Why you shouldn't worry about cut price photographers đ¸
When I first started out as a photographer back in 2004 I was constantly worrying about the competition and the low prices they were charging, I think everyone does it, its only natural, but its not good for business and not good for your sanity.
HOWEVER...
Once I developed a niche photography brand combined with a unique offering, this allowed me to forget about the competition altogether and focus on serving my ideal clients.
We had clients travelling 100's of miles to our boudoir studio and our wedding photography took us nationally and overseas.
Why would clients choose a photographer 100 of miles away when they probably have dozens of cheaper photographers on their doorstep??
If people bought purely on price alone then premium brands like BWM, Ralph Lauren, Tiffanys, Jaguar and Hugo Boss simply wouldnât exist.
Because our brand and our message became the perfect fit for the type of people we wanted to attract then the price of our services didnât become an issue. Remember if you try to become the photographer for everyone you become special to no one, then all you can do is sell your services on price alone.
We left the freebie hunters and tyre kickers to the Jack of All Trades Photographers allowing us to charge a premium price for a premium service, while the awkward everything for nothing customers would go to our competitors.
You don't need to be an award-winning photographer to become the Go-To Photographer in your area, but you do need a brand that is perfectly aligned to your ideal clients and looks both professional and premium.
Brand isnât just your logo, its everything your customers think, feel and believe about your photography business, if you want them to think youâre a premium high-end photographer then your brand must look expensive.
Our clients donât look at our photographs the same as we do, they arenât photographers so they canât really appreciate the difference from one professional photographer to another, but what they can spot straight away is a premium service and a premium brand.
Make 2021 the year you get to grips with your brand.
Do you worry about the competition???
đ¸ Follow my hashtag on LinkedIn #creatingsuccessfulphotographers for regular tips and advice.
Using Hashtags on LinkedIn
How to get MORE out of your LINKEDIN HASHTAGS đđđ
I see a lot of photographers posting on LinkedIn that are wasting time by using hashtags that won't bring any benefit to their posts. Remember that LinkedIn is NOT like Instagram, less is more when it comes to hashtags on LinkedIn with the ideal amount being 3 and no more than 5 in total.
Follow these tips to improve your hashtag use and create MORE ENGAGEMENT...
1. đ Use CLIENT TYPE HASHTAGS.
People follow hashtags because they want to see the content for that hashtag feed. The chances are your clients aren't following the hashtag #photography so think about what they are following.
For example, if you're a food photographer your ideal clients are probably following hashtags like, food, hospitality, gourmet, foodanddrink, NOT photography.
If youâre a headshot photographer your clients are most likely business people, they probably wonât be following the hashtag #photography but will certainly be following content like, business, startups, marketing, innovation, success etc
2. đAlways RESEARCH HASHTAGS before use..
Itâs no good using hashtags that have a small following because itâs not going to get eyes on your content. Type the hashtag you want to use in the LinkedIn search bar and see how many people are following it, ideally aim for 50k plus.
3. đ Use BROAD HASHTAGS at weekends..
Broad hashtags such as "marketing" have a huge following so there's a good chance your content will be lost during the week, however at weekends content posting drops so use these broader hashtags for your weekend posts.
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Follow my LinkedIn hashtag #creatingsuccessfulphotographers for a successful 2021 and checkout my newest website at www.thephotographersmentor.com while youâll find a host of free resources and a great photography business blog,
Do You Have a Low Risk Product?
A low risk product is something either offered for free or for a very small amount. Itâs a low risk so your clients can try it out at minimum financial investment.
A good example of a low risk product for a wedding photographer could be a free or half price engagement shoot. A commercial photographer who photographs restaurants could offer a weekâs worth of social media posting images say 10-12 images. This then allows the restaurant to see for themselves how much more engagement they receive when professionally created images are posted as opposed to their own taken on a member of staffs I-Phone.
An interior or property photographer could offer an estate agent or architect one free residential shoot,may be a high-end home which they can photograph to showcase all the aspects of their services, including the use of interior and exterior photography and if you have drone photography you can offer this in the package also.
The estate agent or architect need to see the benefits in using your services. Let them see for themselves the wide angle views taking in an entire room, the quality detail and close up features of a beautiful fitted kitchen, the perfectly balanced view looking out from the interior windows of a country home.
