Photography, by it’s very Corporate Headshots NYC is such a visual medium, that other visual mediums are always the best way to promote your business. It really doesn’t matter which area of photography you specialize in – portrait, actor headshots, corporate, landscape, real estate, fashion, black and white, digital, film, or industrial – the list goes on. (And for the record, doing web design, I am an amateur photographer myself and these are my own images.)
I would hope that it would be obvious that any photographer who is looking to promote themselves as a business, or even just a hobby, HAS to have a website. When it comes down to the essentials, your potential customer wants to see not only the type of work you do, but the style as well. I’ve been in the entertainment industry since the late 1990′s, and have had my share of headshot sessions. And while all photographers had specialized in headshots, the style was vastly different. So you need to have that digital medium to properly display your work, as well as all the relevant SEO to have the site rank on the search engines.
However, let me ask you a question. What can be even more powerful than classy looking gallery on your website? A referral by one of your previous clients, that’s what! Referrals from happy customers can bring in more business than a potential customer just happening to see your website. (I know this first hand, as the photographer my wife and I used for our wedding, was the same one my brother used.)
This is where card marketing comes in. You can use postcards and custom greeting cards to not only promote your business, but offer incentives for referrals as well. Let me give you some examples.
1. Wedding Photographer: On a couples 1 year anniversary, send them an anniversary card customized with one of their best wedding photos as the cover. On the inside, add a couple additional photos such as the couple cutting the cake, or the first dance, and make the offer that if they bring the card (or have a promo code), they will receive something like 20% off an additional photo session, or offer a free picture or package ‘upgrade’. Offer anything you like as an incentive, as it might generate a session the couple might not have thought of doing. And this can also hold true to ANY photographer looking to generate repeat business – just use whatever image the client originally contracted for. And something that is so very cool – Send Out Cards now has a 8.5″ x 11.2″ BIG CARD which the client could even frame, if they chose to.
2. Referrals: Here’s another idea I LOVE! Give a previous client an additional reason to refer new business to you in the form of a discount or outright monetary reward – a bounty of sorts. When I remodeled my kitchen, the guy who installed my countertops would give $50 to each booked job referred to him to the referer – which in this case just happened to be my wife’s sister. But the idea still works. Give the person a little extra incentive to add to your business. It rewards you with new customers, new business, and potentially new referrals, and it rewards them with a little green.
3. How about just saying “Thanks for the business”. Thank you goes a long way in this world where it seems like ‘thanks’ is in short supply. The best thing you can do for your business (and this holds true for any business) is engraining your name in the clients head for what it is you do. And a nice simple card (designed ANY way you want) saying thanks will mean so much to each client – just think about how it would make you feel!