Photography Marketing Plan
Photography Marketing Plan
Photography Marketing Plan
Table of Contents
FORWARD .................................................................................................... 5 Writing Your Photography Marketing Plan.......................................................... 6 Marketing Plan Components ......................................................................... 6 Approaching the Market ............................................................................... 7 Product orientation. ............................................................................ 7 Sales orientation. Here ........................................................................ 7 Market orientation. ............................................................................. 7 Social marketing orientation. ............................................................... 7 The Product Life Cycle ................................................................................. 8 The Executive Summary ................................................................................. 9 The Five Ws ............................................................................................... 9 Who. ................................................................................................ 9 What. ............................................................................................... 9 When. ............................................................................................... 9 Where. .............................................................................................. 9 How.................................................................................................. 9 Why. ................................................................................................ 9 Sample Executive Summary ....................................................................... 10 Rhyme and Reason ................................................................................... 10 The Mission Statement ................................................................................. 11 Lighthouse in a Storm ............................................................................... 11 Aspirational, But Attainable ........................................................................ 12 Sample Mission Statements........................................................................ 12 Dont Just Write It Use It ....................................................................... 13 Setting Goals .............................................................................................. 14 Six Types of Goals .................................................................................... 14 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Financial goals............................................................................... 14 Non-financial goals ........................................................................ 15 Short-term goals. .......................................................................... 15 Mid-range goals. ............................................................................ 15 Long-term goals. ........................................................................... 15
6.
Work Towards Your Goals .......................................................................... 16 The SWOT Analysis ...................................................................................... 17 The SWOT Components ............................................................................. 17 Strengths. ....................................................................................... 17 Weaknesses..................................................................................... 18 Opportunities. .................................................................................. 18 Threats. .......................................................................................... 18 Market with Self-Knowledge ....................................................................... 19 Determining Target Markets .......................................................................... 20 Jack of All Trades, Master of None ............................................................... 20 Identifying Target Markets ......................................................................... 21 1. 2. 3. 4. Geographic. .................................................................................. 21 Demographic. ............................................................................... 21 Psychographic. .............................................................................. 21 Product-related. ............................................................................ 21
Getting Started ........................................................................................ 22 Marketing Mix Product ............................................................................... 23 The Four Ps.............................................................................................. 23 1. 2. 3. 4. Product. ....................................................................................... 23 Place. ........................................................................................... 23 Promotion. .................................................................................... 23 Price. ........................................................................................... 23
Defining Your Product ................................................................................ 24 Shopping vs. Specialty Products ................................................................. 25 Marketing Mix Place .................................................................................. 26 Where Are Your Customers? ....................................................................... 26 Agencies and Reps vs. Direct Selling ........................................................... 27 Marketing Mix Promotion ........................................................................... 28 Four Kinds of Promotion ............................................................................ 28 1. 2. Advertising. .................................................................................. 28 Public relations. ............................................................................. 28
3. 4.
Dont Put the Cart Before the Horse ............................................................ 29 Marketing Mix Price ................................................................................... 30 Price for Profitability .................................................................................. 30 Researching the Competition ...................................................................... 31 What the Market Will Bear ......................................................................... 31 The End and the Beginning! .................................................................... 32
FORWARD
This series was originally written for the Black Star Rising Blog (http://rising.blackstar.com), and published in February and March of 2011. I definitely owe some credit to their editors for helping my put this into a more readable format. I hope that you find it beneficial as you grow your photography business. Please feel free to contact me at matt@mdkauffmann.com if you have any specific questions. Also, visit my photography at http://mdkauffmann.com or join my fan club at http://facebook.com/MDKauffmannPhoto Happy Marketing!
Executive summary Mission statement Goals SWOT analysis Target markets Marketing mix product Marketing mix place Marketing mix promotion Marketing mix price
unique capabilities, rather than adapting to the needs or desires of the marketplace. This is a Field of Dreams approach: if you build it, they will come. As a photographer, you are going to offer something special and because it is special, people will want it. Sales orientation. Here the focus is on the sales technique; people will buy your product if you sell it in the right way. As a photographer, you are going to rely on your personality or sales abilities to convince your client that they need you. Billy Mays illustrated this approach perfectly. Market orientation. Your focus is on the consumer. What do potential buyers of your product want or need? As a photographer, you are stepping back and looking at your target customers. Is there an opportunity for a high-end wedding photographer in your geographic area or do you need to be sensitive to price? Social marketing orientation. Here you highlight your efforts to serve the community, with the expectation that consumers will appreciate this and reward you with their business. If you donate time to Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, or convince people you are Earth-friendly, clients will like what you are doing and use your services. Prime examples of this are Method soaps and cleaners and Toyota Prius.
