Zenologue

Your web site is, quite obviously, a marketing tool for our photography businesses but, if we’re to have the best chance of engaging our market in this Web 2.0 world, then we need to converse with them and not simply present a highly sanitized, techno-laden, emotionless blurb full of keywords that would send even a search engine to sleep.

The immediacy and spontaneity of blogs make them great for this purpose, as are Facebook and Twitter, if used properly. But, even the content on our main web site should be written more conversationally if we’re to catch and keep our readers’ attention.

Look, No Words!

Photographers are blessed with the ability to communicate in both written and visual media. So why is it that we rely so heavily on our photographs to do the marketing for us? After all, slideshows and flashy presentations might look pretty (to us creative people at least), but how effective are they at engaging the prospective client?

It’s said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and maybe some indeed are. However, photographs by themselves are generally not a conversation – conversation starters perhaps, but not conversations in themselves. They may appeal to the viewer on an emotional level, which is a really great start, but we all too often leave it there, with no further attempt to really talk with them. Think of it like this: would you show a client a photograph in person without saying a single word about it? Do you show your friends your vacation photographs without the anecdotal stories that go along with them? Of course not! Just take a look on Facebook at all the comments that can be spawned from the posting of a single image – this is a conversation that anyone can join, and it’s all free.

Striking and powerful images can be wonderful at starting a conversation, but we had better continue that conversation, or our market will simply leave thinking we hung up on them. This can be as simple as acknowledging a user’s comment, thanking someone for a retweet on Twitter, or answering questions.

What Do You Want To Talk About?

It should be clear by now that there’s a need for us to join in with the spirit of this conversation that’s going on all around us – but what should we talk about? Well, one thing’s certain – it’s really no use talking about ourselves. People who talk about themselves too much at parties are usually the ones left standing about on their own guarding the coat pile.

The ideal subject for this conversation is simple: Our Market. Specifically, how they can benefit from our unique selling points, as long as those points are presented in a way free from business-speak. This must be one of the hardest things to do – the traditional concepts of marketing are so ingrained in us that it’s difficult to break the habit.

There is a conflict between our desire to communicate our message and “advertise” what we do, and the need to engage people on a more human level. We need to find ways to “speak” in plain terms, in a truly conversational style that is honest and from the heart, as it were.

For example, say that one of your unique selling points is that you’re an expert at photographing green cats (not much call for that I know but, hey, this is a hypothetical example).

The copy on your web site should appeal to the emotions that owners of green cats generally experience, and how portraits of their precious green pets can have so much sentimental value to them that the investment in a portrait is well worth it for all the benefits they will enjoy from the photographs. You can work into your conversational talk things like how much more adorable green cats can be, how they make strong bonds with their owners and how great they are to have. How sad would it be to not have a portrait of your beloved green cat after it’s gone from this world? This is much more effective than simply saying, “book your green cat portrait session now!” 

You’re The Voice

You could, of course, blast Facebook with status messages such as “Green cats look cool in black & white” or “When it comes to photographing green cats, we’re not green”. But that looks too much like traditional interruptive advertising or spam.

Instead, you could “listen” to the conversation and find people who are saying things like, “I love my green cat”, “my green cat is my best friend” etc. Then you can reply in a nice way that, yes their green cat is indeed cute and might look beautiful in one of your portraits. You don’t even need to mention that you photograph green cats – if you participate enough and allow people to get to know you, they will learn this information by themselves.

Another way to think of it is to imagine having a face-to-face conversation with a prospective client, perhaps someone you just met who asked about your business. The voice they would hear is distinctly you, and obviously human, with feelings, passion and a sincere concern for their needs and desires.

We can transcribe that conversation and apply it to the web site without making the mistake of over-sanitizing it or using fancy words. Okay, I know the web site is essentially an artificial conversation, but the voice you use can still be real and no less you than the spoken word. Keywords are still important for the search engines, but we should never make them a priority over the quality of our content.

The only job of the web site is lead-generation – to encourage the reader to engage you in person by calling, emailing, asking for more information and to involve you in a real conversation with them that can then lead to a booking and potential sales. In order to accomplish this we need to appeal to their emotions, something we should be able to accomplish considering that photography is inherently an emotional business. 

Conclusion

The introduction of the Web 2.0 has not only made the web more interactive and flashy with dynamic content; it has further enabled the online conversation that’s been there since the web was first invented; the difference now is that the conversation is immediate and becoming the dominant force. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Blogs, YouTube, Wikipedia and a host of other social networking sites are bringing the conversation to a rolling boil that is making traditional web marketing almost obsolete. We need to join in or we risk being left behind as relics of a more primitive time …

This post was based on my personal reaction to chapter 4 of The “Cluetrain Manifesto”, which can be found here:

http://www.cluetrain.com/book/markets.html

This was written in the early 1990’s but reads now like a prediction of much that we now take for granted. A very interesting and thought provoking read indeed. 

Marketing branding, business, facebook, LinkedIn, Marketing, Photography, social media networking, twitter

I was reading Seth Godin’s blog the other morning, as I often do, and was particularly struck by that day’s post entitled “Thanks for leading”.

He talked about how being a leader means to live and work outside of one’s comfort zone, that leadership means dealing with things that are not easy; otherwise, everyone would be doing the same thing. One statement in particular stuck with me, quoted below:

“When you identify the discomfort, you’ve found the place where a leader is needed.”

When I think of the meaning of the word “leader”, I not only think of managers, CEO’s etc. but also the sense in which a company or organization can be a leader in their chosen field. I’m sure you can think of many brands that are leaders, and the reason many of them are successful lies in the ways they are different from everyone else.

This idea translates very well to the world of photography.

Most of us photographers are what might be called one-man bands – few, if any, of us are large organizations. That means we both lead our own businesses and try to lead our field within our specific niche market & location.

Leading within our niche market would be very difficult if we simply offered the same services, products, photographic style, approach and prices as everyone else. We need to be different, which means striking out on our own into uncharted waters.

This is where the discomfort is felt, because we may be unsure how the market will react to us, and we expose ourselves to the criticisms of others, including our peers. But if we can identify a source of discomfort like this, then we just may find a new place where a leader is needed – a new market trend.

Perhaps there really is no true roadmap for success when it comes to the identity and purpose of your brand, any such roadmaps deal only with places already discovered and could lead you only to nowhere.

If we feel comfortable where we are and in what we’re doing, then we ought to start to worry and look for something not quite so comfortable.

As others have put it so well before me: Dare to be different.

Motivation branding, business, Motivation, professional photographer, seth godin, studio branding, success

I am almost finished reading “The Brand Called You” by Peter Montoya (with Tim Vandehey), and have enjoyed reading this so much I thought I would share it with you here. This is a must-have book for any photographer (or anyone in business for that matter). There are so many actionable tips that they are too numerous to mention here.

For anyone, like me, who has a hard time trying to figure out how to brand themselves effectively to create a unique place in the marketplace, I can’t recommend this highly enough.

The book is a no-nonsense read of about 270 pages and is great for anyone new to the idea of trying to create a brand.

I’m sure I’ll be reading this one again several times.

Here is a link to the book on Amazon:

Marketing book review, branding, business, education, Marketing, studio branding, success