Marketing Monday: Advertising as a Photographer

Advertising in photography today includes every vehicle of communication. Remember: You have to hit your target at least a dozen times for them to remember who you are!

I don't know about anybody else, but most of the ads last night were just about as underwhelming as the Super Bowl game itself.  However, I did have plenty of time to think about things other than the game. In fact, I would have been perfectly happy if they had shown some of the older classic ads from past years. Watching the ads got me thinking about advertising in our industry.

So many photographers get tired of various aspects of their brand, long before the public. In fact, it’s no different for manufacturers. Companies find themselves bored with an ad, or a logo or a business card design and change it.  Unfortunately, they’re changing things before they need to.  Most of the time they’re not even close to reaching the saturation point on brand recognition.  They’re simply bored, but the public isn’t!

You have to hit the public a dozen times or more for them to remember who you are.  Think about how many times you’ve seen an ad on television before you remember the jingle, the product or the company name. You might be tired of your approach to the market, but that doesn't mean you've hit your target audience.

I found some great tips on advertising in the archives on the SCORE site.  This is the tip of the iceberg. You should have SCORE, “Counselors to America’s Small Business” set up in your favorites.  It's an incredible site with a wealth of information, on line workshops and articles to help you build a stronger business presence!

Here's a sneak peek to three of their suggestions on advertising I think are the ones most ignored by photographers:

• Be consistent in your ad message and style including business cards, letterhead, envelopes, invoices, signs and banners.

• While word-of-mouth advertising has been around a long time, it usually falls short of being able to attract the number of customers needed to be successful in business.

• Promote benefits rather than features. A benefit is the emotional satisfaction your product or service provides, or a tangible performance characteristic.

• Know your competitors. Knowing everything about your competitors is just as important as knowing everything about your own business.

David Ogilvy was one of the pioneers in advertising and passed away in 1999, but his comments and his books are timeless:

"I have a theory that the best ads come from personal experience. Some of the good ones I have done have really come out of the real experience of my life, and somehow this has come over as true and valid and persuasive."

Happy Monday everybody! It's the start of what's already proving to be a terrific week!