April 07, 2007

Marketing, Advertising & Selling your skills

In any business big or small, marketing advertising and selling yourself and your services is an every day effort. A few key points that are a must in business are (I'll expand on later in this blog entry) A marketing plan, consistency, an identity and most important knowing your own business/services and your target market. As well it can't hurt to know a thing or two about advertising basics. If all these basic concepts are new to you I'd suggest taking a class or two on Marketing & Advertising 101.

Ok, I'm a small business owner that wears many hats if not all the hats in my day to day operation. Yes, from time to time I do get help from my friends, family, investors & my significant other, but for the most part, its all me. Being small can be difficult and can kill you in the beginning. As a photographer I need to be shooting as much as possible. The more time I spend on the phone selling myself, making prints or sending invoices the more money that's lost from the main revenue making aspect of what i do.

The Marketing Plan
Every spring I sit down and figure out what I'm going to do to market myself over the next summer. For me I have to get this done before the weather gets really nice here in Chicago. (This is usually before May) This year I'm going out on the road to sell my creative work at art fairs around Chicago and the Midwest. So my time in the office needs to be very productive. The plan is this...I'm a Landscape & Architecture photographer, so I need to market myself to Landscape Architect's and Architects. I'm only going to go over the Landscape Architecture side here in this entry. Any way...I live in the Chicago area so I find out that LA's have a local chapter that most of them belong to. (I know this because I've asked a few that I've done work for in the past) Its called the American society of Landscape architects. Using their on-line member directory I found the best leads I could. In order to keep this advert opportunity under control and in an efficient manor, I only chose firms that are in the Chicago land area, had a website and listed contacts on their site. I needed solid leads to confirm address, a phone number and a contact name. With out meeting my criteria I may as well just toss my advert materials in the trash.

The advertising materials
If I hadn't graduated from Purdue University with a bachelors in Technical Graphics It would have killed me to pay someone thousands of dollars to make me advert materials. Let's be honest...I'm sure I could have done them on my own, but if you need to sell yourself, then they better be the best they can be. You only have a few seconds to hold someone's attention when they receive something in the mail they're not expecting. You better have your act together or as I said before, toss it in the trash before you mail it.

Below is what I sent out to a specific client list this year...Click on the photo to view the full size 4x9. The photo was work I did for a client of mine, Daniel Weinbach & Partners of the 11th street Ped-way to Solider Field.

To make this add pop, I printed it on ILFORDGlossy pre-mounted board. It’s a ridged inflexible board that gives me the ability to print high-res images (I printed this at 1440 dpi) and that chance for someone to look at it and think "oh, wow, I've never seen something like this before. I bet I could use something like this for client presentations...Damn, nice photo! Maybe I could use this guy." When you drop something in the mail, everything you can do to get their attention you've got to do. Aside from mailing money for their time (not a bad idea) the ridged photo poster board and a high quality image was what I could come up with to hook them. Besides, this is what I sell, high quality photos with options to print them. I not only take great photos, but I also print my work and sell those services.

Advert design notes
The one thing when you design something to represent yourself is to be true to your own brand. Now you might be thinking, "what in the hell does this guy mean?" I'll tell you...Just don't make some crap up to slide by, have a plan and stick to your own identity. If you take the time to indulge me, you can see from my website in the hire me section, my business card below and the advert above.

They all have similar design elements no matter where you are. You get my flyer & business card in the mail and decide to log onto my website. You see similar colors and design elements such as the blue chevrons and background swirl and know you're in the right place. Not only does this ease the mind of the viewer, but it gives off the impression that I put a lot of effort thinking about my presentation and consistent identity. If I did this for myself I'd do the same for my clients.

Sell, sell, sell
Once you've done everything above you better be ready to sell. I only learned how myself after four years in imaging sales with Kodak & ILford. If you're afraid to cold call then you have a problem. Let me give you some advice, get over it. This is how you make a sale, by getting out there and talking about yourself. If you don't feel comfortable about it by now and you really have issues with it, I can only say you better practice, practice and practice. Make mistakes with the little fish, not the big one. Over time you'll be an expert and those butterflies will fade. Back on track, call every person you sent something to. Leave voice mails if you don't talk to them and keep calling back till they talk to you. Persistence will get you a long way in sales. Don't be pushy, just expect results or an answer from someone and you'll get it. Practice your pitch for when you do talk to the head honcho that makes the decision to hire you. Be ready, be funny, be the guy with a coke, joke and a smoke. Look to make an appointment while on that call. But first and foremost, know whom you're calling. Do your home work, go to their website, find questions to ask and things to compliment them on. If you're a photographer these guys need you to make them look good. Show your confidence over the phone and you just might get a face to face. If they tell you to call back, then call back. Keep on them till they tell you flat out, "no". Even then, ask them if you can keep checking in to say hello and to see if things have changed. If you wait around for a client to call you...you'd be out of business in a year.

Posted by Robert R Gigliotti at 01:38 PM | Comments (0)