marketing

About the About

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Most photographer web sites have an About Us page where the photographer writes something about their background. But this is often a waste of a web page.

First, potential clients don’t care about a photographer’s hobbies, where they went to school or what their dog’s name is. All of this is irrelevant to a customer who’s really looking for some indication that the photographer might be the answer to their photo needs.

Second, by talking only about themselves, the photographer leaves one person out of the conversation: the client.

Third, it’s just bad marketing. Every page on a photographer’s site should have some marketing value.
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Telling not selling

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Most photographers don’t want to be a salesperson selling photography. Many hate to advertise or promote themselves. Most don’t want to call attention to themselves by yelling, “Hire me!”

Photographers generally just want to go out, make some nice pictures and then have a cheque magically arrive in the mail. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. You must show loud confidence in your business. If you’re not confident about you then the customer won’t be confident about you.

In the previous post, I wrote about advertising, marketing and being remarkable. In that post, it was suggested that advertising isn’t always the best option when marketing a business. But other forms of marketing are possible and even required.

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Remarkable Marketing

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Andy Sernovitz, a marketing guy, wrote:

Advertising is the cost of being boring.

If your customers won’t talk about your stuff, you have to pay newspapers and TV shows to do it for you.

Robert Stephens,  founder of the Geek Squad, made a similar statement:

. . . advertising is a tax you pay for being unremarkable.

Have you ever seen an ad for Google or Facebook? When was the last time you saw a Starbucks TV commercial? How often does a pro sports league like the NBA advertise its product?
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List of Ingredients

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Many years ago, professional photographers would often state that they used Nikon, Hasselblad or Sinar cameras. By pointing out that they used these highly-regarded brands, the photographers were hoping to be seen as being more professional than photographers who used other camera brands.

If a commercial client knew the photographer was using a Nikon, Hasselblad or Sinar, that client would be more confident that the photo assignment would be a success.

“Ingredient branding” is when an ingredient or component of a product or service has its own brand identity. An ingredient brand adds its own brand value to a business, product or service. Ingredient branding can help differentiate and elevate a business or product from its competitors. This can influence customer preference and help support higher pricing.

Well-known examples of ingredient brands are Gore-tex, Intel, Teflon, NutraSweet, Shimano, Lycra, Kevlar and Dolby.
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Best ways to waste your marketing budget

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Here are some of the best ways for a business to waste its marketing efforts. These have been proven to produce poor results and push customers away. If your business has too much money and you need to waste some of it, these tips should help you accomplish that goal:

• Send out press releases without any pictures. This is the best way to let editors know that your press release isn’t really important and you don’t want attention.

• Use stock photography. Nothing says “we don’t care” more than the use of cheap, stock pictures. Custom photography won’t waste money since it provides useful information to customers.

• Make sure your About Us or Contact Us web page doesn’t have any pictures of your key employees. Why risk gaining credibility and trust with your customers when you can be another impersonal business?

• Use only low-resolution pictures on your web site. Large pictures have the problem of attracting and holding customer attention which can encourage them to open their wallets. Going small is a great way to waste your web efforts.

 

That’s not my job

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Photography may be how you make money but photography is not your job.

Your job as a professional photographer is to make the world know you exist. Well okay, maybe not the entire world but at least your little corner of it.

Your job is to attract attention and get people to trust you. People only do business with someone they know or trust.

Your job is to help customers achieve what their goals. Retail customers usually want the photographer to create good memories for them but not necessarily accurate memories. Business and corporate customers want the photographer to help their company get favourable attention.

Your job is to understand the customer and offer better solutions.

Some jobs are difficult. Thank goodness photography isn’t one of them. :-)

 

Ordinary Miracle of Photography

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Every photographer who has developed prints in a darkroom knows the magic of watching an image appear on photo paper. Whether it’s their first or 10,000th print, an image appearing in the developer tray never ceases to amaze.

With digital cameras, the magic is lost. Photography has become so automatic that people barely notice it. Just push a button and check the LCD screen.

The technology behind turning light into electricity, then into digital bits stored on a memory card, and finally into an image is no longer considered magical. Digital images are now routine.

Yet, the essence of photography remains unchanged. It can still capture the right moment, tell a story, inspire hope, stir emotion, send a message, influence a belief, change opinion or illustrate what words cannot.

That’s why smart businesses use custom photography for their press releases, annual reports, web sites and other marketing collateral. These companies understand the ordinary miracle of photography.

 

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