Lessons

Lesson Info

Three Core Phases of Marketing

Your marketing basically we're talking about three ways that you need to get people into your studio all right it's your web presence it's your community involvement and its direct mailing alright your web presence is huge we are it talked about how it's not location location location anymore it's dot com dot net dot or whatever you gotta have a solid online presence ah lot of photographers use wordpress because it's free and a lot of photographers still like starting photographers just use facebook fan pages and I want to talk to you guys about why we don't use word press and I was like says about why facebook is dead facebook marketing is almost dead hashtag truth hashtag oh no hashtag why is that body well I'm here to tell you guys why all right as of this week facebook is restricting your posts your native reach from a fan group is going to les people all right but matthew, that doesn't matter I have ten thousand likes on my page do you want to know why having ten thousand likes on...

your page hurts you how it works? His facebook releases your post to twenty people of your ten thousand fans it's going to release it to a certain number now of those twenty people if eighteen liker common or share facebook is it whoa there really hitting on something here and they're gonna spread that post out to more people okay that post will become distributed tomb or of your ten thousand fans and then if more of those people like it we'll go two more ok, so the trick to having a good facebook group isn't how many likes you have I think it's hilarious when people ask me like they're paige I'm not going to book you I don't know why you want me on your page I'm not buying your services and so what happens is if I like your page I'm a completely un engaged fan I'm not going to write about your sale I'm not going to share about your sale I'm not going to talk about it why? Because I'm running my own studio so if I'm one of your initial twenty people that facebook releases that post to I'm not helping it get out you don't want me on your fan page you want engaged posters how do you get engaged posters that sometimes still trying to figure out I'm not going to give you the answer today but I will tell you that the trick is is to find you've got to find the customers that really love your stuff and they can't stop talking about you and they love you that's what you want in your fan page you don't want numbers just tow have numbers big numbers hurt you in your facebook marketing alright so wary mentioned this like who here is actually proud of their website you're proud of yours. Okay, well that backfired uh expecting no one. No, I I really think that it's something that a lot of photographers struggle with and it's like I said it's got to be more than pictures he took a couple years ago it has to be updated has to be it has to be representative of the work that you d'oh I just got asked a critique a local photographers web site and I was like, dude, I like you've shot weddings with me I've seen your work your work is incredible why are you showing me stuff that looks awful? And he said I haven't changed the photos out you got better ones change about you got way better from when you made this website needs to be friendly okay, just little the only tip I'm going to give you is your name and phone number needs to be on every single page every single page make it painfully easy for people to get in touch with you uh make it a digital brochure it should just be photos it shouldn't just be information it should be the right combination of photos and information to get people engaged and interested in buying your services and it's gotta look cool so our websites I have for so I have k hi from photography dot com I got my elusive art which is our boudoir brand we have our photo booth website, which is the little black booth, and we have many the body dot com because of course we have matthew the body count. Go, dad, he had it on sale no at all of our lives. Let's, go check him out and go check him out. Are matthew the body stuff has some suffer photographers. The little black booth is just the others are just our regular sites that go out to consumers and all of these websites have been designed with square space. Has anyone heard of squarespace? Anyone? You square space. Okay, square if space is like amazing and they're amazing for a variety of reasons. First of all, I told you like I don't do wordpress for a couple of reasons. One I'm the anti blogger, okay, I have no desire to blawg I don't want to do it, I'm not going to do it. I hate it every time I start to block it's like I shot this really amazing senior session for gym today and I'm really excited to show you these photos and I'm like hot sun stupid gym came in for a session today and we went toe know that's done, and then I'll just be like here's a senior session. Post because I hate it I can't do it it's not a talent set that guy gave me and I'm okay with that and there are people like suze block block like he read supervises black she's awesome awesome at it jasmine stars block when she would post about her wedding images I used to read her blawg and it was one of the few photographers where her words made me want to read to see the image and that's a great talent I would read her blawg and die to see the image that she was talking about I can't do that it's not me and embracing my strengths I have strayed away from the blogger so the square spaced of it's super easy it's allows you a ton of stuff and another thing that I love about it is like if you're using flash which flash was king for photography websites for long time flashes dead it's gone if you're using it changed website right now it's awful flash has never been supported by apple for the mobile devices so no one on an ipad no one on an iphone conceal your website it doesn't work and android used to support it and now they are not any longer so even on android phones and