It took many years for digital photography to catch on due to a lack of software available such as that of Photoshop (only marketed in 1989). However, come 2003 digital camera sales surpassed that of the film cameras according to the Photo Marketing Association. With this new digital world some companies thrived such as that of Epson and Hewlett-Packard whereas others such as Kodak, who in 2005 decided to cease production of its black and white printing paper thus assisting to seal the fate of darkroom photography.

Advertising as text without any pictures accompanying the text is found to be considerable boring to a mass audience and is not an effective way of advertising a product, with peoples love of pictures, photographs soon became a staple of the daily paper and in the last quarter of the 20th century most newspapers made the transition to colour printing for photographs on their news papers to appeal to as many consumers as possible.

Amateur photography for the masses can be seen as a positive and a democratic social phenomenon, being that it is easy to buy and learn to use a digital camera this is making everyone a visual recorder of his own life, but likewise it is a successful, capitalist business phenomenon. Without the lure of fortunes to be made from millions of customers, it is unlikely that the businesses that have made such an impact would have entered the field.

Marketing From Experience!

As Business marketing is a massive area to cover, let’s break it down into areas.

And please feel free to say if u disagree or want to add something!

Also check out this site for some interesting statistics on businesses.

http://www.smallbusiness.wa.gov.au/small-business-statistics/

Free Marketing!

First of all the key to marketing a new or existing business is to understand that whenever you are in business hours whether you are with current or soon to be customers you are Marketing yourself and your business.

Your presentation (as in the way you dress) the way you talk, the way you present clients or soon to be clients with information whether it be documents in paper or via email.

If you are poorly presented then you are marketing your business as a poorly presented or poorly prepared business.

This can be very easily fixed by doing some of the following (as obvious as it may seem):

1- Dress yourself as you want to be seen, like a professional...so no thongs, no gum, no shirts with discriminatory remarks that you might find funny... (Basic code is if you a male stick with a colored shirt, nice pants or jeans and covered shoes, ladies...well that can get tricky as you have a clothing arsenal that far out reaches my imagination....and no amount of research is going to change that...just dress smart!)

2- Create Templates for any information you put together for a client, so that you are able to go back and reuse the templates and also add and refine as you use it more. Also all Facebook, Flicker and so forth accounts are perfect for free advertising however they must be maintained and used correctly for you individual business.

3- Before meeting clients for a job, prepare everything and go over it so that you are ready for any questions they might throw at you, I know it’s impossible to be ready for everything but be prepared for most questions they might ask.

4- The way you walk is simple, walk as if you are doing it as a part time job and you would rather be at the pub and you will have no money for the pub...but walk as if you are successful and you will be successful!

First impressions are important!

Paid Marketing

There are many forms of marketing that you can pay for such as advertising on TV, Bus, Radio, Online, Billboard and so forth. There are more ways of advertising today than there ever has been, but bad advertising can be worse than no advertising, So make sure when you are investing your money into a area of advertising you research that are and what you are trying to get out of that area, no point in advertising your sports photography business to an area where the people that live there have a average age of 70..

Check out the following sites for some further information.

http://www.hirepulse.com.au/Business-Advertising

http://www.mcpactions.com/blog/2010/04/15/5-marketing-tips-for-photographers/ 

Hope this makes sense and helps.

This site has a lot of Business secrets!!

http://www.cjlewis.com/

Following

http://danheller.blogspot.com.au/2007/02/photo-marketing-isnt-about-pushing-its.html

Ive added this into our added blog sections. Just another blog giving us information about Business and Marketing in the photography world.

Videos of Business Tips

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIJjS1SPpMc&list=UUFeIJ3znnKFQzWkrXEa41eg&index=35&feature=plcp

The uploader of this video has videos of tips for photography business and this is his first tip which was "Telephone Secrets". When I saw the video it made me realise that I've never thought of calling clients and talking to them to get more work, so it was an interesting video.

Marketing yourself with PhotoBOOKS - via Photoshelter

These days it is quite easy & cheap to produce a photobook, so why not use a photobook to market yourself and your work?? You would be silly not to.

As humans we are textile creatures and having a book to hold onto and flick through evokes more emotions then staring vacantly into a computer screen. A photobook can be kept at your studio so that clients can look through your work. Also it doubles as an example of what the client could potentially take home. E.g. A wedding album could be finished as a photobook.

http://www.photoshelter.com/mkt/research/marketing-yourself-with-photobooks

Bloggers let me know you think of this online guide.

How would you use a photobook to get business?

All that jazz xo

Photoshelter.com is a great site...

Check it out

http://www.photoshelter.com/mkt/research/

A free download for 'The Freelancer's Online Marketing Blueprint'
http://www.photoshelter.com/mkt/research/freelancers-online-marketing-blueprint

I will be downloading this online guide and posting back to let everyone know what I thought and learnt.

Fellow business marketing blogger I recommend you have a read and check out the other links on the photoshelter site.

Could get some good discussions started. 

Jazzy Out  x