Are You Marketing Right?

Mondays are usually reserved for “marketing,” so I have to ask you this important question – are you working with your ideal clients?

Discovering your ideal clients should be your number one goal, if you are looking to be in business for the long haul.

The craft or technique of photography can be learned and practiced as it should be. Most photographers, though, falter at growing and sustaining their business. Why? Because they haven't focused their attention and energy in building a client base that fosters their future success.

The Youngrens are wedding photographers based in San Diego, with clients from all over the world. They also are actively involved in Bauman Photographers, a company dedicated to serving their commercial clients.

Discover Your Ideal Clients

But Erin and her husband Jeff Youngren are more than just photographers. They are on a mission to educate other photographers on such topics as working with the very best clients; the ones you were meant to serve with all your heart.

They have a popular course on their website called Discover Your Ideal Client. Use the code: Tiffinbox20 to get 20% off. In fact, I spoke with Erin & Jeff about this very idea of finding and nurturing your best clients some time ago.

However, if you would rather learn from them in person, here's my invitation to you to register for the Inspire Photo Retreats taking place in just a few days. Erin and Jeff will be there to walk you through the steps in discovering your ideal clients – wedding or portrait.

The Interview

Earlier in the year, I spoke with Erin about her presentation at Inspire Photo Retreats and why they chose to trek all the way from San Diego to Newport, Rhode Island for the conference:

Connecting With Your Clients

One of the things that has helped The Youngrens understand and anticipate their client's deepest desires is through blogging. The Youngrens also offer a free course called “Six Weeks To Effective Blogging” that I would highly recommend.

Gavin Wade had an idea and he ran with it.

As a photographer, he wanted to quickly and painlessly deliver his client's photographs. He wanted to upload his images once and then be able to deliver different versions to different clients. His solution: Cloud Spot.

I trust you have affiliates or business partners who simply have different needs for your photographs and they don't all fit neatly into one standard dimension. Imgaine you are a wedding photographer who has just photographed a Jewish wedding and you have some photographs of the huppa. Some of your wedding vendor friends will only need a postage sized version of the images, while the wedding planner you are wooing might want the photographs with your watermark to display on her Facebook page.

Do you sit there scaling up and scaling down the same photographs as and when someone requests it? It wouldn't be very efficient use of your time, right? That's where Cloud Spot excels.

I spoke with Gavin Wade about Cloud Spot and how it has saved his wedding photography business tons of time. Give this interview a listen and see if Cloud Spot is something you want to consider using for your photography business as well:

Setting up your Cloud Spot account is super easy:

Ever wanted to send some of your special clients discount codes? Well, you can now with Cloud Spot:

Your online store's back end should look this easy to manage:

There are six pricing options, including one that is totally FREE (jpeg imaages only). The Entry option is only $4/month and allows you to store and share JPG, GIF, TIFF, PNG, PSD, AI and PDF files. Granted you only get 5gb of space, but if your photography business is just starting up, this should do really well for you for now. You can always scale up!

Gavin has generously offered all Tiffinbox readers a special discount code. Use: tiffin10 – good for any monthly or annual plan when you sign up here.

Cig Harvey, a photographer and author based in Maine will be presenting at the Inspire Photo Retreats conference again.

Cig is known for creating exploratory images that capture both the magic and the realism found in daily moments.

The slow passing of time and the natural surroundings of her rural home has made her alert to the magic in the mundane.

We sat down recently to talk about her work, her books, and her presentation at Inspire Photo Retreats this year:

Cig credits a welcoming community for her return to the Inspire Photo Retreats conference. She will be walking people through her process of creating photographs that are part of a larger personal story.

Her two books – You Look At Me Like An Emergency and Gardening At Night – are collector's items and are out of print. Meanwhile, here is a small sample of her work:

If visual storytelling is your thing, you won't want to miss this presentation at Inspire Photo Retreats.

Yup, you can register now.

It's about a week into the new year. How is your photography project coming along? Some people start out with grand ideas of a “365” project – one that would allow them to photograph and publish one photograph each day of the year. Most fall off that wagon pretty quickly, including myself. Have you tried your hand at something like that? How about a “52” project; one photograph a week for the entire year? Again, people rarely stick to it.

Want to know why? There is no accountability. There is usually no one to hold you responsible if you start to slip. And when you do start to slide, you go down pretty quickly until that point where you don't want to have anything to do with the project.

The muse exits the building and you go back to spinning your wheels and feeling frustrated.

Yes, ideas we have aplenty, but executing on them is the toughest part. So, there is an easy solution to all this – one where you are guided to photograph weekly and get feedback on your work. If you are a parent or a photographer who happens to have kids, I want to tell you about a community online called ShootAlong.

Over the course of a year, you can learn (or re-learn) the fundamentals of photography with other photographers who are also documenting their families. It's a wonderful, low-pressure online forum that allows you to flex your creative muscles and get constructive feedback from other photographers. Last year, while I didn't participate on a weekly basis, I received their emails and really enjoyed how lucidly everything was presented.

I spoke with Heidi Peters, one of the co-founders of ShootAlong about this new forum. Like her business partner, Amy Tripple, Heidi runs a busy portrait photography business in the suburbs of Chicago. If lack of time (more like, a lack of focus) is an issue you are encountering, just see how these two ladies are rocking it with their businesses and running ShootAlong.

The first thing you will see when you log into ShootAlong is the “pinterest-style” Member Board (see above graphic). Your posts will show up here based on when you published it. You are able to tag the post under the week's category (see below for “rule of thirds”) or share your image(s) just for fun. If you are really in need of a critique, you can also tag your post with “critique requested” and the community members chime in.

Want more in-depth discussions? ShootAlong has those too, like a traditional forum you can post a question or an observation and get feedback that way too. One of the things that is new to ShootAlong this year are short inspirational tips via videos.

It's January 8th today, but don't feel like you can't join ShootAlong. At only $79 a year, it's an incredibly valuable resource especially if you are feeling unmotivated and need to get going in the new year. Start with ShootAlong, stick with it and watch your craft shift gears. Once you start seeing results, everything else magically starts to fall into place.

Happy New Year to you all!

Tyler Wirken, a documentary wedding photographer based in Kansas City, Missouri is presenting at Inspire Photo Retreats this coming February, in Newport, Rhode Island.

Tyler is a highly regarded teacher and mentor to many photographers. His workshops, or “Wirkshops”, are always sold out. The CreativeLive class he taught, “Documentary Wedding Photography: Capturing Reality,” was one of the most popular courses on the site.

Given that Tyler was one of the first speakers announced by the Inspire Photo Retreats crews, I snagged the chance at interviewing him about documentary wedding photography, his role in promoting that genre of photography and finally about his presentation at the annual conference.

I asked Tyler to share some of his documentary wedding photography with us and so here you go:

Inspire is a retreat-style conference for professional wedding and portrait photographers. The conference is comprised of sessions on a variety of subjects, from business practices to shooting techniques, to artistry and personal vision. Inspire retreats are structured to enhance opportunities to foster deep relationships with other attendees, build community, and create a culture of ongoing peer-to-peer mentoring and support in our industry.

Learn more about Inspire Photo Retreats and sign up for the conference. Among photography gatherings, it is on my top 5 list! Full disclosure, Tiffinbox is partnered with Inspire Photo Retreats.