Start Your Own Photography Business: Your Step-By-Step Guide to Success, Third Edition

The success of your photography business relies on much more than just taking captivating and attractive pictures. It also depends heavily on how you market your services. Marketing is the glue that holds your business together and helps it stick in the minds of consumers. To that end, there are four overall marketing-related steps you’ll need to accomplish to build a successful business.

▶ First, you need to become a skilled photographer so you can consistently take professional-quality photos related to your specialty.

▶ Second, it’s essential to create an eye-catching, attention-grabbing portfolio of your work that you can show to potential customers and clients in the real world, plus proudly showcase online—via your website, social media, and highly targeted online ads.

▶ Third, you need to formally establish your business and kick off targeted and well-thought-out marketing, advertising, and promotional campaigns. What you need to understand is that your marketing, advertising, and promotional efforts must be ongoing. This is what will drive the majority of your business, and when you stop these efforts, you’ll discover the influx of new customers and clients will also come to a grinding halt.

▶ Fourth, once you have customers, it’s your job to offer top-notch, highly professional, and friendly services so not only will the people you do business with love your photography work, but they’ll rave about it to their friends, family, and co-workers, plus return to you when they need additional photography work. For example, if you invest a lot of time and effort booking a gig as the event photographer for a sweet 16 birthday party or bar mitzvah for a family’s oldest child, you’ll want to do an amazing job. Ideally, you want that same family to hire you again to be the photographer for their two younger children’s future sweet 16 parties or bar mitzvahs and perhaps use you for each of their children’s senior portraits (and maybe even weddings). Building a positive, potentially long-term relationship with a customer or client could result in plenty of repeat business. At the very least, it can also help ensure you receive positive word-of-mouth advertising from that customer or client, which will also likely lead to new business.

▶ Discover What Your Competition Is Doing Online

Be sure to visit the websites social media pages, and feeds of other professional photographers. In addition to focusing on the design and layout of their content, pay attention to how their online presence helps to differentiate their work from the competition and showcase their unique style as a photographer.

Since the features and functionality of social media services is evolving quickly, along with what’s possible with a website, it’s important to stay up to date and make sure you’re presenting your content in the most effective and efficient ways possible.

Many of the online services that cater to professional photographers allow you to visit the websites, online galleries, and online presence developed by other photographers. Invest the time to study what other photographers are doing, especially those who are focusing in the same specialty areas. You’ll likely discover that the most successful photographers use simple and easy-to-navigate website and online gallery designs.

If you learn just one lesson from this chapter, it’s that to operate almost any type of professional photography business, both real-world and online marketing is essential. You must be able to clearly define your target audience(s), then devise creative ways to reach them with your cohesive, synergistic, and customized advertising and marketing message and materials. In many cases, the effectiveness of your advertising and marketing will directly impact the long-term success (or failure) of your business based on your ability to differentiate yourself in the marketplace.

Marketing, advertising, and promotion for your business needs to be done in the real world as well as online. You’ll quickly discover that handling these tasks successfully and in a cost-effective way is a skill set unto itself.

Marketing encompasses a wide range of free and low-cost activities that are designed to promote your business to its target audience. Your website, social media activities, printed sales brochures, and business cards are all examples of powerful marketing tools you should take full advantage of.

One of your main marketing focuses should be on paid advertising to promote your business online as well as in traditional media, such as newspapers and magazines. When it comes to highly targeted, cost-effective advertising, there are many online opportunities that, if used correctly, can generate new customers and clients quickly.

If you’re a wedding photographer, for instance, part of your ad budget may be used to take part in regional wedding expos and bridal fairs several times each year. It may also make sense to advertise in local or regional bridal and wedding publications.

Promotions is another broad term used in business. It can encompass any activities that get the word out about your company to your target audience. The activities that work best tend to be creative, so think outside the proverbial box. For example, you can generate new business as a wedding photographer by developing cross-promotions with local catering companies, florists, bridal gown companies, tuxedo rental places, wedding cake bakeries, disc jockeys, and wedding band managers. These are all companies that are targeting the same audience as you but are not direct competition. Why not come up with ways to work together and help generate business for each other?

