One common misconception that’s been so oft-repeated that it’s become axiomatic within abduction research: There is nothing we can do about alien abductions. The aliens have superior technology, pass through solid objects (like walls) at will, and paralyze us and disable our defenses at will. There is no point in resisting. Resistance is futile! While it’s true that the typical bedroom abductee appears to be outmatched by the abducting and obviously-prepared gray aliens, it doesn’t necessarily follow that nothing can be done. In fact, there is a wealth of information from abduction investigators who’ve published credible content on preventing alien abduction.
Stopping Alien Abduction
There are countless instances of abductees successfully fighting back against their (would- be) captors. In some cases, said would-be captors have even been killed. There are even instances where the aliens apparently Continue reading →
Looking for some helpful tips for engagement photos at the beach? We’ve got you covered with these natural light techniques! In this behind the scenes video we cover easy poses, camera settings, and lighting tips to get perfect photos at the beach!
The “secret” to great marketing in the photography industry is actually no secret at all. Successful photography marketing in 2019 simply requires setting up sustainable systems, making sure your approach is multi-pronged and doesn’t rely solely on a single lead source or strategy.
Here are the 10 best photography marketing strategies for 2019:
Note: The information from this article is derived from Course 3 of our Complete Photography Business Training System. a 30+ hour, 4 workshop program to help you build the business of your dreams.
1. Marketing to Past photo Clients for Referrals
Marketing continues to evolve but one constant is the power behind word-of-mouth referrals. According to Nielsen, 83% of consumers say they either completely or somewhat trust recommendations from family, colleagues, and friends about products and services.
All photographers need to incorporate marketing to past clients as part of their workflow. It starts with a great overall client experience, timely delivery of images and making the client feel valued. Beyond that, consider campaigns like sending surprise prints and other gifts to turn clients into raving fans. Consider staying in touch with them via email, social media, and perhaps even in person. One approach is to consider anything you would do for a friend, from sending Christmas cards to staying up-to-date on their major life events.
2. Vendor and photography Network Referrals
Regardless of your photography genre, getting the recommendations of other professionals can benefit your business and serve as a consistent source of leads. While different for every genre, these professionals might include make up artists, model agencies, wedding planners, wardrobe designers and more.
The best way to market to vendors and other professionals is to simply benefit their business in any way you can. This includes referring them business, giving them additional exposure and recognition on your social media, and getting their work published in related magazines.
3. SEO and Content Marketing for Photographers
In 2019, online search is still one of the most frequent methods of finding services like photography. According the Search Engine Journal, 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine so incorporating SEO into your photography marketing is essential to long term growth.
SEO for photographers still starts with good content. Create information-rich, useful, shareable content on your website. Answer questions and become a trusted, reliable resource within your niche. Study keyword and link building strategies, understand local (maps) search results, learn about image search results, and more. It sounds daunting, but it’s not rocket science and it’s worth the investment of time and brainpower.
One of the best rules of marketing is to always maintain a presence where your target market is. So depending on your niche, social media could be critical for your photography marketing. Photographers should focus on the following platforms:
Instagram
Pinterest
Facebook
The key is to be smart with your time and understand that sustainable marketing requires a multi-faceted approach. These days, too many photographers spend too much time on social media, stressing about Instagram likes, Facebook shares and other vanity metrics. The goal is to bring social media into your workflow and maintain a consistent schedule.
For more info and specific tips and strategies on growing your social media marketing, see Course 3 in the Photography Business Training System.
5. Video Marketing in photography
According to Forbes, 90% of customers say video helps them make buying decisions and 64% of customers say that seeing a video makes them more likely to buy.
Creating videos has never been easier thanks to slideshow software like Adobe Spark, Animoto and even Lightroom. So no matter how busy you get, you should try to incorporate some video marketing into your plan this year.
Here are a few quick ideas on how to use video marketing in 2019:
Create a video on a specific subject and upload it to Youtube, making your work discoverable on the 2nd largest search engine.
Upload videos on Facebook, Facebook stories, Instagram, Instagram stories, Pinterest or even Twitter.
Use videos to supplement the content on your existing pages on your blog or website.
