Dec
31
Have you ever wanted an easy form to use when you book you wedding photography clients? To make your life a little easier and your business run a little smoother, we put together a brides worksheet. You can get your copy of this pdf by clicking here for the wedding photography brides worksheet. Easy to fill out and all of the information is listed for your event.
Helping your photography business, how to start a photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.
Dec
29
Designing Your Site With A Photography Business Web Template
Filed Under Photography Website, Wedding Photography | Leave a Comment
Does your site need a redesign? Start with one of our photography business web templates, and see your site magically change before your eyes.
You see, it all comes down to having a great website. When a prospect finds your site and decides to click over, they form an impression within just a few seconds. If it looks professional, they’ll start reading your text. If the text is informative, they’ll continue to look around.
And if it isn’t, they’ll disappear, forever.
A successful website starts with a professional template design. And from there, your website is a work in progress - something that you should work on week after week. To start you off, here are 3 ideas that you should incorporate into your photography business web template.
1. Create a professional site.
This is probably the first thing you see in any list talking about how to build up an Internet presence. Yet it’s amazing how many sites are out there that still have a homemade appearance.
Your website is an extension of your business. Not only should it be informative, it should be entertaining, and provide people with exactly what they are looking for. You are a photographer. Show people your work. Make them feel the emotion of your photography, and the service you provide to your customers. A gallery of a dozen images that each take seconds to load is not emotional. Professionalism comes from knowing what your customers want, and giving them more than they expect.Â
If you can’t create a professional website by yourself, hire it done. Because you earn your money through photography, don’t expect yourself to be good at all forms of creative graphics. Websites are a marketing tool, not a creative extension of your business. Foremost, your website is a sales tool that can bring in unimaginable profits to your business – but only if you use it as such.
2. Creating a purpose.
What is the overall purpose of your website? Is it to get a potential customer to contact you? Is it to drive your existing customers to a place to purchase your photographs? Before your website can be successful, you have to discover your number one purpose. Then use every page to motivate people towards your purpose.
Again, your website is more than a brochure. It is a member of your sales team that ‘talks’ to your potential customer. When you talk with a person in person, or on the phone, your ultimate goal is to get them to make some type of commitment. Your website should have the same goal.
3. Use motivating text.
Are you writing to your customer in a professional manner? Does your website use the same language you use when meeting with a person face to face? Your website is your sales tool. Treat it as if it were a 24/7 sales person, and let your website do the talking for you.
On the Internet, the one thing you can’t do is hide. Depending on how a person searches, every website is a potential find. Because someone from New York, or California, or even India may pull up your site, how are you talking to him or her? Instead of writing your text from your perspective, write as if you are a person in a far away country that knows nothing about your industry. Her sole purpose is to find out more information on wedding photography. Are you educating her? Are you telling her what she wants to know AND what she cares about? (Most people don’t care what type of cameras you use; they only want to know how they benefit.)
Helping your photography business, how to start a photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.
Dec
29
Photography Business Marketing Plans
Filed Under Photography Business, Photography Marketing, Photography Website Marketing, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Finally, A Step By Step Plan That Will Make Marketing Your Business Super Easy
By Providing You With A Whole Collection Of Marketing Ideas, Campaigns And Sample Wordings In Easy To Follow Detail!
All That’s Left Is The Photography!
For years, I’ve listened to you asking for a step-by-step plan on how to market your photography business.
You asked for ideas on campaigns that will bring in clients and profits.
You asked for tips on what makes a good marketing piece, and how you should design brochures, stationery, business cards and advertisements to get people calling (or emailing).
You asked for the best places to advertise online, and how to write up advertisements that will get noticed.
You asked for ways to create newsletters that are easy for you to send AND will get read and passed around by your clientele.
Guess what? It’s finally here.
Complete Photography Step-By-Step Marketing Plans To Help You Market Your Business
Instead of sitting around wondering how to bring people into your studio, have a complete plan in place, ready for you to put into action any idea at any time.