If you’re a portrait or fine art photographer, consider contacting a few local coffee shops, restaurants, and businesses that serve customers (including doctor’s offices). Offer to provide them with free, professionally framed prints that they can hang on their walls in exchange for being able to post a small sign next to each image that displays your name, website, and contact information.

The business that displays your photography receives free artwork to decorate its walls, and you receive free promotion. Some local businesses will sell your prints for you, right off their walls, which offers yet another source of revenue for you as well as serving as a promotional tool.

Online, a promotion might involve offering discounts for photography packages on your website, such as 20 percent off holiday portraits if booked before October 1, or providing a free engagement photo portrait sitting when a client books you to shoot their wedding.

Some marketing, advertising, and promotional activities can be fun because you can tap your creativity. However, most of these activities will require you to develop a budget, crunch numbers, track progress, and tweak campaigns on an ongoing basis. For example, if you’re doing paid online advertising, you’ll be provided with real-time analytics that show who is seeing your ad and how they’re responding to it based on keywords, search phrases, and other targeting criteria.

The goal with any type of advertising, especially online advertising, is to spend the least amount of money but generate the best possible results in the shortest amount of time. To achieve this, it’s necessary to learn how to read and understand the analytics data you’re given as well as how the online advertising vehicle works, then fine-tune your campaign(s) as needed to achieve better results.

Regardless of your budget, the most important thing to keep in mind is that marketing, advertising, and promotions are an important and ongoing investment in your business. We’ll explore these further later in this chapter. But first, think about an organic way of spreading the word about your business—networking.

Word-of-mouth from friends, family, business acquaintances, and your past customers/clients will be one of your best and most reliable sources for promoting your photography business. Tell everyone about your new venture and ask for their help in spreading the word about it.

In addition to real-world connections, many people you know probably have dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of online friends via social media. In other words, they’re “influencers.” A simple but positive mention on someone’s Facebook page or Twitter feed could help you generate new business.

The more you can get people talking about you and your business, the better this form of viral or buzz marketing can work. Best of all, word-of-mouth advertising is free. It just requires that you consistently offer top-notch customer service and invest the time to build positive business relationships with the people who can help spread the word about your business. For business-to-business marketing, especially if your specialty is corporate photography, services like LinkedIn can be very useful marketing tools.

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The internet is changing the way people shop for photographers, just as it is changing everything else, according to trade groups such as the Professional Photographers of America. If you’ll be operating a studio, you’ll want to add a listing for it on services like Yelp!, Google Maps, and Apple Maps. You can also seek new customers or clients by advertising locally on online services like Groupon (www.groupon.com/merchant/join). And if you’ll be specializing in weddings, you may want to join your fellow photographers by advertising and maintaining a listing on The Knot (www.theknot.com).

Join local associations, organizations, and civic clubs, especially those affiliated with photography or any other business communities that you can share information, resources, and services with. The American Society of Media Photographers (www.asmp.org), for example, offers educational programs and networking opportunities through more than 39 chapters across the U.S.

Find out when your local chamber of commerce, Rotary Club, or Toastmasters group holds meetings that you can attend, and exchange business cards with new acquaintances. There is a wealth of information you can learn from small-business owners in other industries who have successfully carved out a niche for themselves.

Make yourself available as a speaker to every professional, fraternal, and service organization in town. Many of these groups meet weekly, and they are always looking for speakers. You may not get paid, but you’ll often get a free meal, make some valuable contacts, and get the word out about your business. You can also become an instructor for regional adult education programs, offering lectures, workshops, or classes that teach an introduction to digital photography or photo editing, for example.

When giving talks, keep the information you provide helpful but general—don’t make this a sales pitch for your business. Have business cards and brochures on hand to distribute at the end of your presentation.

Get a list of all the organizations that might be receptive to having you speak, and send a letter introducing yourself. Some examples are:

The chamber of commerce or public library can provide you with a more comprehensive list of networking opportunities within the community.