All these elements the agent would have trouble producing themselves, but these aspects of your service can really create a stir with their potential clients and certainly lead to quicker property viewing and sales.
Remember, the idea of a low risk offer is that you can build a relationship with the client. You canât expect a client to jump straight in and go for your top high-end package until they know you, trust you and believe in what you do.
A small low risk offer can also create clients for life, so think of the potential value in giving an hour or so of your time for free, it could be worth thousands.
What can you offer your clients at a low risk or zero risk to encourage them to have a go at using your services?
Check out my YouTube Video below for even more top tips and don't forget to subscribe to my channel for regular free marketing hacks and advice.
Are You Building an Email Database?
Itâs essential as photographers that we all try to slowly build a really good, high number of email leads. These will become our goldmine database that allows us to keep in contact with our clients, or perspective clients, on a regular basis.
Email addresses can easily be collected from your website data capture, Linkedin, Facebook Pages and special offer promotions. The main idea of an email database is to contact your clients directly on a weekly or fortnightly basis and build a fantastic ongoing relationship.
You may well be posting to Facebook on a regular basis, but even if you are posting every day only 1% â 10% of you followers will ever see the posts that you make.
So, if you are posting to Facebook and Linkedin or writing blogs for your website donât just leave them there, send them out to your email database as too, donât just use your emails for offers, build trust with useful content. This way you are pretty much guaranteed the people connected with you will see what you are positing about, instead of leaving it to the luck of Facebook or the chance of them revisiting your website.
Think how many people will actually revisit your website on a regular basis once they have connected with you â probably less than 5 â 10%. So if thatâsâ the case these people arenât getting a chance to read your fresh blogs. If they have signed up to your email list and left their details you owe it to them to keep in contact, so why not send them your blog posts too.
Give your subscribers more than just offers, make them feel special with quality content, build trusting relationships so those relationships turn into client relationships further down the line.
Start using email on a regular basis, use email to distribute all your posts, blogs and all your news, special offers and updates.
Donât hound the subscribers on your email database with just special offers make the offers unique to them and them alone, Subscriber VIP Offers or Limited Advanced Notice Offers. Try to fill their inboxes with fantastic useful content that will help them build up an emotional or solution-based relationship so they can really see the value in your services and also start to know you better as a person.
Remember people buy from people they like so and some humour and add some personality to your emails we are all human.
Check out my YouTube Video below for even more top tips and don't forget to subscribe to my channel for regular free marketing hacks and advice.
Are You Thinking Ahead for Christmas?
As a photographer itâs a good idea to think 2-3 months ahead at any one time. As the end of the summer approaches with October now here itâs a great time to start thinking about your Christmas offers.
Never leave it to the last minute, donât put your Christmas offers out a couple of weeks before December - get them out early, start your followers thinking now, because a lot of people like to spread the cost of Christmas.
Many of people start Christmas shopping in September so get your offers out there. Also many businesses will already be gearing up for Christmas and fresh imagery will be at the forefront of any festive online campaigns.
Notably the hospitality trade are always very proactive in putting their Christmas offers out early - ensuring their restaurants and guest rooms booked in advance. They send their information out across social media, getting clients to think about Christmas at an early stage with the same old message, book early or lose out. You need to be doing the same, take a leaf out of the hospitality tradeâs book.
Start promoting ideas for your Christmas portraits to your clients early. Remember some of your network may need to be reminded two, three maybe four times before they actually engage and either pick up the phone or jump on an email and book that portrait session â so start now.
Whether you are a commercial photographer or lifestyle photographer or a wedding photographer start thinking of packages and offers you can put together ready for the Christmas period. If you start now Iâll guarantee you can maximise Christmas a lot better.
Check out my You Tube Video below for even more top tips and don't forget to subscribe to my channel for regular free marketing hacks and advice.
How Active Are You on LinkedIn?
Itâs easy to stick with the same routine â sending out the same connection message to 50 - 100 people on a daily basis. Yes, your connections will grow and so will your network on LinkedIn but if you really want to make the most of your network by becoming an influencer and thought-leader within your niche you need to start interacting, complementing and commenting on a daily basis.
This means scrolling through your news feed and selecting potential clients youâd love to work with then interacting, complementing and commenting on the content they post. However donât just leave your interaction on LinkedIn at the complementing and commenting stage, start writing your own creative content and donât just talk about yourself or your business.
