Secrets to Wedding Photography Disney Factor Style

Disney Factor

Many years ago, after just visiting the Florida area and getting the chance to take a cruise with Gary and Marci Fong while learning a boat load about wedding albums we made a visit to Disney World. What a great way to pump up your customer awareness!!!

Walt was a great man in all of his visions and it is still carried though to the current day. We were amazed at how clean, well run all of the areas were that we had a chance to visit and how polite all of the employees were.

We had the wonderful opportunity to visit the new Animal Kingdom and let me tell you these guys go all out. The park is not scheduled to open until April but we were invited to a sneak preview. While visiting the Animal Kingdom I watch a child receive an ice cream cone. After just seconds the child dropped the cone on the ground. The clerk at the counter gave him another cone and the boy was happy. The dropped ice cream lay on the ground for others to track and scatter, a potential mess!! Never fear, this is Disney!! The messy ice cream was removed and cleaned up in 15 seconds before it had a chance to scatter.......You may wonder what this post has to do with Wedding Photography.......Well, customer service.....I call it the Disney Factor.....Always keep your customer happy by correcting the problem immediately ( replacing the dropped ice cream ) and seeing a problem that needs to be corrected is, before it scatters ( ice cream is cleaned up quickly).

I found the same thing over and over again at all the parks and places we stayed at on Disney property. This is a potential helper for any company that wants to change it image for the better. The last day that we had a message on our telephone thanking us for staying with Disney. WOW now that’s customer service.

My whole point is that we as photographers need to be aware of our customers desires and problems before they fester out of control. Always creating a clean and pleasing look, personal or business is vital for success.

Take a few steps back and look at your situation.

Always striving for the best!!

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Growing Your Photography Business

Growing Your Photography Business

What is the easiest way to increase your sales/profits? Increasing your business boils down to three fundamentals.

Most traditional photography studios have known for years that there are three essential ways of growing your business:

1. Create fresh ways of bringing new clients into your business.

2. Increase the average dollar amount each customer spends.

3. Increase the frequency with which you do business with each customer.

If you are building a strong photography business, this translates into:

1. Create new marketing techniques to bring in more people for photography sessions.

2. Increase the amount of product your client is purchasing from you at each photo session. This may include packaging products together to create larger sales.

3. Increase the number of times each of your customers have a portrait session. Creativity is king here. You must focus on creating sessions that your clients want to be included.

Serving small niche markets is easier to grow your business. Create seasonal photo sessions that are limited items. Go beyond the traditional Santa Clause and Easter bunny scenes. Instead think of things that are unique and individual to you and your business. Offer quality products and services that people can’t find anywhere else, and they will create a bond that will last throughout the years.

For more information on how to grow a photography business or how to start a photography business, please visit our indepth website.

Starting a wedding photography business

Starting a wedding photography business can be as simple as working with friends and family to get started. Growing a wedding photography business is another story. Building a good wedding business name for a quality service takes time and energy. Creating trust with wedding vendors or wedding services by showing professionalism and delivering quality photography to your clients builds relationships that are the basic steps for a healthy wedding photography studio. The Internet provides many resources to assist in the increase of knowledge for your industry. We have a great resources that will help you start a photography business today.

Photography Business Marketing Trend

Photography Business Marketing Trends

I received a great book from a friend this past month. It’s called Re-imagine! by Tom Peters. In each chapter, Tom lists out ways of redefining the way we think about business, and ways of re-inventing the way we do business. The funny thing about business these days is it changes constantly. What you used to be able to rely upon as gospel for the life of a business now changes in a matter of weeks, thanks to technology.

One of my favorite chapters dives into the two biggest marketing trends of the coming decade; two trends that, according to Tom, have gone virtually unnoticed by the marketing world. Those populations are women and the aging. I have read a lot of information published by trend setters, and if you simply use your own reasoning its easy to conclude that these two populations are bigger and stronger than ever before, and will continue to grow well into the future.

However, the funny thing is these two markets continually are being targeted by marketing techniques that existed a dozen years ago. Change is sweeping through the marketing world. How are you handling it?