Upon selecting one of these orientations, a photographer can begin to plan a marketing strategy.
The Five Ws
To start your summary, lets look at the kind of questions this section should answer. We can organize these in terms of the Five Ws (and one H):
skills, traits, training, or experience do you have that are going to convince someone to hire you? What makes you special? What. What does your company do? What makes it different from the thousands of other photography businesses in your geographic area? What do you like to shoot? Do you have a specialty? When. When are you available? When do you do your work? When did you start in this business? Where. Where do you do business on site, in a studio or both? Where can clients meet you? Where can your work be found a neighborhood gallery, a Web site? How. How do you do things? How do you serve your clients? How do you package and sell your work? How can you be contacted? Why. Why did you get into this business? Why would a client choose you over someone else? Why do you do things the way you do?
Lighthouse in a Storm
Your photography business is only as good as the promises it keeps. And the first step to keeping promises as a business owner is to write them down and keep them simple. The most effective mission statements are brief but powerful. Some companies write lengthy ones, full of business speak and industry jargon, but that misses the point. You want a statement that you and your employees, as your company grows can commit to memory, and take to heart. Your mission statement should be timeless as applicable in five years as it is the day you write it. Dont get caught up in your quarterly or even yearly goals in creating it. As a business owner, a mission statement can serve as a lighthouse in the stormy seas of commerce. On your bad days, going back to your statement can remind you of why you started a business in the first place. On days when you are struggling with creative difficulties, your statement can remind you of what you enjoy shooting, or why you shoot it that way. It also keeps you from going astray in your daily decisions. If you choose to donate to a cause, for example, does the cause mesh with your mission statement? If you raise your prices or change how you do business, is your decision consistent with your mission your promise to customers?
Firefly Studios Firefly Studios will provide top quality photographs at a fair and reasonable price for corporate and editorial clients for use in their annual reports, brochures and publications. All clients will receive the highest level of attention, devotion and commitment. We will conduct ourselves in a professional manner and represent our clients best interests within the limits of our professional responsibilty. We will protect our clients proprietary information and respect the privacy and property rights of our subjects. A Thousand Words Photography As to photography: I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didnt photograph them. (Diane Arbus). As to business: Count no day lost in which you waited your turn, took only your share, and sought advantage over no one. (Robert Brault).
Setting Goals
In this series, we are exploring the creation of a marketing plan for photographers. We have already covered the executive summary and mission statement. In this installment, we discuss the importance of setting goals, and how they relate to marketing. Much has been written about goal-setting. Almost anyone will tell you the importance of having a destination in sight before you set off. Who would pull out of their driveway for a vacation without knowing where they are going? The same is true for our day-to-day work as photographers. Who would shoot a wedding without thinking about which images are needed for the album? Who would shoot a product without thinking about what the client needs and how the image will be used? How can you shoot an image without thinking about the final framing? Almost every action is performed with a goal in mind.
Here are six types of goals to think about: 1. Financial goals. In business, this is the bottom line so even if you think of yourself as an artist first and a businessperson second, your goal-setting should start with money matters. How much money do you need to make for your business to be successful? How soon do you need to make it? At what rate do you want to bill your services?
2. Non-financial goals. In photography terms, if your financial goals are your main light, the non-financial goals should be the kicker and highlight that give your image personality. Yes, we all want to make money, but what are the parameters you set for your business? Do you want to make enough income from weddings that you can spend 20 percent of your time pursuing personal projects, or doing pro-bono work for environmental causes? 3. Short-term goals. These are your most immediate concerns, so its OK if this part of your goal statement looks like a to do list. These dayto-day or week-to-week objectives serve as incremental steps toward your longer-term goals. 4. Mid-range goals. These require a little more work and are achieved in multiple steps or by achieving smaller goals first. Think six months to one year. 5. Long-term goals. Ah, the dreaded career goals. You may find the prospect of setting long-term goals for yourself intimidating, but they are critical to building a successful business that will last five years, 10 years or more. Dont stress out too much over getting everything just right, though; as John Maynard Keynes once wrote, In the long run, we are all dead. 6. Wild goals. After youve done all this serious thinking, its OK to have a little fun, too. Write down some of your wildest dreams. For example, maybe youd like to open a small wedding boutique in the Midwest with the dream of eventually becoming the photographer that A-list Hollywood celebrities call upon for their nuptials. It may never happen, but it will stretch you to think about what Hollywood photographers do and to learn from their styles which will benefit your local clients. And who knows? Maybe it will happen. Nothing is impossible for those who dare to dream.
