Lessons

Lesson Info

Target Markets, Branding, and Marketing

One of the biggest parts of the workshop and are excited to share with you is business and marked in on dh I know a lot of you watching for the last few days would probably say okay she's talked about test she's talked about fashion editorials but how is someone supposed to own money from fashion photography how does someone get their name out there? How does someone brand their business all those questions I want to try and touch base on I think it's good to keep an open mind again when you view in it because technique and the way that people approached things again there's no one way that suits all everybody's different it's different it changes every year different marketing things come into play so it's just good to kind of nor that when you go in through that if there's something you want to know I'll be open for questions at the end of the presentation as well weigh already certainly fooled up every once in a while he does that he just you know you make so much happen around here...

and that every once in a while he just has to play with us just to make us realize how because everything runs so smoothly so he has to make us beg for it a little bit thanks makeup no thankyou so business and market in so business and marketing overview it's all about identifying your target market branding, marketing your work pitching, you work to magazine and clients to extend your network pricing, social media and time management as well, because with all of these, how do we know how is best to manage your time and to put a ll these into play? So first thing get first when I'm when you start in a business or if you kind of going over your brand and you work and kind of figuring out who you trying to best to approach with your target market? Like any industry, your business and marketing strategies are always unique to the individual. I'm depend on your target market, so your strategies depend on your target market. So this is a good place to start. When I saw the photography at fourteen, I had no clue what my target market wass I was doing a lot of different things self portrait, so definitely not something I had a market for because it was just self portrait. It's um so when I first started to put my work online, I didn't really realize like that I could turn it into a hobby. So for me, I kind of gradually got to know my target market by just experimented network in that kind of thing, I know that target market also comes from style as well. So knowing what your style is about and then taken your target market from their, um and it takes time to find a cz well, it's definitely not gonna happen overnight, so with everything we're talking about photography, it just takes patients and just constant experimentation as well. So identifying your target market, how to approach it for research, experiment with style and technique and location as well. So I think the bottom one is really important for people because we've had a lot of questions about people from small towns. Um, I was someone from a small town too, on dh I sometimes miss my hometown for that because I love the fact that I was really, really trying there to get out of it, and it made me want to experiment and try things so location is important because that's going to determine who your target market is for the fashion industry, it is vital to be in fashion orientated cities. Unfortunately, so the main thing is if you're in a small town and you wanted the fashion photography that good thing is is maybe plan to work on your portfolio first few years and they maybe think about moving or visiting a city for a while and building your network before thinking about moving there, so there's always ways around things, but it always just takes time. A swell experimenting with style and technique so your style will define your target market so for example, things that I did when I started my fine artwork that kind of lend itself to the book covers the kind of clients that would book me. I would get people like you fans, actors, dancers who would want to book me to do shoot some fine art shoots and they will local I didn't need to go to london at the time I was in the west midlands which is two hours from london and I would just experiment this time my technique to find my target market and the target market came to me online hey, so when I first started posting my work online with all this that was my target market the local artists in my area and obviously that expanded as I moved and I reached out I moved to london I wanted to try new things when my style defined to fashion photography it also changed my target market again. So if you are thinking of approaching something new with your photography it's a good to kind of think of ways that your target market would be affected by that in the stylus well so identifying your target mark kit and white matters so it determines your approach to branding so you need to know your target market before you determine your branding if you have work um in your portfolio, but you want to aim towards a target market, you need to have that before you say ok, what is my brandon? Because brandon is about personality and style, it has to complement your style also helps determine your style as well. So if you are aiming to be a fashion photographer, if you're aiming to do something else it the target market and knowing what you want to place yourself into in the industry, you'll need toe work towards that with your style and how you shoot on dh really with the whole target market thing identify your goals and are they realistic? So if you're from a small town, is it realistic for you to be a fashion photographer because you may not have the opportunity to move to a big city there's always a place for you in the industry, but maybe it's just not realistic phew to do that at that point in time, maybe it's best feed a weight and build your portfolio jury in that time maybe it's best to take a year out and focus on something else or supplement your business with another job but that's okay, because it always takes time to build it took me a good four years of my current beginning to kind of get forwards with something to start seeing a return in the first few years um, I had unrealistic