The world of social media can be daunting. There are so many platforms to choose from and to post on, and different things seem to be working for different people. It can be overwhelming trying to figure out what to post, when to post it, where to post it, and what to do after you’ve posted it.
To many, the thought of putting yourselves out there can be daunting, especially if you are by nature an introvert. Face-to-Face Marketing often will require you to shed that dynamic if it is part of your personality.
You read that title right. All other things equal, marketing is the reason I see most businesses fail. They ether don’t do it at all or, quite frankly, they suck at it. And no, running a Facebook Ad is not marketing. There are time-worn strategies that go into marketing. You don’t just do something and magic happens. You need a plan. You then must execute that plan. You then evaluate the results, make adjustments and re-execute your plan. Rinse and repeat.
For a long time I despised marketing because I did not have a strategy for our B2B video and photo company. Anything that I had tried, like posting on Facebook and Instagram or email marketing, did not seem to work for me. These strategies work when done well, but I did not figure them out and was getting frustrated. A mentor told me to look at my best clients—the 80/20 rule—and figure out the commonality between all of them. Were they all the same type of business? Did they all have the same product or service? Did they all find us through Google?
As a wedding photographer, social media is one of the strongest marketing and branding tools at our disposal. It’s also the most time-consuming task, taking us away from our passion of running our own photography business. It’s the end of engagement season, so marketing is a top priority for wedding photography businesses. Social media is where most newly engaged couples hang out digitally these days, but that’s not the only way to get in front of them. How can you make sure you’re doing your best job at marketing when everything keeps changing?
How many times have you heard “You gotta fake it until you make it”? Want more clients? Simply tell the new client you are targeting that you’ve already worked with dozens of clients just like them. It’s been tossed around in my neck of the woods since the beginning of our business many years ago. And I’ve hated it since the first time I heard it.
You may have tried Facebook ads before with little success. If so, you probably just skipped one or two of these easy-to-miss (but important) steps. Let’s review the steps now, and at the end I will show you how to get your photography studio’s engine roaring with yet another very powerful tool.
Recently I was looking at where my wedding referrals were coming from when I noticed that a venue I used to shoot at several times a year had completely fallen off my radar. We had not shot a wedding there in almost five years. How could that be? We picked up the phone, scheduled a meeting with their team and did something about it. Below is how we went from an afterthought to front-runner—and rebuilt a relationship and our portfolio along the way.
What goes around comes around: it’s an expression we’ve all heard numerous times, but this month it’s so appropriate for eight great promotional products/concepts everyone seems to have forgotten about. Over the last five years, I’ve written about half of them, but it’s time to create a little more awareness to help you make 2018 the biggest and best year you’ve ever had. None of the ideas are new, but most of you will find them unique and loaded with potential for growing your business.
When I decided to specialize in tween photography, it was hardly new. Tweens were often photographed as kid models. So the need for headshots for their comp cards was a need. During the middle school years, parents would purchase the school pictures because that would usually be the only time their kid’s age was documented. I consider the tween genre to be a “Blue Ocean.” I originally heard of the Blue Ocean Strategy from Sal Cincotta at a small event. When Sal mentioned the strategy, it hit home for me and my niche.