In these guides you’ll find complete campaigns you can steal and use as your own.
You’ll find word-for-word headlines and text to use in your advertisements.
You’ll find sample letters to send to your clients.
And you’ll find dozens of ideas, ready to get your started on building a profitable business.
An Entire Year Of Marketing
Here is a list of marketing plans for many types of photography:
- Advertising PhotographyÂ
- Aerial PhotographyÂ
- Baby Portrait StudioÂ
- Business Portrait PhotographyÂ
- Children PhotographyÂ
- Commercial PhotographyÂ
- Corporate Photography (annual report, business, editorial, industrial)Â
- Editorial Photography
- Event PhotographyÂ
- Family PortraitsÂ
- Fine Art PhotographyÂ
- Grandparent PhotographyÂ
- High School Seniors Photography
- Landscape PhotographyÂ
- Modeling/Fashion PhotographyÂ
- Nature PhotographyÂ
- Panoramic PhotographyÂ
- Pet PhotographyÂ
- Real Estate PhotographyÂ
- School PhotographyÂ
- Sports PhotographyÂ
- Stock PhotographyÂ
- Travel PhotographyÂ
- Underwater PhotographyÂ
- Wedding PhotographyÂ
- Wildlife PhotographyÂ
Helping your photography business, how to start a photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.
Dec
28
5 Ways To Prepare Your Photography Website for 2007
Filed Under Photography Website Marketing, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
1. Increase the content on your website
You can never have too much content on your site - or on the Internet that is linked to your site. Take a look at other high profile sites, and see what they are adding. Don’t stay within your industry; instead, watch what others in non-competing industries are doing. For instance, in one of my December magazines I noticed the magazine company released a new website to start the New Year off right. They added a variety of things to get their customers more involved. I’ll be using a lot of their ideas myself over the coming months.
2. Build an online community with a blog
If you don’t have a blog yet, there’s no better time than right now. It offers so many benefits: an easy way to communicate, a way to involve your clients and prospects, and the search engines love the content.
3. Track the life cycle of the people visiting your site
Do you know where people enter your site? Do you know where they leave? How much time do they spend on your site? If you can’t answer these questions (and more) make 2007 the year you start getting answers.
4. Ask your visitors to take action
Is your site a brochure site, or can your clients make contact with you? Involve your prospects and clients, and give them a reason to get in touch.
5. Optimize your site to begin to capture new clients
Optimizing your site isn’t a do-it-once option. It takes work month after month. Imagine handing out a brochure in January, and expecting it to work for you all year. It would never happen, right? The same is true for optimization. If you’ve had someone optimize your site once when you created it, how long has it been? The rest of the sites in your niche have continued to add and build. It’s time to grow your website, and become known in your niche.
Helping your photography business, how to start a photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.
Dec
27
Wedding Photography tips using Photoshop Tutorials
Filed Under Photography Business, Portrait Photography, Wedding Photography | Leave a Comment
Photoshop tutorials
Since wedding photography and portrait photography has pushed the digital photography limits, we all have been stretched to learn Photoshop. Always searching the Internet to make my life much easier, I found some great resources to use for training yourself in Photoshop.
Helping your photography business, how to start a photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.
Dec
27
How you can take Mentos and Diet Coke and create a show. Imagine what you can do with your business!
Helping your photography business, how to start a photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.
Dec
23
4 Ways To Prepare Your Photography Business for 2007
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4 Ways To Prepare Your Photography Business for 2007
1. Learn what Web 2.0 means for your business
Web 2.0 is the newest term circling the Internet. Web 2.0 is about using the web as a platform to provide an enhanced user experience via Rich Internet Applications (RIA) and extending the reach of your web content through syndication technologies such as RSS feeds. Whatever technology you choose to incorporate into your site, the most important thing is to ensure your prospects and customers are delighted by your site, and have a reason to connect with you. I’ve been studying under several 2.0 gurus in December, and I’ll have a lot of information to share with you throughout 2007 on this growing strategy.
