Fast Food Friday - For Professional Photographers

I started this series as a way to help photographers with one of the unique hats they wear - being a small business owner. As creative artists, so many of you hate the operational things you need to do in business. It's understandable, but that doesn't mean you can ignore marketing, advertising, promotion and social media, just to name a few of the challenges.

So Fast Food Friday is an ongoing way to help you isolate the things you need to fine-tune your business and make 2018 one of your best years yet.  

There have been twenty dishes here at the SCU Diner, and today is a more seasonal favorite. Just like finding pumpkin pie on the menu of a New Jersey dinner in October, it's the perfect time to start thinking about the seasonality that starts long before the November/December holidays.
 
The fourth quarter is just around the corner - so today's "blue plate special" is hopefully going to get you thinking about the home stretch for the year!

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Filling Sept. - Dec. With More Than Just Holiday Orders

• It's back to school time, and Mom is about to have some time on her hands again. How about planting the seed for a fall family portrait? Now's the time to think about a direct mail postcard, an email blast, and publicity/advertising. And, don't forget to bring in some partners to help spread out the costs. You don't have to carry the burden of the cost alone. 
  
• Back to school means some significant events:  Homecoming, Friday night football games and so many opportunities to tie in with PTA events in your local community give you opportunities to build a stronger brand.
• Volunteer: Back to school also means kids interested in photography and your chance to get involved in volunteering to help with school newsletters, yearbook images and even teach a class on photography
  
• Halloween: A fantastic time to create an event in your community.
• Blog Content: With the Fall, comes a ton of opportunities to write about in your blog. Better picture-taking tips at the holidays, for a start. Just reminding people to get detail shots at Thanksgiving before the turkey's been carved and the table looks like a tornado came through the room, might be just the thing to hook more people into reading your blog. You're the world's best storytellers - share your expertise.
• Senior photography: Let's jump back up to the back to school crowd. This is your opportunity to find those 6-10 ambassadors who you're going to bring on board to help you spread the word about your work.
• Planning your travel for the first quarter of 2019...now's the time for you to start thinking about what shows you're going to hit at the start of 2019. Time flies when you're having a good time, and before you know it, January's going to be here, and you're going to be kicking yourself that you didn't make plans for ShutterFest, IUSA, WPPI or all the state/regional conventions.   STOP PROCRASTINATING AND START MAKING SOME RESERVATIONS! 
• Holiday Gifts: And the biggest one of all is the opportunity to plant the seed for holiday gifts in December. Nothing beats an updated family portrait, pictures of the kids for Grandma, a special boudoir gift for Dad - the list goes on and on. And, if you're stuck trying to figure out what to do and what you're going to offer, how about just calling your lab and asking one question, "So, what's new?"  From prints on metal, wood, fabric - you're going to be blown away by all the things you have to offer your clients.

Here's the key to success during the last few months of the year - you've got to do some promotional planning, and you need to get those ideas out in front of your audience. Nobody can sell your skill set better than you - but it won't happen if you let the pages of the calendar blow away like a special-effect in a Hollywood movie. NOW is the time to be thinking about things you can start doing with the seasonality of kids going back to school.

The way to get started is to quit talking and start doing.
Walt Disney

​Missed any of the past twenty Fast Food Fridays? Take a scroll through through entire series. We started in February with ideas to help you clean up your online galleries. Well here we are at the end of July, twenty-one posts later and there's still plenty to talk about when it comes to fine-tuning your business and marketing.
 

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