Women love to talk; men take the get-in-and-get-out approach. Women think aloud; men feel nagged the more women talk. Women cooperate; men compete. When you’re targeting women, they enjoy going through experiences. They like to bond with those they are doing business with, and create emotional attachments to the person they buy from. They enjoy going through the process, while men want to get straight to the point. (Have you ever sat in a meeting with a couple, where the woman wants all the information on your product and wants to see herself living with your product, and the man simply wants to know the price?)

Your goal is to create the process. Make your sales pitch an event. Create an experience within your own business, and benefit from the profits of a referral base of the strongest target market ever.

I leave you with a statistic from Tom’s book. A friend of Tom’s reports that his average male client recommends him to 2.6 others. His women clients recommend him to an average of 21 other people. Yep, two-point-six versus twenty-one! Guess whom he’s marketing to?

Equipment Needed For a Wedding Photography Business

Equipment Needed For a Photography Business

If you are contemplating opening a photography studio, use these guidelines to help you understand what equipment is needed for a photography business.

To start, spend a few minutes thinking about the type of photography you will be offering your clients. Will you be photographing commercial work? Are you in your studio, photographing portraiture? Are you out on location photographing weddings, and traveling to many different states and countries? Will you be offering your clients a combination of these services?

Once you have a goal in mind for your business, then you can begin gathering the proper equipment.

To give you an idea of what I consider to be the minimum amount of equipment needed, I’ve created the following list.

Equipment needed for photography business

*At least 2 camera bodies. At all times, under any circumstance, you should always have at least 2 camera bodies. Not only is it important to have an extra in case one shuts down or quits working, but it’s also nice to be able to have two cameras ready with different lenses – so you are ready to capture anything at any time.

* Flash cards. Most photographers are now shooting with digital cameras. Having a variety of flash cards handy is a must. I recommend having several available for each of your camera bodies. I don’t recommend buying large cards with capacity to do an entire shoot. If you have an error in your card (low chance, but you never now), you’re better off using a variety of cards for different portions of your shoot.

* Laptop computer. And shoot can be better managed if you can place your flash cards into your laptop at the time of the shoot, download the images, and save them to one or more sources. You can view the images, and begin organizing them immediately.

* Lenses. I feel lenses are a personal choice, depending on the type of photography you will offering. Have a variety to use in many circumstances. Fast shutters are great for low light situations. Telephoto lenses are great for working event photography.

* Flash units. Depending on your photography specialization, you will need to have at least one on-camera flash unit, and at least one stand alone flash unit for a more controlled light source.

* Internet access. This is a must for any business, old or new. With Internet access, you should monitor your own website to market your business, and should have the ability to connect with your lab for quick results.

With these basic pieces, your photography studio will be off and running in no time at all. The better prepared you are at the beginning, the easier it will be to grow along the way.

Photography Business – Understanding The Marketing Budget Process

Photography Business – Understanding The Marketing Budget Process

How much are you spending this year on marketing? Is it enough to build your business?

According to a recent survey, the answer is no. Up to 42% of companies surveyed stated they were budgeting less than 5% of revenue for their annual marketing strategies. And less than 30% were spending an adequate amount on marketing for their growth potential.

That’s not a good sign for photography businesses that intend to grow to a successful size. In fact, without a sufficient budget, your business will never make your marks, and will eventually fade from existence.

With that in mind, its time to take charge of your marketing strategy, and structure it for success in the coming year. Once you have goals and strategies in place, you’ll be much better prepared to budget a realistic figure.

Take a look at these three approaches to producing a usable marketing plan that fits within your budgetary means.

1. Start with the end in mind. What dollar amount do you wish to make in the coming year? Once you have a realistic number in mind, use that to determine your marketing commitment level.

The average growing company typically will spend around 10 percent of their total revenue on marketing, with very aggressive companies moving towards the 15-20 percent level. Calculating your marketing costs is a simple matter of taking your desired revenue level multiplied by the marketing percentage you wish to apply. For example, if you expect to make $100,000 in the coming year, and you wish to take an aggressive approach to marketing, you may choose to spend 15 percent, or $15,000, of your budget on marketing costs.