I don't know what you guys do for your website like if you're purchasing stuff I'm hanging out on my couch I'm on my ipad that's what I'm doing so you gotta have a good mobile presence and this allows you that so this is our k dash photography website simple modern easy you set it up through this window it's literally just fill in the blanks dragging the images it's that easy it allows you to go in and set up your basic information whatever you want you can add in search engine optimization stuff so your metadata options for google are all right there it allows you to do e commerce if you do want to do online stuff you khun take payment through this okay and it gives you data to see how many people are going to your website that my numbers and exploit today go check it out no, I'm gonna have like weird anomaly in this but the other thing one of the biggest reasons that I love square space is I know what you guys like if I'm working on something like I'm not a web guy like I'm not that's not me I'm not a techie aiken talk your ear off with photo shop but if you don't talk to me about web design, I have no idea what means what anything you're saying it's like I don't get it and if I can't make it work right away I want to throw it out the window it is so frustrating for me so if you use words bathe or wordpress if you use that service and there's a problem, what do you d'oh? You go on facebook, you go on google and you try to find somebody who's had the same problem, and you hope that it works. If they have plug ins, they may or may not work with your template. Who knows? It's free. Squarespace has a help desk, and I mean on the phone guy, I like I like im not a texter. I'm old fashioned. I want to hear your voice. I will call you. I will call you and talk to you, and I want to know like and so I really I actually really feel bad legitimately for these three guys. Apparently they aren't popular because they put the search bar right over their face. They're like way don't like danny like hi, danny, no, they really like that is huge for me that if I have any problems, if I have any issues, I could just get on the phone. I sent an e mail and I got a guy there that knows what's up and all of their plug ins and stuff that they offer guaranteed to work because it's made for them, like, sincerely go home, set up a website, especially if you're just relying on facebook like your your business reaches gone it isthe hate to be not trying to be rude I'm not tryingto crush your dreams I'm trying to help you get going in the way that you need to and a solid dot com is what you need so go check it out all right? Community involvement this one's like I'm going to kind of talk in general's on this because this is probably the one okay I gotta gloss over a little bit here we've got to keep going but this is it's important people need to see you like are you around in your community if you want to be a senior photographer like I goto football games, I live in the communities I shoot it I make sure I talked to these people when I see him at t g I fridays you know what I mean? Like be engaging be around town be where your clients are be seen if you go to football games, make sure you talk to people that have kids that are that are coming in and don't be afraid to ask for the session don't be pushy about it there's nothing wrong with him like, hey, we'd really love to see dave jr come in for a session next year there's nothing wrong with that be on people's minds be around in your community and be engaging and talk to people about the work that you can do for them that's that's actually something I learned from my friend davey too he said a long time ago we were talking about networking and he goes, what do you say when someone asks how how's business and make sure that you also answer that question without being like, oh my gosh, I'm so busy it's just crazy like life is just so nuts were shooting so much because what does that mean? That means that I can easily interpret that as like you can't give me the time that I need I want to come to you and I won't have a great session you're really busy right now you don't need me you're on your own because I want someone that's going to give me the attention that I need I want somebody that needs the work I want to help you out so I always answer that question with doing good, but we're always looking for more what do you got? Make sure that when you talk to people, you certainly don't want to come on desperate for work, but make sure they know that you take more work, they don't don't make it out like you're so busy that you can't handle another job because they won't get it um and always be eager to help with like fundraisers in community events, we have a photo booth company I don't eat that all the time we'll drag it out cost me seven bucks an hour to run that thing plus my labor and the maximum cost it isn't papers like seven bucks an hour so yeah I'll drink that out to your p t a thing who cares because we're around and and I go to those so they see me all right direct mailing alright run grab her hand out all right so direct mailing is holding is this entirely scary concept that I don't understand why people are so freaked out about this is our brochure we sent out last year. Okay? This is thank you uh with the rate nearly right now less unless people are doing it and with less and less people doing the direct mint mailing it's actually becoming more effective because you're competing with less people ok? So to do a good direct mailing you need to understand three things you need to have an accurate list you need to have a great mailer you need to have a call to action an accurate list means that you are sending stuff that the mailers you said you're getting to the people you want him to I had a friend who got a mailer for his kid and his kid was like twenty six years old twenty four years old some nonsense and they bought it from a company and it was in an accurate list and by sending him that