Talk about trends within your industry, news that your potential clients will find of use. Also post articles that create thought, start conversations, debate and interaction. Any form of interaction is good â whether its negative or positive, it will get people thinking and it will get people talking, most people comment objectively and donât just criticises for the sake of it like many do on Facebook.
Every time you post youâll be appearing again and again in the news feed of your ever growing network, your profile will receive more views and your influence will increase.
Start using LinkedIn for what it really is - a social selling platform for growing a network and building connections, connections that can slowly turn into clients. Start getting more active on LinkedIn today and become known by many as the thought leader in your niche.
Check out my You Tube Video below for even more top tips and don't forget to subscribe to my channel for regular free marketing hacks and advice.
What is Social Selling?
Social selling is all about building relationships online via Facebook, LinkedIn and Social Media.
To successfully socially sell you need to exactly know who the people are within your online network.
What the demographics for your audience are?
What they like and dislike?
What they do for a living?
What interests do they have?
What deposable income bracket do they fall into?
What big brands, fashions or trends do they follow?
Once you know a lot more about your ideal client and social followers then you can post content that is of real interest to them on your social media platforms. Socially selling involves 3 key stages. The first stage is to be informative. Give plenty of free information away, be there as a hub of advice and a resource for your potential client.
Tell them the benefits of a product or how best to solve a problem, topics that relate to them alone and that you know will be of interest, this may involve a bit trial and error but donât try to sell at this stage, just be helpful.
The next stage is to build the relationship further. Building the relationship further can be done by giving away something for free, chose something that is normally at the smaller price bracket around ÂŁ50 â ÂŁ100 and give that away for free but to your followers only. This is exclusively for them in return for their loyalty and ongoing following, make a point of stating this in your posts .
You can give away vouchers or give away a free trail offer, this allows a potential client to try you at a zero risk or reduced fee, but will always lead to a much bigger potential upsell after the trial or free session.
Remember, donât go straight for the kill with a big high ticket item - build the relationship up first. Let them see the value of what you do.
The 3rd key is aspect of social selling and final step is to sell to the right people at the right time. Remember not everybody is going to want your product all of the time. Some people are going to want your product at certain times a year.
So once you know your ideal customer, you then need to know when they would mostly like to buy your product. This will then be right time to start selling your product on social media but donât over sell.
Remember only one in every ten posts you make should be a selling post. Build a relationship and give value of money to your followers and when they are ready to buy from you they will.
Check out my You Tube Video below for even more top tips and don't forget to subscribe to my channel for regular free marketing hacks and advice.
You Always Have to Over-Deliver
Over-delivering is an essential part of building a solid customer base for life but most photographers donât do it. Over-delivering is quite simply done by you giving the client more than they expected in the first place.
So, for example, youâre a portrait photographer, you take a set of portraits and tell the family that the pictures will be ready to view online within the next 7 days. To over-deliver simply message them within 3 days telling the family their photographs are ready to view by doing this you have already exceeded their expectations.
Another way to over-deliver is to always give something for free. By giving something for free you will not be reducing your profit because the free item is already included in your costings when putting your packages together, you just donât show it to the client.
So say for instance youâve put a package together with an album, a USB key or even a canvas print with some small prints included, what you can then do is supply the client with 6 beautiful photo keyrings for FREE. The keyrings should display one of their favourite images on the front and your company logo with website URL on the reverse.
Clients will simply enjoy these little touches, theyâll hand keyrings out to friends and family while telling them how much they really enjoyed their shoot with you. Theyâll love them because they are for free and totally unexpected, its these little gestures that really do count.
Keyrings, mini albums, desk frames and what I call portable gifts are great PR for your business because when people ask where the photographs were taken, your details are on the reverse of the keyring or etched on the pocket album or on the bottom of your photo mugs.
It doesnât have to be an expensive free gift, it just has to be something that they donât expect. Obviously, your free item or free delivery will be costed into your package. The more money each client spends the bigger the freebie. If they spend a couple of ÂŁ1000âs on a portrait album and USB, you might want to include a free canvas.
The canvas they can clearly see from your photography price list is valued at ÂŁ400. However realistically it has probably cost you ÂŁ40-ÂŁ50 to produce. That free canvas is going to carry a lot of weight to them when they recommend you to their friends, telling people how amazing the experience was, how you supplied their images in record time and were very generous to include an amazing free canvas worth ÂŁ400.
