With the state of current affairs, our individual and collective stress levels are running high.

Social distancing, remote learning, the “Stay Home” initiative sound catchy but bring on anxiety due to the unknown and the disruption of our daily lives.

To reduce stress, we need to feel a healthy level of control over our environment.

Unfortunately, we often default to trying to control our world without much clarity. Awareness is always step number one to managing stress. When we determine precisely the reason something is making us stressed, it is easier to find an area that we have some control over.

Are you stressed over being “stuck at home”? If so you can go for a walk or go for a drive. You can change your wording from being “stuck” to be “safe.” Being “safe at home” feels much better.

Maybe you are stressed because the kids are being schooled at home while you are working from home, and you feel the pressure of trying to be a parent and productive worker.

Set aside a designated place for school for the children and an office for you. You might need to rearrange furniture or rooms (even a closet will do), but remember it is temporary. This way, you can control when you are at work/school, and the boundaries between work and home are less ambiguous.

Perhaps you have the news going all day, trying to catch every tidbit of information about the virus.

Ask yourself what would happen if you weren't the first to know. You can control how much time you spend with the news. Set aside a time of day and a time limit to watching the news, say from 6-7 pm.

Reduce your social media because much information there gets passed around without being verified.

The best place to get the current information regarding the virus and ways to keep healthy is the Centers for Disease Control. The State of Connecticut's Governor's office is the best place to find information regarding mandates, and check your local town's website for updates on local news if you live in Connecticut as I do.

Last, one of the best stress-reducing activities in times like these is to help others.

Look for ways you can volunteer, find ways to support the small local businesses in your community, and don't be afraid to ask for help.

How do you cope with stress? Comment below, if you feel comfortable sharing. Please stay safe, and stay healthy.

“I began my journey worrying about equipment, web page, blog, client documentation, accounts … and left one of the most important (and ongoing) aspects to last – marketing.”

The finding and keeping of clients is such an art and a science, and yet so many photographers ignore it.

Any why?

If we’re honest, it’s because it’s hard. We want to do the easier things first and “play” business because getting people to pay you with their hard earned money is super intimidating.

But it doesn’t have to be because I’ve put together a list of the top six uncommon trends that are going to be huge for your photography business this year.

Uncommon Trend #1: Live Video

For the past few years, photographers have used social media to share their work (photos) and have seen a lot of success. While most people were just posting text, we found that photos got a lot more engagement and social media could be a huge asset to our business.

But, as engagement rates dropped and organic reach plummeted (especially on Facebook), social media lost a lot of its ability to drive business for photographers.

But that will turn around this year. If we look at how so many brands are leveraging live video to engage with their audience and get in front of new people, it’s no surprise that two-thirds of all internet traffic is streaming video.

Some studies suggest that 80% of consumers prefer watching a live video to reading a blog post with images.

And you can do it on almost every platform: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and Periscope.

The best part is that those videos remain forever on the platform and can be repurposed in the future for blog posts, email autoresponders, social media posts, etc.

Uncommon Trend #2:Content Marketing

Video is just one type of content that you should be making for your ideal clients. If we agree to the idea that every photography business should be a media company, we need to start treating our content as an essential business aspect.

This means creating content that helps out ideal clients in every way including:

Video (live)
Video (edited)
Blog posts
Infographics
Audio (podcasts)
Messaging (Bonjoro)

For example, here’s a great guide that Michael Will put together of the top wedding vendors in his city. It’s a great way for him to spread the word about all of his friends and colleagues and also build a solid relationship with his ideal client (brides and grooms).

Uncommon Trend #3:Getting Featured

I’ve been pretty strong in arguing that more photographers need to write. It’s simply the easiest thing that you can do as a photographer to get more traffic from Google and build a deeper relationship with your audience.

If photos are proof you know what you’re doing with a camera, the words are what get people to pay for your services.

Getting featured on other websites can be difficult when it’s completely one-sided (“Please feature me! PLEASE!”), but what you can offer in return is to create some amazing content, using the above content marketing ideas.

By using search terms like “write for us” and “submit post” in Google, you can find a lot of opportunities to connect with other websites that would love to feature you and get you in front of their audiences. This is especially valuable if you’re just starting your photography business, too.

Uncommon Trend #4:Hyper-local Search Results

More and more people are using their mobile devices as their primary means of searching online and when they search for your services, Google is serving them “hyperlocal” search results.

