Zenologue

One of the problems with being a wedding photographer is that we have to wait for the client to come to us, like some creature that uses ambush techniques to catch its prey. Unlike with families, it’s next to impossible to identify a true target market for weddings and mail postcards to them – there simply is no means I’m aware of to access that particular demographic and obtain a mailing list.

Sometimes, the wait can be very long and frustrating and the silence of the phone during that time can be deafening. We’re proud of the quality of our work and feel that it should sell itself as soon as anyone lays eyes on it, right? So, we sit by the phone, willing it to ring, or check our email 500 times a day in the hope that someone, anyone, will email us with an enquiry. Sound familiar?

After a period of confusion and head scratching, we reluctantly consider the dreaded ‘A’ word – advertising. Frankly, when I started out, I knew about as much about advertising as I do about neurosurgery – it’s expensive, requires an expert, and can go horribly wrong if not done properly. Nevertheless, survival dictates that some advertising might be a useful way to draw in those much-needed clients. After all, we need actual income to run a business.

But, what kind of advertising, we wonder?

Just When You Thought It Was Safe…

To the inexperienced (I was so wet behind the ears when I started, that lettuce could grow back there), advertising sounds scary, but just about any advertising method can sound better than nothing at all. Other people, usually those with even less experience than me, would tell me that I needed to “get my name out there”, so I started looking for ways to do just that – not knowing that “getting your name out there” doesn’t really mean anything at all.

As it so happens (and I say this with tongue firmly in cheek), there are a lot of very friendly people out there that sell advertising, who wait patiently for people just like us to stumble into their clutches, so they can relieve us of our advertising dollars as though they’re doing us a huge favor (which they aren’t).

Here are some of the advertising channels that wedding photographers might typically try out at one time or another:

• Yellow Pages
• Newspaper ads
• Radio ads
• Local TV ads
• Local ads at the cinema
• Internet directories
• Church directories
• Flyers

And these are just the ones that don’t work (I’ll explain more about some of these in later posts). My advice is to stay away from them. But, I hear you say, surely I have to be in the Yellow Pages, it’s the phone book! How will people call me if they can’t find me in the phone book? No, no, no! Yellow Pages ads simply don’t work (for photographers) – and I have a gaping $3,600 hole in my checking account to prove it. You might get phone calls, but no bookings, which is the correct measure of effectiveness of any advertising.

Don’t Panic (as the Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy might say)…

Hope is on the horizon – there are ways to get your phone to ring with people who actually want to work with you, and they are much more effective than what we see as the more traditional advertising methods.

In upcoming posts, I’ll talk about some of these methods in detail and how I believe you can get the most out of them, including:

• Pay per click advertising
• Bridal shows
• Internet advertising
• Business alliances
• Referral programs
• … and much more

Until then, know that you are not alone – almost every successful photographer has made mistakes in advertising, but we can learn from those same successful ones to see what does work, and hopefully avoid the same mistakes.

Advertising selling