If you want to do a more in-depth presentation, consider offering seminars. Seminars help your market learn more about what services you offer and give you an opportunity to showcase your work while sharing valuable information.

For example, if you’re a wedding photographer, you could offer a free seminar about how to hire a wedding photographer or how to create the perfect wedding album.

Being in front of an audience gives you the opportunity to show, not tell, what you are all about. If someone is interested enough to attend a free seminar on how to hire a wedding photographer, if you impress them with your presentation, chances are they’ll choose your service when it comes time to hiring the photographer for their wedding. The goodwill that comes from giving your market something for nothing is immeasurable, and it can go a long way toward building client loyalty.

Consider offering free seminars at your local library or through your city’s adult education (or continuing education) program. If you specialize in Bar Mitzvah photography, offer a photography seminar at local Jewish Community Centers, or if you offer wedding photography services, offer a seminar at local bridal or wedding shows, for example.

Advertising and public relations are two key ways you’ll promote your business to the public locally, regionally, nationally, or even globally. Where and how you choose to advertise will depend on your budget, photography specialty, target audience, and goals. Let’s dig into some of the techniques common in the photography industry.

Because of its ability to target well-defined geographical areas, direct mail is an effective way to promote your photography services. In fact, direct mail (using the U.S. Postal Service instead of email) is experiencing a comeback, lest you think it is a thing of the past. According to the Direct Marketing Association, the direct-mail response rate in 2018 was 5 to 9 percent greater than its digital marketing counterparts, with a 9-percent response rate for mailers sent to house lists (mailings sent to residences). That’s a decent ROI. However, depending on your target audience, you may find it much more cost effective to use online advertising or email marketing instead. For example, younger people (in their 20s or 30s) will typically respond better to email and online marketing, while older people (over the age of 50) often respond better to direct mail, since this demographic tends to be less active online.

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An online service, called Postable.com, allows you to communicate with your potential or existing customers/clients by sending them personalized, seemingly handwritten note cards, letters, or postcards. This is one way you can promote sales, offer a “thank you” for recent business, or attract new customers with a well-written sales letter.

There is no magic formula when using direct mail, except using a solo mailer is more successful than including your information in a cooperative mailer full of supermarket coupons. Depending on what services you offer, you can send a flashy postcard, informative brochure, or sales letter with a personal touch. In most cases, the costs associated with acquiring a mailing list, printing, and postage fees will be higher than using a targeted online ad or email campaign that will likely generate business faster. It all depends on the audience you’re trying to reach and the marketing message you’re trying to convey.

Postcards generally get more attention than letters. However, with a sales letter, you can include a response card that encourages prospective clients to contact you for more information.

Mailing lists can be purchased from list brokers, which you can find online. These lists come in just about every category, and since you’ve hopefully done your marketing homework when creating your business plan, you already know the lists you want based on the target audience(s) you’re attempting to reach.

As a Bar Mitzvah photographer, you want to reach Jewish families (with kids under the age of 13). If you’re a wedding photographer, you need to reach engaged couples who are planning a wedding. As a pet photographer, your target audience is pet owners (typically dog or cat owners). Event photographers need to reach people hosting or planning events, such as birthday parties, graduation parties, engagement parties, holiday parties, high school or college reunion parties, or retirement parties, where the host wants to hire a professional photographer to document the event.

Add value to your direct mailer by presenting some sort of bonus offer. Put something in the ad that will draw in new customers, perhaps a 20-percent discount or $20 coupon for the purchase of a studio package. This can be an excellent way to generate business.

Printed phone books or printed Yellow Pages directories are not used as widely as they used to be, so unless your target audience is an older crowd, advertising in a local or regional Yellow Pages is no longer a good use of your advertising or marketing budget. In fact, if you ask a 20-year-old what the Yellow Pages are, chances are they’d have no clue.