This means that not only are they getting unique results based on the country and city they’re located in, but now they’re customizing results down to a one-block radius.

As most photographers get traffic to their website based on local search results, you need to make sure (at minimum), that you’ve set up a physical business location in Google (guide).

This also means that while you may not rank for a big keyword like “Chicago wedding photographer,” you may see an increase in website traffic if you have a physical address in the city.

For photographers like Evermark Studios, being located in Pittsburgh is great, but having a prime location on the most important street in the city (Penn Ave) is going to become more and more valuable in 2018.

Uncommon Trend #5:Client Personas and Journey Mapping

Most of the photographers that I’ve known have never considered creating client personas or a client journey map as a formal technique, yet they’ve done it informally hundreds of times.

Basically, along the journey of a person discovering you to become a client, they’re better served with different communications and experiences. A person who clicks a Facebook ad is at a very different trust level with you than an email subscriber that’s opted in to receive a custom wedding quote, right?

Smart Insights put together this really smart life-cycle map of all the potential touch points across different types of media. Look at what you’re currently doing? Where are the gaps in your marketing?

Uncommon Trend #6:Live Chat (Anything But Chatbots)

From live video, to content marketing, to chat, the trend in 2018 is going to be for personalized engagement.

With the rest of the marketing community clamoring about chatbots, I would argue that even though they are helping businesses grow now, we’re seeing the return of the “voice menu” when you call a big company.

I’m sure they were novel and helpful at first, but the thought of going through 10 menus just to talk to a person makes me want to scream.

So let’s skip over that horrible trend and look at the bigger picture. People want real-time communication which means any time we’re at a computer, we should offer it to them.

Photographers like Playa del Carmen-based Pixan Photography have already implemented these concepts and are seeing big results.

But if you want to get ahead of the game, check out Facebook’s chat feature they’ll beta-testing and align your Facebook presence with your website:

What's Next

If you really want to take advantage of one the big photography marketing trends this year, here’s what you need to keep an eye on:

Live Video
Content Marketing
Getting Featured
Hyperlocal searches
Client Personas and Journey Mapping
Live chat

Now that I’ve lifted back the curtain and showed you how to really grow your photography business in 2018, it’s time for you to pick one of these and test it out for yourself.

Let me know in the comments below what you’ll be working on this year (I read every one of them!)

Did you know that at one time Orlando, Florida family photographer Isabel Azalia designed lasers? Now, she reads her client's minds.

Totally true!

More than what or how she does this, the question should be why she does it.

Isabel spent the last six years formulating client quizzes that she sends out in efforts to get to know them and ultimately serve them better. The better the experience, the thought process goes, the greater the chance they will buy more and refer future clients.

As a scientist, she needed something more precise and so she developed her personality tests and questionnaire that dives deep into a client's psyche so she can capture that family as they truly are and make the whole photography experience stress-free.

Interviw With Isabel

Intrigued by her client quizzes, I asked to speak with her to find out more. Here is our conversation about how she uses client quizzes in her family portrait photography business:

So tell me, how well do you know your clients? Be honest with yourself. When the phone rings you book a session, but more often than not, you have no clue who they are, what their likes and dislikes are, how they see themselves or what they ultimately want in photography artwork for their home.

Wouldn't you want to change that? You will get to serve your clients at a high level. In the process you'll create a sustainable business that is known in your community.

Client Quizzes

For more details about Isabel's client quizzes.

Customizing Your Quizzes

Isabel is making her client quizzes available to you so that you can customize them with your own logo and then share them with your clients before your next portrait session. Talk about a huge WIN.

What would knowing more about your clients do for your business? Will you use client quizzes to serve your clients?

Jenika McDavitt of Psychology for Photographers fame just announced a new resource today called Irresistible You.

Have you bought Irresistible Words or Irresistible Website from her?

Buy them as a bundle here.

If you have bought one or the other, or both, then you know how useful her tips are, right? If you haven't, please do click the links above to find out more.

Why should you buy Irresistible You?

Look, just like you, I struggle to write about myself online. The dreaded blinking cursor is a recurring nightmare. I bet some of you feel the same way.

So this course will teach you how to write about yourself in business! You get to naturally communicate your personality and connect with clients without feeling like you're boring or bragging.

Do you need help coming up with work for your website, blog or even social media posts – that sound like YOU wrote them instead of a machine?

You get that and more with Irresistible You.

