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Marketing Q&A

Let's, take a question. We'll start with this question from pro photographer who's from california, and this is regards to the editorial work that you d'oh do you submit all of your weddings for publication or just some? And if you only choose a few in a year, what are the primary determining factors for your decision? That's a great question, my goal would be to submit every single wedding. It doesn't necessarily work out that way because I have to understand the submission process takes so much time. I've been doing it for quite some time now that I can now look at a wedding and think to myself as adorable as this couple wasn't as much as in love as they were it's just not feasible because the blog's that I'm submitting to have a heavy emphasis on details now, if the details aren't there, even if I tried to tell a color story now also in how to shoot an editorial wedding and get published summer from gray likes weddings came on and said, even if you don't have a lot of details, you c...

ould tell a color story. So even on a wedding day, I'm still trying to see the detailed story the color story a human interest story somewhere in the lines and if I try all three of those veins and it doesn't work for me then I'm equally is happy to sharing it with the bride but as many weddings as I possibly can and the wedding that we try to get submitted for a print I call him a white unicorn wedding you know it's just the wedding that everything came together like the light was amazing they did a first look the details were out of control the story is great I mean it's everything has to be in a line or else it'll automatically go to online but I really do love online publications do great thank you and I just want to let everybody here know that you guys are here in the studio and you can ask questions as well so feel free to ask for the mike if anybody has a question and while we're getting the mic set out to what we're making it up I can take another question perfect all right so this is a question for ryan e fun to mix it out ride from j j photography hasn't failed to be surrounded by so many women during these works really what advice do you get do you have guys in the wedding photography industry and yes we could take both of that I'm not well jazz would always like unprompted it feels great to be surrounded by these girls they're so awesome I love I love you guys. Um teo, be a guy in the wedding industry um, I just I feel like I tried to make my brides feel as comfortable as possible when I'm around them like, if I'm in the getting ready room and, like, you know, she's putting on her dress, I'm like, okay, well, look away for a second, let me know when it's okay for you to look back, you know, just try to make it feels comfortable is possible, that's great, I mean, and girls are hiring male photographer is just as much as they're hiring female photographers, and I'm a total prude, and I had my wedding photographer wait outside, I had my long to the fake zipping up whatever the brightest, comfortable with, but to me, when I hired or whatever harbor I don't look at gender, and I'm sure you could win over, right easily, easily, easily. All right, we have a question from hannah boz, who asked, I used to post my photos for everyone to see it once, but after being a bride, I felt as though I wanted to see my photos first before anyone on the web or online, and they'd like to know if you're saying you'll post the slide show to everyone before showing the bride first photos a lot of people ask that question that's a great question and it just it just matters how you set up your routine it just so happened that I had said of my routine before people actually really I set up my own rules and so I think bride's implicitly understand that if they're coming to me they're already seeing the wedding's online so no, I do not wait for a bridal permission because I realized she's on her honeymoon and I'm not going to send her an email on her honeymoon being like, is it okay if I post them because what I think happens as a natural progression and a really good thing is when I post it if there are people who like it on facebook or if they're people who leave block comments and yes, I read all of the barbed comments and I really do feel like such a positive thing for us in the industry to write on each other's blog's because what happens is our clients will see them and then they feel really invigorated they feel like they feel validated by hiring you as their photographer and then if all these people are just saying really nice things about the photos, I don't think it's a bad thing and I was a bright but here's the thing to to follow up with this with hannah's question was I was a bride who saw my wedding photographs after other people did and when I saw other people saying nice things about it it made me feel good about my wedding photos so I want to emulate the same thing for my bride great. All right, well, I think we have ah, question in the studio audience you block every single wedding or just sweating ls that match your branding words every single winning okay, so every bride do they have the expectation that their wedding will appear on your blogged yes shortly and I encourage it. Okay, absolutely I want my rights to know that I don't look or judge their wedding I want them to know that I it's my job to document their day the way that they had hired me to and I have a very openly say have a very hard time with photographers who are selective with what they block because I don't think that it's a good representation of your brand I mean it's probably a good representation of your brand within the photographer's cousin photographers think well that photographer only shoot beautiful weddings but it's not a good representation to how your bride feels that's how I would think if I was a bride in my driver didn't block my images I would take it probably personally, but maybe I'm just overly sensitive so I always will say and brides do meet with me and they're just like do you think we would get a log and I'm like, wait, I will tag the heck out of your wedding so yeah, absolutely, I have a friend whose wedding didn't get bog and she was really bombed in her wedding was gorgeous. I don't know why it wasn't shiven ran one of the thirteen weddings, the thief way, so on the topic of video marketing because this is a really kind of a recent thing, we're seeing it a lot with photographers, putting these promo videos together when you're coming commercials for commercial rio or whatever you wanna call him when you're approaching a videographer about it. How much of the idea and the concept and the content do you need to come with or little collaboration their vision? How does it work? That is such a good question, okay? It is a bifurcated process, and the better your cinematographer is, the less work you have to dio, however, that comes at the price when a good storyteller knows that he or she is a good storyteller, they will charge you heavily for it