▶ Make Contact with Coupons

If you’re not feeling altogether flush, a viable direct-mail alternative is a coupon mailer that groups retail businesses within a community. The coupon books or packages are mailed nonselectively to all homes within a specific zip code, so they aren’t as targeted as a direct-mail piece that you’d design yourself, but they can still have great pull.

As a business owner, you pay a fee to the company producing and distributing the coupon books or packages. Valpak (www.valpak.com/advertise/products-services/direct-mail-coupons) is just one example of this type of marketing tool.

Instead, make sure your business and website is listed with popular search engines and your photo studio, if applicable, maintains an accurate listing on Yelp!, Google Maps, Apple Maps, and other similar services. This is important if you need to attract local customers to actually visit a business or studio location.

If you still think Yellow Pages advertising makes sense for your target audience, placing your listing under the right category is critical so people can find you. You will also increase the chances of a potential client seeing your business name if you insert your listing under multiple headings or categories.

As small as they are, business cards are a powerful marketing tool. Hand out these little gems at every opportunity. Think of them as mini-billboards that tell people who you are, what you do, and how to reach you.

Whenever you meet someone—in church, at your kids’ school, in the grocery store, waiting in a lobby, at a business meeting, or anywhere else—and the subject of what you do for a living comes up, hand over your business card as you describe your company. As a matter of fact, give people two cards—one to keep and one to pass along to someone else.

A quick-print shop can do a nice, affordable job on your business cards by providing a variety of templates to choose from. You can also order them online from companies, like Vistaprint (www.vistaprint.com) or Canva (www.canva.com), for a nominal charge.

Your business card should look professional. Choose multicolor printing on a good quality business card paper stock. The cards should also showcase your logo and prominently display your website address, social media links, phone number, and physical address (if you operate a studio).

Press releases can generate free publicity opportunities that expose your business to the community, but to be printed in the media (such as a newspaper), the information has to be newsworthy. One way this subtle form of self-promotion can be done is by tying the announcement into local or national events, community programs, or holidays. A local or regional newspaper might also consider featuring a profile or an interview with you as a new business operator.

A press release must be created in a standard format. You can hire a freelance public relations specialist to help create attention-getting press releases, or you can download templates online. Your press release should quickly answer the following six questions: who, what, where, when, why, and how, plus have a local or regional twist. Keep in mind, a press release is not an advertising tool, so the wording you use should be less sales-oriented and more promotional and informative.

Within your press release, provide interesting information that gets straight to the point by letting readers (reporters, journalists, editors, or producers) know how this announcement will benefit their audience. Although you are essentially advertising your business, you want to avoid this type of slant because self-promotion is not considered newsworthy.

Make up a list of media contacts, including television, radio, newspaper, and community organizations so when you are ready, you can send out a press release blitz. Be sure to include your contact information. Folks in the media work on tight deadlines, and if they can’t reach you right away to ask questions, they may be inclined to drop the story and move on.

In addition to targeting mainstream media outlets, send your press releases to bloggers and vloggers who target the same audience as you. These people are considered “social media influencers” and often have large and loyal followings. You might consider offering a blogger, vlogger, or social media influencer a free photo shoot in exchange for their help promoting your business to their audience.

Television and radio can be effective in your marketing strategy if you’re advertising something concrete, like a holiday promotion or a special event. It also helps if you’re advertising locally, where you know potential customers are listening to your chosen station.

▶ Charitable Donations

Depending on your photography specialty, offer to donate portrait sitting packages, a complete wedding photo package, or a selection of framed prints as a charitable donation for auctions or fundraisers. Choose one or more charities that you’re personally passionate about so you share a common interest with everyone who attends the charity event.

In exchange for your donation, the charity will often promote your company in a variety of ways in addition to offering your donation(s) as prizes.

Again, understand who your target audience is. Many people spend their free time streaming content from the internet and using services like Hulu, Sling, Netflix, YouTube, and the like. It’s possible to advertise on YouTube, and you may find this to be a powerful way to reach potential customers. To learn more about YouTube advertising opportunities, visit www.youtube.com/ads.