mailer that photographer spent money time designing it money, printing it money, mailing it to somebody that is never going to use it it's just taking your money and, like, play a game with something like light it on fire do some there's more fun ways to blow money go buy something expensive go buy some of your wife's gonna holla at you for buying because it's a was unnecessary I hear that a lot of family meetings. Eso no, you gotta have an accurate list or it's it's done. It doesn't matter. It's a waste your money. You gotta have a great mailer because even though there are less people doing it, you still need to compete against the ones that are sending them out. And then the called action gets him off the butts. So this mailer right here, eight and a half by five and a half. Okay, why is it eight and a half by five and a half? Because that is the biggest size that I could mail for the cheapest price. This is the biggest piece that I contend that was not going to increase my postage rate. Now, what is cool about it is it just keeps going, so when I say you need to have a great mailer, this is what I'm talking about how does your marketing piece stand out? Mine just keeps flipping out more and more pages so there's a reason why we don't put it this way because then it looks too much like a centerfold side now I just not good for senior marketing um so are our brochure folds out it's like twenty eight inches wide when we folded all the way out and it starts out with um now what? So you flip it open first page you flip it open now what? We gotta pick a session you gotta call us the book an appointment you gotta prepare to have fun and it gives you basic photography tips stuff that you all know if you want to look like a balloon bus spray tanning right before your session is a great idea if not, try to avoid that it's it's all stuff that if it's a cloudy day don't call me freaking out saying you need to reschedule because it's cloudy that's good for photography okay, so we just want to walk our clients you're just some general stuff flip it open again and it's going to give them a y us session it talks about this isn't on the slide show, but this talks about why you should pick our studio it talks about how we're on minimum orders about how we don't have hidden fees and it does have now one thing I will say in full disclosure is that I see that we don't work nights and weekends and we don't we don't work sundays okay I do have sunday sessions I have not sold one in three years you'll see it in my brochure it's a thousand dollar minimum order if you need it you can have it but I'm gonna have to buy my wife something really really nice you're gonna have to help me pay for that so if you're looking at this brochure don't call me up and you ii he's a liar they knew sunday said yeah we market it we'll do it it's my happy to do a price won't do it for less than that and generally may one of the employees do it way have this page which watch you through it's a brief description of all of our sessions and if you look at the bottom of it it also gives you all of our monthly specials ok now I don't know what schools are like in your market but kids are still in school that ours until june eighteenth so in generally parents don't they're generally in a big hurry to get senior pictures done that was forget the girls want to wait until the middle of some works they want to tan and the guys just kind of put it off as long as possible so how do you get him in? We promote monthly specials that earlier your session the better the special mai gives you it's, like twenty percent off is just crazy, right? Easy, twenty percent off your entire order. Okay, so you're like, well, same minimum order. They're still going to spend the same amount. They're just basically getting twenty percent additional product for free, but no one gets it. No one books it in may doesn't sell for us. Why is love like a month of school left? So why do I put it in there? Because I want you to get this brochure and think that that's a valid option, you're going to toss this in the we're going to keep this guy will get twenty percent off, not in the automatic deke you now you're in reality, they don't book it, but they can. Now we do have a ten percent off in june, and that does sell, and I'm okay with getting ten percent less in june because I know that there's a lot more sessions I can fit in in august, which is when I'm screaming busy. So the other two that we have that are listening, this brochure are july and august and those air free grand cards, and we're going to talk about drag cards. Greg cards are an amazing giveaway item because I gave away thirty and fifteen of them. No one ever orders thirty or fifteen of them. Everyone needs toe order more so by getting them in the door, basically, what I'm doing is I'm giving you something for free, but you have to come back to me to get it, and you're probably going to spend a lot more money. I'm going to give you free grad cards, but if you order one hundred it's a great way for me to drive up my sales. All right now the impact piece for this brochure was absolutely, positively the middle image as a full size eight by ten. So I mail you an eight by ten, which no one else does, and we go through the brochure it talks about, um, it talks about what we retouch it talks about the super smooth scan, how we coordinate the backgrounds this year we're actually doing something different and they weren't done yet, and I really wanted to share them with you guys, but we are able to get our brochure lists from the high school. I'm sure that's going to a lot of questions in minneapolis and our market, we can call the high school and say, I want to listen, your seniors and they have to give it to us now they want to give it to us for free. But they do give us generally it's like anywhere from three to fifty bucks generally like thirty bucks and I get a list from the high school all the kids that are juniors now the other thing that a