During Jasmine Star’s master class on The $250 Marketing Plan for photographers, the core of what Jasmine shares with us, is why having a strategic marketing plan in place well before you head out to a shoot, will help you not only keep your costs down, but unlock more opportunities for replicating what works, again in the future.
“Once I started creating a marketing plan for myself and stopped looking at what other photographers were doing to market their businesses, that’s when my business started to truly take off,” Jasmine says.
Jasmine touches on a very good point here. In my interviews with some of the world’s most successful photographers, one of the most recognizable trends is that each of them has their own brand of creative marketing, designed to take advantage of their own unique skill sets.
This is no coincidence. It’s easy to get caught up looking at other photographers, thinking “I love that! I need to try that next time…” but the last thing you want is for potential clients to be confused about your style and what type of photos you’re going to be delivering for their special event.
When you clearly define your own unique style as a photographer, you’re creating the basis from which you’ll be building your most powerful marketing assets in the future.
You’re learning to highlight what makes you different.
With that in mind, on your website, Facebook page, Instagram, and elsewhere, you want to be showing off only the images that represent your unique style as a photographer.
As you begin positioning your marketing efforts, use these three questions to evaluate whether or not what you’re planning to do is leveraging your advantages.
Is this What You Want?
Does your decision to publish photos from your most recent project reflect the direction you want your business to travel in?
You want to be careful to display only what you want to shoot more of in the future. When someone discovers your photography business, they’ll naturally expect to receive images like what you’ve taken and shown off recently.
Be sure you’re not highlighting photos from a very low budget wedding when you’re specifically going after a high-end, high-paying clientele base.
Is this What You Do?
Are you highlighting images and going after marketing concepts that reflect results you can actually deliver on for the next potential client who reaches out to you?
Make sure you’re not giving the impression that you’ll be able to shoot in a style that’s completely different from your own.
Is this Who You Are?
Because Jasmine didn’t love shooting indoor banquet weddings, she actively chooses to leave those projects out of her online portfolio. They’re not who she is, and not who she wants to be in the future. Be sure you’re setting yourself up for the same success.