Meanwhile, just as the TV watching habits of consumers have changed dramatically in recent years, so have their radio listing habits. When people listen to the radio, it’s not always local radio stations, thanks to the SiriusXM Satellite radio service that’s now available is most vehicles as well as from stand-alone radios, smart speakers, and mobile devices. Paying to advertise on a local AM or FM radio station no longer has the reach it once did, so as a small-business operator, you’ll likely discover more effective ways to spend your ad budget.

Magazine and publication ads seem to be only minimally effective for photographers. In addition, they are sometimes expensive and can be hard to get responses from unless they are carefully crafted with an explicit call to action. That’s usually achieved by promoting a specific product, service, or information. If you opt to use this form of advertising, add an incentive, such as a discount if a client contacts you and mentions seeing the advertisement, or include a coupon as part of your display ad.

▶ Consider Paid Podcast Advertising

If you want to reach a niche audience, consider advertising on a podcast. Pinpoint a handful of podcasts that cater to your market and reach a lot of people. You can find podcasts about almost any topic imaginable using a podcast directory, then easily determine the size of their respective audiences. Popular podcast directories include iTunes (Apple Podcasts), Stitcher, TuneIn, Spreaker, Luminary, and Google Play Music. How much you’ll pay to advertise will depend heavily on the size of the audience and the podcaster’s popularity.

Use niche publications that match your business. For instance, a commercial photographer can use architectural or interior design magazines. Advertising in local newspapers is another way to create public awareness of your business, although readership may be limited. Chances are your city or state has its own parenting publication, so if you’re advertising family portrait, birthday, party, event, or bar mitzvah photo packages, these publications might help you target the perfect audience.

Once you acquire your business’s domain name (as you read about in Chapter 7), such as www.jasonrichphotography.com, you then need to design and publish a website and populate it with impressive content. As a business operator, first consider the goals for your website. Will it be used simply as a marketing tool to showcase a sampling of your work, or do you want it to also handle a variety of other tasks?

▶ Review your work (your portfolio) and learn about the types of services your company offers.

▶ Schedule an in-person or phone consultation, or a portrait sitting, for example.

▶ Preview images taken at their event, party, or wedding, for example, and choose their favorites or request specific edits to be made.

The appearance of your website is important. It must look extremely professional. If you invite potential clients to an amateur-looking website that’s poorly designed, complicated to navigate, and contains spelling and grammar mistakes, people will assume that your photography work is equally amateurish and not hire you.

The good news is that you do not need to become a programmer or professional website designer to create and maintain a professional-looking and fully functional website. Plenty of website hosting services and turnkey website services for professional photographers provide all the tools you need to design your website with easy-to-use templates. Once you choose a template that offers the appearance, layout, and functionality you desire, you’ll simply add your own logo, text, and images—and your website will be up and running within days.

If you’re not tech-savvy, consider hiring a freelance website designer/graphic artist. You’ll still need to provide a logo, text, and portfolio images, but you won’t have to handle anything technical to get your website published and operational.

The majority of turnkey services charge a flat monthly fee and provide the online-based tools needed to design, publish, and manage a website. Extra fees will apply if you want to transform your website into an ecommerce site to directly sell products and/or services online.

Some website services for photographers are already affiliated with online-based photo labs so you or your customers can place orders for prints, enlargements, or photo products. Some allow you to publish multiple portfolios and/or create and share separate, password-protected online albums/galleries with specific clients.

One of the first things you should do is visit at least a dozen different websites for professional photography businesses. Determine what design elements and functionality you like and want to offer on your own site, then choose a turnkey service that offers those features and functions for a reasonable fee.

Following are just a few of the website turnkey services for photographers that offer the tools needed to create, publish, and manage a full-featured, professional-looking website:

When evaluating the various services, focus on the features and functions offered, the pricing, the reputation, and the appearance of sample websites hosted by the service.

Once you start designing and planning your website, be sure it clearly showcases your company logo, you as the photographer, and your best work. It should also clearly describe what services you offer and provide simple answers to the most common questions potential customers will have about your business. Your website should also promote your social media accounts, and your social media feeds should promote and link directly to your website.

