How To Be A Professional Photographer
Photography Coach - SEO, Marketing and Business

Architectural photography is a captivating and fascinating genre, able to reveal to us the inner beauty of the buildings and structures that make up our world. You don’t have to be an architectural photographer to appreciate the magic that happens when technical skill, lighting and true artistry combine to produce the perfect image.

Architectural Photography by Jeffrey Jacobs - Join us on Wednesday May 23rd 2012 for our FREE teleseminar and Q&A call - The Power Of Light: The Foundation Of A Solid Architectural Photography Business

Learn how the magic happens with “The Power Of Light: The Foundation Of A Solid Architectural Photography Business“…

Click Here To Continue ‘The Power Of Light: The Foundation Of A Solid Architectural Photography Business’

How to book weddings is the biggest and most fundamental challenge faced by many wedding photographers, especially those new to the business or still trying to figure out the nuances of how to be a professional photographer.

The task of converting that critical telephone call or in-studio consultation into a final and confirmed wedding booking can be a real frustration – especially so, after all the marketing and hard work needed to attract the right brides to begin with!

How to book weddings - join us on this free teleseminar and Q&A call with wedding photographer Chris Cummins - "How To Engage More Brides And Book More Weddings"

You don’t need me to tell you that we go to a lot of trouble to connect with brides who are looking for a professional wedding photographer: Bridal fairs, Facebook marketing, LinkedIn connections, website landing pages, vendor relationships and recommendations from select wedding venues.

Brides are one of the most difficult demographics to reach, but then it often all just falls apart, on the result of one phone call or meeting, and they’re gone…

Just like that!

Read on to learn how to book weddings so effectively that you’ll have to start turning people away!

Click Here To Continue ‘How To Engage More Brides And Book More Weddings’

The wedding photography business can be a challenge, make no mistake, and if you’re looking for photography business ideas on how to get that all-important wedding booking then I hope you find these two big tips that I’m about to share with you useful.

You don’t need to be in the professional photography business very long before a prospective bride comes back to you with something like this:

“I have an old friend who wants to get into wedding photography and has agreed to photograph my wedding for a really great price…“

How can we reply to this? Is there anything we can do to win this client back? Or, is the sale lost forever? Perhaps more importantly, can we rescue this bride from the inevitable danger of working with a non-professional?

Get that wedding booking with these two great wedding photography business ideas that can help transform your sales calls...

This is definitely one of those times when we really wish we knew “what to say when…”

Click Here To Continue ‘Book That Wedding – What To Say When…’

“How can I be creative as a professional photographer when I’m worried sick all the time about how to find new clients?”

Does that question resonate with you? Sound familiar?

The question came from a photographer who’s business and personal life were badly out of focus, causing a great deal of worry, uncertainty, and lack of clarity.

My heart really goes out to them, because I’ve been there myself, and I know exactly how it feels – the terrible sense of panic over where the next client is coming from is an awful feeling to face in business.

Effective photography SEO for your website is a critical component to your success - check out the latest "Auto-Focus SEO" coaching program to learn how to improve the search engine rankings for your photography website...

But – when a client does show up, even though we’re excited at having someone to photograph, the anxiety about our business can spill over – destroying our creativity. The tragedy is that we can’t fully function as the creative and energy-filled photographers we want to be, and which our clients both deserve and expect from us…

I’ve been where you are right now, and I know how hard it can be… The frustration is hard to take when your website feels like a ghost town, the phone is silent, and the only emails you get are from spammers. Fewer website visitors means less leads, which in turn means hardly any clients, and a business that’s suddenly running on fumes!

Here’s how to fix that right now…

Click Here To Continue ‘Last 4 Spaces – Auto-Focus SEO Coaching – Claim Your Spot NOW!’

