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Lesson Info

Marketing to the Affluent

Let's talk about the different types off marketing obviously we you need to look at the traditional avenues ofthe marketing print advertising is not dead let me let me just reiterate that a lot of people there like our print advertising I don't want to advertise in magazines that print is dead I'm not interested in advertising in print magazines why is it then that high end brands up if you look at vogue magazine they are massive and that that magazine is super thick and I would hazard a guess that fifty percent of it is advertising by very high end brands now it obviously still works the problem that happens is that it is expensive so you're going to go and take out a certain amount of space and it's going to be expensive space so understanding the way photographers minds work and not looking at it from a business perspective your initial temptation that's the word I'm looking for your initial temptation is to put on everything I do I should detail shots shoot the ceremony I should be...

dancing I should you know putting the rings on cutting the cake great big group shots and you put in a cz much information as possible into the small little space which is very expensive and it ends up and also these ridiculous taglines we're preserving the memories of your special days like this what if it's a bit obvious we don't need to tell people that you're putting your phone number your your home address you know and that's very limiting by putting your your address saying seattle somebody find you and I want to get married in nepal you know let's go that's that's cool why if you putting their seattle you're limiting yourself let's let's think big here people so what happens there's? You designed this ad you probably design it yourself cause you're going to pay anybody else to do it you send it off and in the double page spread off the magazine you can only afford a quarter page in the double page spread of the magazine that's what it's gonna look like there's a tiny little piece of advertising in the corner and it's going to add to the noise and call us I gave you a book over there. We can't show this online right now, but college is just gonna have a look through that book picture that as if you were a bride entering the market trying to make decisions suddenly when you get when you get engaged, you get handed this bunch off magazines from your friends you start looking through these magazines and now you are making a ll these incredible decisions that are life altering because you've been waiting for you for this wedding since you were five years old and you start going through this magazine and it's just noise just so much information a ll these types off ads if you look through that magazine you'll see so many types of ads like this now all you're really doing is adding to the confusion that this bride is already in. You have to understand that she goes from say working and a high powered job at the bank is to say she's got a great career at the bank her position is I dont nine positions the bank in let's say financial director off something now suddenly she gets engaged nash's wedding coordinator and uh not only is she a function co ordinator for her wedding but for the biggest emotional moment off her life so when she starts to look she just overwhelmed with noise because she gets engaged on the saturday night sunday morning comes people are like oh my gosh that's amazing where you getting married? When are you getting married? Who's going to be the bridesmaids this whoa, whoa I thought that this experience was going to be fun but planning a wedding is an emotional mine field it's not very easy for her so what I want to do is I want to be her beacon of calm in this storm off noise and emotional distress that she's going to find herself in so in print advertising don't take a quarter page don't take a sixth of a page don't take half a page either take a full page or a double page spread or nothing at all. If you're going to take a full page ad, you're sending out a very clear message to a lot of different areas because I'm going to talk about that in a sec. So the way I see it is you gonna have a whole lot of ads like this on the double page spread she's looking through the magazine she's freaked out about all this digital sorry, all this noise that she's looking at all these different images and that all these sales pictures and silly tag lines and things like that, then she eventually I've got my ad at that. My my ads always the last ad in the photography section, she's she's freaked out. She doesn't know where she's going, she turns the page bang one image that represents my brand she knows I'm going to take a picture of her cutting the cake she knows I'm going tio take a picture of the kissing, that type of thing. So what I do there is it's a very clear message I'm sending out to a very specific person and I will put images like that in which show that I've got great equipment and that I can shoot at night and I'm going to add some sort of diversity to your to your images. One thing that I needed to check about here which which I'm not going to dwell on very long so this is a whole nother three day presentation is if you are marketing to other ethnic groups understand that in south africa the black market brides are quite subservient so you're not going to have a super sixty type of image you're going to show this kind of thing where she looks a little bit more demure a little bit more coy that my my ad this year is this shot over here and obviously