whenever I start a video I'm like it's so hard to start videos you can
understand why guys like Peter McKinnon are like what's up guys because it's
hard to start a video you just it's hard anyways I'm starting this video I was
gonna do some I don't know what I was gonna do I'm starting this video and
this video is about marketing it's a sit-down talking video from here in our
like apartment our Airbnb here in Portugal I haven't had time to go out
and take pictures yet in Portugal because we've been so busy dealing with
the house situation yeah it's been busy adulting so instead I'm gonna sit down
and talk to you guys a little bit about marketing because I think that a lot of
people don't realize that this photography thing isn't about taking
pictures yeah it's about taking pictures and you can't do it without taking good
pictures but photography is a trade having a photography business is about
marketing you need to be able to market and there are so many mistakes that
photographers make and marketing themselves and I'm not throwing stones
I'm not wagging my finger at people I've made all of these mistakes myself at
some point in time so these are normal things to go through these are normal
mistakes to make and also they're just opinion I can be totally wrong I'm not
the greatest photographer and I'm certainly not the greatest marketer but
I think I've understood the value of marketing since I started in this
industry and since I have I think it's just kind of made my life a little bit
easier and I think without knowing you know the value of that marketing there's
no way I'd be where I am right now there's no way that this business would
have turned into a success so I want to get into marketing but first a little
bit of marketing also drink every time I say the word marketing in this video a
little bit of marketing this video is sponsored by the awesome people at
Squarespace you can use Squarespace to really easily make your own photography
website for example and as I'll mention later in this video I think not having a
website is the biggest mistake photographers make in marketing
themselves hands down so yeah head over to Squarespace.com
you get 10% off your first purchase there if you use the code
Brendanvanson now let's get into the video yeah I know that intro was way too
long what's up every no the first mistake I
think photographers make is they don't have social media and when I say they
don't have social media I mean that they don't have all the social medias I think
that it's so important to have every single brand of social media you should
be everywhere because every social media has a different audience Instagram tends
to be like 18 to 35 40 year-olds Facebook tends to be like 30 to,
well, my grandma's age. snapchat is like 13 to 22 year-olds and it kind of covers
all these different markets and you can use all these different platforms to
market towards different people and also cross promote your other platforms
number two and this is a huge pet peeve of mine it's when people use logos or
like cartoon characters instead of their profile picture you know instead of
their face on social media or everywhere today people don't want to see locos
they want to connect with people especially if you're in the industry of
like making portrait photographer photography or wedding photography or
something that they want to be able to connect with a photographer with you
need to have your face there even if you have an ugly face like I do your face
needs to be the forefront of your brand so that people recognize you people
won't recognize a signature or initials or a logo no matter how you no obvious
it is they'll recognize your face after seeing it you know five six seven eight
nine ten times so if you got to get your face out there put your face on things
it's a reason it's the Queen's based on the British Pound and not the Queen's
logo the Queen is just more recognizable than the Queen's logo...
I don't think the Queen has the logo...
number three is they use social media as a microphone I think
it's a big mistake not only from a marketing standpoint in photography but
just in general we use social medias a microphone we sit there yelling at the
camera sorry I'll try to calm down I'm just really passionate people
including myself I make this mistake all the time
they use social media to kind of announce what
they're doing into to shout at people "his is what I'm doing"
"this is what I'm selling"
"this is what I bring to the table:
and they don't use it for what
it should be which is a networking tool social media can be a beautiful
conversation it can be an amazing way to meet people it can be amazing way to
network with people and as I tell people all the time I've gotten way more work
from networking than I have from like any other form of marketing
if you network if you make friends in the industry there's lots of work to go
around so when they find that they have too much they tend to pass it on to
their friends or people that they know or people that they recognize rather
than you know just anybody that probably deserves it more so make friends use
social media as a conversation tool use it to create a community another big
mistake photographers make in marketing themselves is they get caught up in the
numbers game everybody's so worried about getting a hundred thousand
followers on Instagram or ten thousand or a thousand that they don't think what
is the value of that number what can that actually convert if you wanted to
sell your wedding photography for example to somebody it's much more
important to have a small audience you know two three hundred people that are
planning on getting married and are really into your photography than it is
to have a hundred thousand people that follow you for epic photos but none of
which are gonna get married you could have a newsletter that gets
sent up to 200,000 random people and it's not going to convert any sales but
you could have a really targeted newsletter of a hundred really valuable
people that actually convert to sales it's much more valuable so don't get
caught up in the numbers the big numbers game think value not size quality over
quantity number five is they don't pitch if you
don't pitch how are you I'm getting I'm losing my voice from excitement if you
don't pitch how are you supposed to find business when I started out I was
