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Archive 2015 · Your lifestyle brings you clients?

  
 
fabiano
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Your lifestyle brings you clients?


About two years ago i did some changes to my lifestyle, and interesting things started to happen, clear enough for me to recognize the changes in my client base.
I started longboarding (skating) and photographing (for free) in a rock venue from a former client that became somewhat my friend.
I did not change anything else, and i know for sure i had a couple clients book me exclusively based on my longboarding and at least five clients came to me because they have "seen me" in that venue.
I wonder if the power of "social identification" might be stronger than the pictures itself, given that they are good enough to mach most of the competition?



Feb 01, 2015 at 10:12 AM
g-money
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Your lifestyle brings you clients?


Of course. I would think most of us do book a percentage of our work based off of the circles we run in. My youngest daughter is very involved in dance so we happen to know lots of these dance moms. I book a lot of family and senior sessions just from them knowing me. All things equal and sometimes not equal if they know you and like you they will choose you over someone else due to feeling comofortable around you.


Feb 01, 2015 at 11:25 AM
jcolman
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Your lifestyle brings you clients?


You would not believe all the weddings I book from all my friends at the nursing home!






Feb 01, 2015 at 12:55 PM
rondphoto
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Your lifestyle brings you clients?


I'm sure no matter where you hang, you're going to attract that crowd. If you are in the tattoo world...you're going to get the ink'd folks. If you are involved in a church...you're going to get fellow church peeps that hire you. If you belong to a swinger's club...well...I don't know if swingers get hitched...but it would be an interested social experiment.


Feb 01, 2015 at 01:33 PM
heikoM
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Your lifestyle brings you clients?


Ok, but I donīt get THIS:

I am a doctor in my day-job. We donīt say anything about that on the website or in the clients meeting, but not a small percentage of our clients are doctors. And they are from a city 80 miles away.

I did not know we have any secret code or something...


heiko



Feb 01, 2015 at 02:34 PM
MRomine
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Your lifestyle brings you clients?


Some call this personality based branding and marketing. This is one of Todd Reichman's favorite subjects. The question becomes, how viable is this long term? Can you sustain a personality based business for the long run as you become older, significantly older, than your clients? Will you loose touch with your target market when you brand based upon your personality (aka, J Star) and thus will you have to reinvent your business branding every few years?


Feb 01, 2015 at 02:37 PM
jmraso
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Your lifestyle brings you clients?


Absolutely that's why I never wear tight jeans and never show my true personality in the consultations as I dont want the grooms to be jealous and scare them away !!!


Feb 01, 2015 at 04:26 PM
Tony Hoffer
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Your lifestyle brings you clients?


In my normal life I'm a hot 25 year old girl that comes from a wealthy family.


Feb 01, 2015 at 04:32 PM
jmraso
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Your lifestyle brings you clients?


would u second shoot for me baby ??

Tony Hoffer wrote:
In my normal life I'm a hot 25 year old girl that comes from a wealthy family.





Feb 01, 2015 at 04:42 PM
rondphoto
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Your lifestyle brings you clients?


Tony Hoffer wrote:
In my normal life I'm a hot 25 year old girl that comes from a wealthy family.


I think I saw you on Model Mayhem.



Feb 01, 2015 at 05:05 PM
Tony Hoffer
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Your lifestyle brings you clients?


MRomine wrote:
Some call this personality based branding and marketing. This is one of Todd Reichman's favorite subjects. The question becomes, how viable is this long term? Can you sustain a personality based business for the long run as you become older, significantly older, than your clients? Will you loose touch with your target market when you brand based upon your personality (aka, J Star) and thus will you have to reinvent your business branding every few years?


I totally get where you're coming from here. I agree with it... but I think there's probably two important factors that this line of thinking doesn't account for:

1. Personality-based branding is/can be different than lifestyle based branding. For example, I'm semi-involved in the volleyball community. It's a community that I could be involved in for another 15 years most likely. Most of the people in it are young and single. That's different than if I'm branding myself as a young, fashionable person... which will go away more quickly.

