Is Food Photography The Next Biggest Wave?

The 1-2-3 Marketing Mistake Most Photographers Make And Why It Kills Business

Have you ever done this?

You get excited about blogging. So you create a blog and start writing content for your posts. You write the first month because you are excited. By the second month it’s getting a bit tedious, but you do it anyway. By the third month you are really questioning why you’re writing and you begin limiting your posts. You slip from every day to three times per week. No results. Month four is cancelled.

Or maybe you’ve decided to send postcards to certain zip codes to try and drum up business. You spend time creating a postcard and figuring out how to make it a powerful campaign. You’re excited about its potential and you ship the first month issue out enthusiastically. With no bites on the first go around, you’re a little more hesitant about month two, but you’re still dedicated to the concept. Month two’s postcards head out your door and into the mail. By month three, you’re very unsure about the whole thing. You may have had a call or two, but really no clients yet. Do you really want to do this and incur this expense? Maybe one more month; postcard three heads out the door. Month four – no sales, no great leads – it’s over.

This is what I call the 1-2-3 Marketing Mistake.

No matter what marketing tool you try, online or off, nothing will work spectacularly on its first go. (Okay, I’m sure you can find some case studies that show instant phenomenal results, but they are the case studies, not reality.)

People today want instant results. We can solve cases in one hour, thanks to television. We can see an entire generation move from birth to death, thanks to Hollywood movies. We know everyone can get rich overnight thanks to many of today’s marketing tools – just look through your email or watch an infomercial.

So why shouldn’t our marketing methods work just as quick?

We are exposed to so much content, so many ideas, so many messages, its almost impossible for the average person to understand your offer with one contact, especially if they don’t know they have a need yet.

Lets go back to our two examples.

If you’ve decided to set up a blog, there is only one thing you should be doing on a regular basis. Blog. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: Blog, blogging, Marketing Mistakes Photographers Make, postcards

4 Steps To Turn Prospects Into Clients With Your Website

by Virtual Photography 1 Comment

As a photographer, what is the one thing that motivates your prospects to convert to clients? Your photographs?

Nope.

It’s actually your words.

Don’t believe me?

Head out and Google random photographers’ websites. You’ll quickly find the majority of photographers online today create a site driven by their photography.

Sure they say, “welcome to my site”. And they have a bio – very small that doesn’t really say much. And they may list their services with pricing and inclusions.

But then it’s on to the gallery. And it becomes a “best of” festival, showcasing whatever the photographer deems to be representative of their finest photography. 50, 100, 200 images – they take a few best shots from each clients’ file and upload them to a gallery.

No matter how beautiful the photography, the value of it starts getting lost as people go from one site to another, and they all pretty much look the same.

And its’ not just the photography. Even the website designs begin to look the same. It’s enough to leave any potential customer confused.

Which is where your words become more important than ever. Take a look at these two examples.

Example 1:

In this example, all your prospect sees when visiting your site is an image. They build their opinions strictly from the image you provide.

.

.

Example 2:

Instead of choosing a “best of” image, you put a selection of images from a past shoot and talk about the shoot:

Brent and Amanda’s Engagement

I was so excited when I booked Brent and Amanda’s wedding. I knew right away they were going to be a fun couple to work with. They wanted something different for their engagement setting, so I started asking them what was important to them. Amanda started telling me about the picnic lunch they shared right before Brent popped the question – all down by city park. I knew then where we had to photograph their engagement.

I met them there and instant magic started happening. With a little direction, they began having fun, and the photographs turned out exquisite.

They wanted a series of images to display at their reception site, so we didn’t take the standard images – instead we had some fun. Here are a couple of my favorites.

I’m SOOOO looking forward to their wedding in October up at the Ritz!

As a prospect, the first image is nice. But there is nothing that allows you to get “inside” what the clients were feeling; what the photographer’s intentions were.

With the second, the story unfolds. Even if you don’t know “Brent and Amanda”, you feel like you do. You get this happy feeling just by reading what transpired.

So ultimately, its in your words. Which is why I always recommend blogging. With every post you make, you can get into the details of what your last shoot was. It doesn’t take a novel or hundreds of words. Just a simple story like the one I wrote above. It’s 142 words.

If you HATE writing – I have a lot of people tell me that – here is a quick way to get your story out and on to your blog.

Outline

Pick your favorite images from the shoot. Not a ton, just 2 or 3. Why do you want to share them? What makes them special? Write down on a piece of paper three reasons why these mean something to you and how they best represent your client.

Freewrite

Take those three points and write. If you hate writing, speak. Dragon Software has a great product that allows you to talk while it takes notes. Or if you have a Mac with the new operating system, Mountain Lion, it has a dictation program that allows you to do the same. Just let yourself go without editing or concerning yourself with your language.

Read Aloud

Now start at the beginning and read it aloud. Things sound different when you speak them and it will help you discover hidden errors. Correct things as you go along to make it sound better.