2. Create your campaign calendar for the year, and realistically budget for each campaign. This approach can benefit you in a number of ways. Unlike the first approach, it provides you with an exact list of campaigns you will be offering in your studio, and put together a yearlong plan that will be easy to follow.

To get started, create your yearlong calendar of campaigns. Look at the specific activities you are planning to launch, and calculate the expected income and costs associated with each activity. Determine what type of marketing you will do with each campaign, and estimate appropriately.

3. Use this year’s numbers, and project the growth expected for the coming year.

Depending on how successful your studio was this year, you may wish to use this year’s numbers to project next years budget. This works well if you already have a high level of success, and you anticipate doing about the same level of business in the coming year. Let’s say your total revenue for this year is $100,000, and you project a 20 percent growth rate for the coming year. Your projected revenue for the coming year is expected to be at $120,000. For a 10 to 15 percent marketing budget, you can expect to spend anywhere from $12,000 to $18,000 in the coming year on marketing.

The key to each of these strategies is to give you an idea of the total marketing expenses you can expect to pay to achieve the level of success you are planning for. It can also provide you with guidelines when making decisions as to they types of marketing you’re looking for. You may be able to easily rule out more expensive forms of marketing right away just by knowing your yearly budget marks ahead of time.

As a creative business owner, you may dread the budgetary process. But with a solid plan in place, your business will run much more effectively in the coming year. You and your business will thank you for it.

How To Photograph Weddings

How To Photograph Weddings

Many photographers start their business by photographing a few weddings, thinking that it’s the easiest type of photography. In reality, its one of the most difficult, strenuous types of photography.

With weddings, you get one chance at getting the best images possible. You are one of the few vendors that will spend most of the wedding day with the bride and groom. Therefore its imperative that you love photographing weddings, and that you understand how to handle the day in the easiest, most professional way possible. To make sure you you’re ready for the big day, work your way through this How To Photograph Wedding Checklist before each event.

* Have ample equipment with you. If you were scheduled to spend six hours at an event and only bring along one camera body, what would you do if that body broke one hour into the event? Having backup equipment is mandatory for wedding photography. Not only can accidents happen (like dropping a camera) but you never know when two cameras will be of benefit in the middle of the action.

* Study wedding photography before the day of the wedding. There are many photo books on the subject of wedding photography, and you can get several from your local bookstore that will provide you with hundreds of samples. Choose some specific poses that you want to emulate, and bring a copy of the photo with you to the wedding to use as your posing guide.

* Talk to the bride and groom before the wedding, and get a list of special photographs they would like from the wedding. You can create your own list of standard photos, such as the bride with her mom and dad, but talk to the couple about special poses that you may not know about. The bride may have her sorority sisters at the wedding, and want a special photo of that.

* Have the entire day scheduled as much as possible – also realize that schedules can never be cast in stone. Work with the couple before hand to lay out the events of the day. They’ll appreciate having a timetable, and it will make your job much easier.

* Photograph one wedding at a time, and learn from your mistakes. The only way to get better is to keep practicing. After each event, spend a few minutes writing down what went well, and what needs improvement. Use this as a guide for your next event.

The next time you’re wondering how to photograph weddings, hopefully you’ll feel a little more comfortable with the process.

Website Templates create professional sites

Website Templates create professional sites

Flash Template

Flash website templates are pre-made web design products (usual website templates enhanced by Flash) that can be easily customized to meet the unique requirements of your project.

Flash Intro Template

A Flash Intro Template is a template of a presentation movie that is usually used to represent a website or product. The main beneficial feature of Flash intros is that you will need to do some customization work to present your particular project but not to develop the presentation from scratch.

WordPress Themes

A WordPress Theme is a skin (theme or template) for one of the most popular blogging softwares – WordPress. It does not matter what are you blogging because we have designs for professional bloggers and amateurs as well. Our collection of WordPress Themes is updated regularly, so if you have failed to find the design for your blog with us today, then give us another try tomorrow. And you may always use our wishbox to request the design you desire for your blog. Note that our WordPress Themes are developed for WordPress 2.0.1 and may not work properly with other versions of WordPress. We recommend that you upgrade to version 2.0.1 or higher to use our templates.

osCommerce Templates

osCommerce themes are special templates compatible with osCommerce system. The Template Cafe offers a wide range of osCommerce skins aiming to be the largest osCommerce templates provider on the Web. Our collection of osCommerce themes includes designs for online book, gift, jewelry, etc. stores.