Internet marketing, online marketing, SEO, and of course social media marketing are indispensable weapons for the modern professional photographer. This is especially true for those who want to run a healthy photography business without spending their valuable time worrying about competing with the local mom with a camera [Note: This term is a generic reference to those photographers who want to be professional, but show little or no desire in learning the real business of photography - not just real photographers who happen to be moms ].

In short, if you want to avoid inevitable business failure, photography marketing in the online technological battlefield of the internet is essential.

The complexities of internet marketing, social media marketing, online marketing and SEO are the biggest challenges for today's professional photographer...

But this is often easier said than done, right?

If you’re like a lot of professional photographers, you built a photography website (or used an off the shelf template from a reputable company like Photoshelter or Zenfolio), did some basic SEO (search engine optimization), put yourself out there on Facebook, started tweeting on Twitter, joined LinkedIn, began a blog, and then waited in excited anticipation for that social media marketing magic to start working…

But nothing much happened… and you’re left scratching your head, wondering why no one likes you (which isn’t true of course).

To stop the scratching, here are 9 internet marketing tips for the professional photographer that are sure to help you get the best out of your online marketing efforts…

Click Here To Continue ’9 Ways To Win The Internet Marketing Game’

When new visitors and prospects discover your photography website in the search engines, do you know which pages they’re landing on, and are those the pages you actually intend them to arrive at? Furthermore, are your landing pages carefully designed, constructed, and optimized to maximize the conversion of website visitors into viable leads for your business?

In other words, do you have an organized landing page optimization strategy for your website, aimed at getting more photography clients in front of your camera?

Giving your prospects somewhere appropriate to land on your website will dramatically improve your marketing and sales results!

As a professional photographer, on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the importance of your website to the success of your business? If I had to guess, I would say you feel it’s right up there at a 10, meaning that it’s very important. In fact, it would be foolish these days not to have a website, but if it’s treated more as a photography showcase than as a crucial element of your internet marketing plan, you could be leaving a lot of money on the table, and literally sending potential clients away!

If you’d like to know how to plug this leak, then read on to see how creating properly optimized landing pages can help…

Click Here To Continue ‘How To Land More Photography Clients In Front Of Your Camera’

I’m thrilled to be able to bring you today’s photographer interview with Sarah Petty, from the Joy Of Marketing. During our 30 minute chat we talk about the forthcoming release of “Worth Every Penny” – a great new photography business book that Sarah has co-authored with her business partner, Erin Verbeck.

Sarah is well known in the photography industry, not just as a great photographer with one of the most profitable studios in America, but also as a thought leader in marketing, branding and sales. It’s always a privilege to talk to Sarah, as we share many of the same ideals when it comes to educating photographers on the benefits of applying sound and proven business strategies.

Worth Every Penny: Build a Business That Thrills Your Customers and Still Charge What You're Worth by Erin Verbeck and Sarah Petty

If you would like to get the inside scoop on how this innovative new book came about, what’s inside, and some of Sarah’s down-to-earth yet priceless tips, then grab a coffee and join us as we talk about how YOU can be “Worth Every Penny”…

Click Here To Continue ‘Photographer Interview: Sarah Petty – Worth Every Penny’

Email marketing… Despite the mad rise of social media, it is the simple photography newsletter – emailed to your clients on a regular schedule – that remains as one of the most effective methods of cultivating and maintaining positive client relationships in the photography business.

You could say that the best way to a client’s heart is through their inbox, as long as you know how to approach email marketing correctly, and where your client happens to be in the buying process.

Sadly, too few professional photographers are using email marketing effectively (if at all) to build solid client relationships, and improve the profitability of their business.

Are you?

Stay engaged with your clients and prospects through the power of email marketing and photography newsletters...

Is an email marketing strategy missing from your overall business plan? Have you put off starting a regular newsletter for your photography clients because you’re unsure how to get started, what to write, which email service provider to use, or even how to grow an email list?

