Lessons

Lesson Info

Marketing Evolution

this segment we're going to talk about the evolution of my marketing so there's a few things I'm a little bit embarrassed to share with you but I'm going to share them anyway because as we've been talking about throughout this course we all start somewhere and here for me I was you know caught up well thinking certain ways on howto you know brand my business and put my business cards out there and create logos and all of that kind of thing and you know when you are investing a lot of money in branding in logos and things like that you know you want it to last for quite a long time you don't want to date and as you can see that there could date quite easily but a lot of my friends in australia and new born photographers and people that I know around the world were using similar similar our logos and similar not not similar to mine but similar sort of icons like cameras and things like that and people still do that's fine it's fine if it is you it's fine if it suits your style but I don'...

t know do you look at that and see me that's not me so I don't know what I was thinking I think I was just being really nice because I'd filled in this questionnaire with this lady years and years ago about this and yeah I just when I first started I went wow that's really different I love it it's got a camera that's really cute butt yeah I got caught up in the moment and I paid a lot of money for it and it really wasn't may so actually have these cards with you right I do sorry and we show them to this I've kept this's actually my very first business card it's a it's a little bit stylish I'll show you the back there's a major look on you can't quite see it but it's actually got like a little shiny print you can see it in the actual business car but in the in the king that you can't quite I see that but when I was was starting out and I was photographing you know whatever I could get my hands on babies and families and all of that kind of stuff a friend of mine had a baby in her husband was a graphic designer so he designed this card for may in exchange for photographing their baby in their family which was really lovely so you know I did I did get something out of my chutes even though I wasn't really charging and there were a friend of mine so it was it was a lovely exchange because I got this incredibly cute business card but her hot pink isn't may either I don't use hot pink in my studio now but at the time I did I was using I thought oh I've got a pink blanket I'll use that and it was hot pink and I used it but yeah I eventually identified that it wasn't actually you know something I felt comfortable with our offering and not many clients picked hot pink to put their baby on so yeah it didn't last very long but it was kind of cute and it was fun to do it was different nobody else had a business card like it but if I handed that to somebody that business card they wouldn't know that I'm a new born photographer but they my contact details have been taken off the bottom of it so the whole world doesn't know what my telephone number is so that my contact details were on there but it doesn't actually say what I do on dit took me a while to realize that because you know when you get a business card from someone unless it you know tells you what they do you forget and if it's not unique if it's not different you can't quite remember who you got it from so yeah it's a it's a massive evolution off you know where I'm at now has to pose as opposed to what I was doing way back then and then the back was a little bit quirky which he thought I was a bit quick e I suppose I am I don't know I never really thought of myself being quirky but anyway but yeah this was this was my next big paid one and paying somebody to create this logo for mai and they said we know what sort of colors do you use and I went well I love earthy colors you but I also use a little bit of pink and this was someone on the other side of the world that designed this logo for me I can't cart remember who it was because it's quite some some time ago and yeah they created this this camera for me and I thought wow it's actually really cute it's really different love the love heart but I think I loved it thinking that it would have been great for somebody else not and then in the end I was it does not polaroids right looks like dollar bills she said so you know all the branding came through that all of my marketing material came through that logo so it was everywhere was on my website it was in my flyers that I handed out it went into takeaway take home bags from obstetricians officers so so many people saw this this logo and it's some yeah I don't know what else to say about it it's it's it's full on for me now because I look at it and I'm like it's so not me but if you have something like that and it's you and you you know you you duel that really to me that's pretty if you're doing lots of pretty whimsical kind of things and you're that type of person that's fine I'm not I'm a little bit dark a little bit you know earthy and I'm simple that's me so I needed to make sure that my my marketing material and my branding suited that and it's funny because I've talked about soup coming into my studio and doing a mentoring session with me and there is nothing worse when you are you know at that point we're not really not really sure what you want to go ahead and you know that you do but you work you're not really sure if your work's good an hour for not really sure it had I run the business properly or effectively when somebody comes in and you kind of doubting yourself in so many ways and they say let me look at your website oh yeah it hasn't been updated in ages you didn't really want to see that there's nothing really on there you know I was trying to convince her not to look at my website and she told me don't be silly show me your web site and she saw this wet this logo wow that's not you like she knew straight away that