8 DIY Publicity Tasks You Must Do Now

8 Things To Help You Grow Your Photography Business On Pinterest

Pinterest has hit another milestone – over 100 million visits per month with nearly 12 million of them being unique visitors.

If you haven’t joined Pinterest yet, now is the time. Pinterest is used primarily by women, and because of the visual aspect of pin boards, they spend a lot of time on the site.

Currently you can use Pinterest by signing up through either your Facebook account or your Twitter account, giving you double the traction for half the work. If you connect through Facebook, keep in mind that currently it connects with your personal profile, not your page. So if you want to keep it business related, sign up for a special Twitter account to connect it to.

Then let the pinning begin.

1. Pinterest will start you out with five pre-determined pin boards. You can delete these and create your own. Plan out your boards with your business in mind. So instead of “photography” be specific towards your niche market. Also break it down to give your potential customers ideas as they are searching through your boards: what to wear for a portrait, posing ideas, location ideas. Be specific and use them to direct people to what they like the most. However, don’t just fill it with stuff from your site - be a resource as well. Its okay to post fresh ideas from other sites and resources online. Be an industry expert and share your talents and knowledge freely.

Dig Deeper: The Code For Blocking Pinterest … And 12 Reasons You Shouldn’t Use It

2. Google recognizes Pinterest profiles, so they can appear on the first pages of search results. Because of how Pinterest interacts with Google, be sure to create boards using your key terms so its recognizable and will deliver you results within the most popular key searches.

3. Currently you can rearrange your pinboards to have them showcased on your profile in any order you choose. Yet the pins within each pinboard are shown in order of when you pinned each item. If you have a closed board concept – meaning you are creating a board with a select number of pins and you know ahead of time what they will be – lay out the order first so they will appear in the order you desire. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Social Networking Tagged With: grow your photography business, marketing, pinterest, social media

How To Make Your Facebook Page More Interesting

by Virtual Photography 2 Comments

“I’ve been on Facebook for awhile now, yet I really have no enthusiasm for it. I post sporadically because I feel like I have to. I only have a hundred fans. And I really don’t know how to keep them interested. There is zero communication on my page, yet everyone says it has great potential. What do I do?”

Have you ever felt like that? Don’t worry, many people do.

If you have no enthusiasm for it, you will fail. Its as simple as that. So at this point you have two choices.

1. Quit using Facebook altogether for you business.

2. Choose to use it to attract new business.

If something isn’t working for you, you don’t enjoy it, and you really have no desire to make it work, why put your focus there? Instead, choose another way of marketing your business and put your concentration there instead.

Facebook is just a marketing tool – its one of thousands that exist for a small business owner. Yes, it will work if you use it right. But if you don’t enjoy it, why spend the time on it.

Yet if you decide that Facebook is truly something you want to use to attract new business, then its time to treat it like a marketing tool, and gather all of your energy up to make it work.

Are you using Facebook correctly?

Before you begin building a Facebook presence, make sure you have your accounts set up correctly. When you originally set up your account, you should have set up a personal account under your personal name. Your business should have its own Page. Browse through one of the many Pages that already exist on Facebook to gain some ideas. Then set up your own. You can use it as your business name – ABC Photography – or try creating different pages for different niches. For instance, if you focus on corporate events and weddings, the two make great stand alone businesses, and would potentially be more attractable if you separated them and created a page for each. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Facebook Tagged With: facebook, marketing, pages

Can You Still Use Etsy For Making Money With Your Photography?

by Virtual Photography 3 Comments

If you’ve been online for any length of time, you know sites come and go. What people were using even just a few short months ago to market their businesses may not work any more.

Many months ago I started looking at Etsy as a way to build up your brand as a fine art photographer.

Dig Deeper: How Photographers Use Etsy

Dig Deeper: 10 Places To Turn Your Photography Into Sales

Is Etsy still relevant today? As it turns out, the answer is yes.

Etsy is the king of the marketplace when it comes to selling handcrafted goods. You can sell your art without having to know how to build a website or start up an online store. Etsy does it all for you. You list it for free and pay a low commission on anything that sells. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Fine Art Photography Tagged With: etsy, Fine Art Photography, marketing, selling

7 Ways To Use iBooks For Your Photography Business

by Virtual Photography 1 Comment

One of the newest products released from Apple is the new iBooks Author application. iBooks Author allows anyone to create beautiful multi-touch books for iPad. And its not just the “book” concept that makes this exciting. With iBooks, you can incorporate a whole lot more than text – galleries, video, interactive diagrams, 3D objects and more. Which means you can bring your entire business to life that we couldn’t even dream about a few short months ago.

When iPad was first released, I attended a workshop on how best to use iPad. And even though there were several experts from Apple doing the presentation, the one thing they left open was the true purpose of an iPad. While it was developed with specific things in mind, the “brains” behind the iPad also knew that they really had no idea what direction iPad would take. With collective minds from all over the world developing apps to run on an iPad, the future is being rewritten every single day.

