Today I’d like to introduce Christina Gressianu, this week’s guest blogger. Christina is an award-winning photographer, whose work can be seen in publications such as The Knot. Her success required a merging of photography skills with brand-building expertise, honed in the world of New York City ad agencies. Christina is also the author of Zap the Gap, a guide to building a brand the closes the gap between your business and the hearts of your customers. PhotoMint readers, please give Christina a warm welcome by sharing your thoughts in the comments below.
Photography for me is one part about making the best work I can, and the other part about getting it as visible as possible. Once I started being in business as a photographer, a third part entered the mix… the part called making money. So I make great work, get as many eyeballs on it as I can and convert those eyeballs into paying clients. The Internet is beautiful for the eyeballs part.
This is a collection of some of our very best tips for wedding marketing, business strategy and adding more profit to your business.
Several years ago we discontinued paper proofs with wedding packages. Since the packages do include digital files, clients don’t need both. This saves us 10-15k annually and at least a couple of trees.
You know by now that networking is important right? It’s one of the best ways the best way to start your photography marketing, period. In the following video, I share the story of how a single networking event (and my first actually) led to our studio landing the job to photograph a major baseball player’s wedding. And that wedding led to us photographing another major baseball player’s wedding. Plus a bunch of other weddings actually.
Networking is the foundation of vendor relationships. It’s where you have the opportunity to meet and mingle, get to know people outside the hectic event day. Networking can be very powerful when done right. It’s why I want you to network for your own business. Attend events, talk to strangers and then follow up. So many great things are in store for your business, but YOU have to get out there and make it happen.
This is the story of how we made it happen-how we launched our wedding photography business. And how networking led to us meeting one of our favorite people in the industry who became one of our biggest fans and supporters. It completely changed the course of our career.
I promised another video soon, here it is. If you enjoy this video, I would LOVE for you to share it. I need that kind of positive reinforcement to keep doing more videos!
If you feel that your business would benefit from more bookings I encourage you to check out my latest ebook, Get Connected: How to Build Relationships to Drive Your Business. It’s only $29 right now, it’s a-step by-step guide to creating powerful vendor relationships that will lead directly to more bookings for your photography business. It’s packed with stories, case studies, examples, tips and as much goodness as I could pack in to 160 pages. From the feedback I’ve gotten, people who bought the guide last week have ALREADY gotten leads from implementing some of the strategies right away.
Pretty much everyone knows that a blog for your photography business is essential. The biggest problem photographers have with their blogs is updating them regularly.
Your photo business is made up of distinct and unique parts. Sales is different from marketing. Marketing is different from business development. What’s the difference, and how does this relate to your photography business?