wasn't made um and that's only having known me for a couple of hours that she saw that so she said to me you need to simplify this and I got it I did so this is when we started to to sort of move on and and go to go into a different direction now my business cards have a picture off what I do they have a baby on the front I'm a baby photographer I need show people this is what I do I don't do um you know the this shopping centre mall baby pictures I'm an actual newborn poser I photographed babies in a way that nobody else came you pick the image I'm always scared to put in the image on my card because like that one image has to say everything about you how did you pick the image um this particular image was something that I had entered into the photography awards in australia so it wasn't hard for me to identify with something that was a it was of my better work and when you are showing clients you're workin your portfolios you know they don't have to be twenty to thirty good images could be six to ten incredible frickin images so I had my my incredible images I was really worried about print I had tried printing my color um business cards with a couple of printers and the colors for a little bit off so I went safe I went black and white but also showed a lot of black and whites by making it black and white and making my logo in those black and white and gray tones it suited that that particular thing but I wanted something that was different and unique that's not back then when I used this card it wasn't opposed that people saw very often so I wanted it to be something really different now because I don't offer that particular pose indecision or I don't just naturally do it unless the babies wanting to or unless a client comes in and says I want this pose like I'd love to get this I wouldn't show it on my business card because it's not something that identifies people with what I actually do so I would have it really simple with picker um you know maybe a close up of a baby's face with a little smile or something like that keep it really simple but you know um having a look at where I'm at at that time and making sure that it suits where my business is that at that time a swell but yeah picking the images can be really hard so I don't know narrow it down to three maybe and then ask for not your husband and not your family ask maybe some other photographers and I've seen it in a few groups on facebook and you can do it in the boot came group you can do it in any group that you're a member ofthe going there with the three images and go right I'm gonna put one of these on my business card what you pick a b or c one two or three and then have a look at it and have a look at what people are drawn to because that will help you identify with what you know other people's perceptions are and how it makes him feel and that's some it's funny because what we put out there into the world you know we put it out there with the type of intention but sometimes how it's perceived could be completely different to how we intended it to be perceived so we have to be careful of that so getting getting advice from friends one friends and family a little bit hard because my friends tell me all the time you know it's lovely actually my husband I could ask because he's always honest and when it comes to picking my award images he's very quick to say yeah they're terrible light means like no I wouldn't put that in like he's so honest it's not funny but I need that and we fade off each each other that way and it works really well but sometimes you know you're the people that are closest to you at the best people to ask but it's getting other people out there that don't necessarily know you that well because it's those people that your advertising to they don't know you that well they don't know you so yeah the people that do know years probably not a good place to start so yeah in the back of the card it was really simple again and it's only got my website on there but we've removed like a few other things old email addresses an old phone numbers that you didn't need to know and I currently don't have my phone number on my business cards which is something for me at the moment because um you know I can't always answer the telephone and sometimes you know what I'm running around I'm in the studio and I can into phone or I'm picking up my kids from somewhere I'm spending time with my family I don't want to be having to return people's calls they send me an email email gets replied to in business hours so sitting sitting that up but we're gonna cover that in in another segment which is something that I really want to focus on so then continuing to go along you know it started to change but I kept it in that gray black and white form I were a lot of black it's easy and when I do use some color in my images but I really needed it to sort of fit with may make it casual make it sort of you know crisp clean simple but also throwing a bit of flair a swell which is what I like so I had to start identifying with me at that particular time and then this is a little a logo that's been designed for stickers and then you'll see this is my current logo which I've had for a little while that's been designed by such an incredibly talented graphic designer from kim from laughing go grow press so laugh and grow press and her work is amazing she does custom logo's at a reasonable price she also does um uh what he called them when the logo's already created that one that was so simple with a lot of words today so she does premade logos that you can go in and purchase a swell and you can customize for yourself and she does a lot of other things as well but yeah basically talked to her she communicated back and forth with may and it's finding that right graphic designer and making sure that you know you've got those communication lines open because this is your business this is what you're sharing with the world so you wanted teo really you know resemble