The business side of photography
Does it feel like you’re working in a crowded market? Too much competition and not enough elbow space for you to grab the ball and run with it? How can you get the attention you deserve?
The easy answer is always, “Be different. Set yourself apart from the others.”
But the million dollar question is, how do you set yourself apart from the crowd? Do you have to be outstanding to stand out?
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I just finished three days of following Prince Charles and Camilla through Toronto and southern Ontario. The Royal couple are currently on an 11-day official visit to Canada.
My first thought is that this is a colossal waste of taxpayer money. I can’t imagine how many millions of dollars are being spent on this. Many events were not open to the general public and most media events were only for a handful of pre-selected media organizations.
However if you consider, or at least pretend, that this is a marketing or public relations event, then perhaps it might be money well-spent if it had been properly planned and executed. This applies to all marketing efforts and not just royal visits. The client, (in this particular case, the Canadian taxpayer), must get their money’s worth.
Why spend time and money promoting a product, service or brand when that effort is only half-assed or squandered? Why just go through the motions? Marketing success needs both media and public exposure. Otherwise it’s just a tree falling in the forest.
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There’s a joke that asks: “If price and worth mean the same thing, why do priceless and worthless mean the exact opposite?”
Price is set by the seller and worth, or value, is set by the buyer. Price is usually influenced by various market conditions and worth can be affected by marketing. The two are connected.
Ideally, a client wants high-value photography for free. On the other hand, a photographer wants their images to sell for a very high price. Does this mean that a photographer and their client are opposites?
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Having a slogan or tagline can sometimes be good for a business. Creating an effective slogan requires careful thought, correct spelling and good grammar. Here are some photography business slogans that may have missed their mark:
• We’re #1 in service and inconvenience
• Best Profressional Photographer In Town
• Fully expreienced perfessional
• Not just a photographer but a lens maestro
• Other photo studios come and go. We’re not going anywhere.
• Why go elsewhere and be cheated? Come to us first.
• Passport pictures – Come in and get your head shot.
• We’re not satisfied until you’re not satisfied
• If you’re in a hurry then so are we
• Our prices show that we care for your money
When photography is licensed for editorial use, public relations or certain other uses, there will often be a licensing clause that states that the picture(s) may not be used for “paid placements”. A few folks have asked what this means.
“Paid placement” is simply any use that requires the company to pay a fee to have the photo(s) published. Paid placement includes, but is not limited to, advertising.
One could argue that all business communication is a form of advertising but here are three general types of photography usage:
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Got a phone call from a business, here in Toronto, looking to hire a photographer. The caller said that they’ve never hired a photographer before and admitted they weren’t sure “how it works.”
The company wanted executive portraits for its web site. Business portraits are the most common request that a corporate photographer gets. There are many uses for such pictures and smart businesses like to update their photos every couple of years or so.
I suggested the best way to do the photography, how the pictures could be delivered and then gave an approximate cost for the required usage. That last bit, about the price depending on the usage, caught the caller by surprise.
Aha! Licensing.
Here’s the deal about licensing:
Is that phrase an oxymoron? Maybe the two words should be mutually exclusive?
How about the terms “business journalism” or “editorial business”? Perhaps “editorial marketing” might be more accurate?
This post is about how businesses can benefit from having editorial content and even outright journalism on their web sites. This is not to be confused with public relations or marketing. The benefits of quality and timely editorial content can equal and even surpass that of a company’s public relations or marketing efforts.
