Spreading the word...how do people find your business?

[tbstimp]

I have found print marketing to be expensive, and very hard to track. Google offers a free service for your website called Google Analytics that is a great way to track and understand your website traffic. How people found you, what pages they visited, and a whole lot more. It's free too. Free. You can also use google Ad words with Analytics. I have found this combination to be much more successful than print advertising, and it's cheaper and much easier to track.

One of the other ways you can help drive people to your website would be to make sure your site is Search Engine friendly. There is a lot of information out there about SEO (search engine optimization). Many people have websites that are not SE friendly and they loose a lot of traffic because of it.

 

[Fleurish]

I just joined this forum today and the title of my post may sound a little funny b/c E-commerce and portrait photography don't exactly go hand in hand. I went to the E-Comm convention in New Orleans for my FT job but I brought back a ton of info on Search Engine Optimization and how to get your name out there for free! Guess what guys, you're already doing that. If you already have a website one of the best ways for people to find you is if you have links to your site from other sites, like putting your website with your post here. Also, join Friend Feed, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, NING, etc. I am also going to start selling cityscape pics on E-bay and putting part of the profit toward the New Orleans Rebuild Project (I plan on selling CityScapes of New Orleans). I also took the test to become a photographer for istockphoto.com. Basically just doing everything to get my name out there! I may join Google Adwords soon also.

Someone mentioned print earlier.... E-mail marketing is more effective. Only 96% of postcards actually make it to the buyer. So 4 out of every 100 will not make it. I don't know about you but I work pretty hard to be able to make that little bit of money so I don't want to waste it. You can e-mail market via icontact.com or constantcontact.com

I know this was a long post but I hope I helped someone.

Donna B.
www.fleurishphoto.com

 

[kerickpd]

Thanks to everyone for there great ideas! Being rather new to the business side of photography, it would be terrific to keep this thread alive.

 

[Barbiro]

This is an informative thread. In my case, it's referrals 100% of the time. A happy customer is worth a lot.

 

[mmcduffie1]

This topic was a really good idea. Currently i'm VP of a management company so photography is still a hobby for me. I do shoot weddings and work with some models. People find me via word of mouth only. I don't advertise at all. I don't even have business cards. I did 2 weddings in '06 and 8 in '07. I have 4 so far this year.

All of the ideas here are really good but you have to produce a good product as with any business. If you have a really good and affordable product people will want it. Whether it's a photo or a bag of onions.

Once you have clients remember that they are customers. The photos are going to be theirs forever. So give them what they want in addition to what you want them to have. Even if you disagree.

Happy customers will tell others about you and so on. My business grows about 10% every year and i am just now starting to get into digital. Why didn't one of you tell me how much i'd like it!

 

[visualpoetry]

I am booking weddings LIKE CRAZY through Craigslist.com... and It's FREE!
Also considered posting an add in the local tri county paper.. but not sure if that would be a good investment. It would get your name known through your community, though, and thats a plus.

 

[Mike Jeffcoat Photography]

Hi All~
I'm new here, but I wanted to chime in on the website side of the discussion.
I have recently "finished" my site (www.MikeJeffcoatPhotography.com) and it cost me $67 for 14 months of hosting and $1.99 for the domain name.
I have Adobe CS3, so I used Dreamweaver to create the site from scratch.

I'm not trying to "solicit" here, but I can put together a website if someone needs it. I'm not a Flash guy, so nothing extremely fancy, but you can look at mine to get an idea.

Feedback would be great too, BTW. I know I need more galleries - I've got a few TFP shoots lined up to update my portfolio and then I'll add more.

 

[mamarazzi_hrd]

Hi there! I love this thread, I have been building my business over the past year or so and I have designed my own website and my hubby hosts it for me (we design/host websites on the side). I placed an ad on a local classifieds site similar to craigslist and have had a few responses. Most of mine has been from word of mouth and friends over the past year. I placed an ad in local restaurants menu and so far, nothing from that.

There is a local photog that has portraits of babies in the labor and delivery waiting room at the local hospital. He has a digital mat with his logo, phone number and website on it......wish I could do that.