what you're doing and represent you but another thing that I really want to talk about is when you come to my my website on my block you see my logo it says my business name but you see pictures of babies which is what I want people to do if I had that big camera on there with those love hearts and stuff you kind of keep going back to it with your eye so when you are designing teo create a new logo or create a logo for the very first time make sure that it is not distracting on your web site make sure it's not the first thing that people see if it doesn't identify with what you do if it's a logo with the baby in your baby photographer that's great but just make sure that it's not distracting so that it's taking people's attention away from what they supposed to be looking at on your side and and that's what I had to realize because I was like oh you know I'm gonna have this beautiful logo other friends have got low goes like this you know it's really cute and everything but it suited them but it didn't suit me so I had to it took a while to evolve into where I was comfortable with me but I think that's what it's like in everything that you do as a woman and as a in life you know we were always evolving in which changing constantly all the time so yeah is knowing when to identify that and knowing that I've done some pretty dagny stuff and dag is like what what does dag you mean here I don't know tacky tacky okay you know it's not it's not necessarily turkey that you know for me it kind of wass and and you have to be careful when you are evolving that you know picking something and going with something that's not going to date too quickly because you are spending money on it it's an investment for your business and you don't want to be having to spend large amounts of money on rebranding and new logos every six to twelve months just because you've simply got bored of it pick something that's clean that simple that suits you and that's not going to date here this is when people come to my facebook page I wanted to see my work and go wow like that looks a little busy too maybe I want actually people to look at that because sometimes when you do go to my facebook page you can't there's a lot of posts in there so they gotta scroll for awhile to see my images but that's like a wind bam hi look at all those cute babies so you're keeping it really really simple and like I've added logo's in there for you know the association that I'm a member ofthe and all of that kind of stuff because I'm proud to be a member of my associations and it gives people a little bit of confidence as well to see if I have one you know a couple of awards and then my logo is just really simple and not distracting underneath it as well a question on this you you talked about that on the page itself people might not be able to see your work right away so you're talking about I'm behind the scenes photos or what what do you choose to show on this business page because I know a lot of people question that and and my business page has changed in the last couple of years so prior to coming to create a five you know I had worked really hard to to you know get a cz many followers many clientele people following me on facebook as I could like I worked really hard at it I got toe was around five thousand people just before I came to creative life two years ago and now I'm at seventy thousand but eighty five percent of those people are other photographers which is fine because you know I've evolved I've changed I now teach I still do clients and my clients to follow may they love it and the clients that keep coming back here after year there like always wishing me like all good luck you know in in seattle and things like that which is so lovely because they're still following me and we had that incredible experience together so they've indeed themselves and we've become friends but when it comes to my business page now you know I'm putting information on there I'm sharing blood posts I'm doing a lot of stuff for photographers so if a potential client comes to my page and there scrolling down it might be a little while before they actually start to see photos that I've shot depending on where I'm at if I'm away or something like that and if I was to allow posts to my page then they'd be seeing a lot of other people supposed but being a banner like this that shows my work it means that they can click on my page straightaway and go right either like this person's work or I don't so I'm either going to like the page I'm not they don't actually have to scroll through a heap of content because that feed is continually continually going to see my actual work so it's still open to clients which is incredible because you know I'm really going to focus in the next one to two years and bringing my clients back and being more of a full time photographer I love teaching but I would love my clients I get so much satisfaction out of off doing sessions with them on get an incredible amount of satisfaction from teaching as well but that's why I'm here and we can you know reach so many people through what creative life does a question in the studio you said your client's keep coming back here after your do they keep having babies or will you shoot families as well they keep having babies will you shoot older children and just not show it or like I mean you're not advertising it but do you do family sessions as well so no I don't is the question I iive there's a few reasons why don't I will offer my existing clients a session a mini session when they are sitting when they're able to sit but I don't do family portrait I have a really good friend that I refer on my family portrait studio and that's all she does but I've had back surgery I've had knee surgery neary constructions and I need another one so I can't chase kids and total is around a park or get up and down and squat you've seen me sit on a box I'm not really moving in front of my bag I'm kind of sitting off to