Archive 2022 · paper or digital?

LarryBeemer
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · paper or digital?

I'm not sure where to post these questions. I suppose it kinda fits within the "studio & advertising" subcategory of this section so....here we are.

My questions have to do with how you advertise your work to attract new business?

Do you have a printed portfolio (or portfolios by subject) like what was used before the internet? What size prints?

Do you use online "social media" advertising like Instagram?

Do you have a website specifically to promote your business?

Or do you use all three or some combination of the three?

Are you concerned about piracy of images posted online? Do you have something in place to combat this problem?

Which approach (paper/social media/website) do you find gets the best response?

When contacting a potential new client do you show them your printed portfolio of prints or do you direct them to your online digital portfolio (either business website or IG)?

Any other thoughts you'd like to add?

©¿©
LB

Jul 07, 2022 at 09:01 PM

KE_Photo
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · paper or digital?

Everyone will surely have a different answer! IMO This is going to very dependent on the specific market you're going for and how much business you're wanting to do. Most of my regular work is retail, though I also work with commercial, advertising, business, editorial clients. (etc.)

Maybe just me, or the markets I've worked, but I think the printed portfolio days are long gone. Everything is online for us - the website is the place to show work and present offerings and dialog. Other than for an important event I almost never even meet with my clients until they show up to the shoot. I don't even like talking on the phone - email covers things better and leaves documentation of everything that's discussed for reference later if needed. This helps avoid misunderstandings too. Everything is in writing.

Other than word of mouth - all my clients find me online - by searches. This might seem shocking - but I do not advertise at all. I'm part time and that's all I want to do at this point - so that's one reason. But the reality is - I don't have to advertise. My website (portfolio) draws traffic on search engines, and I have a tons of 5 star reviews - all of them are 5 star. This is because I deliver a product that is exceptional - and it all circles back to - quality work brings clients in. Piracy is a compliment, but the reality is if someone wants to do this there is no stopping them from doing it - only legal ramifications after the fact if it's really bad. In other words don't stress over it. My website has protective measures, but nothing is hack proof.

I try to do social as much as one person can - but the reality is you almost need a team dedicated to doing that. I wouldn't dream of advertising on any of those platforms. (just me) In my experience almost no clients ever come from those. Retail Photography is a local business. Search engines own that. Think of this - you want to find a dentist, or auto mechanic - or catering - All local businesses - so you search online for one close to you right? I learned this lesson quickly as we've moved several times in the last decade or so. Each time we moved, I reconfigured my meta tags, keywords etc. etc and planted a new online flag and business kicked right back in like we never even moved! In some cases more!!

On the commercial side, I've also worked with national clients who had semi-local shoot needs but were based in NY, SF, LA etc. PR Agencies, Talent Agencies - no point in name dropping but just to say - "If you build it - they will come". In most populated places you can draw a 20 miles radius around your location and find 300 fauxgraphers listed on Google. The goal I strive for is twofold - be highly rated/reviewed/SEO to show up at the top of the list on those searches - and be better than anyone else in the circle. No advertising needed. :-)

Edited on Jul 08, 2022 at 12:29 PM · View previous versions

Jul 07, 2022 at 11:13 PM

airfrogusmc
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · paper or digital?

Larry, I do not have a website. Not the way my clients hire photographers. I do mostly commercial/advertising and my clients for the most part would never hire a photographer from seeing their web site period. I work a lot for health care and they really don't want photographers in their hospitals that don't have health care experience.

Plus a lot of the art directors, account managers, graphic designers that I work with hire by past personal experience with a photographer or direct word of mouth. They usually have to much on the line to hire an unknown. They would never hire someone that they or a trusted friend thats in the industry have not worked with.

I have about 26 clients I work for. I still have my very first client. I started my own business after working as a staff photographer for a hospital for 10 years in 2001. So for me it is about having a stable of regular clients. I rarely have to bid on jobs. They call, I shoot the job and then invoice. Sometimes if it's possible they will arrange their schedules around my availability. So I rely on repeat business. Some use me a couple of times a month. Some every quarter and some only once or twice a year.

I do not work for the general public so if you do this business model it may or may not work for you if you do.

Jul 08, 2022 at 08:50 AM

Danpbphoto
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · paper or digital?