Logo Templates

Logo templates are pre-made logo design products in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, or Corel Draw format.
Logo is the very basic of corporate design. Our site offers you both unique and non-unique logo templates. Unique logo templates are designs that have never been purchased before. They have both unique and non-unique price. Unique logo template will be removed from our database when purchased at unique price - you get exclusive logo design at affordable price.

Corporate Identity

Corporate identity package includes logo, letterhead, and business card design templates all the basic elements of any corporate design. All the designs are supplied in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, or Corel Draw format.
The Template Cafe strives to satisfy all your needs for corporate design. We offer you both unique and non-unique corporate identity templates. Unique corporate identity templates are designs that have never been purchased before. They have both unique and non-unique price and ideally suit for truly exclusive corporate design development. Unique corporate identity templates will be removed from our database when purchased at unique price - you get absolutely exclusive corporate identity templates design at affordable price.

Logo Sets

Logo Set is a set of 10 exceptional quality logos, available to web developers with an unlimited time use license. Each logo is a high quality 300 dpi graphic and although direct reselling of any logo is strictly prohibited, you can do virtually anything else with it - from creating your own personal website, memos or stationery to making an overhead boardroom presentation.

Icon Sets (Icons)

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Tips For Getting Leads Into Your Photography Business

Tips For Getting Leads Into Your Photography Business

Every business needs it. Every business owner makes it his or her top priority goal. It never changes, from the moment you start your business until you close the doors for the final time. To survive, your business must bring in leads that ultimately turn into good quality, paying clients.

But how do you bring them in consistently? What methods do you use?

Well that all depends on how much business you need in your studio.

Let's say that you want to photograph thirty weddings per year. How many leads you need to generate those thirty weddings would depend on a number of factors:

* How much do you charge for your weddings?

* Do your leads know and understand your pricing before they contact you?

* How good are you at turning leads into sales?

If your leads are pre-qualified, have a lot of information on you and your services before they contact you, know and understand your pricing, and have a strong referral, you might only need thirty leads to book your thirty weddings.

But if your leads come in with little knowledge of you or your services, they call in 'blind' from a vague advertisement with little information, and don't match your criteria for your ideal client; you may end up having to meet ten to fifteen prospects before turning one of them into a client.

Which would you rather have for your business: thirty prospects turning into thirty clients, or 450 prospects turning into thirty clients? Obviously, your ultimate goal should be the first option.

Lead generation is all about reaching out to your prospects, and turning them into clients. The better you understand your customers, the easier it will be to connect with them. The better you define your perfect client, and the better your marketing strategy to reach your perfect customer, the easier your business will be.

Once you have your client defined, you can begin reaching out to connect with them. There are hundreds of ways to connect; choose methods that work for you and your budget. Consider options like:

Networking events
Tradeshows
Magazines
Newspapers
Trade journals
Direct mail
Brochure placement
Flyers
Door hangers
Postcards
Card decks
Sponsorships
Ezines
Email advertisements
Banner placement

While the list for marketing opportunities is endless, you’ll soon discover certain methods that resonate with your goals and strategies, and seem to connect better with your prospects and clients.

Choose your methods, and monitor your results. And as the leads come in, observe the quality of each lead, and the method the lead was generated. Choose to continue using quality methods that bring in “perfect” leads. And discontinue use of other, less attractive methods. You’ll soon develop a strategy that is perfect for your business, and brings in a comfortable level of leads that generate your perfect level of business.

For more articles on starting a photography business click here

7 Items Every Photographer’s Website Should Have

7 Items Every Photographer’s Website Should Have

A Gallery of Images
People visit a photographer’s website to see images. Don’t disappoint. Your gallery should show more than a dozen images. Let them spend hours on your site! At our high point, we had over 20,000 images online. And many people would spend hours going through every single one of them.