Start by taking a tour of the iBooks Author platform.

In many ways we are seeing that today as a consumer-driven iPad is quickly moving into the business space. Businesses and photographers are using it for everything from taking notes and communication platforms, to marketing and eventually replacing the need for hauling around heavy laptops.

With the release of iBooks Author, you can now take it one step further and incorporate a multimedia presentation into everything you do. Here are 7 ideas that will completely change the way you manage your business – and how people view you as a photographer and a business owner.

1. An interactive brochure

A brochure you can hand out is great. A brochure you can have people download to their iPad is revolutionary. Not only can you showcase your images in a unique way, you can also incorporate a viariety of other ideas into your brochures. How about a 2 minute interview with you? Or a video showing how you photograph at an event? If people can see what you do and learn from you, they are more likely to be inspired by you. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Apps Tagged With: ibooks, ibooks author, interactive, ipad, marketing, Photography Business, self publishing for photographers

What Are You Selling On Your Website?

by Virtual Photography 6 Comments

Why do you have a website?

That may seem like a trick question. Yet it’s a question most people don’t think about. They build a website because you have to have one in today’s world to run a business. But they never give it much thought. So take a few minutes now and think about why you have one.

Is it to find clients online – people you would never meet up with in your local community?

Is it to provide a brochure for people that you hear about you and want a little more information?

Is it to sell your photography?

Your website isn’t a one-purpose marketing tool. Instead it’s a multipurpose resource that can provide you with many different opportunities … if you plan and use it correctly.

What did you list as your reasons for having a website? Once you write down your ideas, its time to head over to your website to see if it really provides a strong resource for your ultimate goal. Let me give you an example. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Website Marketing Tagged With: attracting customers to your photography business, landing pages, marketing, online, sales page, Website

The Photography Sales Funnel Part Four: How To Put Your Sales Funnel Into Action

by Virtual Photography Leave a Comment

In the final chapter of this series on the photography sales funnel we look at how you can begin putting what you’ve learned into action for setting up your own sales funnel. If you haven’t read the first three parts of this series please do so now:

The Photographers Sales Funnel
Generating Leads At The Front Of Your Sales Funnel
Long Term Profits Through Referrals

The Potential Is Larger With A Niche

Once you realize the potential of a sales funnel, which I hope you do by now after following along in this series, you should consider implementing one for your own business.

When you first get started, don’t look at your business as a whole. Instead, look at it in individual pieces, or in niches. Maybe you photograph weddings, events and family portraits. In this case you could look at your business in three distinct ways through all three of your niches.

Each niche will be considered unique because you will be approaching customers and referral sources in different ways using different materials and tools. While they may all require you to have a website, how you move them through the site will take on different approaches for each of the different niches. For example as mother looking to book a family sitting may love looking through wedding images, but she won’t be able to “see” herself in your work. She wants to see other families and how you pose, choose your backgrounds, create packages, etc.

Planning Your Sales Funnel

Once your niches are determined and you are confident you want to bring in a lot of clients in those niches, you can begin work on your sales funnel.

Your main focus should always be on the needs of your customer. When I begin planning out my sales tools, instead of thinking of my niche as a whole, I think of one customer in particular. Don’t think of a “generic” customer. Instead, think of the best client you’ve ever had, the one you would love to have in your studio all the time. Then ask yourself a series of questions.

What did you do to attract her? How could you improve on that process?

What did she buy? What more could you have sold her?

How did you communicate with her during the entire process, including in the present? How could you communicate with her now and into the future?

What more could you sell her?

I’m sure just by reading these questions, ideas are popping up. Don’t stop the flow of ideas. Let them come and write them all down. This is how you will build your sales funnel for the future. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Sales Tagged With: Action, get clients, marketing, small business, studio, The Photography Sales Funnel

The Photography Sales Funnel Part Two: Generating Leads At The Front Of Your Funnel

by Virtual Photography Leave a Comment

In part one of this series on the Sales Funnel, I related my story of how a photographer needs to look at the entire sales cycle in order to give it strength and work to grow a successful company over time.

The sales funnel is a systematic marketing process where you filter your prospects into customers, then refine them into raving fans that refer you again and again. But before you can build your base of raving fans, you have to attract high quality prospects at the top of the funnel. This is where your marketing can really shine.

See You At The Top

The top of your sales funnel is the one area that requires the most experimentation. It’s the area where you can try different things, achieve different results, tweak it, and start all over again. There are limitless possibilities when it comes to how you can attract quality prospects, limited only by your imagination and your resources.

