Another fantastic 2 part series by guest blogger © Anne Herbert for the PhotoBizCoach
With the recent roll out of Facebook’s “Promoted Posts”, many photographers are worried that all of their hard work and effort to build their Facebook fan base with engaging posts and content was a waste of time. Facebook claims that non promoted posts will still be seen by the same percentage of fans as before, but many vendors and photographers alike have seen their reach statistics sharply decline since the roll out.
Facebook has been free all this time, and I do think we should be thankful for all it has given us so far. Without Facebook I never would have been able to relocate and stay in business so smoothly. But with the recent IPO, which incidentally happened the same week promoted posts began rolling out, I believe we could see more changes designed to make share holders happy instead of the Facebook end user or page owner. A photography business owner can no longer safely rely solely on Facebook for marketing efforts. Don’t abandon ship yet, but get your life jacket ready. Better yet, ready your rowboat.
In the world of low budget marketing, there are at least four basic supplies for survival. The first is our bread and butter: Word of Mouth. We all already know how important word of mouth is to our type of (photography) business, but if you’ve been underestimating it’s efficiency then it is time to take another look at this free marketing technique. Start tracking how people found you.
You can add a field on your contact form, ask in the first interaction, or include a space for it on your client contract. Keep track of where your clients and potential clients are coming from and how they heard about you. This information will help you make more precise decisions about where to invest your marketing energy. For instance, if you are a newborn photographer and most of your clients are picking up your card at the local OBGYN’s office then get in there and thank them for letting you put the cards out. Let them know many of your clients come from them, and offer to lend or lease a canvas for their wall for the next year.
The second marketing supply is Referral Rewards. Everyone has differing opinions on rewarding current clients for bringing you new business, as they should. This technique isn’t right for everyone, but if you are a fairly new business, digging into a new market or territory, or finding it hard to stay afloat financially, this is a technique you should consider. It will help your happy clients talk about you to others because there is something in it for them. However you structure your reward is up to you, just make sure that it is cost effective and that your program has an expiration date. You can extend this if needed.
Click Here for part two to learn more critical marketing survival techniques for surviving Facebook changes and making your photography business work…
Anne Herbert is a newborn and family photographer located in Harford County, Maryland. She also is a wife and stay at home mother to two little girls. Her passion for photography lives among the brand newness of those first few days of life, holding on to those fleeting moments of childhood, and the magic of family. You can see more of her work at www.anneherbertphotography.com
Thank you for this article Anne. It makes me nervous when people put too much of their marketing faith into into Facebook. It is always the best strategy to showcase your work on your own blog first! I am curious to know if photographers are using Instagram or Pinterest as a marketing tool? I am looking forward to part 2, thank you!
Really concered about how to use facebook marketing. I gladly post one image per session, but clients constantly want more free images. Which makes them not purchase any more images. Do you know of anyone that successfully has a way to promote their business selling extra add on images. Would love to hear from anyone with a soultion. Thanks and have a great day.
Hi Paula, I wait until after my client has ordered to place any images from their session on Facebook. I have found that since I began this practice, my sales of digital packages tripled. If they purchase my digital images I may post more than one from the session. I also watermark all Facebook images and size them for the web so they can be shared online but not reproduced well as prints. I hope that helps out a bit.
Good article.
I agree with Eileen. Personally my blog has always done way better then my FB fan page. The blog stats tell me where the viewers come from and the ones that convert to sales aren’t from FB. My business was good before FB and it will be long after FB is gone. For me FB peaked more then a year ago. Next……….. 🙂
Of course we all know marketing has so many variables based on many issues. I concentrate more on locally but, where I live does draw people from all over the world daily. None ever ask if I have a FB page. They only want my website and blog.
@Anne: I once had several images stolen from the web and used for small retail products. (Large company) They were posted low rez 500 pixels at 72 dpi and watermarked. We settled out of court. You still need to follow up on images posted. Make sure they are embedded with your copyright info and registered too.
Good practice by not posting until an order has been placed.
Nicely said. I will try asking my future clients where they found about me. Thanks!
One suggestion: You may want to add the “part two” link, as there is only one link at the bottom, which doesn’t lead anywhere else.
Thank you for the suggestion, Chris. I have added the link.