Contact Information
I spend a lot of time on other peoples’ sites. And I find a lot of business owners are so worried about spam, they leave off contact information in their fears. Guess what? People can’t contact you if they don’t know how. Fill out forms are great, and are the first step for contact. Give a phone number – some people prefer to call. Give an address – your prospects would love to know what city your in, and where your studio is. Give an email – you can make it a non-clickable graphic.

Content
A portfolio isn’t enough. It’s nice looking at a dozen images, but who are you? What’s your style? How did you decide to become a photographer? What’s the story behind your business? In person, you build a relationship with your prospect. The same thing has to occur online. Content is what sells your business.

Sales Techniques
Your website is more than a portfolio; it’s a sales tool. Think of how you sell in person, and use those same features online. Your website should be growing and changing all the time.

Proper Navigation
If you’ve ever been “stuck” in a website, you know navigation is so important. If you move to a page, it better be easy to move around and back out. Think like your customer. If that’s hard to do, bring a customer in and ask them what they think.

Ordering System
Professional labs and other online services have made it very easy to sell your images online. Connect to one of these services, and use this as an option for your clients. If you’re worried about upfront sales, use it as a bonus after the initial sale is complete.

Marketing
Your website is more than a portfolio; it’s a marketing tool. With over 6 billion web pages online, how will yours compete with the others? It takes marketing. Just like you wouldn’t sit at home without doing any marketing waiting for the phone to ring, you can’t sit at home without marketing your website waiting for the contacts. You have to use online marketing techniques to get noticed.

Check this site for additional articles on digital photography wedding business and starting a photography business

Podcasts on Marketing

Podcasts on Marketing

Here is an interview with Travis Boxton of Broxton Photography on Marketing for todays wedding photography

1. Learn what how creating a group of professionals has helped build his business.




2. How to work with vendors in the industry to enhance your business.




3. Take a business to the next level.

Marketing Strategies

Vision Of Success - Newsletter - Marketing Strategies
Welcome to Vision Of Success!- Opening Up Minds To Possibilities …

Vision Of Success can help you put all of the pieces together to become a Business growth specialist, and create a successful business and a successful way of life! Click here to sign up for my Vision Of Success eZine!

Announcing Internet Marketing Training Sessions

New! Announcing Internet Marketing Training Sessions In The Convenience Of Your Own Home Or Office!
Join us for these exciting, information packed workshops, and learn how to take your marketing to new heights! Each class is limited to 10 professionals, to ensure you maximum learning time. Come with your questions; learn as we go. Register early – I will take the time to research your website, and apply some of my material directly to your business!


Schedule of Upcoming Internet Marketing Training Sessions

How To Make Money Online With Any Business ($27)
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Discover Power Tools That Will Save You Time, Effort and Money ($27)
Date: Wednesday, October 11
Time: 10 am to 11:30 am mountain time
Description: Every business owner spends hours each week wasting time on trivial tasks that can easily be automated. Come and learn about some of today’s top online systems and resources that can help you automate your business; ultimately saving you time and money. Imagine what you can do with those extra hours every week! - Register Now

Extreme Website: What Makes A Design Work ($27)
Date: Thursday, November 2
Time: 10 am to 11:30 am mountain time
Description: Do you have questions about your website design? We’ll cover a variety of design features that every website should have. And because our class is small, we’ll look specifically at your designs as well. - Register Now

Search Engine Marketing For The Creative Professional ($27)
Date: Thursday, November 9
Time: 10 am to 11:30 am mountain time
Description: Creatives look at website marketing in a, well, creative way! We’ll show you how to take your website, and market it to the people that ultimately will be your best customers and best referral partners. - Register Now

Great Site that you have to see

Great Site that you have to see

I found a very cool site today. This site will allow you to put together items on a site in a matter of minutes. Add your own blog feeds, quickly upload photos and link text to other sites. This is a must see site called protopage.com

Backup your data

Backup your data

We've all heard the horror stories.

My computer crashed, and I hadn't backed up any data for months.

My 10 year old downloaded something, and all my files were gone.

Yet when was the last time you did a back up? Is it regularly scheduled?

I found a new site that looks promosing, and it comes with a great recommendation from a friend. https://mozy.com/ Mozy offers you a great deal. Try it for free, up to 2 GB, get up to 30GB for under $5. What could be better than that?

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