Sound good? Why not? Everybody likes free. And advertising for your business surely can’t hurt.
What if we offered you a billboard and placed that billboard in a place where you would be assured that people looking for your service would see it? What if your clients actually paid for the billboard plus a nice profit for yourself?
A wedding or portrait album does just that. It becomes a walking, talking billboard promoting your services. And it aims that promotion in exactly the right places, to like minded people because brides know girls who are getting married, and pregnant women know other pregnant women, and ladies who work out and want boudoir know other ladies who work out and want boudoir. It talks about how good you are and how great your images fit and flow together. It loudly shouts how nice the person looks and how beautiful everything seems. It even talks about spending money and what you get for your money. The album owner gets compliments and reinforcement that she made the right decision. She likes compliments and shows it off even more. And you get even more benefit. See the cycle starting here?
Note, I said: ALBUM.
Not pictures on Facebook they run through faster than a speeding bullet. Not pictures they see in a 2×3 format. Not pictures on their phone or any old monitor, no matter how bad the color is. Not pictures they look at (or really don’t look at) while reading something else. We’re talking about the hard goods, the kind that can be held, touched, flipped-though at an easy pace and appreciated for the beauty that jumps from the page.
Want this free advertising for your business?
1. YOUR CLIENTS WILL BUY ALBUMS. Don’t tell me they won’t pay for it because I can point to another photographer in your community who will tell me that 90% of his brides have albums, or that 75% of her boudoir clients have albums. Same for engagements, babies, maternity and, to a lesser degree, families.
2. Don’t say it’s not like that where you live, because we have clients in North Dakota, Montana, Alaska and now from Siberia. It IS like that where you live, you’re just not getting in on the action.
3. PUT YOUR NAME IN YOUR ALBUMS. I walk through production and see beautiful albums, open them up, and no maker’s mark. What a shame. If you are that photographer, you just painted over your billboard. That’s really what it amounts to, and it’s a damn shame.
4. GET A TAG ALONG TOTE so it’s easy for your client to advertise for you. If it’s a small album, get a gift bag. Help her to help you!
5. THANK PEOPLE FOR REFERRALS. It just encourages them to show off their album and talk more about you when they know you appreciate it.
6. DON’T MAKE ALBUMS HARD WORK because anything that is hard work is just one more thing that is likely to stay undone. Get Fundy Album Builder, put all the images your client selected in a folder, tell the software how many pages you want and let it do it’s magic. Yup, that easy. This is not difficult. Building a good business may take a lot of time and effort, but making an album to promote that business is not.
7. Remember the power of the printed image, whether an album or a single Xhibit, nothing is quite like it. You may have never seen the movie From Here To Eternity, but you don’t have to have seen it to know the one famous image from it.
Now take a drive and picture the perfect corner for your billboard. Believe.
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