Why you shouldn't worry about cut price photographers 📸
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 wouldn’t 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 didn’t 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 isn’t just your logo, its everything your customers think, feel and believe about your photography business, if you want them to think you’re a premium high-end photographer then your brand must look expensive.
Our clients don’t look at our photographs the same as we do, they aren’t photographers so they can’t 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???
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Do You Have a Low Risk Product?
A low risk product is something either offered for free or for a very small amount. It’s 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 week’s 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 can’t 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?
It’s 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% – 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 don’t just leave them there, send them out to your email database as too, don’t 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 – probably less than 5 – 10%. So if that’s’ the case these people aren’t 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.
Don’t 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.
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 don’t 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 £50 – £100 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, don’t 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 don’t 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 don’t do it. Over-delivering is quite simply done by you giving the client more than they expected in the first place.
So, for example, you’re 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 don’t show it to the client.
So say for instance you’ve 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, they’ll hand keyrings out to friends and family while telling them how much they really enjoyed their shoot with you. They’ll 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 doesn’t have to be an expensive free gift, it just has to be something that they don’t 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 £1000’s 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 £400. However realistically it has probably cost you £40-£50 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 £400.
When you have successfully over-delivered and you’ve supplied your clients with the products that they have brought, it’s 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.
Goal Setting for Success
Goal setting is a massive part of creating a successful photography business but so many photographers just don’t do it.
It’s essential to set goals for every different area of your photography business. It’s not just about how much money you are going to take or how many new clients you’d 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. I’ve developed a great Photographers Goals Tracker System I can send to you or you can download it from my Awesome Photographers Facebook Group if you’d like to become a member at www.22s.com/theawesomephotographersgroup
Most of all make your goals big, it’s 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 £40,000 or £50,000 which is easily achievable.
If you go for something a lot bigger and say ‘right well I want to increase my business by £150,000’ you are going to have to work a lot harder to achieve that it. Now think about it even if you don’t reach your goal and only get half way towards achieving your target you’ve still hit £75,000 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 you’ll 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 don’t have goals how do you know where you are? How do you know if you are ever going to get there if you don’t know where you are going in the first place? It’s 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.
Building an Awesome Photography Website
I’ve been looking at a lot of photographers’ websites recently and most photographers’ websites tend to follow the same theme. They tend to take-on a portfolio-based website which basically means they are full of lots of pretty pictures, but they don’t have much text. The reason they don’t have any text is that they are more like an online gallery and they don’t offer a clear message or a solution to their visitors.
Most photographers don’t like the idea of marketing it’s not something that appeals to us, but you must understand that even though your images look nice its emotionally driven words that will really sell your photography.
When using words that are going to sell your services you have got to offer a solution to a problem or build an emotional connection with the people you are looking at as potential clients.
So that said at the very top of your website you MUST have a headline when you open up your homepage. Your headline has to say what it is you do, whether you’re a wedding photographer, portrait photographer or a restaurant photographer your message needs to be clear. More importantly your message needs to say what you can do for the client, how you can make their lives better and be the solution to their needs.
So for example, if you are a food photographer you don’t just take photographs - you take attention grabbing images that creates stunning interaction on social media and brings more bookings to your clients door. If you are a wedding photographer you don’t just take photographs - you take beautiful timeless images in a hassle-free way, fun, natural and relaxed, so the bride, her friends and family can enjoy her special day without interruption.
You have-to look at what the core reason is potential clients are seeking out a photographer in the first place. How can you make their lives better, it’s not just taking pictures it’s the solution to their needs that is the real benefit for them.
Think about it, any wedding photographer can photograph a bride and produce good images, but what the bride really wants is to feel relaxed, at ease and enjoy her big day, knowing the photographs will be taken without interruption.
Every other photographer will be selling their images online just as pretty pictures. However potential clients can’t judge one photographer’s work any differently than they can judge another photographer’s work. They don’t look at photographs the same way as we do.
What you have to do is be different from everybody else and tell clients exactly what you can do for them. Don’t just display a set of pretty pictures and leave it to them to make up their mind who they are going to choose. You have to take action on your website and get your message across, tell them why they MUST book you.
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 to Get a Lot More Connections on Linkedin
In order to get more connections on Linkedin you need to have a first-rate connection message. The connection message is your opening introduction to anyone who wants to join your network.
It’s got to be right, it’s got to be brief and it’s got to be powerful. You are limited to just 300 characters per message, so you really have got to get the benefit of connecting home in a very short amount of characters.
Your connection message should NOT be something that directs people to your website and says something very weak like ‘I’m a commercial photographer, I take great pictures have a look at www.yourwebsite.com.....’.
You have got to give them something of value. Let’s say you are a hospitality trade photographer, you start your message with something like ‘Hi I’d love to connect. I take fantastic images that really builds your social media engagement and brings more bookings to your restaurant. I’ve got some great restaurant social media tips I’d love to share with you’.
For example, my own connection message runs along the lines of ‘Hi my name is Jeff I’m a photography marketing mentor. I try and take the magic and mystery out of marketing by giving loads of free useful tips and advice to my photographer followers. I’d love to connect.’
That’s basically it, you are giving something for free, giving something of value away in return for the connection. You are offering people something that is going to build a relationship, you don’t want to try and sell on your first message.
What you are looking to do is to get them to connect with you, so you can build a great relationship further down the line. A relationship that will enable you to sell to them in future messages, but first you must give in-order to receive and build their trust.
Do you want 1000’s of new connections, a highly viewed profile and more importantly connections that become your ideal paying clients here on LinkedIn? Well if you can spare 45minutes a day following my process you can do it easy without spending a penny on adverts or sales funnels and landing pages?
In my Private Facebook Group “The Awesome Photographers” I’ve put together an entire LinkedIn for Photographers Training Program.