the side so everyone can see me here but when I'm at home I'm sitting comfortably in front of my bag and I'm working in a way that you know I'm not aggravating any of my injuries but physically I can't do it anymore which in the beginning was it really upset me because I did enjoy doing family portrait sessions but then after a while I would come home from the memory like oh my god four kids they were hitting each other they were kicking each other you know the mom was like so stressed out they were running off they wouldn't sit still and you know things like that they're so unpredictable that I would come home exhausted but at the end of a newborn session you know I've had such an incredible time with these people and just to be surrounded by so much love from them for their child it's so addicting that you know I was really kind of honed in on that and went on those family they're stressful family sessions taking go but yes no they keep having kids it's good eventually they stall but I did it I'm glad you said that because another interesting point is I did actually photograph a lady's baby and anyway turned out that she was a tv journalist in my area um and she wanted to do a story on me because she said she pitched it to her network and she said there's just so much negativity in the news today and she was a news reporter journalist she's so much why can't we do something what can we do a good story on somebody that's actually in our industry and sharing a legend like kind stuff she contacted me and said we want to come in and film you do a session was like wow and this is like four years ago was like this is such an incredible opportunity for may so I didn't say no I'm like yes please come on in two years later I photographed a second child she she hasn't had any more kids but she has continued to refer people to me and she's done so much for me that every time I say to someone because they say oh you know such and such referred gee bob I always say to my husband I'm going to send her flowers or I'm going to send her movie tickets and I do and then she returned refers more people because she appreciates that I'm actually doing something for her so yeah when they even when they're not coming back there still referring and they still follow you on your facebook page which is great so yeah going along we've got our instagram page so you know on there I'm on its little pieces photography if anybody wants to follow me on instagram um you know on there I'm constantly posting pictures of people to look at you don't have to put too many too many words in therefore description it doesn't work on a nishio basis or anything like that does it yet I don't think it does but you know it's just a place of people to just you know have a look three work inspired it's almost a bit like pinterest today you know when you're following some money photography is that you love you can just scroll through figure oh my god wow look at that image and I follow people from all different genres but um you know everything is changing all the time and keeping up today with that is is pretty pretty fun but also question yes I was wondering do you ever go back in the lead some ofthe your earlier images that doesn't fit your style now or do you just keep it there so it keeps reminding you how in my year in my website and my block yes oh my blood not so much because you know I've still got all that content in there and all those words and keywords and tag words but which we're going to go over in the marketing section but in my website yes I'm going to remove all my old images and comm continually update that you've got to keep your website up today and your portfolio doesn't have to be huge you know I used to have thirty images in there who wants to sit and click through thirty boring images that some of them looked the same I was just putting them in there because I was emotionally attached to those babies I was like oh that baby's cute teo other babies cute but I wasn't looking at it from a business perspective and identifying my six to ten best images that they're going to sell my work that show a great variety off my work so yes updating and on facebook I have dilated past galleries because you know I used to do family portrait and I used to do weddings I've still got my sister's wedding on there but that's my sister you know and I still have family members that want to go on there and have a look and things like that but um and I shot a wedding and now I think nearly two years ago now for my best friend's niece and so some of those photos is still on there as well it is great sometimes to show people like a little bit of variety because they sometimes get sick of seeing the same thing but yes if your work has drastically changed and you have evolved so much get rid of that but if you don't mind sharing it keep it on there as well because sometimes it's also nice to see what people have come from and how much growth they've had so yeah my facebook page has got a couple of albums that have been removed but it's pretty much all still there and it's funny because you know for this course I've had to go back through all my images to really dig up some old images to show you comparisons and it's been fun looking at it because I don't think it's till you actually scroll back down through your photo albums that you start to really appreciate how far you've come so that's what I would recommend for everybody to do there's an exercise if it's not on your facebook page and it's on flicker like my heart you know it can't have a look at something when I did go on there I did actually delete some stuff because it was embarrass sing I don't know what I was thinking at the time so yes bit term yeah that was a lot of fun so if you so first of all callie it sounds I'm still in that like it sounds really hard to narrow it down to six to ten images I don't know about you guys but um how often will you change those up or do probably in on it depends like