you've seen it and that's going to be a double page spread and I still have print advertising the reason I still have print advertising is not only because I'm targeting the bride but as a photographer when you go and buy a bridal magazine which is the first section u go to why because you want to compare you want to see what the other guys are doing and when you see a double page spread on my work over there and you've never heard of me am I intimidating you you haven't even seen any of my work and already you're on the back foot already you think wow who is this guy and really I haven't done anything I'm just taking out the double page spread so you're gonna be talking about me you know start telling your friends about me you might even go and check out my web site and see that I do workshops and they come on my workshop, ok? So I'm not only targeting the brides, but I'm targeting other photographers, other people in the industry. I'm targeting wedding coordinators, so if you don't get a wedding from your print advertising, it does not mean that print is dead. It doesn't mean it didn't work because you're sending out a message about your specific brand talking about bridal shows, bridal shows are a fantastic way to get to know clients. What you have to understand about bridal shows is that often the guys don't go with why don't you guys go with? Because it's it's specifically made for girls and it's always over the weekend and the guys wanna watch baseball, they wanna watch football, they wanna watch rugby, so the guys are not really into it, so they will send the bride to go have a look or not, they will send the bride will go, and she will ask her mom to go with her because I could goes down. So this is a really shot from a real bridal short and very cool tip that I'm going to talk to you about here now is what I do is I the bride will arrive at my table exactly the same thing about a cure message I got a message behind, I've got an image behind me that is my image that is trying to target the specific bride, and I'm looking for one image, one big image behind me because you go to a bridal shown it's just noise as I was talking about, so the bride comes and she sits down, she starts chatting with me, and I opened up my portfolio and I'm showing her these kind of images and she's like, oh, wow, that's cool and mom starts to look over and I'm like, whoa, you don't need to see stuff like this, which is, you know, half naked girls and things like that. So what I do is I gotta sifrit book underneath underneath the couch, on the sofa or at the back here on on a separate table like no, mom, you have a look at this, so I've got two separate portfolio is that I've made for the bridal show, so mom now is sitting there looking through a book and the bride is looking through a different book, but they both have the same idea, and mum is looking at this and going, oh my gosh, this is so amazing and the bride is good looking at all. My gosh, this is so amazing, they both saying the same thing about two different things, okay, so I'm getting validation from both sides and what's mom looking at family because that's what's important to mom sometimes mom will be sent there on a ricky to go and find, you know, suppliers potentially the bride works in a different city different state so she'll send her mom. Mom, you go to the show it's a great way of allowing mom to be involved in the wedding if she comes back with some suggestions that you don't really like you don't have to take them, but at least mom feels like she's involved in the in the wedding. So you send off the mom, the mom comes to chat with you. You going okay, cool! Here we go this and you showing her all the family stuff, all the stuff that we'll appeal to her. She then goes and emails who daughter and said, I found that what a nice young man you must go and check out his work. The daughter then goes to check out my website and what's on the website all the stuff that the bride will resonate that will resonate with the bridal, that you know, that kind of thing and the half naked and all that type of stuff. So on my website, I'm targeting the bride the mom has seen all the family stuff, she says to the daughter, go and check it on the daughter's like my mom likes this you know what a cool mom you know and then suddenly you know family dynamics you getting everybody together and every you know every parts off the off the equation is validating the fact that they need to book you mom likes you the bride likes you what else do you need so um let's talk I need to go back to slide story what's your advice you know what if you're just breaking into this and you don't necessarily have all this imagery or this content but you want to start right at the top and targeting the high and you know science right they go out and you shoot images that are going to appeal to that market you go and hire models you going higher dresses you shoot in your conditions with work that resonates with you because it's your brand if you start off shooting other you know weddings for somebody who you know or a friend of a friend it's going to be people that are like you which is not your market I don't mean to offend you but I wasn't saying it as it is so you need first it's going to take a while it's not going to be an overnight thing so you need to have a good portfolio off work and go to weddings assist other photographers this is going to take you know two or three years this is this is not this is we're trying to open a fine dining restaurant we're not we're not selling hot dogs so it's going to take a little longer to