For many photographers, they immediately start with the more traditional ways of marketing: business cards, sales brochures, postcards, phone books, magazines, newspapers, etc. You can also dip into the higher priced marketing methods, such as expos, tradeshows, displays, billboards, etc

Thanks to the Internet, you can also find many methods to market and capture leads in the online world. Many people stay with the “free” concept, which can work. Things like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and Twitter can all work well if you have the time. Yet the Internet is filled with opportunities – most of which are a lot less expensive than traditional methods. Banner ads, ezine placements, pay per click advertising, blogging, podcasting, guest posting and many other Web 2.0 tools.

The method you use to drive prospects is optional. Yet your ultimate goal is to attract and qualify people that may at some point purchase from you further down the road – down your sales funnel. At this stage, you goal is to drop as many people as you can into the funnel, then use other mechanisms to qualify them and continue them down the path. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Sales Tagged With: finding clients, generating leads, lead generation, marketing, photography sales funnel

The Photographers Sales Funnel

by Virtual Photography Leave a Comment

Fundamental to the success of your photography business is the concept of the sales funnel. The sales funnel is key in defining the strategies needed to find prospects and turn them into clients over time. It also defines an effective referral program that keeps people coming in at all levels of your business.

Basic Sales Funnel Structure

When you are building your marketing and sales strategies, your ultimate goal is to bring in paying customers. Yet in order to do so, you have various steps in order to accomplish your goal.

The sales funnel begins by capturing the attention of prospects out in the marketplace looking for what you have to offer. Some are intrigued and want to learn more. Some are just starting the process and have no expectations. Some are ready to book and become clients. And a little of everything in between. The purpose of the sales funnel is to allow a prospect to “drop” in at whatever level they are currently at and provide them with what they need to go to the next step.

By the end of the process the funnel has successfully captured the ultra-responsive customers who have purchased from you again and again, love what you do, and enjoy sending you other clients as well. This is where great businesses make the majority of their profits – they find raving customers that love what they do and are willing to promote you to everyone they know.

Let me show you how it works.

The Sales Funnel

If you’ve been online for awhile, or even studied marketing, you have probably heard of the sales funnel. It has a variety of ways of looking at it, depending on your industry and how you wish to attract clients.

When we first started our business, we knew we had to reach out to clients in a variety of methods. With wedding photography, very few brides and grooms think about wedding photography until the moment they become engaged; then they are thrown head first into a whirlwind of planning.

The top of the funnel isn’t meant to sell to a prospective couple; instead its meant to educate them. Websites are the perfect marketing tool because you can provide as much content as you can and leave it up to the couple to decide how much they need. Some will spend 10 minutes going through 10 pages; some will spend 10 hours going through hundreds of pages.

While photographs are great – you are a photographer, what else would a prospective client want to see – remember they are in it for the education as well. A prospective wedding client has never planned a wedding before. They might not be thinking about sunset times for their 7pm wedding in October – and how you really can’t capture detail when the ceremony is outside in the dark. That’s a perfect thing to educate them on.

Or how long it truly takes to photograph formals. If they have large families and want a lot of groupings, it will take far longer than if they rely solely on photojournalism to capture the moments. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Sales Tagged With: getting clients, marketing, The Photographers Sales Funnel

8 DIY Publicity Tasks You Must Do Now

by Virtual Photography Leave a Comment

If you are in business for yourself, you must do every task necessary for your business. That includes everything from photographing your clients to taking out the trash. You don’t get to pick and choose what you want to do; instead everything is equally important when it comes to building a success business.

Which means every business owner must be a self promoter too – unless you have the ability to pay someone else to do it. If that’s not you, spreading the word is your task. Not to be confused with marketing, publicity gets others talking about you. And while many people think publicity comes with age – only the more established, more profitable companies need to worry about publicity – in fact its great to build your PR plan as early as possible.

Here are some ideas to help you develop a strong publicity program.

1. Choose what media outlets you would like to be featured in

What do you want out of your publicity? Are you trying to prove your expertise? Or are you trying to attract new clients? People look to articles in magazines as more authoritative than those that place ads. If you’re in an article, you must have something to say. Find a few sources where you would like to be featured and start gathering contact information. In order to pitch an article, you’ll need either a writer/reporter or the editor, depending on the size of the publication. Make sure you get contact information: names, email, addresses, web addresses. In many cases if you head online, you’ll find specific information for submitting ideas. I keep an excel file filled with this information, so its easy to create things and get them into the appropriate hands immediately.

2. Use resources like HARO

Want a great way to get to reporters looking for you? Try out a service like HARO – Help A Reporter Out. Sign up for their free service and you’ll be put on the mailing list in which you’ll receive emails three times a day listing opportunities. Follow up on the ones that you connect with and will bring you in potential exposure to your client base. While you can start with their free service – I’ve been using it for years – they also have pay models in which you can build profiles, filter your alert and even get a head start on responding. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Publicity Tagged With: DIY, marketing, PR, press release, publicity, self promotion

Can You Still Use Etsy For Making Money With Your Photography?