Here’s an example of a video our photography studio used to supplement an existing resource page.
6. business Directories and Online Listings for photography
Yelp, Weddingwire, Google Business, and Model Mayhem are all examples of online directories intended to connect you with those looking for your services. There are hundreds of business directories, so it’s important to be selective and find the right match for your niche.
Remember the old marketing rule of establishing a presence wherever your target clients are spending their time. If they are on Weddingwire, then you should be too. If they are on Yelp, you should invest some time on your profile over there as well.
For most photographers, it’s worth completing robust, accurate profiles that feature your best imagery on each of the websites that offer free accounts and are related to your niche. When allowed, it may also be worth your time asking your clients for reviews to build up your online reputation.
7. photo shoot Giveaway Marketing
Giving away your photography services as part of a promotional giveaway can be an effective way to generate leads and awareness of your photography business. Use a promotional giveaway app like Gleam to collect emails, incentivize actions that benefit your business, and drive viral sharing of the giveaway. When done well, these can generate thousands of leads and expand your reach beyond your current network.
Learn all about how to use this strategy in the bonus PDF of our marketing course.
8. photography Email Marketing
After you’ve collected an email, whether you got it from a giveaway, a lead magnet, or other legal method, sending a carefully crafted series of emails containing valuable information is a great way to nurture the lead with more touchpoints. According to Marketing Week, 15 years ago, the average consumer typically used two touch-points when buying an item and only 7% regularly used more than four. Today consumers use an average of almost six touch points, with 50% regularly using more than four.
To get started with email marketing, sign up for a newsletter service like Mailchimp. Or, if you’re a Squarespace user, utilize their email service. Set up a series of valuable emails to be delivered over time. Set up a form of lead generation (i.e. email collection). And tweak your funnel as necessary over time. For more info email marketing, see the bonus PDF in our marketing course.
9. photography Awards, Features and Publicity marketing
Winning awards, getting featured, and gaining other publicity can increase the discoverability and lend credibility to your business.
While awards and features alone won’t likely lead directly to bookings, they can decrease the friction and increase the trust a potential client would have in your abilities as a photographer.
Facebook ads and Google ads are still viable marketing strategies in 2019. However, they are only recommended if you have the time, experience and knowledge to manage them properly. These fees can quickly add up and incorrect audience or keyword targeting is the same as throwing your money away.
In addition, with so many other marketing methods that don’t require a financial outlay, spending money for ads should be done sparingly, if at all. Other methods of lead generation, like SEO and social media, continue to drive leads over time. The content and the accounts are like assets you own that continue to provide benefits for your business. On the other hand, if you rely primarily on paid ads, the minute you stop spending is the minute your leads dry up.
Conclusion – how to market a photography business
Like marketing any other small business, there are no short cuts with photography marketing. The good news is that we have a surplus of beautiful visual assets that make our product shareable and appealing. With the right guidance and allocation of time, there’s a great opportunity for success in 2019.
Here’s a quick summary of the 11 ways to market your photography business:
Photography Client Referrals
Vendor/Network Referrals
SEO and Content Marketing for Photographers
Social Media for Photographers
Video Marketing
Directories and Online Listings
Awards, Features and Publicity
Email Marketing
Giveaway and Charity Marketing
In Person Networking Events and Tradeshows
Paid Ads – Social Media, Adwords and More
We would love to hear from you. What works? What doesn’t? Share your knowledge with the community!
No flash? No problem. See how Pye uses just his phone flashlight and the Canon EOS R to create dramatic nighttime portraits! This is Episode 1 in our new series … “Back to the Basics.” Be sure to subscribe for more!
Photography skills do not equal success! Learn how pricing, sales, marketing, SEO, and an overall strategy can help you create the business of your dreams.
You’ve no doubt heard the idiom that warns against putting “all of your eggs into one basket.” However cliche the phrase may be, these words of wisdom ring especially true when it comes to backing up your files.
A failed memory card or external hard drive can have a significant negative impact on a photographer’s business. Clients lose the captured moments that can never be recreated and photographers suffer a loss in reputation and revenue.
Follow this five-step workflow to securely back up your files and keep your photography business moving forward.
