Marketing and self-promotion.

Q: YOU RESPONDED TO A QUESTION ABOUT PERSONAL STYLE BY SAYING TO DEVELOP A STYLE AND MARKET IT TO CLIENTS WHO MATCH THAT STYLE. WHAT I WANT TO KNOW IS, WHAT DOES THAT KIND OF MARKETING LOOK LIKE? MARKETING AND SELF-PROMOTION ARE REAL WEAK POINTS FOR ME, AND I DON’T HAVE ANY SENSE OF WHERE TO START. HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT MAKING IT KNOWN THAT YOU’RE READY, ABLE, AND WILLING TO WORK?

A: Let’s first look at marketing from a wide-angle perspective. Every marketing plan needs to have these key things:

WEB SITE :: Duh. A web site. Something professional with a custom URL. Not johnsmith.smugmug.com or whatever. It needs to be JohnSmithPhoto.com. That might point to some online template service but it needs to be your name/company name. Domains are cheap. If you want to work as a photographer, have your own domain name.

The site can be PhotoShelter. LiveBooks. Zenfolio. SmugMug. WordPress. A Photo Folio. Flosites. Etc. (Well, anything but SmugMug. Never been impressed with their sites. Maybe it’s just their name; I hate their name. I hear they are good people, though. Anyway.) The design, the template, the back end, the front end; that’s a huge landscape of options to navigate that you would be best served by investigating all of that on your own. It’s like “Canon or Nikon”? Either one. Just pick one. Go for it. Get what works for you in your budget. Personally I like PhotoShelter and A Photo Folio. LiveBooks does a good job, as well. Flosites did one of my sites back in the day. Those are all good options. Back to the topic at hand—marketing your work.

For the love of all that is good and holy—Put your effing location on your web site and promo material!!! OMG. I can’t tell you how many photographers’ sites I’ve been to and there’s zero—and I mean zero—information as to where they are. There might be a phone number. Does everyone have every area code in the country memorized? You know how many folks move from one place to another but keep their old number? Where the @#$# are you?

John Smith—St. Louis. Done.

Don’t be the pretentious prick who states, “Atlanta, Miami, New York, L.A.” You can’t possibly be in four locations at once. You live somewhere. Don’t think for a second that anyone is impressed that you have four cities listed on your web site. If you’re that damn good, then:

A) you aren’t reading this book, and

B) you have people doing all of this marketing work for you, and

C) those hiring you already know you.

Unless—one caveat—you live in L.A. and have a rep in New York City. Then you put, “Based in L.A. Represented by Jane Smith in New York City.” Put your base! You would think something so simple as listing where you are located shouldn’t be something worth mentioning, but I see this all the time. Oh, and there’s really no need to put “Available for assignments worldwide.” Who isn’t? In fact, if you aren’t willing to take out-of-town assignments, you are a rare person and you might want to state that you only shoot locally. Nine out of 10 photographers are ready to jump on a plane to take pictures. Everyone knows that. No need to state it.

DIGITAL PRESENTATION (iPAD, LAPTOP, iPHONE) :: As a working photographer you’ll be meeting with people. Families. Brides. Editors. Art Directors. Blah blah blah. You’ll meet with them at your studio. Coffee shops. Their house. Your house. Their office. Blah blah blah. It’s good to have a digital presentation of your work aside from your web site. You might get somewhere and not be able to connect to the Internet. It has happened to me more times than I can count. It’s good to have an offline presentation ready to show at any moment. iPad. Laptop. Atari 2600. Whatever.

PRINTED BOOK / PORTFOLIO / SAMPLE ALBUM / SOMETHING PRINTED :: There’s a quote that goes something like, “It’s not a photo until it’s a print.” I heard that from David Burnett. If you are shooting weddings, you are probably trying to sell albums. You should be trying to sell albums. You want to sell prints of family photos. If you want to work for magazines, your work has to print.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Any image can look good on an iPad. The truth comes out when you print it. There’s a beauty to print that is lost in the digital world. The work we do in ones and zeros becomes tangible. Prints don’t need batteries. They don’t need a firmware update. They don’t have to be moved from one hard drive to another. We are losing the life of a photo when we don’t print it.