When you have successfully over-delivered and youâve supplied your clients with the products that they have brought, itâs the perfect time to ask them for a testimonial. You can pretty much guarantee an absolutely fantastic testimonial in return and be sure the will recommend you to all their friends.
Check out my You Tube Video below for even more top tips and don't forget to subscribe to my channel for regular free marketing hacks and advice.
Too Many Photographers use Facebook as a Selling Tool
Facebook should not be used as a selling tool.
The only way you can sell on Facebook is by social selling and building relationships with your fans. If you try and use Facebook just to sell then people will start unliking your page and your followers will move away. Your Facebook page should be a hub of information, it should be there to give value to all of your followers.
If you are a wedding photographer, you should not just be selling your wedding services on Facebook you need to be talking about the best places to get dresses, the best venues for weddings in your area, whatâs the âinâ thing to have â the must have thing this season, the current wedding trends etc.
Share funny videos from Google of weddings gone wrong, share wedding quotes, share wedding fashion tips, images from celebrity weddings this is the sort of content your followers will love because it appeals to them. Make your Facebook page the place to go for people who are getting married or planning a wedding in your area.
Once they see your Facebook page is a valued source of information then they will hold you in a higher regard because you are not just trying to sell to them on a regular basis. Followers are more likely to recommend your Facebook Page to others and share your posts with their friends because itâs a real source of information that helps other people in planning a wedding too.
Start to think of Facebook as a more information giving service other than something where you can try and promote and sell photography on a daily basis. Ideally you should only be promoting or self-promoting by doing adverts or trying to sell something on Facebook once every ten days. So, if you are posting once a day would mean that every one post out of ten should be selling meaning every other post should be informative, telling stories, showing emotions or sharing pictures from other peopleâs weddings.
Iâm putting together a great Facebook Training Guide for Photographers within my Awesome Photographers Private Mentoring Group, Iâll be covering Facebook Posting, Content Marketing and sorting out your Facebook Advertising once and for all.
For more information about this amazing Group and how it can turn your business around with fantastic mentoring support and all your essential questions on pricing, branding, website marketing and much more then come a give us a trial for 30 days at www.22s.com/theawesomephotographersgroup
Check out my You Tube Video below for even more top tips and don't forget to subscribe to my channel for regular free marketing hacks and advice.
Goal Setting for Success
Goal setting is a massive part of creating a successful photography business but so many photographers just donât do it.
Itâs essential to set goals for every different area of your photography business. Itâs not just about how much money you are going to take or how many new clients youâd ideally like.
Set regular marketing and branding goals such updating your website, writing 10 blogs per month, having 50 Facebook posts per month, increasing your Linkedin connection rate by 1500 over 3 months.
Have goals in every single area of my business and track those goals weekly. Iâve developed a great Photographers Goals Tracker System I can send to you or you can download it from my Awesome Photographers Facebook Group if youâd like to become a member at www.22s.com/theawesomephotographersgroup
Most of all make your goals big, itâs no good having average sized goals. When somebody thinks of a goal they are usually very conservative, if I ask you to think about how much extra money you want to make in the next 12 months it would probably be a very conservative amount and you might say ÂŁ40,000 or ÂŁ50,000 which is easily achievable.
If you go for something a lot bigger and say âright well I want to increase my business by ÂŁ150,000â you are going to have to work a lot harder to achieve that it. Now think about it even if you donât reach your goal and only get half way towards achieving your target youâve still hit ÂŁ75,000 which is 50% more than your original goal.
Really push your goals and have a good objective of what your goals are for every single avenue of your business, then track your goals on a weekly basis reassessing them each month to see which areas need working on more.
Always look at the bigger picture for your business and tweak your goals to keep on track. It could be that you are going to need more clients, so you are going to have to get the website finished quicker, or youâll need to increase your followers on Facebook and grow your connections on LinkedIn, all of these actions will ultimately lead to increased brand awareness and potentially more clients.
Have goals in every area of your photography business and track them on a regular basis because if you donât have goals how do you know where you are? How do you know if you are ever going to get there if you donât know where you are going in the first place? Itâs an essential part of developing and taking your business to the next level and it certainly works
Check out my You Tube Video below for even more top tips and don't forget to subscribe to my channel for regular free marketing hacks and advice.