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1. You don’t have to know everything. The important thing is to do something every day. Your business builds upon your successes - and your mistakes. Don’t be afraid to take risks.

2. Set goals. Goals should be your stepping stones into the future. Set realistic goals; things that you can easily accomplish. Then work one after the other to reach success.

3. Visibility is paramount. In order to be a success, people have to find you. There are dozens of ways for you to get in front of your prospects and clients, and let them know you are available for business.

4. You can learn about your business from anyone. Have you ever had one of your customers sell you to one of their friends? Nothing shows your marketability more than listening in on someone else selling your business.

5. Build a relationship with your vendors. A young bride was searching online for an album to place her wedding images in. Her photographer had gone out of business, and left her with the negatives. She found a beautiful album company, but because they sold only to professionals, they couldn’t help her. But they recommended a local photographer that they knew well. This photographer gladly helped her design her album. As a way of saying thank you, the young bride sent an additional two clients to this photographer.

Helping your photography business, how to start a digital wedding photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.

A new year is here and you want a new photography business opportunity. There are so many ideas that can bring in huge amounts of business if you only had the time and ideas.
Here are a few question or ideas to help you think about your new opportunity:

• Lets think about you - what are you passionate about?
• Do you travel and want to sell stock images of the visited locations?
• Do you like babies and know parents with small children that you can work with?

Think about what you want to accomplish in you photography business and write it down.

Use a white board to sketch your main goals and what would surround your idea.
What is your idea client and how can you attack them?

Lets take baby photography for our new photography business opportunity. We place babies in the center of our whiteboard and circle it. Now we want to put all of the items that surround our opportunity. This allows us to quickly build a plan to rapidly grow and profit. Use your time very wisely and keep your white board available to quickly write new ideas onto it.

Success lies within you and passion is what drives you to your goals. Always put your customer first. Your client will be your best resource for additional clients. With photography, it will be placed in prominent locations in the client home. Your images will be shown to every friend and family member. If they are happy with your work, they will recommend you and your business will grow.

Taking just a few moments each day and working on a set goal, it will become easier to capture and succeed  on your newfound photography business opportunity.

Helping your photography business, how to start a digital wedding photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.

Wedding and Portrait photographers are gearing up for another year of producing some of the finest images today. One of the best connections to be made is at the expos and tradeshows from the industry. Great programs and ideas are energized every year during these events. Two of the largest events are starting soon.

WPPI (Wedding and Portrait Photographers International) March 24-29 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

ProPhoto Expo February 7-10 in Pasadena California

Check out the sites and plan to attend. Educate yourself on all of the latest events, great new product innovations including cameras, albums, software, images labs, props and storage devices. View many speakers who will share their vision, advice and share marketing of their studios that help your studio with a refreshed spirit.

Helping your photography business, how to start a digital wedding photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.

Whatever you plan on doing for your customer, never give away your whole strategy.

• What is your timeline for service? Double it.
• What promises do you make? Make them as generic as possible.
• What strategies do you have? Keep them quiet.

Why?

When you tell your customer - anything - they expect it. If you don’t deliver, they become unhappy. Yet if your customer has only a vague understanding of what you deliver, your chances of making them happy increase drastically. For example, if you can normally deliver your product in 2 weeks to 90% of your clientele, telling your client 4 weeks will provide you extra time on those few rare exceptions. And it will make those 90% very happy when you deliver 2 weeks early. So happy they will remember you!

Helping your photography business, how to start a digital wedding photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.

We just put together an easy to follow movie tutorial on colorizing a black and white image. This tutorial will walk you through the steps of using Adobe Photoshop and your favorite image. Check out this show: Colorize a Black and White Image

Helping your photography business, how to start a digital wedding photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.

 

Want to learn more about running a successful photography business? You’re going to love our podcast series. We interview the best resources and the hottest talent - to give you ideas to grow your business.  

Have you ever sold large prints from you photography sessions? Do you have a way to easily sell wall size images? We recently interviewed Niki Newman about selling large wall prints from portrait sessions and found how she works with her clients. 

Niki Newman - Coming Attractions on Marketing With Projection - (Click to listen or right-click to save)

• Learn why projection is the only way to sell to clients
• Learn how you can double - even triple - your sales in just a few short weeks.
• Learn what types of photography projection works with best.
• Discover why using projection is easier than you think. And much more!

Visit Niki’s website at ProjectorsForPhotographers.com

Helping your photography business, how to start a digital wedding photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.

It happened again.

Almost every day I hear the phrase, “I want to be at the top of the search engines”. What does that really mean?

Unfortunately, most people say that phrase without actually thinking about what they mean by it. Do they want more visitors to their sites? Do they want more money to come into their businesses?

Simply being at the top of the search engines does nothing for your wedding photography business. I can send thousands of people to any site on the web. But if I send a thousand vegetarians to a site selling steaks, is it going to be of benefit?

Instead, what people really are asking for is to get noticed. To have quality people come into their site for the opportunity of creating a sale some time in the future. People want leads.

Good quality leads can come from a variety of sources. Just like with traditional marketing methods, you’ll find clients in a variety of different methods. If you take a look at your last five clients, you’re likely to discover they came from a variety of sources. From places like:

· a referral from a past client;
· an ad in a niche targeted magazine;
· a direct mail postcard;
· a meeting at a local networking group; and
· a friend of the family.

The key to traditional marketing methods is not putting all of your eggs into one basket; instead relying on a number of different sources.