If so, this article should help you overcome these obstacles to get you back on the path to building rewarding relationships with your clients…

Click Here To Continue ‘Newsletter Love: Romance Your Photography Clients With Email Marketing’

Have you visited any online photography forums or professional photographer groups lately? If not then you might want to check out some of the ongoing (and often heated) discussions about the photography business. For a start, I guarantee you’ll find a hot thread in there somewhere that talks about “photography dying as a business” or that professional photographers are all doomed…

Do you lie awake at night scared about how the professional photography business will have changed by the time you get out of bed in the morning? Are you concerned about how you or your photography business model can evolve to satisfy the ever-changing market’s needs?

Are you scared that clients just won’t pay you as much as they used to, or that other so-called professional photographers are too willing to surrender their services for little (or even no) compensation, thereby rendering you out of business?

The question is, do you believe photography is dying as a viable business?

Click Here To Continue ‘Failed Photography Business? Is Photography Dying As A Profession?’

Boudoir portrait photography has been enjoying something of a revival over the last few years, having been popular in the 1980′s and then falling out of favor for a time. Thanks to a new generation of professional photographers, each bringing their own individual sparks of creativity, the genre is being reborn with a new sense of elegance and honest expression.

One such boudoir portrait photographer is Jillian Todd, of Jillian Todd Portrait Couture, who not only brings beautiful images to life but also redefines the genre of boudoir portraiture into something far more fashionable, alluring, and powerful, with her unique branding of glamour photography with a couture twist, as epitomized by Jillian’s great tagline:

Portrait couture is transformation from the outside in – the opportunity for every woman to discover and celebrate her own beauty…

Jillian Todd creates transformational images that transcend the typical boudoir portrait, adding a fashion "couture" twist

I had the great pleasure of spending 75 minutes talking with Jillian about her philosophy on photography, how she approaches her work, her marketing, and many of the fascinating aspects of boudoir portrait work…

Click Here To Continue ‘Photography Business Interview: Boudoir and Portrait Couture With Jillian Todd’

Each week, I receive emails from my Zenologue Insider members and other professional photographers, asking for help with various business challenges. I always do my best to help, either through 1-on-1 photography coaching calls or by email. However, some of these questions fit all-too-common themes, so today’s “Ask The Photography Coach” article is written in response to a couple of questions I received recently from a wedding photographer. Because I see these types of questions quite often, I thought it would be useful to publish the answers here in the hope of helping as many others as I can at the same time.

Running a wedding photography business means that you need to have a business plan, your website is the leader of your sales force, and you must engage your prospects to maximize bookings...

The two main questions can be summarized as follows:

How can I make a business plan? I really didn’t understand until now that I needed one, but I have no idea how to create one…

And:

My wedding photography business is going very slowly, with few bookings for this year so far. I also have a huge backlog of weddings to finish editing and delivering the final products for, I feel that my studio and website are in a mess, and have accumulated a lot of debt. Worse still, when I do get enquiries by email I find it hard to engage them in any meaningful conversation. I feel the only way out is to start over again from scratch, but don’t know where to begin…

Can you relate to either of these situations? Are these challenges familiar to you, and are you also struggling to know how to save or rejuvenate what feels like a failing photography business?

If so, read on…

Click Here To Continue ‘Ask The Photography Coach: How Do I Save My Photography Business?’

In this latest edition of “Ask The Photography Coach“, I talk with a professional photographer who is struggling to find a way to market and sell her fine-art landscape photography.

The surprising thing about this Q&A call was the way it highlights the real benefits of talking to a business coach. The process of coaching allows us to elevate ourselves to a level where we can see the bigger picture in our photography business, often providing insights that seem obvious from that perspective, but which are hard to see when we’re “brainstorming with ourselves” or caught up in the minutiae of running the business.

Fine-art photography allows us to provide a very unique product, and we need to capitalize on that unique factor to develop a real business...

To find out how we developed a new opportunity from the problems she was facing, listen to the recording below…

Click Here To Continue ‘Ask The Photography Coach: How To Be Unique As A Fine-Art Photographer’