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2. Create a marketing plan that integrates web and traditional marketing techniques
Are you using the two strategies interchangeably? In all of your marketing methods, your goal should be to direct people from one for of media to the next. Using your website as a sales tool is more important now than ever. If you haven’t integrated the two marketing methods in the past, in 2007 it should be your primary focus. I’ll be sharing ideas on how to make these two work together for your business flawlessly.
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3. Socialize in the online world
Every day there are more social networking sites popping up online. Chances are you’ve heard of LinkedIn and MySpace, but how about Squidoo and FastPitchNetworking? Social networking sites are playing an important role in the way we market and network online. In 2007, I’ll be showing you many of these sites and how you can integrate them into your strategy.
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4. Generate a way to effectively build your list
One of the most talked about tasks of marketing is building up your list. The larger your list, the bigger your company will grow, the more money you will be able to generate. In 2007 I’ll be testing a variety of systems, and letting you know what works, and what doesn’t. Â
Helping your photography business, how to start a photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.
Dec
19
Adobe Photoshop CS3 Beta Available
Filed Under Photography Business, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Adobe Releases Beta Version of Photoshop CS3
For immediate release
Company Also Previews Adobe Bridge and All-New Adobe Device Central
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Dec. 14, 2006 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) will introduce a beta version of Adobe® Photoshop® CS3 software, the next release of the world standard in digital imaging, on Friday, December 15th. Adobe is delivering a widely available Photoshop CS3 beta to enable customers to more easily transition to the latest hardware platforms, particularly Apple’s new Intel-based systems. The beta is available as a Universal Binary for the Macintosh platform, as well as for Microsoft® Windows® XP and Windows Vista computers. The final shipping release of Adobe Photoshop CS3 is planned for Spring 2007. The software can be downloaded at:
http://labs.adobe.com , in the early hours Pacific Standard Time on December 15.
Packed with new features, Photoshop CS3 beta also includes a pre-release version of a major upgrade to Adobe Bridge, as well as a preview release of the all-new Adobe Device Central. Photoshop customers can use Adobe Device Central to design, preview, and test compelling mobile content, created specifically for smaller screens. This new tool, integrated in the Photoshop CS3 beta, simplifies and accelerates the creation of mobile content through a preview environment and built-in device profiles.
“This is an exciting time for the Mac, and Adobe wanted to ease the move to new Intel-based systems with a preview release of Photoshop CS3,†said John Loiacono, senior vice president of Creative Solutions Business Unit at Adobe. “We didn’t want to leave Windows customers out of the party, so the beta is available to everyone in the creative industry’s most passionate user community — no matter what their platform choice. We still have some surprises in store, but this beta gives customers an early chance to see the power of another great Photoshop release, optimized and tuned to run natively on the latest hardware and operating systems.â€
To utilize Adobe Photoshop CS3 beta, customers require a serial number from either Adobe Photoshop CS2, Adobe Creative Suite® 2, Adobe Creative Suite Production Studio, Adobe Design Bundle, Adobe Web Bundle or Adobe Video Bundle. Adobe Photoshop CS3 beta is available in English only. Customers who have a valid serial number for all other language versions of qualifying Adobe products can download the software. Without a serial number, users can still download Adobe Photoshop CS3 beta, with the product expiring after two days. Customers must register online with Adobe or have an existing Adobe.com membership account to access the software.
In related previews of future technologies, Adobe has also released two new web tools as beta releases. Adobe CSS Advisor is a new web-based community site to easily identify and resolve browser compatibility issues. Web designers and developers can contribute their own issues, comment on existing issues, or become an editor to participate in driving the site’s future. The site is accessible at: www.adobe.com/go/cssadvisor. Also introduced is a beta release of Adobe Spry framework for Ajax, a designer-focused solution for adding the interactive power of Ajax when developing rich, dynamic web-sites. Adobe Spry framework for Ajax is available at: www.adobe.com/go/spry.