goals, especially with moving to london for the first time. You know, I said I was one of those. They're small fishes in a big pond. I got there, everyone was trying to do the same thing for me, and I thought I could just make it straight away and that's, not me. Go in there and think, you know, I'm great I can do this, but I thought that london was the point of cool for me. Everyone told me that, but when I did move there, I had to change my target market, and it made me realize that it would take time to do that would take time to build that and the same thing with me moving to new york as well. So fashion photographers target market clients within your target market. If you want to be a fashion photographer who were the clients that your aim into the editorial, clients, local and international publications and online magazines. If your photographer from a small town and I'm gonna keep going back to this because I want to relate to as many people as possible with this, then work with local magazines, social media is great to work online or online magazines like paper cut magazine, they're the kind of people that will be the olden blocks to get you to the next place they're going to get you in to the next editorial. Getting that online magazine is a starting point to get further in your career. If you're in a city and you can get into international magazine clients or you can reach out to them, then that's great, too, because the tache sheet is going to be the thing that helps, and I'm gonna be talking about how that helps if it later on as well an advertising clients as well. So this is editorial is the things where you have fun and it's your vision advertising is with the money, okay, so this exists to get this. But advertising also want to see this so it's, almost like you have to do both and mix them together in a portfolio. Again, I'm gonna be talking about that in a few sides. So branding. So now we've talked about target market. Um, now we've defined exactly what we want to do with our target market. We've got to think about building a brand or maybe you've got a business and you want to revamp your brand we do something different with it so branding for me brandon is the identity and personality that potential clients will associate with you work brandon has to be consistent with what you do franny is going to be the forefront off your business that people are going to look into before they even see your work okay why it matters again brandon is to business what style is to photography so if you're brandon is ban I'm not saying that people have bad friend and sometimes they're not they're not from designer backgrounds um I know that when I started photography and I wanted a website for the first time because my work was fun to see in that kind of ethereal I went with a self made where paige that had loads of different scrolls and then later on had a flash website that harold butterflies flying around and then someone said to me that does not work for you that's making you look young that's making that's making your style look really young and people get automatically going to know what you're like when they meet you you're not going to get big jobs for this and I was pretty offended because I thought that was great at the time like me being the young photographer so it's very important to kind of figure out the brandon how it's effective for your business forefront of you, business like a sen, it represents you when your photos don't. So this speaks for everything, the portfolio, the cover of your portfolio online, when people see maybe a twitter handle or the biography of a website or your blawg before they see your website, if you're brandon is successful and it's interesting, innit? Neat, and it shows that you understand what design and art is about, then people are gonna want to look into your work, go back to that website, that so this is my current website and where I am now, and I just wanted to show you that going from, and I only recently changed this before it was a black background, and it was a lot different to this. It was a scroll, and as my work has evolved, I start to see that my work involves morris stories. So this is my brined simple for the top simple logo, and then this kind of filters into this it doesn't distract from my brand, but it works side by side. So brandon, as a new photographer, how can you approach brandon is a new photographer, so d I y design, but get advice on it as well, so do it yourself, build those business cards, bill those websites build the logo and just try and create something that might work with your business first of all, if it doesn't straight away that's okay? Because again it's a loan in point it's experimenting in the first few years of your career it's okay to make mistakes and we want from them another thing is designers in school in recent grads because these are the people they're going to know more about design they're gonna have that design background and negative be the people that make something great okay, so it's worth reaching out to them they're going to be fairly cheap in comparison to professional designers and some of them might just be as good as well is emerging photographer or a professional um recent design grads again young designers that might be out there if you want a budget and also small ad agencies as well. So small agencies that do design that kind of thing maybe they're looking for a new work maybe they're looking to network so it's not just people in your creative team they're looking to network and work the frame test its people all across the board that can do that they're gonna want maybe a website in their portfolio because that building so always remember that people are willing toe offer favours because we all have to do it is photographers again the brandon and brandon basically is all those kind of things that you see before you see photos so in case anyone doesn't really know too much about that it's your website it's your logo it's your business cards is anything that represents your business before your photos and I also think that brandon comes into play when it's about your website how you present yourself as well so when I first had my website I didn't have any personal information about myself and I didn't have