▶ Test Drive Your Website Frequently

As you’re designing your website, consider that many of your visitors will be accessing it from computer monitors of varying sizes as well as the much smaller screen sizes of their smartphones and tablets.

Your website should be easy to read and auto-format each page based on the screen size it’s being viewed on. After all, more and more people are using their smartphones and tablets to surf the web and visit websites to learn about businesses and services. There are still plenty of people, however, who might visit your website using their computer or perhaps access it from a Smart TV that’s connected to the internet. As a result, you want your content to look perfect, regardless of what screen size it’s being viewed on.

On a regular basis, you should test your website by accessing it from different size computer screens and mobile devices to make sure everything looks perfect.

In addition, while all web browsers are supposed to be compatible and display web pages the same way, this is not the case. Install all the popular web browsers on your various computers and mobile devices, then test your website using each of them. The most popular web browsers include Microsoft Edge (for Windows PCs), Apple Safari (for all Macs and iOS mobile devices) as well as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera.

Since the programming used to operate web browsers changes often, you want to periodically check how your website looks using popular web browsers on your computer (Microsoft Edge, Safari, Chrome, Firefox, etc.), plus make sure it continues to look good when viewed from mobile devices after a major operating system or web browser upgrade.

To help you quickly test your website using multiple web browsers across all popular hardware platforms, you can subscribe to and use a fee-based service, such as SmartBear CrossBrowserTesting (https://crossbrowsertesting.com).

Make sure that every page of your website displays your phone number and email address so potential customers and clients can easily contact you when they’re ready. Keep in mind the majority of your potential customers and clients will visit your website before calling or hiring you. Others may call you first but then review your online portfolio before deciding to hire you. Thus, your website should serve as the perfect sales and marketing tool for your business. Put in the time, money, and effort to create a website you’re proud of and will exceed the expectations of those who visit it.

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When making any design decisions or choosing specific features and functions to incorporate into your website, put yourself in your target customer’s shoes. All design and content decisions should be made based on what your target audience will appreciate and respond well to. This includes everything from the layout and functionality to the color scheme and the fonts you use to display text. When choosing a website template that you’ll customize, choose one that will appeal to your audience and showcase your photography skills and work in the best possible way.

Becoming active on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.) is a low- or no-cost marketing strategy that can have a global impact while building personal relationships and credibility.

As a small-business operator, it’s not a question of whether you should become active on social media, it’s a question of which social media services you should become active on. This is a decision you should make based on your target audience and their online habits.

The popularity of social media services ebbs and flows. Facebook continues to have more than 2 billion active users worldwide but has come under scrutiny related to how it’s using user data, so some people have opted to stop using Facebook in favor of other services. Meanwhile, young people were once hooked on using Snapchat but have since migrated to Instagram. Depending on your target audience, identify which social media services they use most frequently, then set up free accounts and become active on those services.

Ideally, you want to create separate accounts on each service for your business. You don’t necessarily want to mix your personal social media activities with what you’re doing professionally. In other words, create a separate Facebook page for your photography business, which you can then promote using your personal Facebook page, for example.

Participating on social media is free, but it involves a time commitment. Use it to build an audience for your work and to showcase it to the masses as well as to attract potential customers or clients. If you discover that your target audience actively uses social media services like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, you may discover that doing paid advertising (also referred to as paid promotions) on these services, in addition to the content you publish for free, is a worthwhile investment.

Social media advertising is typically a low-cost online advertising option that can be highly targeted and will allow you to reach your audience very quickly. You’re also able to see free, real-time analytics that show you how well your online ads are performing.

Alexi Killmer frequently promotes her Child Essence Photography business on Facebook by featuring weekly specials and images. “I’ve also used Craigslist (www.craigslist.org) quite a bit to offer packages at discounted prices,” she says.

