Do you know what your clients and prospects are saying about you? How about your competitors? Are you aware of how your brand is perceived outside your studio walls?

Your photography business is a brand, whether or not you’ve consciously decided to brand yourself. In fact, as photographers, most of us are our own brand. Branding as we used to know it used to be something that larger corporations would engage in, and was mostly fuelled by advertising – TV, radio, newspapers, magazines etc. Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Calvin Klein, Levi and the rest were all major players in their respective industries, with their branding determined mostly by their powerful advertising.

Not any more.

The onslaught of social media has changed all that forever. Interruptive advertising (radio, TV, newspapers and magazines) has declined sharply in both reach and effectiveness, replaced instead by a more permission-based form of marketing through social media and peer-to-peer recommendation. It has become harder for companies to market to us directly, but easier for people to adopt the role of brand evangelists.

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Sales & Marketing branding, facebook, google alerts, photography marketing, social media, social oomph

How often do you talk to prospects on the telephone only to not hear from them again, or be unable to at least convince them to meet with you for a face-to-face consultation? Probably more than you’d like to, in which case you might be a victim of these eight major phone call assassins…

Your marketing has succeeded in making your phone ring with a prospect, but now what do you do? It’s probably cost you a certain amount of marketing dollars to connect this person with you, so you want to make the most of the opportunity to talk with her and hopefully convince her to become a client, right? Well, here are some tips on how you can do that.

Keep The Assassins At Bay

Before you even answer the telephone, the odds are already stacked against you. The prospect has called you, but she’s probably bracing herself for the onslaught of a sales pitch, so her resistance is already primed in defense mode. As if that wasn’t enough, the phone call assassins are waiting quietly in the wings, ready to sabotage your efforts and ruin your chances of success…

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Photography Business Ideas professional photography, telephone sales, telephone technique

Last week, I published a post called “Do Consumer Labs Cheapen Professional Photography?”, a subject which has generated some interesting discussion here and in other dark corners of the web.

One excellent rebuttal to my original post indicated that it’s possible to obtain prints from consumer labs that are equal to or sometimes better than what we can get from some pro labs through the use of custom color profiles.

My personal experience doesn’t bear out that conclusion, but I wouldn’t presume to argue that it isn’t true in at least some instances, because I haven’t done any scientific tests to either confirm or deny it.

Everything Else Being Equal, What’s The Difference?

Even if the print quality were identical in both cases, I still have difficulty with using a consumer lab for clients’ prints, because the only motivation to do so would then be the price of the print. We, as professional photographers, complain all the time that our prospects make their purchasing decisions based on price alone, turning our photographic art into little more than a commodity. I believe we owe it to our clients to treat our own work, especially behind closed doors, with the same respect that we expect from our clients.

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Photography Business Ideas client perception, photographic quality, print labs, professional photography

Last week, I wrote an introductory article on the importance of long tail keywords for web site SEO. As a starting point, I covered some of the basic concepts involved but would like to add a more in-depth piece for those who are interested in pursuing the subject a little further.

Keyword Competition

When we try to come up with appropriate keywords for our website, it’s relatively easy to identify the usual suspects:

• Photography
• Portrait
• Photographer
• Family portrait
• Wedding photographer
• … and so on…

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Photography Website SEO long tail search, search engine optimization, SEO, web site

The photography business has seen some very difficult challenges over the last couple of years. A luxury for most consumers, portraits and professional photography have been cut back by some and abandoned completely by many.

A lot of talented photographers and good studios have disappeared to become victims of the latest recession, and it’s difficult to know whether we’re heading for recovery or deeper into the mire, depending on whom you read, watch or listen to.

There’s no doubt about it, our industry continues to experience turbulent and interesting times.

On the other hand, camera manufacturers seem to be largely oblivious to the trouble going on around them and persist in tempting photographers into buying new gear with ever newer and improved features. The arrival of video and “fusion” photography to the DSLR market seems to ignore the fact that many professional photographers have fewer and fewer clients on which to use these amazing new technological benefits. Not only that, many photographers are spending their marketing dollars on new equipment in the false belief that it will make them more desirable to the consumer, or make them appear more professional.

My question is, “how are professional photographers generally reacting to the continued explosion in equipment?”