Strengths. These are the things that make you stand out. What are
the tools/weapons in your arsenal? Was your training exceptional? Is your equipment top of the line? Do you have years of experience? Has your life outside of photography added something to your work? A wedding photographer might write: I have shot weddings of all sizes at every major event venue in the Boston area, so when a couple chooses me, they know what theyre getting and that unwanted surprises will be kept to a minimum. My experience means my clients have one less thing to worry about.
ignore your weaknesses. Instead, you should admit them, embrace them and then conquer them. I like to call weaknesses growing edges, because they are the places your organization has the most room to improve. An advertising photographer might describe her weaknesses this way: I enjoy shooting for ads but I sometimes have difficulty taking direction from art directors, and this has cost me agency relationships in the past. I also tend to become uncomfortable in crowds, which makes it a challenge for me to network for new business.
Opportunities. These are the areas where your company has the most
potential for growth. Is there an untapped market that you have a unique opportunity to serve? Are you the only one offering a particular product or service? Do you do something better than anyone else? An editorial photographer might write: More and more media outlets are looking to integrate video into their Web sites. Since I have video training, enjoy shooting video, and own a Canon 5D Mark II, I can deliver high-quality stills and video at a competitive price, offering added value for clients.
Threats. These are the competitors, trends, and other factors that are
working against your organization. As with your weaknesses, it is important to be honest with yourself. Threats are not necessarily bad things; they simply have to be addressed. In my business, for example, I feel threatened by Shoot & Scoot photographers but it doesnt stop me from keeping my prices high and offering a premium product. A corporate photographer might describe his biggest threat this way: More and more of my clients are slashing their annual report budgets or even dispensing with annual reports altogether, both because of the poor economy and the trend toward online communication. Assuming this continues, Ill need to find a way to replace this portion of my income.
Getting Started
After your target customers are defined, its time to start marketing to them. The best way to accomplish this is to think like them. What do they enjoy doing? What is important to them? How do they spend their money? Where do they spend it? Why do they spend it the way they do? This will be the roadmap that tells you where to advertise, what to say about your business, what to charge for your services, and so on. It all starts with knowing your audience.
The Four Ps
The four Ps are defined broadly as 1. Product. What is it, exactly, that you are trying to sell? How clearly have you defined it? Have you defined your product based on whats convenient for you to sell or based on what customers actually want to buy? 2. Place. Where can people buy your product? Do they have to call you? Can they fill out a form online? Can they place an order with you through another vendor? 3. Promotion. How are you getting the word out? Are you distributing press releases? Buying ads? Blogging? Have you set up a referral network? 4. Price. What are you going to charge for your services? Have you taken into account your competition, your target customer and the identity you want your product to have in the marketplace?
3. Sales promotions. These are short-term incentives designed to motivate prospects to purchase immediately, either by lowering price or adding value. Typical tools for sales promotion are coupons, rebates, premiums, loyalty programs, frequent buyer programs, sampling or free merchandise. For example, a photographer might offer a premium of a 8x10 print with the purchase of a sitting, or give away an engagement session in order to book a wedding. It works with channel partners, too; you might give away free photography to a bridal store in return for referrals. 4. Personal selling. In some businesses, products can be sold on advertising or sales promotions alone; you see an ad, go to a Web site and click make the purchase. Thats not the way it is for photography services. Photographers generally must do some personal selling to earn new clients. That means generating and qualifying leads, approaching prospects and probing their needs, developing or proposing solutions, handling objections, closing the sale and following up.
Some photographers price their services on a cost-plus basis. They estimate their costs for a typical wedding shoot, for example, and then add X percent for profit, and then charge that price. Thats fine for making sure your costs are covered, but its not the best way to optimize profits. You should set your prices based on the maximum your market will bear, rather than the minimum you would be satisfied with.