Zenologue

People often ask me, “Is it worth taking out a Yellow Pages ad?” – usually this is because they’ve looked into it a little, discovered the high cost, and are now trying to find out if they can justify the expense. I know this, because it’s what I did when I didn’t know any better myself.

In the days before the Internet, I’m sure the Yellow Pages worked very well, but not any longer.

You’ve Tried The Rest, Now Try The Best:

Take a moment to open up your local copy of the Yellow Pages or Yellow Book (I don’t want them to feel left out), and let your fingers walk to the following sections – “Photographers – Weddings”, “Photographers – Portrait” and “Photographers – Commercial”.

Unless your area has no photographers, you should see a range of ads from quarter-page to business card size to small 1-inch ads, and many lines of text ads. Some are in red ink, some in green ink and the rest are in black ink. Who jumps out at you? Which ads are screaming, “Call Me!!” from the page?

This is where you think to yourself, “I should probably change my company name to AAAA Photography” so that you’ll be first in the list, but who would call a company with a name like that, expecting top-quality service? No one.

Don’t Follow The Leader:

Obviously, other photographers are advertising in there, so it must the proper thing to do, right? This is where a lot of photographers are falling down. They believe they have to do whatever the competition is doing to advertise, market etc. and then wonder why it doesn’t work. The fact is that most of those studios are not as successful as you might imagine, and many of them are scratching their heads too, as to what to do next.

A Little Off Color:

I have a theory as to how these books acquired the name “Yellow Pages”, “Yellow Book” etc. It has a lot to do with the color you turn realizing how much you paid and how many qualified calls you received in return. Not pretty.

Between the Yellow Pages and the Yellow Book I paid over $4,000 in advertising for one year – you can imagine how “yellow” I felt after that! To begin with, I was so proud of my ads, and I sat by the phone ready for the onslaught of calls I was sure to receive. Nothing. The calls I did finally receive included wrong numbers, people asking me to repair their broken cameras, and the occasional request for a wedding photographer by people who could barely string a sentence together.

In total, 12 months of advertising this way netted me precisely ZERO bookings. I would have seriously had more fun giving $4,000 away – it certainly would have done more good.

The Reason Why:

But why doesn’t the Yellow Pages work? I believe the real reason why this doesn’t work for our industry can be summed up very simply:

“People buy photography for an emotional reason.”

I’ve never seen anyone get emotional just from looking through the Yellow Pages. They let their fingers walk until they find a number to call. They make the call and ask, “How much do you charge?” From that point on, you have a huge uphill battle to get them thinking emotionally about the photography. They probably haven’t even seen any of your work at this point, making it even harder.

In my experience the people that call in response to a Yellow Pages advert are the most dedicated price shoppers there are. All they care about is the price and are after the cheapest then can get. Unless you are the cheapest photographer in town (which I don’t recommend), then there’s very little chance of booking them.

People do get at least partially emotional when they see your work – either online or as part of a display, or from someone that recommended you to them. If they really value the quality of a top photographer, someone who cares about them, then price will not be the major deciding factor and they will be easier to book.

So, my advice to you (for what it’s worth) is to stay away from the Yellow Pages & Yellow Book etc. Keep your valuable advertising dollars for something with a better chance of success. When the sales rep from the Yellow Pages calls you, hang up before they smooth-talk you into something you will regret for at least a year!

Advertising Advertising, professional photographer

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