How To Photography: Promote Yourself as a Professional Digital Photography Consultant to Businesses and Other Organizations
- History.
- Exteriors of the storefront, building or business campus.
- Interiors of the store, building and offices.
- Professional headshots of all executives, or all employees in a small business.
- Manufacturing process.
- Products.
- Services.
- Customer service process.
- Community involvement.
- Sponsorships (kids athletic teams), grants, scholarships and charities.
- Celebrations, anniversaries and parties.
One of the toughest marketing challenges for any professional photographer is to distinguish him or her from the many other photographers in the geographic market. It’s what marketing pros call your “Unique Selling Proposition,” or USP. What can you say about yourself that is different than the next photography on the street? One idea is to promote you as a professional digital photography consultant and not simply as a professional photographer.
Your target audience to brand yourself in this manner would be retailers, businesses, corporations and manufacturers as well as other organizations, such as educational institutions, nonprofits and community organizations. Instead of just selling your photography services, you offer these businesses and organizations a free photography review of how they are currently using photos to market themselves and the many other opportunities they may be overlooking.
As a photography consultant to businesses and organizations, you are more likely to be viewed as a problem solver. Help them solve problems and they will naturally ask you to photograph whatever you recommend.
If a picture (photo) is worth a thousand words, then every business should be maximizing the number of visual images that it shares with the public and, especially, its customers. For example, a business can build better and stronger relationships with its customers and prospective customers by showing them pictures of the employees who serve them. A company becomes more human in the eyes of its customers when they know with whom they are talking on the phone or via social media.
Offering a free digital photography business review begins with the creation of a document (hard copy and/or electronic) with a checklist of business photography uses to which you can add comments, and then share with the business. Consider listing the following categories in your review, but feel free to add others or to customize the checklist for each business or organization that agrees to your free review.
A business or organization should have a full complement of photos that tell its story:
Once a business or organization is fully represented in photos, it then has a library for its marketing, advertising and publicity campaigns. A regular submission of press releases is one of the least expensive methods to keep a business’ name in front of the public and its customers. Releases with accompanying photos are more likely to be printed or distributed online. A business or organization’s Web site is the perfect medium for communicating with pictures as much as with text. Employee newsletters are more attractive when they include photos of employees receiving awards, contributing to the community, etc.
Explain to businesses and organizations, as part of your free digital photography review, that they also need a set of photographs specifically for insurance purposes. To maximize claims in case of a fire, etc. and to minimize claims by employees, a business should record in pictures its exterior and interior lighting as it relates to safety; all security systems, precautions and programs; safety standards in manufacturing or industrial areas; and all company vehicles and major equipment.
You can also offer to have any archival photos or film footage digitized, so they are saved and available for various purposes, instead of collecting dust in a drawer.
You can also share ideas about archiving all photos for the long-term and storing them in a cloud, so employees, salespeople and marketing and advertising agencies can easily access them.
The greatest benefit of offering a free photography review to businesses and organizations is that many of the photo categories listed above require regular updating. You’ll be able to establish a long-term relationship with the business or organization and create a constant stream of repeat business and revenues.
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