a picture I'm most recently when I've been to australia I went to a workshop in australia they said to me we didn't know anything about you before we book too there was no information of you online only into me is what people have written about you and we didn't know what you look like and we didn't know that you were a nice person so what was so hopefully I come across like a nice person in this photo but what I want to show it I'm giving that from the first person perspective I'm going in I'm saying ok, this is me this is what I did I'm passionate about what I do so if people look at my work and the like okay, you know this is great they look into my bio they want to see if I'm suitable for the job you know being nice and industry definitely will help you get forward if you have if you show your passion and and you want to shoot and you want to work with clients and you do personal work this is going to speak mohr than having amazing work on dh put in now before your personality so tips for brandon it must be appropriate for your target market must maintain consistency across all channels, so that comes from things like your online user name when I first started and some of you may know this, I was known online by laura ferry and that was because that was because I was fourteen and at the time of studying do you see a c and I found at school during my art things some fairies and inspired me to want to get into troy and that kind of thing. So when I first joined even are just like in our community, I just place that is my name because I didn't know I wasn't large aid photography at the time, so what I find now is you know, I've got deven are, but I don't use it as much because people don't know me is that people know me as laura fairy or people know me it's our jane so it's good to have that consistency think about how you want to claim that username and how it relates also it has to be something professional a swell so for me laura j photography simple it's my first my middle name and photography so don't try to go in too many different directions with that, and if you do, you do like a wedding business and you do do like child portrait's and that maybe have, um, a separate businesses because you don't want to confuse people you brandon has to be consistent with what you do. I think the main thing to remember here I know I keep saying it is that photography comes first, brandon second, even though people see brandon first and then your photography your photography always has to be the main point. Like on my website it's simple brandon and then it's my pictures so people are more drawn to them, so now I'd love to talk about marketing you work, so getting noticed within the industry takes time, investment and perseverance. We covered this over the last two days when we were shooting and I was saying to you it takes time to get this kind of team. It takes time to get in with these kind of models and this is why we started day one with newer models with things like props that you could easily excess yourself because you can do both. I still do both, um any just getting noticed just finds itself towards just being patient that's what it's not gonna happen overnight this people that get really frustrated with they're not getting anywhere in the industry and that's because maybe that pushing too hard straight away give it time experiment get to know your brand know your target market and then move forwards from there so marketing you work I think comes around push market in and pull market in both of these have to exist and I'm gonna talk about a few examples of push mark ten so the objective with push market in you focus on reaching of target audiences with poor marketing focuses on reaching a wider audience with the idea that potential clients will respond so examples of push marked in sending out your portfolio to clients whether that's your agent or you you're pushing your work in front of the target hosted exhibitions again you're pushing your work in front of people that want to see that type of work in the exhibition off my network in again you're pushing your work into people so you're meeting people in networking events that specialized events and pitching directly to clients swell so this comes under pitching your work to magazines pitching stories maybe pitching an idea teo ah high end clients this is all putting your work into your target markets hands it's not going out there and putting advertising out to the world and hoping people come back these are specialized to your target market so this is why it's important you know your target market before you start marketing you work pull market in again, this is something that you put your work out there to the masses with hopes that you're gonna grab someone from that social media word of mouth blogged features. These are all examples of you hoping teo, get out there with your work and then if a very small percentage of people come back, because when you're putting your work on things like social media, you're reaching the masses. People that go on these websites will stumble across your website, but they won't necessarily be interested in booking you for a job or looking at you. They just want to see something and then move on. So it's a good way of doing both of these so that you're extending your network as much as possible and don't forget how powerful each one of these can be for you want to talk about offline network in attend photo when fashion events and is a fashion photographer is extremely important to network as much as possible. You know you can't make those important connections without network in, and I don't mean that you have to go to every fashion party that exist because I don't. It means that just getting your name out there get him seen as a person because you yourself represent your brand if you walk to a networking event. Your your brand and you're giving out business cards you're talking to people that may extend you to someone else they may pass c one to the next person, and this also comes with shooting a swell if you want to shoot that's networking in itself. My team have passed me to jobs that I didn't think I would get they've put me forward to clients in meetings, and that helps me with my network in as well, and that comes under