because it's, so hard to do, some things are worth money something absolutely I mean, it depends like I feel that forgive me if this comes across a certain way, but I feel like I'm a strong storyteller I could see a beginning middle and end but I don't know how to do that via video, and so even if I feel like I'm it's a strength of mine, I don't know how to parlay that into a video with less than two minutes it was a minute and forty nine seconds how could you do that? So to me I felt like anton and I were able to measure ideas and he's so good at what he does that he was able to take my ideas and then fill me in ways that he can condense it. But if you have a really small budget and you're working with a kid from film school and you could send him a few videos that you like he for, she will not come up to you with a list of questions that you need to ask you cannot show up and be like, so okay, you need to say you can ask me these questions, you could set up two cameras, I need two angles and you needed filmy consistently so that even when I'm just talking to myself that the flubs and the real honest answers without me sounding contrived make the edit because a lot of that when I sit there and try to talk very professional, I found so fake and it's just me and he's a judgment, but what do you know what this is like? I just think like this and that's what ends up making the edit so knowing those things in advance is really gonna help when you're working with a video for a cinematographer but you have to do a lot of the work great let's take maybe one more question when we're question great great so this is from mindy lee who says I am one year into starting my business and doing so debt free so congratulations I am from the school of thought of rock what you got I'm now starting to create myself and creating what create myself a prophet what do you see is the best first invest investments equipment? Is it website and marketing that workshops or something totally different? It's going to is going to the pen on mindy's strengths but I have always maintained that you can rent a lens and you can rent a camera but you can't rent your brand so if it was up to me I would invest in things that are intangible because you can easily find ways to supplement wherever you are you can borrow stuff too can't borrow website fantastic way always bring that back yeah, we do I think that's one of the first things that when you said that in the first workshop that you ever did it creative live it just really struck a chord with me okay? Does jasmine e we're going to go to break shortly but I believe that you have we were going to check in with some former creative live jasmine star students to see how they have restarted their business thanks for this. So yes, so last month I kind of haphazardly pitched the idea to throw it out there, but he wanted to catch up with some creative life most of my past creative life students now I just didn't want to say hey, how's it going? I wanted to use them as an idea and to buttress this idea that restarting doesn't happen once it happens again and again and again now I've spoke about marketing, but I think it's important to voice your own marketing because you're gonna look at my marketing think that's not something that I could do, nor is it something that I want to do and that's totally fine in two thousand eleven, I taught a course here a creative live entitled building your wedding photography business I spoke in depth about marketing and one of the students I met was tim king okay? He took what he learned in that course and then he made his own rules, which is very something that tim way recently chatted and I'm excited because he is specializing in a niche market so he specializing in adventurous couples getting married he basically restarted his business in two thousand eleven and spent two thousand twelve traveling the world doing what he loves and instead of me talking about it with a video with a few words from tim talking about what he's doing now after he restarted, so what condition was a workshop with jasmine stars create black studios was really inspired by working with loved photography. However, I realized that, you know, the editorial, fashion style photography wasn't necessarily in line with what I think most about photography and so throughout the ship the weekend, talking with some of the students that were attending the workshop, I realized that I needed to find my own path and break off into my own style that's specific to my vision. And so, in a way, going to that workshop helped me restart and rebrand myself to position myself to attract clientele that specific too, what I want. And so since then, I've booked a couple dozen waves that are along the lines of more adventurous couples, more thrill seeking couples and couples that are down the party have fun. And to give you an idea like have accomplished that, some of the things I've done are re orantes blogging website to showcase, but does that are more along the lines of partying, adventuring trout? And I think that's a pretty big way tio attract people there visiting that kind of niche, you know, dainty or dramatic bride isn't b stoked about photos where they have to go out in pretty cool temperature to get a shot of a silhouette and stars behind them, but it attracts the kind of clients that I want, so my three tips are reorient website and glad to showcase the photos that you want to shoot the things that your passion brushing and that I'll try to clients that are passionate, that stuff too never to social media it's kind of extension of that other idea but put out what you want to attract, you know, talk about the things that interest you where that you find it funny or things that you're passionate about your client's khun start the conversation with you and get rolling and developed report and build relationships built off things that tree and then a third and final tip is letting that as well as open and honest about who you really are can gore and sharing your personality, your beliefs and your values with the world attracts only those that are gonna be attracted those kind of things as well and there's no way to attract repel people they're doing that so hopeful that helps you guys and uh thanks again today here fix workshop in san francisco it was like like like like and now you're creative live a love night and for this thing for thesixty second video I watched his creative I'm submission and I got inspiration from that video to make my sixty six so that's awesome. Now you owe ten a drink. Yeah, that works, but I think this is just one example of how you can hone your marketing. Teo, get the kind of clients that you want to shoot. So tim came in knowing that our clients, we're never going to be the same clients. And then he used the principles and applied them in a way that he felt best for his business. He found his brand words. He focused on the type of client that he wanted and provided a unique client experience. This is exactly what we've been talking about for the past three months.