2. As someone who has now been doing this for the better part of a decade, I feel relatively comfortable saying that almost everyone is going to have to reinvent their marketing strategies (or at least refresh them) every few years anyway. Even something as 'solid' as getting venue/planner referrals changes over time as people leave jobs, grow into different directions, ect..

I think the bottom line is simply to live a balanced life (something I'm working on) and to try to genuinely be nice and engaging wherever that is. That alone will get you clients in my experience.



Feb 01, 2015 at 05:06 PM
fabiano
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Your lifestyle brings you clients?


I agree that being nice and engaging, and actually giving a shit about whatever you do and doing your best will set you apart from most people on most businesses.

Maybe its more about the community and not so much the lifestyle, thats a very good point.

What about targeting communities instead of brides or couples? Not just randomly, of course, but being socially active on things you like? Wouldn't that make our lives actually better? Do we have time for that?

I'm 40. I like the idea that i could do more things than just photography, i actually do help my wife in her job, but i look forward to do something like a place to gather people with common interests, say a gallery with multiple purposes to bring people in and spread my name into various groups by means of their interest or hobbies.

But again, not just for doing so, i would actually choose things of my own interest, do what i like with people who like it too. Woodworking, collecting stamps, vinyl records, whatever. I think it can be done. I don't like the idea of depending on something like facebook or other vendors to bring me clients in the long term.




Feb 01, 2015 at 06:47 PM
Chris Fawkes
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Your lifestyle brings you clients?


The two largest sub groups would be 1. the school system and 2. The christian church

How should lifestyle marketing effect blogging. Should a family portrait shooter become a mommy blogger rather than just post recent sessions.



Feb 01, 2015 at 11:54 PM
rondphoto
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Your lifestyle brings you clients?


I don't think it's a case of rather than...but a case of in addition to. You want supplemental info for your site, cornerstone content that people are going to be Googling


Feb 02, 2015 at 12:26 AM
Brian Virts
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Your lifestyle brings you clients?


The bottom line is that we provide a service. How you generate interest in that service can be achieved in multiple ways. On one end you have the marketer with average or even poor photos who runs a 6 figure photography business. And then you have the artist creatives on the other end that generate business through actually being a good photographer and everything in between. Do what you love and what you are good at. It's not about the money, yes you need it to sustain life, but from what I see in the industry, people get in and just gobble up whatever business they can, workshops, whatever. At the end of the day, and I think as many of us get older, and evolve beyond the accumulating wealth mentality it becomes less and less about the money/business, and more about being true to your purpose and journey on this planet. And in through that, your clients will find you.

Edited on Feb 02, 2015 at 10:16 AM · View previous versions



Feb 02, 2015 at 09:04 AM
MRomine
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Your lifestyle brings you clients?


Tony Hoffer wrote:
1. Personality-based branding is/can be different than lifestyle based branding. For example, I'm semi-involved in the volleyball community. It's a community that I could be involved in for another 15 years most likely. Most of the people in it are young and single. That's different than if I'm branding myself as a young, fashionable person... which will go away more quickly.


But do you actually brand and market to the volleyball community via your website or advertising or is this simply a matter of connections? How many of us have ever tried a branding slant or marketing to a specific, group, club, hobby?

Tony Hoffer wrote:
2. As someone who has now been doing this for the better part of a decade, I feel relatively comfortable saying that almost everyone is going to have to reinvent their marketing strategies (or at least refresh them) every few years anyway. Even something as 'solid' as getting venue/planner referrals changes over time as people leave jobs, grow into different directions, ect..


I agree and you can add to that list the need to have to change marketing strategies because you may not be getting it right in the beginning. In the beginning it is often too broad so you may not be hitting your target market. Although I suppose there are rare businesses who figure out what they want their core brand to say in the beginning and never change that. Most of us photographers have changed our brand after getting some experience under our belts.

Tony Hoffer wrote:
I think the bottom line is simply to live a balanced life (something I'm working on) and to try to genuinely be nice and engaging wherever that is. That alone will get you clients in my experience.


I agree.



Feb 02, 2015 at 10:10 AM





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