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Photography Business Ideas business priorities, camera equipment, camera gear

There’s a saying that I’m sure everyone knows, that’s as true today as it was when it was first said, and that sits quietly at the very foundation of what we do every day as professional photographers (or any other business for that matter):

This is supposed to be difficult – if it wasn’t then everyone would do it…

Do you find running a photography business difficult? Do you have days when you think you really can’t carry on much longer? Are you constantly frustrated because clients don’t show up as expected? Do you wonder if the phone company has routed your calls to a remote Siberian outpost? Are your special offers so special that no one wants them?

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Personal Zen inspiration, motivation, photography business, professional photographer

Search engine optimization (SEO), just like housework, is never done. Just when you think you might be finished, it’s time to start all over again! By the way if you do think SEO is something you only do once, or infrequently, for your web site you might need to rethink that idea.

SEO is a constantly moving target, and you need to be on the ball to try to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of search engine results. This is a lot of work, so knowing what things are most important is vital in keeping the workload to a minimum.

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Photography Website SEO long tail search, search engine optimization, SEO

Yesterday, another professional photographer asked how I was doing in the war against moms with a camera, a subject that crops up frequently these days. Sometimes also referred to as the “soccer mom“, the phrase “moms with a camera” includes almost anyone who thinks they can be a professional photographer on a casual basis, without any real photography or business training.

Of course, they don’t have to be a mom, it’s simply a convenient phrase.

If that sounds at all disparaging, it’s not meant to be, and the purpose of this post is not to bash those moms with a camera who like to take great photos of their kid playing sports.

In fact, many of them are actually talented photographers with a potential future in the business. We must also acknowledge the fact that most of us started out this way, so I’m not going to knock them for it.

However, if you are a mom with a camera and would like to know how to avoid being tarred with the same brush as some of the less professional photographers out there, read on to see what you can do…

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Sales & Marketing digital photography, mom with a camera, moms with a camera, moms with cameras, photography business, professional photographer, professional photography, soccer mom

Last week, I came across a version of this question posed by a real professional photographer in an online discussion group, and it’s been bugging me ever since. Finally, I thought I would try to exorcise this demon from my mind by writing down my thoughts about it.

The original question was along the lines of:

I get my clients’ prints made at Sam’s or Walmart, but I don’t want them to know because it might take the pro out of what I do… what if they see me in line waiting to pick up their prints?

I can barely begin to say how upsetting I found this! It wasn’t so much that a professional photographer was using a consumer budget print shop to have their client’s prints made that upset me (although I feel that’s bad enough just on its own), it’s more that they had to ask the question, as if they felt there might be some justification for it out there from other professionals.

Perhaps they were expecting others to say, “oh sure, we use consumer labs all the time, and our clients can’t tell the difference. It saves us a bunch of money. Keep up the great work.”

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Photography Business Ideas print labs, professional photography

Groupon – A Cheesy Deal For Photographers?

If you haven’t already heard of Groupon, chances are you will. Boasting astonishing growth, they were recently noted as being the fastest company in history to reach a valuation of $1 billion (see this report at Forbes.com).

The Groupon concept is simple (like most success stories); offer one great deal per day in each city that spotlights one business for 24 hours. This is very attractive for the consumer, because it caters to the never-ending search for a good deal and a bargain. It’s also very tempting for the business owner who is attracted by the idea of attracting new customers they might not otherwise reach. Groupon efficiently handles almost everything; crafting the offer, marketing and handling the sales.

The benefit to the consumer is obvious, with no downside; they get cheap deals on just about anything you can think of on a daily basis. But how effective is Groupon for the business? A run of new clients sounds great, but are there hidden dangers lurking in this outwardly sweet-looking deal?

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Sales & Marketing coupon, discounting, groupon, online coupons, photographer, photography

How many times have we heard this question, “do I get a CD of all the photos?”

The answer is not an easy one for many photographers. First off, there’s the simple peer pressure that “all photographers are doing that now” and, leading to the inevitable fear that we could lose business if we don’t follow the rest of the pack.

Secondly, it’s hard to come up with an answer that we think will satisfy the potential client and then we feel that we’re being forced into having to justify ourselves, or our business policies (who’s running your business? You, or your clients?).

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Sales & Marketing CD/DVD, intellectual property, professional photographer, selling