System Requirements
For Adobe Photoshop CS3 beta, recommended system requirements are as follows. For Macintosh: Mac OSX 10.4.8 or 10.5, 1 GHz PowerPC® G4 or G5 processor, Intel based Macintosh. For Windows: Intel® Xeon® , Xeon Dual, Centrino® or Pentium® 4 processor, Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or higher, Microsoft Windows Vista. Both platforms require 512 MB RAM and a 1024×769 resolution screen. Photoshop CS3 beta will expire soon after the launch of Photoshop CS3 in Spring 2007. Details on final pricing, system requirements and availability have yet to be determined.
About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information - anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.
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Dec
17
Color selection for you photography business website
Filed Under Photography Website | Leave a Comment
Creating a website for you photography business is very important and producing proper colors within the design should be well thought out. We found a great resource for selecting color. Color wheels have been used for a long time but they are much easier to use today. Check out this resource: http://visibone.com/colorlab/ , which lets you choose from the 216 color browser-safe palette. This has limits but is a great place to start. We also found a 4096 color wheel located at: http://www.ficml.org/jemimap/style/color/wheel.html and has a cool hovering tool that allows you select colors and then shades. For quicker results, we also found an online color scheme program that helps select complementary colors. You can find this very handy in you wedding photography website designs or when you need to create a portrait photography business website. Check out this tool at: http://stylephreak.frogrun.com/cm.php and let us know which one you like best.
Helping your photography business, how to start a photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.
Dec
13
Everything in life is available for a price. Every day we are faced with choices: to buy or not to buy. We are presented with this option every time we visit a store, turn on our computer, open a newspaper or magazine, and watch television. We can choose to take action – if the price is right!
But what it is a fair price? That is in the eye of the beholder. We choose to make a purchase if we consider the price to be fair. And we choose to forgo purchasing if the price is too high, and we don’t see the value in the product.
So, how do you determine what that price is? What price should you be charging for your product? As a photographer, I see many people in this industry doing a lot of work for little if any profit. And the photography industry is not alone. Most service-oriented businesses have a lot of bottom dwellers – businesses that are working for virtually nothing, and getting lots of so-so people whom are interested only in price. They work literally hours and hours on a project, and yet they take home little more than minimum wage. What is the benefit in that? Wouldn’t it make more sense to work for someone else and go home at 5 every night to your family with no worries?
If this sounds like you, don’t fret. There is hope! I know, I’ve been in your shoes. When we began in this business over 15 years ago, we visited several local photography studios, and picked up their pricing guides. Then we built our price guide based on their pricing structures – and lowered our price because we were just beginning. There was no thought process – we just put ourselves on the pricing scale of our local market that we felt were our direct competition.
There is more to pricing than charging “a little bit less†then what everyone else is. Pricing needs to be set so you cover your costs, and make a profit! Quite a concept! Yet it’s rarely followed.
In the following pages, you will discover a method to never question your pricing again. You will be able to firmly state your pricing, understand how you reached that price, and stand firm and true to your pricing structure. With that said, let’s begin!
Pay Yourself First
Before you move on to the next idea, lets discuss the concept of paying yourself first. The whole purpose of owning your own company is to have the freedom to follow your own heart. To be in charge. To create something tangible that has your signature stamp on it. But above all, it should afford you the lifestyle you are wanting. That doesn’t mean you can’t do without the high pay while you are building your company, but your short-term goal should be to create a business that can provide you with the type of lifestyle you want and demand! If that is not a possibility within a few short months, then it is easier to continue to work for someone else.
Decide now how much of a salary you would like to draw from your business. What are you truly worth? What would make each hour of the day worth your time? How much would make you feel like you are truly contributing to this society? Don’t low-ball this figure because you know how much your business is…To view this entire report, click on Photography Print pricing Guideline.
Helping your photography business, how to start a photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.
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