lot of people don't think to ask something that we're really pushing for this here is I can get those lists sorted any number of ways like in reality that thirty bucks gets me list to the whole district I'm just having them sort out the juniors now what we're doing is we're having them sort them out by gen er a lot of photographers don't want to sell they don't want to shoot high school guys I make so much money out of high school guys if you don't want to shoot him send him to me I will take every one of them happily like high school guys it's a cash cow and people don't like it because they think that you only have like like like this pose this pose or this pose but I'm telling you if you do a guy session right you're gonna make money and generally and get it done faster the my favorite common I got last year was from a guy that was leaving in the middle of a session he looks at me he goes you know when I was doing this session that's kind of nervous that you were going to be like my mom but you're totally not and I was like, thanks that he's leaving and he's like, yeah, this didn't totally suck, and I'm like, thanks. So we send out the brochure though way send out the brochure. We're sending him out by gender. I'm pushing that I want to shoot your high school son stuff. I don't know why so many photographers are afraid of this, but you'll make money and you'll make just as much money you can make just as much money off the high school guys can have a high school girl, because if mom buys jody a sixteen by twenty she's not going to buy bill in eight by ten, if you sit like they're going to buy the same stuff you might not, you might struggle, get the wallet sales you might struggle to get, you know, if you do jewelry or stuff like that, but she'll make good money off of us. The other thing that we including our price, we include a priceless in our brochure now that there's two schools of thought on this and both are valid, do whatever you want. One school of thought is that you shouldn't include a priceless because you should want your clients to engage in a conversation with you, they should have to call you and talk to you, and then you'll release a price list makes sense. I get it. I get a lot of seniors, a lot of families that come in, and they say they like that I include a priceless because it allows them to make that determination before they call me hate your client to feel like I got him with my pricing, so I just put it out there. But it's, whatever you want to dio is not a right or wrong answer for that. Just be aware of that, and we also do a second mailing second mailings, just a small like four by six or five by seven card that goes out it's customized to the school will send us out in the end of june, and when we send these out, we like we'll pick one kid from wise eta one kid from minnetonka, one kid from b s on, and we will put them on with schools, brandy, and now we will offer them a promotional another promotion, and generally this is our big promotion. This is what eighty percent of our clients are going to get. This promotion trumps all the monthly specialist, says that's on the card, so you can't double depths one or the other and there's a better deal, so we'll include a ten by twenty print collage it's like five or six images of the said five and one big image and we frame it we get our framing supplies from evolved framing in their cheap it's like eight bucks for the wood frame that we put him in and we mount it and get it out the door it's it's, affordable and it's a good product it's not junk but it's an affordable giveaway and because it's a collage it doesn't take away from your wall portrait sales it's something that accents a wall portrait it's not an excluder so we put that on there and we'll send it out and we include a girl code on the back of it. Have you scanned that with your device? It's goingto launch into sticky albums, it'll download a sticky album to your phone. Does everyone know too sticky album is those of you that don't know sticky albums is a company that makes personalized apse for your phone you can load them with your own images you can even put in a youtube link it's got all of your branding your email address is your phone number your everything and it's an easy way like they can flip through it they just push the button it loads little kevin miller photography app and flip through it they consume and they consume out than do all that jazz and at the very bottom it has a slide show I mean this one just for fun no way changes coming now feel strange story somehow it's been too long since we were here together together now crowd old rain on us again no pain weights around the bend and feels so good to be with you living in a perfect way good friends he staying good day skies sun won't go waste cool so that was dunn's triple scoop music song I wish I could remember the name I would tell you guys they just can't remember the day with that song right now, but thank you triple scoop for the great music make sure that you're doing stuff with the correct music don't get yourself in trouble, eh? So this is a picture of what the sticky album looks like. This is what they would get from downloading that q r code and it's really like my wife gets angry when I talk about this. I hope she's not watching right now, but we make so much money off of sticky albums and we make good money off of it. In our senior business, we make amazing money off of it in our boudoir business, like we use it to push up our sales and it's an easy incentivize er and it's like it's to earn twenty five bucks a year for for a subscription if you're going to go pay for a year, two hundred twenty five bucks this is not something that that that kids that are doing sessions with a buddy in their backyard. This isn't that. They can't get this. This is still cool and unique, an amazing product. And I'm sure that it won't be in thirty years. But right now, you could be ahead of the curve and use something like this.