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

Before we can take even a single photograph for a client, before we can sell them so much as one print, we have to engage with them through the process of marketing.

Many photographers are confused about marketing, almost to the point of avoiding it, viewing it like a mystical craft practiced only by members of an elite group. This is understandable, given that marketing today is the result of decades of abuse by big corporations seeking to disseminate their corporate “message” to the consumer masses.

We are the intended target of such marketing efforts every day – in our mailboxes, on TV, the radio, the Internet, billboards, in magazines – the list is endless. But is this really how we, as photographers, should be communicating with our potential clients? To answer this question, we should look back to more primitive days when the term “market” referred to a central gathering place where people came to exchange goods and to talk. There are vestiges of the original concept remaining today in some places, where weekly markets are held in small towns and communities.

The original “market” was simply the customer. It was the collection of people who bought or traded goods in person from local tradesmen in a central place. They had no use for our modern-day corporate-speak, but were interested only in plain talk about the products they were seeking. Go to any street market today and you can still see this in action – vendors openly compete with each other for attention, but the language is simple and down-to-earth. Everywhere, you see merchants and customers talking, some of them about things unrelated to the products. The atmosphere is relaxed and the interaction between vendor and customer is very clearly a conversation.

Real marketing, when it’s boiled down, is just that: a conversation; the simple act of talking with our market – note that I say “with” and not “to”. I believe the distinction is an important one.

If we understand only one thing, it ought to be this:

Our clients want to talk with us in an open, honest and human way; free of fancy slogans and vague mission statements. They can smell corporate hype a mile away and will disengage at the first hint of anything phony.

The Web 2.0 has generated a surge in interactive web sites and, in particular, the rise of social media networking. Having a voice on the Internet and the ability to converse with others (even if the conversation is mundane) are the reasons why social media networking has become so popular. People want to talk, sometimes about nothing at all, but they also exchange information about their experiences with products, companies and services. This new breed of Internet user is practically immune to advertising and relies instead on the opinions and reviews of other users for information to help them make a buying decision.

The market right now is having a conversation mostly with itself – but it’s time for us to join in; we are even welcome as long as we obey the rules and check our company hype at the door.

If you aren’t already doing so in your photography business, you should be looking at using the power of social media networking to see how you can benefit. There are a lot of webinars, classes and workshops being run all over the place right now on this very subject. If you think that Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and all the other sites out there are just a passing fad, think again – social media offers something that has been unavailable until recently: the ability for anyone to have a voice and share their opinion about anything. Something that desirable is not going to go away, but only evolve and grow stronger.

Used properly, social media networking is like word-of-mouth advertising on steroids. On the other hand, it also has the power to sink a business overnight without a trace. It is simply that powerful and we can’t ignore it for much longer…

For more information on the idea of markets as conversations, check out this chapter of “The Cluetrain Manifesto” – a very interesting and thought-provoking read.

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

One of the hardest challenges we face as professional photographers is trying to convey to potential clients what photography truly means, and how important a role it can play in their lives. We use phrases like “treasured memories“, “moments caught forever“, “family heirlooms” and the like in an effort to impress upon people what the photographs we create for them should mean to them.

We all know that the memories of every stage of our lives are critically important; from birth to toddler to school, becoming a graduating senior, to getting engaged, married, celebrating a family reunion or anniversary. Yet, how many of us find that our clients appear impervious to these descriptions? From what I learned today, I believe it isn’t because they don’t get it or don’t understand what we mean - it’s because they don’t attach a sense of urgency to it. They can always put it off until the spring, the fall or when “things” aren’t so busy. They know a portrait of their kids would be great to have, but life is too busy right now etc.

But, what if they couldn’t put it off? What if there would be no “later”? For the most part we sail through our lives comfortable in the knowledge that there will always be a tomorrow – however, sadly, for many people there is no tomorrow…

The reason for this post is a video that I found this morning and, as I watched it with tears in my eyes, I realized that the reason our work as photographers is so important is to be able to preserve a moment of joy in someone’s life, because that moment will soon be gone like fog on the breeze, never to return. Dominic had a very simple wish and, through the overwhelming generosity of many other people, his wish was granted. The real beauty of the story of this brave man is that his was not a wish for something he wanted – but rather a wish for something he wanted to give – true selflessness.

I will now let the video speak for itself, and would like to thank the amazingly gifted Rod Evans for allowing us all to see this.  I’m sure he won’t mind my sharing this with you here.

Dominic’s Dying Wish from Rod Evans on Vimeo.

Motivation dominic's wish, emotional photography, Photography, rod evans