Another advantage of social networking is that you can build profiles to enhance your visibility and link back to your website. While it’s true that social networking can be time consuming, it can also be effective when done consistently. Set aside a specific time each day to create and publish content on social media and to respond to other people’s posts. Become active in online discussions related to the type of photography work you do, and use these forums to answer questions and engage potential customers. The biggest investment will be your time, so you don’t want to waste it.

Your website should feature an online portfolio that showcases your best work and relates directly to your photography specialty. However, you also want to maintain a traditional (printed) portfolio so you can showcase your work during in-person meetings with perspective customers or clients.

Many photographers use a laptop computer or tablet to digitally present their portfolios during sales meetings with prospective customers or clients. There are apps that allow you to easily create digital slideshows of your portfolio as well as interactive portfolio software applications or cloud-based services that can be run on a laptop computer or tablet based on your needs.

If you have the need to present a professional looking portfolio of your work online, or during an in-person presentation or sales pitch, for example, there are many portfolio services that allow you to showcase your image in an eyecatching, interactive, and highly professional way.

Keep in mind that the features and functions offered by each service, the technical know-how required to use them, the selection of website/gallery design templates, and the pricing to use each service varies greatly.

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In addition to the framed photographs that are hung for display, also offer unframed images for sale. This gives you the opportunity to sell a less expensive item to budget-conscious consumers as well as to exhibit other images that might not be included in the booth’s theme. To appeal to a higher-end crowd, consider selling metal, acrylic, and/or canvas prints as well.

A number of photographers make their living solely by exhibiting in major art shows and festivals, while others may do it seasonally. It’s not an easy process. Participating in art shows and festivals often requires a lot of travel and the loss of your weekends, but it can be a rewarding experience.

▶ Use Email Signatures as a Marketing Tool

Email signature lines are important and should be at the bottom of every email message you send out. They should comprise approximately four to five lines with your name, company name, website address, social media links, and a short list of your services. Your photo and logo can also be displayed.

Several online-based services will help you format and create professional-looking email signatures that will automatically get pasted to the bottom of every email message you compose or respond to.

Check out services like Sigstr (www.sigstr.com) or Black Pearl (www.blackpearlmail.com/supercharge-your-email). For specific tips on how to design an attention-getting email signature, visit www.getmailbird.com/10-examples-professional-email-signatures-businesses.

It’s generally recommended that new art exhibitors start at local events sponsored by community groups, schools, and churches. Once you have some experience and are feeling comfortable exhibiting your work, move on to state and regional shows for more exposure.

Keep in mind, the bigger shows have higher entry fees and more stringent requirements. For these shows, there are typically more applications than booths, and there is no guarantee you will be accepted. The best quality shows and festivals are juried by a panel of experts who determine who can participate from their applications and submitted slides, so make sure your submissions are your best work.

Before applying to some of the better art shows, attend them first to see what other photographers are exhibiting and how they are displaying their work. Not just anyone can jury into an art show. The competition is fierce on two levels: first, for space to show your photographs; and second, for sales.

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One way to grab the attention of people who visit your booth is to set up a large-size HD monitor that’s linked with your computer or tablet so you can present an animated slideshow to showcase your best work in a continuous loop.

Check out this website to learn about the highest-rated digital signage software that can help you create your presentation: www.capterra.com/digital-signage-software.

The application process usually starts months in advance and requires hopeful exhibitors to submit a biography or resume, the application, an application fee, a jury fee, and a sample portfolio.

You can find out about art shows and festivals from other exhibitors, as well as through your local chamber of commerce. For information on regional and national shows, look at the Art Fair SourceBook (www.artfairsource.com). Another useful publication is the Sunshine Artist magazine (www.sunshineartist.com), which is an in-depth magazine for major art shows and festivals.

Once you’ve been accepted to a show or festival, find out what will be provided and what you will need to bring. If the festival takes place outdoors, exhibitors usually provide their own canopies, which can be purchased or rented. Whether you are exhibiting indoors or out, you will also need to provide display racks or fabric walls on which to hang your photographs. Other important considerations are incidentals, like a comfortable chair, display tables, and bins.

