since literally every client was once a lead, every client came through your funnel—even if you didn’t know you had one.
Building relationships with a team of individuals who are in your industry will help you with longevity, no matter what changes in the world of online marketing. As you continue to build your network, you will see that as a byproduct, your bookings will tend to increase. You will see more mentions of your brand on social media, and you will constantly get more opportunities to help new clients.
So many of you have dreams of being a full-time photographer, but you can’t afford to go full-time until you can’t afford NOT to. That means your part-time income from photography has to exceed what you’re making in your day job, so you have to go full-time or lose substantial revenue.
Creating emotion-driven experiences builds lifelong clients, passionate testimonies, and higher sales. Some of us have been fortunate enough to go through this with our clients by happy accident, but there are steps that you can take that will help foster and generate the emotional client experience in a natural and consistent way.
Truly successful business owners don’t sit and passively wait for money to roll in. They also constantly revisit their goals, their strategies, and their progress. Coming up with a business plan is not a one-time deal; you don’t just set it and forget it. This definitely holds true for photographers. Get in the habit of examining your goals, running your numbers, and measuring your progress. Depending on your results, either fix what’s broken, or set a new, higher goal. Implement. Assess. Analyze. It might sound like a lot of work, but I guarantee the first time you meet your monthly goal, you’ll be hooked.
Look, I’m sorry you needed to stop by this article to have the news broken to you, but if you want success, it is 100 percent out there for you to go and grab by the balls. You have to want it. It will not be handed to you. It is not owed to you. Every day, consumers vote with their dollars. They have a choice. You, we, as business owners, have to give them a reason to spend those dollars with us. And average? That just ain't gonna cut it.