get there and when you are ready to launch your brand that's when you do it when you've got a lot of images that already teo attract your specific target market then that's cool so go out and shoot images that are going to appeal to that specific market and then launch your brand because if you wait those two years you're going tio if you work on those two years just think of it as going to college if you work on those two years you're going to get there a lot faster than if you make the mistakes along the way and try hopefully one day to catch the big fish so that's what I wanted to talk about your electronic media has to be in keeping with your print media keep it clean clear message it needs to be a message that is very specific to that specific person word of mouth one a little misdemeanor about word of mouth people think if you shoot a great waiting that that brides going tell everyone about you start going happen if you've got that gorgeous black dress that you know works for you and everybody says how amazing you look in that dress you know run around telling all your friends were to get that dress you keep quiet about it why you don't want everybody else to have that dress so don't think don't rest on your laurels don't think that because you shot a great wedding that that bride is gonna go and tell everyone about you it's not gonna happen it's not gonna happen like that okay so yeah it could be a few questions from from that I know that I know that my my philosophies and my ideas off quite direct and I think I know what I'm specifically looking for but it could stir up a few questions I think it's great I think it's very refreshing actually that you're saying exactly what you mean but I think a good follow up question teo this one it was from your name in the chat rooms how about surviving when we don't have a fashion client to survive with until you attract your client so as you're building your portfolio oh it's going to take two or three years we understand that what how do you survive and do you have another job in the in term it's just like going to college you've allocated that amount of time to get yourself into the position where you can then become marketable where you can then become employable you can do it you can do it the other way you can progress but it took me twenty years well you know in terms of when I decided to change what I was doing it took me you know I only started targeting the high end market in two thousand eight before then I was like I said on a hamster wheel and it was it was crazy and burnt out and working like mad and not earning much money so you have to understand that this is a business when you go when you finished college you go what we call it high school we've that's very confusing sorry when when you when you finish school you go to study to make sure that you are capable of doing a certain job you have to allocate that amount of time to doing that if you are shooting weddings at the moment if you have a free weekend don't sit at home on the carts and watch football or what you know baseball shoot stuff for yourself so that when you are ready to launch your brand you can launch it properly without setting a precedent that's the big big thing as soon as you set a precedent that in terms of costing you go in cheap all her friends are gonna like what you've done they want teo have their winning at the same price as what she has had it so if you set a precedent, you're doing yourself a disservice because you're discounts ofthe permanent there's no such thing as a discount discounts are permanent because if I should for you and you really like what what I've done for you all your friends are of a similar ilk they all like what you like otherwise they wouldn't be your friends so they then will come to me and I'm like oh yeah I did a special favor you're going to be like twenty five percent more expensive thanks and you've alienated them by setting a precedent so yes it is going to take time and have your other job until you're ready to do it properly if you're not going to do it properly don't do it at all cool thank you carlos quick one yeah there's so much print media there how do you choose the magazines that you want advertising? Okay very very good question you go to the newsstand and you see where which magazines your target market is mine if you look at people that look uh middle market and they buying that certain magazine stay away from that magazine or going by going by five bridal magazines and you decide which magazine your specific target market would be buying and you can tell that by the perfume ads by the dress designer you know if if if jenny packham or victoria vera wang or whoever amanda wakey if they if they're in a specific magazine then you need to be in that magazine you do need to do a lot of research into the industry is what you need to understand the industry and by doing that it's quite cool because you elevate yourself as well. You know, I've learned, I've learned a lot of things about cleanse, tine, moisturized, you know, product and how you smell. I've learnt a lot, and I've elevated myself, and I mean this sincerely. I was middle market person, and I can now carry myself. It doesn't mean that I've changed as a person, but I can. I can be in in a room with very high in people, and you wouldn't be able to tell them I'm not as wealthy or as affluent as then, because I've learned how to fit in with them, because if they can relate to me, then then they're going to employ me. They're not necessarily going to appointment. I've got a better chance of being employed by them.