1. Use Cameras With Dual Card Slots
If you get hired to photograph an event, whether it be for corporate, wedding, or even newborn clients, you should use a professional camera that offers dual memory card slots. The last thing you want to tell your client after shooting an event is that you lost some or all of the images due to a corrupt memory card. Recording onto two cards simultaneously provides an instant backup.
Redundancy at this level will save you from having to have that difficult conversation with the client whose memories have just been lost.
2. Upload All Important Files To Cloud Storage
Having an organized workflow is critical when backing up files. The moment you get back from a shoot, back up your files to the cloud!
This minimizes the risk of losing files in the event of a natural disaster, hardware failure, or worse, having your hardware stolen. If a particular device is stolen, files can be wiped from that device but kept safe in cloud storage.
Lastly, cloud storage files can be backed up for periods of 30 to 120 days from the time they’re deleted, which is especially useful in case of accidental deletions.
3. Separate Primary And Backup Memory Cards After Any Shoot
After each shoot, separate your memory cards. Keeping all of your cards together in one place may seem more practical, but it opens up a greater potential for loss should anything happen to the cards.
Assuming that you and the other shooters are using cameras with dual card slots, each shooter should have a minimum of two cards. Create sets that include one card from each shooter and place them into separate bags to be kept in different locations. For example, you take one set home and keep the other set in your studio; or you can take one set to your home and the other set to your second shooter’s home. Include a piece of paper that contains the following information with each bag of cards:
Client’s name
Shooters’ names (if you have multiple shooters)
Date of the event
Number of cards each shooter submitted
Place this paper in the bag with the memory cards. Also, make sure the number of cards on the piece of paper and in the bag match.
4. Check File Count Before Formatting Memory Cards
We recommend creating a new catalog for each event you photograph, whether it be a wedding, corporate event, or bar mitzvah.
When uploading your images into photo editing software, select all photos from each card and write down the total image count. You should also verify that the date on all images on the card matches the date of the event.
After you’ve uploaded all of your cards, add up the number of images from each individual card and ensure that the total matches the number of files in the folder(s) you’re using to store the images.
For Lightroom users, make sure the number of images within your image folder matches that displayed on the bottom left corner when importing images.
Once the import is finished, scroll through all images to ensure that there are no corrupt images. If there are corrupt images, go to your backup card and re-import the corrupt images.
5. Deliver Files To The Client Before Deleting Archives
If possible, deliver your images to your client using your preferred online proofing method before deleting your image archive. Even then, when it comes time to decide between clearing out your storage or archiving your images in perpetuity, consider the following. The cost of storing your images is minimal in comparison to having a client return at a later date to ask for photos and having nothing to offer them but an apology.
At the very least, you should consider archiving the RAW “keeper” images that you delivered. Using the storage cloud is an affordable way to do this and it will free up space on your main workstation.
Conclusion
There are plenty of reasons to start using cloud storage to simply and safely backup your files, and very few reasons to put it off. From being able to access a variety of files offsite to keeping your files safe from hardware failure and theft, you have less to lose when using the cloud storage is part of your regular workflow.
What are some other benefits you’ve found when using cloud storage for your photography business?
This is a sponsored post for Dropbox. All opinions are my own. Dropbox is not affiliated with nor endorses any other products or services mentioned.
It’s that time of year again…. That month between late November through the new year when we photographers load up on all of the gear and software we need (and lots that we don’t need) for 2019.
To simplify things for you, our editorial staff is back with our annual Black Friday/Cyber Monday Deal Tracker for photographers.
Be sure to bookmark this page and visit DAILY as we’ll update it with the latest and greatest Black Friday deals that we find!
SLR Lounge Education: 30% of ALL Store Products, Training Systems, and SLR Lounge Premium.
Notable workshops and resources include the following:
Offer: Black Friday early birds get free gift cards with orders over $300. Shipping is free all weekend long, too. Icing on the cake: up to 20% off thru Cyber Monday.
Valid: 11/16 – 11/26
Code: No coupon necessary (click link above)
About: MagMod makes flash modifiers the way they were meant to be. Our mission is to make awesome photography easy, by making tools that get out of the way of being more creative.