you know with my website in my portfolio I want images and I've still got images in there that I've taken a couple of years ago because even though I'm growing and I'm continually evolving you know it depends on the baby at the time on what you can do with him because like I said and I've said so many times that every baby is going to go into every pose I might now that pot's two years ago and not be able to nail it again to my standard or improve it from there for you know another couple of years but then I also in that time frame might not be able tio tio sort of remember to go oh I've got you know update that but still great work you know it's still like the work I was doing a couple of years ago two mays I'm still happy to say that that's my work but that's where I'm at I'm not at that learning evolving stage anymore but when you are you know narrowing down those images is really hard and I think the key things to sort of look out for six images that a different that really show your versatility you want to show you know like we were saying before when you're you're going from back decide to tell me and around to the front you know I'd do for one of each and then maybe like a close up detail of the baby on it on its back with something like that and really show your versatility as a photographer because what you show your clients is what they're going to expect in return if you showing them six to ten images that looked very similar um you know they they sort of go ah well that's a bit of a one pony but if you showing them great visited city and have a theme through them as well you know and my images they tend to sort of go really well next to each other tone wise if we go back a slide here you know they've all got a very similar look and feel to them I'm not gonna get it one image really dark and grungy and another really I lighten and airy what I want to show is a style um my style is not for everybody when people come across my website and then then there enquire and I send them my pressing and information in my pricing information they seymour photos of my work it's not for everybody not everybody likes what I do that's fine because we're all different you know some people like it really colorful and really bright and vibrant that's fine that's them you know we have to acknowledge that we're not potentially booking clients because we're either too expensive or with this or with that you know they could be so many factors involved with that so identify your style and then pick six to ten images it could be five even but that show your versatility is a photographer that it's you know a different setups and yeah eric and that's really important when you're looking for those one more question about that kelly I know when I started that I was putting images of the same baby up even if it was a different style would you recommend against that no I've done that and when you put follow building sometimes that's what you have to do but yeah if they're if you're showing really good versatility that's fine as beautiful um in my flow posing keynote this for four pictures across the the kino across the slide and they're all of the same baby but they're all completely different and I would gladly show that in my portfolio for sure definitely it's still even though it's the same baby it still shows your ability as a photographer is still shows your ability to do something different with the same baby you know just getting you know one shot as well so yeah and following trends is something I've done many times because that's just like we didn't have a network we didn't have that communication with other photographers back then so I would just look up other photographers websites that I would find them on flicka on I would like this site so nice I've got to do the same thing all their logos you know that's nothing to do so I would follow those trains and yeah I think I just had to really identify that that's that's not me it's tio to separate myself from everybody else and it's not because we're all in constant competition with each other I just have to be different that's all I have to bay I have to be different and I have to be myself after you had to give myself permission to do that though and I really lacked that permission because they lacked confidence in doing it so sometimes it is good like I was talking about before about shadowing photography is um but yeah it doesn't always work for you when you following certain trends be true to yourself which is really really important and then you're you know establishing your own voice which is just creating that difference and when you are creating something for your clients that's so different you know the new kind have a reason to not value what you do create something that's different that they can't create themselves and they have a reason in too high you they have a reason to spend that money with you and and that's how we're all going to stay in business really at the end of the day if everybody starts photographing imposing their babies the way we are then we'll be out of a job so we've got to continually evolve a move with the times and you know really really establish our own business us in our own personal way developing your business identity you know and making sure that it suits you we've talked about that identifying it and you don't have to you don't have to find an identity you've really got one you just have to you know recognize it that all it in there it's you nobody else come bu rural different so it's recognizing and taking the time to do that it's some it's a funny thing though but yeah breaking on also recommend keeping it simple because if you if you're over complicating things in creating big elaborate logos and things like that with people like I said you know it can be distracting on a page and it's not necessary I don't think but if it is you then go for it wholeheartedly but make sure it does identify you as a person in your business