marketing

Hiding Photographers

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An obvious group of photographers, 09 September 2014.

And just for fun, here’s the reverse angle:

British actress Keira Knightley at the Toronto Film Festival, 09 September 2014.

 

A Toronto dentist recently told me that when he graduated from dental school in the mid-1970s, there were about 1,300 dentists in Toronto. He said that number has since increased at least 600%.

When he opened his own practice in Toronto, there was one other dental office within a one-block radius of his office. Today there are eight other dental offices within that same one-block radius and those eight dental businesses collectively employ about 18 dentists.
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Marketing Fools

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Toronto’s first cannabis store opened this week on April Fools’ Day and it pulled a prank on everyone including itself.

The store’s very first customer was fake. A pretend customer. Someone who works for the store as its publicist.

When found out, their excuse was that they wanted to make sure its first sale, which was being recorded by the city’s news media, didn’t have any “issues.”

Every other cannabis store in the country, since last October, has managed to open and sell to their real first customers without any “issues.”

This Toronto store is now getting publicity for all the wrong reasons:

It may have violated Canadian advertising standards:
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Stop Being A Freelancer

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Photographers, stop calling yourself a freelance photographer. “Freelance” suggests temporary and, perhaps in the worst case, even fly-by-night.

Always refer to yourself as a professional photographer. It creates a much better image in a customer’s mind. For better or worse, titles are important in business.

So while “freelancer” may be more akin to how you see what you do, it might be selling you short. After all, your livelihood doesn’t depend on your own self-perception, but on how potential clients see you and your work.

– Suzan Bond

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Are your customers wide and flat or narrow and deep?

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If you chase every type of customer, you can end up not knowing which way to turn. Wedding customers, family portrait customers, high-school seniors, social event organizers, business headshots, real estate customers, retail web sites, consumer publications, corporate customers, commercial customers, academic institutions, etc. Who gets your attention? Everyone?

Of course you want as many customers as possible but do you want your customers to be wide and flat or narrow and deep?

Having a wide and flat customer base means that you do many different types of photography to appeal to anyone and everyone. This type of customer tends to make only occasional or relatively small purchases.

A narrow and deep customer base means that you do certain types of photography that appeal to a specific type of customer. Customers in this category tend to make more frequent or higher-priced purchases.
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Visualizing A Better Story

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A potential customer asked for “action pictures” of their employees. What do the employees do at this financial company? They sit all day long and tap away at their computers.

Five weeks ago, I photographed at an office which was an entire floor of employees quietly typing inside beige cubicles. I was also recently at a healthcare company’s warehouse-sized call centre that was wall-to-wall cubicles of employees talking on telephones while they typed on computer keyboards.

Even at a tech company’s office, which is well-known for its fun decor and in-office perks, the employees sat quietly at tables tapping away at their laptops. (This tech company office had no landline phones except for the receptionist. When I stood in this office, the only sound I heard was that plastic clicky sound from keyboards.)

So where’s all the action?
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