Larry,
I have 5 regular clients. 4 are restaurants or eateries the other is Arlington Natl Cemetery/Dept of the Army-ARMY Magazine.

I wont address the military clients. They came from referrals and some "door knocking"!

I had websites but they did nothing for business.

So I approached the 4 clients, who were advertising for a photographer for Holiday work, and asked them if they would allow me to shoot some images, present them with those images and let them decide. I did have references from 1 of the other eateries. That helped immensely! I also had a binder of past photos for them to look at. I don't really think that helped. Referrals worked 100%.

It worked for all 4 and I got a free meal to boot!!!!

The above replies are well conceived!!!
Good Luck!!
Dan

Jul 08, 2022 at 10:31 AM

LarryBeemer
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · paper or digital?

KE_Photo wrote:
Everyone will surely have a different answer! IMO This is going to very dependent on the specific market you're going for and how much business you're wanting to do. Most of my regular work is retail, though I also work with commercial, advertising, business, editorial clients. (etc.)

Maybe just me, or the markets I've worked, but I think the printed portfolio days are long gone. Everything is online for us - the website is the place to show work and present offerings and dialog. Other than for an important event I almost never even meet with my clients until they...Show more →

Karen, Thanks for taking the time to compose such an in depth response. My online presence is mediocre at best leaning heavily towards awful. I am really no good at it. Meta tags, hash tags, keywords.....it all makes my eyes glaze over and my head spin.
I tried to create a webpage using WordPress a while back. They say it's "really easy". I did not find that to be the case. Besides nothing being intuitive enough to make sense to me, every time I turned around I was having to buy yet another app or widget or whatchamacallit to get the results I was trying to accomplish. Years ago I use Microsoft FrontPage with a modicum of success, but that was back in ancient times.
I'll be chewing on your response some more but in the mean time....did/do you create your own webpage? Do you then maintain and update it yourself? Is it some sort of WordPress thing? Or is that something you "farm out"?

©¿©
LB

Jul 08, 2022 at 02:52 PM

LarryBeemer
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · paper or digital?

airfrogusmc wrote:
Larry, I do not have a website. Not the way my clients hire photographers. I do mostly commercial/advertising and my clients for the most part would never hire a photographer from seeing their web site period. I work a lot for health care and they really don't want photographers in their hospitals that don't have health care experience.

Plus a lot of the art directors, account managers, graphic designers that I work with hire by past personal experience with a photographer or direct word of mouth. They usually have to much on the line to hire an unknown. They would...Show more →

airfrogusmc, Thanks for taking the time to comment. When I started 30+ years ago I got lucky to be given the opportunity to do team/individual photos of local youth football league (20 some teams as I recall). It wasn't long before I had to quit my job at Wonder Bread bakery because I was doing all the local youth sports, jr high, and high school sports T&I. I then branched out to doing action photos of several leagues and dance studios in the area. I had a setup where when the games were over the photos from the game was available on 6 computer viewing stations and they could order prints and take them home with them.
Then.....small town politics put me out of business faster than you could blink an eye. BOOM!! To this day I still am not sure exactly what happened other then I must have pissed someone off enough to get blackballed. So I do understand how networking and referrals are a huge and important part of getting (and losing) business.
That has all been enough years ago and I don't think it still "haunts" me. I am now trying to get things going again and I'm finding it difficult to get that first little breeze that could lift me off the ground. I fear that modern technology has left me in the dust.

©¿©
LB

Jul 08, 2022 at 03:11 PM

LarryBeemer
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · paper or digital?

Danpbphoto wrote:
Larry,
I have 5 regular clients. 4 are restaurants or eateries the other is Arlington Natl Cemetery/Dept of the Army-ARMY Magazine.

I wont address the military clients. They came from referrals and some "door knocking"!

I had websites but they did nothing for business.

So I approached the 4 clients, who were advertising for a photographer for Holiday work, and asked them if they would allow me to shoot some images, present them with those images and let them decide. I did have references from 1 of the other eateries. That helped immensely! I also had a binder of past photos for them to...Show more →

Dan, Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences.
I am actually thinking about approaching a couple of local restaurants, coffee shops and bars who really need to update/upgrade their menu imagery. My thought was to print some 12x18 prints and put them in a nice portfolio and visit these places. I'm thinking maybe an image larger than an iPhone screen might make a bigger impression and perhaps enhance my chances of landing a client.