working with new talent to because working with people like from model agencies, for example, that model agent may have a contact within the industry and there in that impressed with your work that they want to put you forward to that as well. So it's really important again personal work testing with his much new talent as possible, not only improving your technique but it's getting yourself out there into the industry join photo associations and I think this speaks more for people that do wedding photography portrait more specialized kind of photography genres in fashion photography there is kind of help with that. Um, I'm not sure exactly which ones are the best to use it might be worth researching into that how to get help how do these guys help you? They often run competitions, exhibitions, that kind of thing it's a way of getting yourself out there and networking with the people that surround themselves with that again workshops and seminars like even you know you guys in audience today just networking with each other everyone here networking with each other the workshops I do I've met some amazing contacts that I keep in touch with from my workshop and seminars as well going and getting inspired by them network with other people that go to seminars, photography competitions and I started a lot with this in the beginning of my career because I didn't know exactly how to market my work it was fun by entering photo competitions you're reaching out again you getting yourself out into the industry and clients want to know about you winning an award for something it's very important to be involved in known competitions rather than just don't like entering some online thing that's like a small competition it doesn't have very doesn't have the masses around it because that doesn't really work you need to kind of find something like I know the air p awards in england that I was a winner of back in two thousand nine I entered that and then I got that kind of recognition people in the fashion industry on as much into awards that kind of thing but it's also good for you it's good for your online presence it's good to show a wide variety of your audience that you have been involved with things like this a good thing to remember with photo competitions is always check the fine print because there's so many places I have seen that you submit your work to them and it will be you know you submit your work and you get your picture for an advertisement for a year for free they're the kind of people that should be pain knew thousands of dollars to that for that kind of license in so even though it's a good opportunity you've got to weigh out is that a good opportunity for me or are they taken advantage as well? So always read the fine print and how that's going to benefit you exhibitions submit online galleries or blog's contact local gallery spaces or business so this is great because you can contact local gallery areas with businesses and that's getting you work out maybe it's a group exhibition maybe you can contact to gallery and say could you submit my body of work? Could I display it here? What do you do for that? You know is it possible to sell my work here and again our buyers are directors those kind of people are always looking for new talent always looking for new prince. When I first started with my italian agency over in milan at eighteen the first thing I did because of my fine artwork they were really interesting getting that work out there and the first thing people did was there was a lot of our guys in italy that were interesting owning prince of mine that was signed final paper in beautiful frames and again that's another way of making money from photography all these different things it's good to keep in mind whenever you're planning your networking thing whatever you put in your marketing strategy together and maybe you could be the person to organize a group exhibition is well it's not a shoe approaching someone maybe you want to go out there and you be the organizer grab a bunch of photographers that maybe your friends or other people organize something in a local place organized something with a larger um exhibition place and just get loads of different pictures up there maybe it's a theme that ties it all together or maybe it's just a sudden type of thing like young photographers or fine art photographers or that kind of thing and research larger and international exhibitions because even though it might be a long shot right now it's somewhere where you can aim to go it's good to always have a goal with whatever you do so I've put cold calling in here because I feel that we all have to do it it's not something anyone like stew in but it's sometimes you know that a small percentage of times where people come back to it I feel it's important the first thing to do is research the client before you do anything what are the terms do they accept submissions as a a company that except that kind of response or link? An email introduction first, like tim said earlier on the phone, my agent it's always better for some one to introduce themselves over email phone calls could get annoying when someone's really busy I've had a lot of friends in who art directors her may be in the industry for film on the amount of times I've told me where someone's picked up the phone and rudely just pitched an idea to them without introducing themselves and that to them makes them seem quite pretentious and they just want to put the phone down on him. So it's always good to be friendly over email, small introduction collection of pictures and then if you get a response, a good thing to do is request a portfolio meeting if they don't do it first say, would it be a possibility for me to come in with my portfolio and meet you in person? Follow up but avoid being tooth assistant again you don't want to seem like you're becoming too much of a pass to them maybe chase up twice and that's it maybe reach back to them another year or so when you felt you, but because they're either too busy or it's just not working for them at that time the fashion in editorial kind of industry it's, very hard to kind of know when is a good time to approach him when isn't. But I think the main thing is just to research. I know how they come across as well.