Have a print book. Inkjet. Blurb. Wedding album. Set of boxed prints. Something.

BUSINESS CARDS :: I think photos on photographers’ business cards are sort of cheesy. It’s not as bad as having your bio photo taken while you hold a camera, but almost. :)

Name. Email/Web address. Physical location (NYC, ATL, PDX). Phone number. Job title.

John Smith • Editorial Photographer
NYC • 212-555-1212
[email protected]

Notice how your email is also listing your web address. Most folks are savvy enough to figure that out, so you don’t need another line with your web address.

Do have an email at your domain name? You can run it through Google or whatever if you want, but I think it is unprofessional to have a domain name web address and then have your email address read “[email protected].” I’ve also recently seen business cards that had one business name for a photographer, then a web address that had nothing to do with the business name, and then an email address that didn’t match the first two. It was something like:

Captured Light Photography
www.John-Smith-Photography.com
[email protected]

Also, don’t print johnsmith.zenfolio.com or picasa.com/johnsmith on your card. While you might be using one of these services for your first portfolio, it doesn’t really scream “professional.” If you’re professional enough to have a business card, you should be professional enough to buy an $8 domain and point it to your Zenfolio or whatever site. Someone can type in your custom URL and be redirected to another site. It costs less than $10 to do so.

Maybe add a logo. Maybe. If you can’t design a good logo and you can’t afford to have one made for you, then drop the logo. You don’t have to have a logo to be in business. Besides, five years from now your brand will be developing and you’ll want to ditch your logo.

Most business cards with photos on them are typically cheap gang-run printings. They look like crap, they’re printed on bad stock, and they’re cut with dull blades from big production printers. Having professional four-color printing done on good stock is going to cost you.

This is the stuff I take to meetings and portfolio reviews: my printed 11x14 book, an iPad with additional work on it, a leave behind, and a business card. I’m mostly inspired by street art these days, and my stuff looks dirty, beat up, and old...and I like that. It’s taken me a lot of time working on this stuff, and I’m constantly changing it and tweaking it.

Also, if you go with a photo on your card, you have to really consider that photo. If you don’t have a specific niche just yet and you’re doing portraits, weddings, families, kids, dogs, and parrots, then what image do you put on the card? You meet a potential wedding client and your card has a dog on it? Or vice versa?

If you are dead set on having photos on your business cards then go with a company like moo.com. I like them because you can have 50 different photos and let someone choose what they like, or you can pull one out that is fitting for the person you are talking to. The paper stock is great. The printing is good. The price is right. Moo cards are awesome. I almost think of them like trading cards.

PROMO CARDS :: Promo cards are basically slick post cards. They typically feature an image on one side and contact info and address labels on the other side. They can be postcard-sized or half-page-sized. Some photographers will put two or three images on a card, others just feature one. Do a Google image search on “photographer promo card” and you’ll see tons of different types and styles.

Typically you should come up with a multi-card campaign. You might design and print six different cards, make a mailing list, and then mail one every two months. Or you could mail a different one every month, or one every quarter. Or you might mail a set of cards in an envelope every two months, or a set every quarter.

There are a few key things to consider when doing promo cards.

Keep the cards and images on point with the clients you are sending them to. Don’t send a product shot to people who hire portrait photographers. Don’t send kid photos to people who typically hire photographers to shoot executive portraits. Don’t send executive portrait cards to music magazines. You would think that would be common sense, but I have heard countless stories of editors and art directors getting cards that have nothing to do with the type of work they hire for. It’s like they are on a generic mailing list and some photographer is just shotgunning cards out into the world with no thought as to who they are actually going to. What does that make that photographer look like in their eyes? Like a dumb ass, that’s what.