But up until now, the Internet has been somewhat different. People are still putting up websites, and expecting people to magically find them. Or they expect to be placed on a search engine in the number one position (out of millions) and be instantly recognized.

A good Internet strategy takes its cue from a traditional marketing plan. It realizes there are dozens of ways to reach a potential customer, and finds ways of capturing each of those methods. So a well marketed site might receive visitors, and ultimately purchasers, from things like:

· a banner ad on a complimentary site;
· a click from a pay-per-click ad;
· a referral from an article on an association site;
· a link from an ezine; and
· yes, a top placement on a strong keyword within the search engines.

Having a clear vision for your photography business allows you to market your business directly to your ideal target market. The same applies to your website. The clearer you are on your ideal client, the easier it is to reach out to them.

With the Internet, a lot of your marketing strategy relies on searches – what are your customers searching for when they reach your site? Different people search for different things, yet all wind up on the same site making an identical purchase.

How do you capture those visitors?

It’s a matter of thinking like your customers. Why do they come to you? If you don’t know, start asking how they found you. Did they see you in an advertisement, or was it a referral from another company? What were they searching for when they found your company?

As you find different techniques, concentrate on building advertising methods using those techniques.

While many photography business owners have the belief that a top ranking placement of one keyword will bring in the traffic, in truth concentrating you efforts on multiple, less searched keywords is an easier task to accomplish.

Instead of being at the top of the search engines for a strong keyword such as “photography”, concentrating on a more targeted phrase such as “journalistic wedding photography” or “creative wedding photography” may in turn help you gain more business.

The word “photography” is huge, and can contain hundreds of different meanings, depending on the searcher. Yet when you narrow your focus to “journalistic wedding photography”, your focus becomes clear, and you have a much greater chance of gaining the attention you are seeking.

And when you have focused on key phrases, it will open up other marketing opportunities. You may find a directory to place a banner ad, or an ezine that is looking for quality articles. Your focus leads you to better quality contacts.

And isn’t that the real reason to be at the top of the search engines?

Helping your photography business, how to start a digital wedding photography business and wedding photography business visit virtualphotographystudio.com and keep up-to-date with all of the photography happenings via our free newsletter.

Are you looking for something different to offer your portrait photography clients? Are your wedding photography clients looking for something unique to offer their friends or family? We are always searching for products and services that we can influence additional market sales for all of our photography studio readers.

 

One new item that we came in contact with is a company called Portrait Weavers. This company can take an image and use precision jacquard looms to weave the photographic image into a cozy woven blanket or pillow or wall hanging. This is pretty cool technology. When I first spotted this product, I was under the impression that the photograph was fussed onto the pillow or fabric, but this is not the case. The image is transformed with looms to create a true work of art. Check out their website and see some of the great ideas and see how you can expand your photography business to a new level and set yourself apart from other studios.

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.

Postcards are one of the most successful campaigns a photography studio can do. Easy to setup, inexpensive to print and yes, less expensive to mail than a first class letter. Promote your latest baby contest or show off the last wedding, remember that this is a cheap way to show off your photography skills and services. Virtual Photography Studio has always been about sharing ideas and services to make running your photography business easy and efficient. With postcards campaigns, the trend continues. We have produced an easy way to get started using postcards. We have pre-made templates that you simply insert your images from the latest portrait or wedding in Photoshop and you are done. You can even adjust the colors in all of the templates that we provided to suit your needs. We even have pre-written text to start you on the copy for your photography postcard campaign.

Our photography postcard campaigns have an easy to follow tutorial that will show you how to use the templates. From adding your images to adjusting color, we cover it all. There are many templates to download and they are all free. Yes, that is correct, the postcard templates are free of charge. Take a look and let us know what you think.

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.

5 Things To Do To Get Better Rankings In The Search Engines Getting to the top of the search engines is a daunting task. Just when you move up the ranks, the search engines change their algorithms to stay ahead of the people trying to trick their way to the top. This can cause your site to plummet – even if you are a legitimate company. What can you do today to help increase the odds of your site staying in the top rankings?

1. Linking is king.

Linking your site up with other relevant sites gains you higher positioning. Don’t just link up with friends and acquaintances. Find quality sites within your section of the photography industry that will link to you. Search engines concentrate on text. If your site is primarily selling wedding photography, linking up with a florist or a bridal consultant would be a very relevant link.

2. Create new wedding photography website pages.

A website should grow and change over time. Add articles to your website. Add relevant information that will provide a better quality website to your viewers. Be sure each page, and all information, adds relevance to your overall business plan.

3. Placement of your photography studio’s keywords.

 What words best describe your business? Use those words liberally throughout your website. Place them in your meta description and your meta tags. Is your keyword a part of your URL? All the better. Anywhere you can legitimately use your keywords, use them to add relevance to your website. One word of caution. Use your keywords throughout good copy. Just repeating your keyword over and over again may actually penalize you from a search engine’s database. Search engines look for good quality information that will provide searchers with value each time they conduct a search.

4. Get listed.

Are you in all of the search engines? While Google and Yahoo make up about 70% of the total search engine databases used, there are still many other engines out there to list your URL. Also list your site in major directories, like DMOZ.org, About.com, and DirectoryGuide.com.

5. Keep building your photography website.

When you have one site up and running, consider adding more sites to break out your product lines. Breaking out your product lines give you more control over who you’re marketing each line to, and provide you with an automatic linking mechanism. The more specific you can make the text on each site, the higher you will rank overall. So, if you specialize in weddings and family portraiture, consider making a website for each, catering to those specific parts of 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.

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