There is a local pizzeria that has a photogs artwork all over the walls with his signature on them. Very effective, I have always noticed these portraits.

I have business cards printed and have handed quite a few out, but haven't really booked anything from them. I plan on taking some to the printing company where I used to work and the daycare that my son used to attend.

My little cousin is a senior in hs this year and I am going to take her and about 3 of her friends on a photo safari and take tons of pictures to build my senior portrait portfolio. I am going to give her some FREE prints and her friends a big discount on some prints with a few free wallets or something.

I am in the process of designing some postcards advertising specials and things for the upcoming fall/holiday season and to see if I can get some bookings. I am going to offer discounts if they book before a certain date.

 

[tasman]

I have 2 businesses, one is I am a contrator and I advertise in the yellow pages. And the other bieng Photography, which I have not advertised yet as I have just started it as a business. But the point I want to make is if you are advertising in the yellow pages it does generate lots of business, depending on your advertising budget. How big of an ad you want to place, the bigger the better in some cases.

But, I made one big misstake, DO NOT advertise in any of the local business directories or place an ad in any of the local magazine. I did once. And they tend to sell your info to other online directories or other local directories, and you get telephone solicitaions to buy more ads that are not worth it.

 

[ADELICATEIMAGE]

My husband and I just opened our studio last month. We are starting out small, for now... running specials on MySpace and CheapCycle (which we've actually gotten a decent response with). We're in the process of building our website, and once that is done we will do a bit more advertising. Hubby ran his own video production company about 10 years ago, and was very successful at it (made more than he did working two full time jobs and a part time job), so we also have his reputation from that, in our favor.

Is this Yahoo? CheapCycle?

 

[CharlesSmithPhoto]

I agree that word of mouth is the best option. I shoot roughly 50 weddings a year and have never advertised. Do good work, serve people like friends, and your business will grow.

 

[NecroBolt]

We're just getting started with our business. This thread is great. Thanks for all the input.

A few things we are doing. I know almost all the florists in my area, so getting them to recommend me to thier clients for weddings and proms, etc. is one thing we're doing. Also we are donating a free sitting and one 8x10 from that sitting to people that have baskets for charity.

We're in the beginning stages of creating the website, so thanks again to everyone here who have given so many great ideas.

 

[afghanjohn]

I've used search engine optimization to give my main photography site, Kabul Media, a very high ranking (usually #1) on Google for most of the keywords my customers use to search. Since my customers are in many different locations, the internet is the best way for me to promote our royalty-free photograph library.

 

[Alpha]

SEO is the ish.

 

[manaheim]

I think a lot of this stuff depends very much on what type of photography business you have. For example, my putting up pictures of buildings that I take at the local maternity ward would probably not work that well. (Obviously extreme case, but it's illustrative)

I would love it if people could first mention what kind of business they have, talk about what kind of clients they have, etc.

For me, marketing of my business is still in its infancy. I have two primary types of photography business I'm focusing on. The first is commercial real estate photography, which I have been doing reasonably successfully for about a year. The second is artistic prints.

For the CRE photography, I've found (not surprisingly) that it's just like my primary business (information technology)... networking, networking, networking. I'm just now starting to reach out to other clients in the area, and bit shock... I'm finding the best way to find those is to work through my usual networking channels... friends, family, old business colleagues, LinkedIn, etc.

My current (and untested until tomorrow when I actually do this for the first time) plan is to make contact, explain what I do and why I think I can help them (typical elevator speech type of thing), and ask them if I can send them a sample of my work. I have some very nice 8x12 photographs of some of my neater architectural work (not actually a building... skylines, etc.). These are nice enough to hang on the wall and have a subtle watermark of my company name on the image. I'll let you know how this works out.

I'm currently planning to try the "display your art at local businesses" angle, but I'm literally just ramping up on this now, so we'll see.

As I said, I'm REALLY new to this, so take anything I say here with a grain of salt.

This has, however, been a great thread and I appreciate everyone's remarks.