Pieces of the Picture

If you actually take the time to read this entire article, it will pay off for you. Enjoy!

As photographers in business for ourselves, we are always looking for new and innovative ways to promote ourselves. Marketing and advertising is so expensive nowadays that there must be ways found to promote our businesses without breaking the bank. I found a way recently that was quite interesting as well as effective and very inexpensive.

We photographed a wedding recently. I offered to include, free of charge to the bride and groom, custom designed thank you cards. They were 4”x6” postcards. One side was glossy and the other side was matte. The front side which was glossy had a beautiful portrait from their images taken directly after the ceremony that I took in downtown Topeka, KS with the state capital building in the background.  It had the classic car they were driving around in behind them. It was the perfect shot for their postcard. The back of the card was matte and had a close up shot of them as they left the ceremony and were showered by lavender. It was in black and white and was blurred slightly and lightened so that it appeared more as a watermark rather than anything else. This made it more appropriate for writing a thank you note on. Rather than the typical old- fashioned thank you notes that are card stock in pearl white or off white, this was much more trendy and cool. One of the points that the bride and groom appreciated about this is the fact that they did not have to purchase any thank you cards and they wouldn’t have to mail them at full postage. They could instead pay only postcard postage which saved them almost twenty cents per piece. On the front side of the postcard I included my business name, phone number and website. So it worked as a business card and the best part is, they were paying the postage for mailing. It worked like a direct mailing. On top of that, the backside had a link to a blog where the recipient of the postcard could go and see a slide show of the wedding. They loved this idea, because it saved them money, gave everyone of their guests a photograph of their wedding and made their thank you cards something very memorable that most of their guests have never seen. In fact, I was told that they received many compliments and were very impressed by them. They made an impact on the guests and rather than just tossing them in the garbage as so many are eventually, these I guarantee will not make it in the the bin. They will go up on a shelf or in some memory book or even picture frame.

Promotional material that makes an impression!

For the back, use a strong image that makes an impact, but make it simple and light enough to be used as a postcard so they can be written on. You may need to drop opacity down to 35-50%

I made five hundred copies through a on line printer called www.gotprint.com. They do all my printing for promotional materials. They do great work and I am always very pleased. I gave them about four hundred of the copies and I kept one hundred to give away like a business card and to keep as samples for future consultations of weddings. I will offer this for free and I think that it will help sale myself as a photographer. They don’t cost very much. Only pennies really, but they can have a profound effect in that while in the past not everyone has been able to see the wedding photos, now everyone who went to the wedding will be able to see at least two photos from the wedding and will know exactly who the photographer was. It is a very small price to pay to advertise myself. I doubt that they will not pay off. In fact, there has already been one contact made from them, that while it has not come to be a wedding for me yet, it has generated a lead. It was something that I sort of stumbled across by accident in thinking of new ways to promote my business. The couple was very excited about the idea and so was  I.  One thing they really loved about the idea is that it was completely free of charge to them. Everyone loves a freebie! It just makes you as a photography business look even more awesome.  Not every couple will go for this idea, but I have a feeling that most for now on will chose to help promote me. It should only help to enhance my business every time!

Just think about the fact that of all the three to five hundred thank you cards that are sent out, if only two weddings are booked from that, and then you did the same for those two weddings, with the same results of getting two more weddings, well you see how this could quickly multiply and  really  help promote your business in a very strong way. The same concept could be used in senior portraits to children’s portraits to family portraits to labor and delivery portraits. When people have awesome photos, they want the world to see. If it is an amazing photograph, they will tell the world. They will show everyone they know. And the cost to you will be very little, and if you truly look at the payoff, there is really no cost to you.

Another thing to consider is, this is one way to maximize on advertisement. When you send out direct mail to potential clients, no matter how specific the customer, no matter how much market research you have done, the mailing comes across as “marketing and advertising”. But when you make promo material such as a postcard for a customer, mailed from the customer, well then it comes across as “Hey cousin so and so or grandma, look at this great photo of our wedding or check out this cool senior photo of myself.” They are likely to brag about the photographer on the postcard and say how cool or awesome you were. So then not only is it direct mailing, but it goes over into the more powerful advertising world of the coveted “word of mouth” advertising. This sort of advertising you cannot pay for. It’s the best of two worlds. And on top of that, they are paying for it. Also, the customer is usually willing to do something like this because it’s the novelty of the idea that they will be on a piece of your advertising. In their minds, they are thinking, “How cool is this! I am on a postcard!! Woo hoo!!!”  You get the idea. This is worth trying out. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised as to how good this works out for your business.

Just think, if every time you photograph a wedding, three to five hundred of these “advertisements” or “thank you cards” get mailed out to people in your area, what kind of results you could see from this. It’s inevitable that the same people will get the these cards over and over, if they go to the same weddings you shoot. People getting your advertisements over and over and over and new people hearing about you for the first time constantly. What kind of effect do you think this will have on your business? I think it will be profound.

The key to advertising and being effective besides doing what works over and over is to always brainstorm new ideas and try them out. You never know what might happen. You might just hit a gold mine!