sending at least a pitch a day sometimes three or four pitches a day to magazines
newspapers commercial clients and they're just I'm not gonna get into the
pitching thing because I have a post somewhere up here a video that's really
that kind of talks about it but pitching is so important you need to reach out to
people its sales if you're trying to sell vacuum cleaners and you don't have
the money for advertising how are you gonna sell vacuum cleaners you're gonna
go door-to-door you're gonna call people you need to pitch people number six
Instagram is not a portfolio I don't know how loud I can scream this
Instagram is not a portfolio Instagram is a social media and so many
photographers see you know what I got an Instagram or Flickr I don't need a
portfolio yes you do you need a portfolio you need a website
for two reasons first of all if a client ever reaches out to you and says hey I
want to see your photos from New Jersey we're doing a magazine spread on New
Jersey what do you got if you don't have a portfolio you can do it two ways you
can send them like dropbox images or what looks way more professional is
having a website where you can actually show your portfolio of images of New
Jersey over there it looks really professional and it's often a convincing
factor to clients because they see that you are professional the other reason is
for SEO SEO means search engine optimization and if you follow Jody's
channel you probably have heard a lot about this search engine optimization is
one of the biggest ways to find clients for example if you're a wedding
photographer in New Jersey and you're just on Instagram the only way people
are gonna find you is through word-of-mouth or social media if you
have your own website you can then create you know blog posts and articles
and link backs to keywords that are gonna drive traffic to your site such as
wedding photographer New Jersey wedding wedding photographer Hoboken wedding
photographer I don't know where else there is a New Jersey other than Hoboken
wedding photographer on the Jersey Shore things like that you can start to create
power to your website for those keywords that then people will Google search and
find you people find their wedding photographers on things like Google they
simply search wedding photographer Hoboken and then if you're on the first
page of Google you're gonna get a lot of work so you need your own website
those two reasons and maybe a third reason is that you should never build
your house on somebody else's foundation you don't know what Instagram is gonna
do you don't know what Pinterest is gonna do or Twitter's gonna do build
your platform on your own site on your own foundation because that's never
gonna disappear and again as I mentioned the video sponsored by Squarespace comm
and it's honestly a really really good place to set up a photography website
photography portfolio it looks professional
you probably whip up a full website on Squarespace calm in like three hours
which is really really rad so as I said head over there to Squarespace calm and
use the code Brendon Vance in for 10% off if you don't have a website go and
do that right now video is getting long but I'm still I'm just wound up so I'm
gonna keep going the seventh mistake photographers make in marketing
themselves is they reach out too soon they try to sell their images too soon
let me go back to when I used to own a Travel Magazine I used to want to travel
magazine I don't know six years ago or something like that and I would get
pitched on a daily basis and if somebody would pitch me and it was terrible the
photos just were bad or unprofessional or something
I will blacklist them I wouldn't read their emails ever again so if you reach
out to a client you go check out my images and they go well they suck
they're probably not gonna read your emails anymore so be sure your skill
level your quality level is high enough so that people aren't gonna blacklist
you or just assume that's what you're gonna be forever
after seeing your images first impressions are so so important and it's
really kind of hard to get over that I think I made that mistake a lot when I
was starting I started in travel writing and kind of moved into photography and
when I initially sent the images to people they just they weren't good
enough and I think that there's yeah I probably got blacklisted a couple of
times for sure so make sure your work is good enough
ix mistake photographers make and marketing themselves drink is that they
don't they don't reach out enough I think that this kind of goes back to
pitching and reaching no too soon but they don't reach out often enough brands
clients whatever they don't recognize right away if you send an email to
somebody once or a message on Facebook once they're not gonna remember you
forever if you send them like three or four as long as you're not being like
rude or annoying they're gonna start to remember you eventually and then they
might come back and give you work so don't think that reaching out to
somebody once is enough continuously reach out to them over time this is the
final one this is number ten and this is that they don't have a newsletter I
think that a newsletter is actually the greatest conversion tool in terms of
sales for example if you're selling prints if you sell art build a
newsletter full of people that are collecting art or have bought your
photos before we have shown interest in buying your prints before and those will
eventually convert if you sell tours like I do build a newsletter full of
people that are potentially going to go on your trips that way you can just
shoot them an email anytime you have a new tour it's the easiest and most
direct way of reaching somebody without physically picking up a call a phone and
calling them so build a newsletter right away and I don't care if you think I
really have only a small client list start that list now because over time
every photographer I've ever met in the history of ever has always said their
biggest regret is not starting a newsletter soon enough and on that note
if you aren't subscribed to my newsletter there's a link below that you
can go and sign up to my newsletter I give free stuff away every month and I
also announced tours there's also a link to Squarespace below massive thanks to
you guys for for sponsoring that video and thanks for you guys for watching and
I guess that's it I'll talk to you guys later peace