The Interview With Jenika

To find out even more about this new course, I sat down to chat with Jenika a few days back. Check our our short discussion:

Finding It Hard To Stand Out?

In a crowded marketplace of amateur and professional photographers, how are you standing out? What are you doing to establish yourself as a brand? How are you showing up on the world's stage?

Here's my advice for you if you are just starting out. Before you even begin considering a website for your photography business, figure out what your client communication needs to be and how it needs to sound. I highly recommend Jenika's Irresistible Words program, but what would make your approach stronger is if you worked on Irresistible You first.

Course Contents

What do you receive when you buy Irresistible You?

You will receive a PDF and class material that's divided into four weeks. Jenika will also be sending out email reminders to keep you motivate, plus bonus interviews with the likes of Christine Tremoulet, Brooke Snow, Nick McArthur, and other experts.

Class Contents:

– What clients actually want to hear about you
– Five psychological influences that make personal sharing a smart business strategy
– Talk about yourself without feeling self-absorbed or boastful
– How to pick stories to share that draw people in
– The “it girl” secrets to dominating online (that even an introvert can steal)
– How to sound like yourself when you write
– The never-ending blog content generator – a strategy for always having something new to say
– How to write an About page that you love
 
Specific pain points that this class debunks and solves:

“I don't know how to show clients who I am.”?
“I don't know what people want to hear!”?
“My life is just not that interesting.”?
“I am an introvert / private person and I don't want to share that much.”?
“Whenever I go to write about myself, it comes out sounding dumb.”?
“I don't know how to sound like me.”
?”How do I avoid sounding unprofessional?”?
“I sound like every other photographer!”

Irresistible You is being offered at a special introductory offer (only $119) through November 10th. After that date the price jumps to its regular price of $219.

So, what are you going to do now? Get lost in a sea of sameness or stand out and be counted? The choice is yours. If you don't know how to go about it, that's where Irresistible You comes into play. Check out Jenika's site.

I know and trust you will make the right decision.

Why Are You In Business?

If you are in business, you should be making money at some point, right?

Jamie Swanson of The Moderntog has it dialed in when it comes to teaching photographers how to market their business – to move from mere passion into the sphere of profit.

If you are dedicated to your craft, you would have noticed how you have progressed due to your discipline and focus. The business side of the equation is no different. It too needs your constant attention. Ignore it at your peril and in a short time you will have nothing more than a hobby to call your own.

That might just be the ticket for a lot of people currently in the industry. Nothing wrong with being a hobbyist or a weekend photographer, while you still have your day job. For some photographers, the grass is always greener on the other side anyway and you living that life might mean a more comfortable and stress-free existence.

That said, if you are going all in, and you are going to spend the next 20+ years as a professional photographer, you are going to need to market your photography business and do so really well.

The Marketog Course

Back in 2014, I spoke with Jamie about Marketog and since then she has made a few additions to her tried-and-tested course.

Here are the six steps she covers in Marketog:

How to get more of the right kinds of clients
How to turn inquiries into clients: 6 game-changing strategies
How to turn your website into an inquiry-generating machine
How to get repeat clients and more word-of-mouth advertising
How to get other business owners to send you their best clients
Your marketing toolkit for effective marketing

Open Enrollment … Now!

Jamie is about to open enrollment for the course again, for a limited time (today through January 24th). Despite her busy schedule (look, she has five kids and home-schools them all), I managed to convince her to spend a little time with me being interviewed about the six-week commitment you are about to make for yourself.

The Free Sample

Grab this FREE sample lesson to get a sense of what you will learn from the Marketog course.

Follow Along At Your Pace

One other thing, while the course runs for six weeks, you have access to all the course materials for life. So, if you don't get to it as the course starts on January 25th, relax! Just log in when your schedule permits it, and walk through the modules step-by-step at your own pace. Jamie makes it super easy to follow along, but there is a good deal amount of work to be done. If you are spinning your wheels, pop into the Facebook group Jamie has set up for you to ask questions or share your successes.

Ready To Sign Up?

Are you ready to jump-start your photography business with a solid plan for marketing it? Will you enroll for Marketog now that you a little bit more about the course? Do you still have questions? What would get you off the fence? Tell me below in the comments section and I will do my best to help you out. You see, like you, I am enrolled in this course as well and honestly, I am lingering on module 3 right now. Come join and inspire me to complete all six modules of Marketog with you!