Photography, Marketing Monday and Time to Ramp Up

© Tierney

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While the title "Marketing Monday" has a nice ring to it, it means nothing if you don't start off EVERY day taking a few minutes to put together a game plan. It doesn't have to be cast in concrete, just a few thoughts regarding what you want to accomplish short and long term. For me, it works with a piece of scratch paper or my whiteboard. It's that simple, but let's go a little deeper.

Marketing Monday is nothing more than a catchy name, and virtually everybody who writes about business uses the term - but what about all the other days of the week? 

Here's my point: August is rapidly coming to a close and the seasonality of the fourth quarter seems to start earlier and earlier each year. If you live in the US, then Labor Day weekend marks the end of summer, but more importantly the start of the real busy season. The schools are all back in session. Events like homecoming, Friday night games and fund-raisers in your community are all ramping up. Over and again there are opportunities for you to remind your target audience you're there to help them capture every memory.

So, what are you doing to make yourself stand out? How are you going to build brand awareness in a way that's different from your competitors?

Product Selection: A few weeks ago I wrote about Performance EXT Metal Prints from Bay Photo. The whole concept is based on showing great images in a way that's stunning and different - outside! But it's only one way to make your work standout and be different.

Over the weekend I got an email from my good buddy, Glen Clark at Bay Photo. They've set up a program for my readers - open a new account and get 25% off your first order. Then as a member of the Bay Photo family, you'll have access to exclusive offers and a new 24-hour special each week. 

I know this sounds like a mini-infomercial, but I get no compensation. I'm sharing the information because you need to find new products to excite your clients this holiday season. Most of you also need to strengthen your margins and increase revenue. Well, how are you going to do that if you keep offering the same old products?

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Community Involvement:  September is the gateway to new opportunities for you to give back to your community. Remember, people like buying products/services from companies they perceive as giving back. You're looking for the community to be good to you, so you need to be good to them! 

Look for opportunities to volunteer and be a part of fundraisers around you. From working in the refreshment booth at Friday night football games to helping photographers on the yearbook, to United Way, walkathons and various nonprofits there's so much going on in the fall and into the November/December holidays. But you've got to step up and be there!

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Marketing Material: It's no secret that I'm working with a new and exciting company and product, Excire. While it's remarkable technology as a search tool for your images, regardless of how diligent you've been in keywording, I see one of it's greatest values as helping you find your very best images for a marketing slideshow.

I've written a lot about this over the years, and a few years ago we even did a contest with Photodex looking for the best self-promotional slide show. Well, if you're on Lightroom Classic (not on the cloud) Excire gives you the ability to initialize your images and then search for the best in any category, by keyword, similarities or facial recognition.

And Photodex gives you the ability to take your best images and put them together with good music and create a 2-3 minute slideshow demonstrating your skill set and love for the craft. You need to find better ways to remind your clients what you do for a living and plant those seeds for a new family portrait, holiday cards and unique photographic gifts this holiday season.

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I love the idea of Marketing Monday, but the words themselves are only a clever way to theme a blog post. For all of us there are six other days of the week and they all need to start with MARKETING!