This includes how to totally optimise your profile, write connection messages that really work, build an awesome company page, convert connections in clients and build a huge wealth network on LinkedIn.
I’ve also included a FREE copy of my Best Selling Book The Photographers Missing “Link”edIn which you can download inside the group.
Come and try The Awesome Photographers Group for just $1 joining fee today.
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.
Top Tip 20: How Much Are You Worth
DON’T BE SCARED TO CHARGE YOUR WORTH
Over the past few months I’ve been working with some truly amazingly talented photographers, but as photographers, a big downside to our personality is our limiting beliefs. This often comes from a fear of rejection or lack of confidence in your work EVEN when everyone around you thinks you are totally AWESOME!!
In order to SUCCEED and build a financially stable photography business, your fear and limiting beliefs need to be conquered. The only way to conquer these beliefs we have is to go totally against what our fear tells us not to do.
If you lack the confidence to increase your prices from fear of rejection because for some crazy reason you have it in your head that you aren’t worth what you want to charge, you then need to take the bull by the horns and just do it. You’ll never know how much you can charge for your work until you charge what you should be charging.
Remember, as photographers we are in a very lucky position. The services we offer and what we do brings our clients great joy. The small invest our clients pay for our products often brings them years of happiness and the emotional value of their purchase is simply priceless.
We work for commercial clients and our images help to build their brands and put money through their tills. We help hotels book more customers, restaurants fill their tables, estate agents sell houses and business people create an incredible and trustworthy LinkedIn profile. What we do carries a lot of weight and value for our clients, we are a solution to their needs and our fees are an investment in their business growth.
Yet still, we are afraid to charge our worth. Accountants and dentists charge a premium for services that, to be honest, don’t often bring their clients much joy and happiness at all. Do you really enjoy paying a premium to get a tooth pulled out or find out you have a huge tax bill to pay?
If a potential client asks you for a quote its because your work appeals to them, they like your style and have viewed your images either on social media or your website. So, take it as they love what you do, they wouldn’t be asking for a price if they didn’t. Find out what your clients really want, listen to their needs and requirements first then give them a price with confidence because you know you’ll be their perfect match.
Top Tip 14: Cut Price Photographers are Doing Us a Favour!
One thing I do hear is a lot of photographers complaining that the market is oversaturated with cheap cut-price photographers and it's just impossible to make money in this business anymore.
Well, firstly I do agree that ‘yes’ the market is flooded with cut-price photographers so if your aim is to be in the gutter and at the bottom of the pack then your buggered. Give up now and save yourself the bother!
However, think about it, how many people really want to hire a cut-price photographer and are these the clients most of us want - absolutely NOT.
WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHERS, there’s a load of opportunity out there. Do you think a bride spending over £30,000 on her dream wedding is going to trust the skills of amateur £300 photographer to capture the only memories she'll have of her big day....of course, she won't. She wants the right person for the job, one that will not only give her the images she dreams of but will do it in a way that won’t spoil the romantic flow of her special day, she wants a professional like you.
COMMERICAL PHOTOGRAPHERS - do you think the marketing director of a large corporate hotel firm like Marriot or Malmaison wants to put their trust in some guy who's going to charge £99 to take allegedly stunning images or their luxury hotels for their websites and social media....of course not. These companies have huge marketing budgets and they want photographers they can trust and rely on to tell their brands' story so in turn they can build an engaging audience for their social media and increase booking via their websites.
There are millions of clients out there for all of us, in every price bracket and every niche. In today's world of online marketing and social media finding your clients has never been as simple. It really is a piece of cake, the hard bit is knowing how to communicate with them.
Stop thinking like a photographer, become a marketer first and a photographer second. Learn to know your clients and communicate with them on a personal level, people love that and even more so now in a digital age. It’s a case of ditching the formalities, adding personality to your sales pitches and sympathizing with your client’s needs, above all listen to want they really want.
Build a brand that communicates in values and benefits to your clients. Don't talk about yourself, talk about what you can do for them, give them the answers they need. Be the solution they are looking for and then price becomes far less important.
Don’t just give them what they NEED, give them what they WANT and a whole lot MORE!
You can find out what they WANT by simply asking questions and listening to the answers. Easy as that.
If everyone in the world just bought on price alone then luxury brands would never exist. Now in 2018, more and more people drive BMW, Audi and Mercedes, young girls carry designer handbags and young men wear expensive watches, mothers buy toddlers designer clothes and people eat out at high-end restaurants more regularly than they did 20 years ago.
Stop thinking you'll never make it, you have the photography skill to do it, just tune up your marketing. Stop worrying about the competition because cut-price isn't competition in fact why not thank them, they are doing you a favor. Let them work for the people who won't spend a penny and you market yourself to those who will.
Stop worrying about price and stop undervaluing yourself. Start marketing your brand to the people who'll love what you do and believe me there are 1000s of them out there in your area no matter where you live.
Marketing may sound boring but if boring pays the bills and boring gives you 3 holidays a year and the flexibility to work around your family life, then I know you are going to find boring very interesting.
Start thinking deeply about what it is that makes you different, what makes your photography unique and what benefits you can offer to your clients. Think about your clients in detail and start to build up an exact image of your ideal client. When you've done it then this is who you are going to build your brand around.
If you want me to turn your photography business around with you then drop me a message. My One 2 One sessions are guaranteed to build your business into a successful brand, it just takes a little hard work on your part but I'm there for you every step of the way. Remember a flashy website and a new camera aren't going to bring you success. A great brand, a sound pricing structure, and a cracking social media presence will make you more than enough money to live your dreams.
Whatever you do, start becoming less of a photographer and more of a marketer from today and forget about the competition, they aren't worth worrying about.
Thank you for following. I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback, Jeff