Post

When you’re comfortable with your message, post it with your images. Don’t overthink this. Just do it. Your first try won’t be as good as your tenth. And that’s okay. The important thing is to let people see your work and your personality.

Filed Under: Website Marketing Tagged With: Blog, blog writing. content, blogging, copywriting, Online Marketing, prospects into clients, Website

Why A Blog Filled With Client Posts Is The Best Way To Sell

by Virtual Photography Leave a Comment

How many clients will you be photographing this year?

Maybe you’re a wedding photographer. Your 2012 looks like this:

35 weddings

22 engagement sessions

10 trash the dress sessions

Maybe you’re a portrait photographer. Your 2012 looks like this:

50 family sessions

35 baby plans

100 high school senior sessions

Maybe you’re a commercial photographer. Your 2012 looks like this:

3 commercial jobs every month – 36 jobs for the year

Every single one of these sessions should be more than just the session. They should be made into a blog post to showcase your work and show other potential customers exactly what you can do. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: Blog, blogging, client, posting, posts, sell, selling, testimonial

8 Simple Ways To Get People To Read What You Have To Say On Your Blog

by Virtual Photography 1 Comment

Blogging. Nothing online can make you more successful than the words you write on your blog.

But if you’ve ever slaved away over a post, spent tons of time carefully crafting your post, and had NO ONE read it, it can be a bit disheartening.

Or you may have experienced the opposite. Instead of writing, you post a dozen photos or so from your latest shoot and release them to the world. Yet if you factor out your client and her family, ZERO have seen it.

What’s a photographer to do?

Should you really keep writing? Should you keep placing your images in posts? Or maybe you should tweet instead.

Writing can be difficult. And many photographers are visual by nature – they like to photograph, not write. And while your blog is the perfect place to include a variety of images, photographs alone will not bring you success.

The key is in the writing.

Yet the key might not be in writing more; the key may be in writing less.

The problem with many photographers is they don’t spend enough time thinking about the way they write their content.

Dig Deeper: It’s the Greatest, Easiest, Most Profitable Way To Talk About Your Photography … So Why Aren’t You Doing It?

Think for a moment about how you approach search. When you search for new information, you use keywords in Google and head to the first relevant link.

Then you head over and scan the information. If you find something relevant immediately, you scan a bit more. The more you find, the more you read.

Words matter. But so do graphics. You use it all to quickly determine what your next step is.

Ultimately, it comes down to interest. And there are 8 ways you can structure your posts to capture even more interest with every post you create.

1. Use short, compelling paragraphs

Your English teach from high school may not approve, but in the blogging world, keep it short. Every paragraph should be short and too the point with equally short sentences. Two or three lines per paragraph is a good thing in the blogging world, and will leave you with plenty of white space.

2. Plan your subheadings first

When you start your blog post, your title should direct your content. Subheadings should help you divide it into thoughts. I’m a fan of making them bolder and stand out as well – something you see here with these 8 subheadings. They also help direct your content and help you stay on track. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: Blog, blogging, get people to read your blog posts, posting, posts, writing

Is Food Photography The Next Biggest Wave?

by Virtual Photography 1 Comment

“Why would I want to use Twitter? Who cares what people are having for lunch?”

Since Twitters inception, that’s been the general consensus among business owners. And as it turns out, there may be some truth to the “Twitter – its what’s for lunch” concept.

People aren’t just talking about what they had for lunch; they’re photographing it too.

According to 360i, by the end of 2010, more than 80 billion photographs were uploaded across a variety of social picture platforms. And at least once a month, 52 percent of mobile users take photos with their phones, and 19 percent upload their photos to the web.

And what is even more fascinating is that people are almost never in these photographs – only 10 percent of the photographs 360i analyzed had people in them.

So what are people taking photos of? In many cases, its food. Check out this infographic 360i did for Mashable.

With that many people taking photos of food, is there a future in food photography?

Even though were weathering a tough economy, we may be forgoing vacations, and passing on pricey cars, there is one thing we’re not willing to part with – cookbooks. While the book industry as a whole is falling, and booksellers are filing for bankruptcy, cookbook sales are up 9 percent last year, according to Nielsen statistics. And with cookbooks come photography, blogs, and a whole new reason to start photographing what you eat.

And while most people think of professional chefs and bakers when they think cookbooks, some of the highest growth in cookbooks aren’t’ coming from professionals, they are coming from bloggers.

Mom blogger The Pioneer Woman started out years ago describing her life on the ranch with her cowboy husband and four children. Now she has multiple books, including a cookbook, and is about to head into a whole new venture with her cooking show on the Food Network.

And if you’re a fan of Tim Ferriss from the 4 Hour Work Week, he’s just announced his new venture – The 4 Hour Chef.

So I guess the only question now is “how can you turn your love of food and photography into a business?”

Filed Under: Commercial Photography Tagged With: blogging, chef, food photography, foodie, infographic, statistics