Whatever you do, be consistent. Sending out one card—and one card only—is useless. Send on a consistent basis. You develop a campaign that will last a year or so. Remember that the folks on the receiving end get tons and tons of these things all the time. Most end up in the trash. That promo has to stand out. It has to be memorable. It has to be noteworthy. Not another pretty card with a pretty font and a pretty girl—blah. Why are you different? Why should anyone take notice of you? How can you be signal in all the noise?

You make a mailing list. Creative directors. Art directors. Art buyers. PR people. Marketing managers. Photo editors. You can build a list on your own or use a service like Agency Access or Ad Base.

LEAVE BEHINDS :: You go to a meeting. You show your work. You leave the meeting. Typically you want to have something to “leave behind.” This can be a set of your promo cards or it can be something unique. Think about it like this: You send promo cards. You get a meeting. You show your work. Do you want to leave behind a set of promo cards they already received in the mail that led to this meeting you just had? No. Typically, leave behinds are something different than your promo material. It could be a small Blurb book with 10 images. It could be a small box of prints. It could be promo cards that you only leave behind and never mail. Leave behinds are something tangible that you...Leave. Behind. Not just a clever name. :)

THANK YOU CARDS :: Should need no explanation. If you need an explanation then, well, I’m not going there. Send a thank you card after your meeting.

DATABASE / CLIENT LIST :: Having a web site is like sticking one little hook with a tiny bit of bait on it—into the middle of the ocean. If all you have is web presence, and you aren’t actively promoting it, then you are hoping to feed your family from one tiny hook in one large ocean.

You need people to know you are alive and ready to shoot. You need to be actively promoting and marketing yourself and your work. There are seven billion people on this planet and you need the names, emails, phone numbers, and addresses of a few thousand of them. You might go out and mine this data on your own through the power of Google and Facebook and all that. You might sign up for a list through a service like Agency Access. You might hire someone to build a list for you. You might hit the streets and go to every bridal shop, boutique, venue, caterer, and planner in your town.

Note that previous clients need to be added to this list. Yes, you’ve worked with them before but you need to remind them that you are still around and available to hire. You need to market to them just as much as to the people you haven’t marketed to.

Somewhere, out there, beneath the pale moonlight—somebody needs a photographer and you have to find them. You have to send them some promos. You have to email them or call them to get a meeting. You need to have a link to send them. You need to be able to show up, show your work, have your teeth brushed, and leave something with them to remember you by. You need to thank them for taking the time to meet with you. You need to be able to call, email, and show up later to follow up on that meeting.

And who are these people? They are your kind of people. They are the kind of people who like what you like. You like really bold colorful portraits. They like bold colorful portraits.

So you like bold colorful things? Your promos are bold and colorful. So is your site. So are your leave behinds. So are your thank you cards. You like red. You love red. Red turns you on. So there’s some red on your site, and on your promo, and on your print book. Your iPad is red. Your business card has a line of red going through it. You effing love red and when someone sees red they think of you. Red! For life!

You love handmade things. Your book is handmade. Your promos are handmade. Your business cards are handmade. Your site incorporates things that are handmade. Your iPad case is handmade.

You love simplicity. You love minimalism. All of your furniture is from Denmark or something. You love black. Your clothes are black. Your car is black. Your heart is black. Your boyfriend is black. Your name is Black. Simple, beautiful, dramatic, soulful, black. Your site, your work, your cards, your furniture, your everything is this. You find people who get that. You find people who love that. You find people who are drawn to the same things you are drawn to. You convince people who aren’t into what you are into that your stuff is what they should be into. They have to know who you are. How to contact you. How you work. Where you are. They need this info from your site. From a laptop or a phone. Your site works on a phone, right? If not, you’re an idiot; fix that.

There’s a big world in front of you. You don’t need everyone to be your client. You can’t possibly handle everyone being your client. You need X amount of them to hire you. They need to have X amount of money to pay you. You figure that out because you need X amount of money to live on. You will spend X amount of your time looking for them. Meeting with them. Talking to them. Shooting for them.

X + X (2X/X) = X

Okay. I’m bad at the maths. You get the idea.