©¿©
LB

Jul 08, 2022 at 03:19 PM

KE_Photo
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · paper or digital?

LarryBeemer wrote:
Karen, Thanks for taking the time to compose such an in depth response. My online presence is mediocre at best leaning heavily towards awful. I am really no good at it. Meta tags, hash tags, keywords.....it all makes my eyes glaze over and my head spin.

I'll be chewing on your response some more but in the mean time....did/do you create your own webpage? Do you then maintain and update it yourself? Is it some sort of WordPress thing? Or is that something you "farm out"?

You're most welcome Larry! I was one of the early adopters of Zenfolio - (one of now many photography business website providers) needing client proofing with bulk uploading/downloading/assets delivery. It's an entirely different set of requirements from a simple gallery website (which as a web designer is relatively easy). The good news with Zenfolio is there's no "coding' involved. One simply needs to add in the target keywords - and description in the right places. It's deep though in that every single image, gallery, collection might possibly be tagged - but it can be too much and gets very tedious to "undo" when one moves if you're using geographic locations as keywords - like "East Bay Photography Studio" for instance - means something here in Northern California - but if we move to Tucson - not so much - so I would have to change it in every place it's typed in on my old entries! I do add the location, description and keywords on a more global site level however. Once it's done there is nothing to maintain.

But it's not quite that simple. I mentioned "planting a flag" before. This is a metaphor for adding a presence and geographic location online for search engines - particularly Google (but others have some impact too). That's where many of my clients come from. People or companies search (my area) for photographers that do specific things (usually). Google points them to my site - they go see and are amazed - and then contact me or use a booking form. Other clients see my work and find me - word of mouth is another source too. It's a mix.

There are of course many details left out of the above but it's pretty simple really. All these things you do to start up a business are cumulative - meaning you learn the ins and outs over a period of time and build upon things a little bit at a time until it snowballs. Your reputation starts at zero. That has to be built. The key is to start moving, and then persist with more and more. It took years before the flow of work became regular. All of the above would be less effective if the target market wasn't localized. But I've managed to also get attention from national clients with area specific needs. I've been engaged by all kinds of clients to shoot things big and small - sometimes WAY beyond anything I had ever imagined shooting.

Jul 08, 2022 at 06:03 PM

airfrogusmc
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · paper or digital?

LarryBeemer wrote:
airfrogusmc, Thanks for taking the time to comment. When I started 30+ years ago I got lucky to be given the opportunity to do team/individual photos of local youth football league (20 some teams as I recall). It wasn't long before I had to quit my job at Wonder Bread bakery because I was doing all the local youth sports, jr high, and high school sports T&I. I then branched out to doing action photos of several leagues and dance studios in the area. I had a setup where when the games were over the photos from the game was...Show more →

Hi Larry,

There is a reason why I live where I do. Lots of opportunity in this area for the type of work I do. I do not and would never put all my eggs in one basket. Creative people inside big organizations change. It has bit me and it has worked to my advantage. When new creatives come in sometimes they have their own contractors they like to work with. Sometimes they come in and keep the ones already being used and sometimes I keep that client and pick up another where the person that leaves lands. That is what usually happens BTW. But not always.

I had a big client pass away a while back. It was a hit but I have a lot of other clients so it;s not as bad as it could have been.

I am to a point in my career where I don't want just anyone calling. I like working with people I know and trust. People that I have a realtionship with and get no surprises. Whether it is in the working relationship or getting paid.

Allen

Jul 08, 2022 at 06:53 PM

Danpbphoto
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · paper or digital?

LarryBeemer wrote:
Dan, Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences.
I am actually thinking about approaching a couple of local restaurants, coffee shops and bars who really need to update/upgrade their menu imagery. My thought was to print some 12x18 prints and put them in a nice portfolio and visit these places. I'm thinking maybe an image larger than an iPhone screen might make a bigger impression and perhaps enhance my chances of landing a client.

©¿©
LB

That sounds like a solid plan Larry! Give it a go. You may be surprised!
Good luck!
Dan

Jul 09, 2022 at 09:54 AM


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