If you’ll be selling your work, you’ll need to set up a credit card merchant account so you can quickly process credit and debit card payments (as well as electronic payments via PayPal, Apple Pay, or Google Pay). Companies like Square (https://squareup.com), PayPal (www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/payment-methods), and Intuit (https://quickbooks.intuit.com/payments) all offer easy and low-cost ways to set up a credit card merchant account that involve no long-term contracts.

Next, think about how you want to present your photographs to their best advantage. If there is a row of 150 booths, what do you have that will draw in browsers to look at your images?

You also have to think about what photographs work well together as a unified body. It’s not enough to simply throw a bunch of your favorite pictures together and hang them up. If buyers are looking at a wall featuring a wedding, a landscape, and a building design, they are going to be confused. Decide who you are marketing to and give those images the wall space they deserve. Keep in mind that your booth basically functions as a mini showroom, and an attractive set up helps customers visualize how a certain piece will look in their home or office.

tip

Use nonglare glass on framed prints. It’s more expensive than regular glass, but it doesn’t reflect everything, making it easier for prospective buyers to see the image. Showcasing images printed on metal is also a good way to go, because it looks professional and slick. Companies like Nations Photo Lab (www.nationsphotolab.com), Shutterfly (www.shutterfly.com), and Bay Photo Lab (www.bayphoto.com/wall-displays/metalprints) are just a small sampling of online-based photo labs that can create metal prints at affordable prices.

Another option for pro photographers is to showcase your work within galleries. “It’s pretty difficult getting into the better-known galleries initially,” says Jerry Clement. “One way to build your reputation is to approach new gallery owners who may be looking to represent unknown but talented artists.”

The application process is very similar to applying for an art show: You submit the required paperwork (sometimes with a fee) by the registration deadline along with copies of your work for approval (sometimes by a jury). Gallery images are typically displayed for up to a month, unless you are applying for permanent representation.

▶ Trade Shows and Conferences

Trade shows and conferences can be a tremendous opportunity for learning—or a huge waste of time. There are two types of shows: consumer, which focus on home, garden, and other consumer themes, and business-to-business, where exhibitors market their products and services to other companies. You can likely benefit by attending, and perhaps even exhibiting, in both.

For example, if you are a wedding photographer, consider exhibiting in a wedding show expo or a women’s trade show, like the Southern Women’s Shows (www.southernshows.com). Commercial photographers can set up booths at building and remodeling expos, such as the International Builders Show (www.buildersshow.com).

You can find trade shows scheduled throughout the country at Tradeshow News Network (www.tsnn.com). Whether or not participating in trade shows is worthwhile will depend on your target audience, the services you offer, your budget, and your goals.

Unlike an art show, you are not required to be present at the gallery during operating hours, which takes a lot of pressure off the artist. If one of your images sells, gallery personnel handle everything from collecting the money to delivery of the product, while tucking away a commission for their part in closing the deal.

aha!

There are many ways you can market your photography skills without being obtrusive. One amateur photographer put a couple of 5 x 7 prints in nondescript picture frames and hung them on her cubicle wall at work. Because they were of good quality and attention-getting, visitors noticed them right away and asked questions about where they originated. She ended up selling several prints for $30 each and was commissioned by a co-worker to take pictures at her son’s bar mitzvah.

You are your best marketing tool! Nothing can beat good old-fashioned customer service. The internet has changed the face of photography and business in countless ways, but it still hasn’t changed the need for a small-business operator to offer superior and friendly customer service—in person, on the phone, via email, and through each and every interaction.

According to Kenneth Salzmann, a photojournalist and writer who began his career in the 1970s, “The internet can and does open many new doors, but what keeps them open is an old-fashioned commitment to customer satisfaction—the level of quality, responsiveness, integrity, and timeliness that makes today’s client a repeat customer.”

Holding on to a client for the long run is not only good for business but also a good business practice in and of itself. Adds Salzmann, “It costs more than meets the eye to lose a customer.”